Hurricane Song

And when my hunger is all I have
When my hunger is all I have
Lord, how I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

The hotter it got, the harder it was for people to hold on to their tempers. Everyone was angry at being stranded outside the Superdome, having to look up at that mother all day.

A white man got beat down by a crowd of people, and the soldiers had to step in and save his ass. They pulled him from the bottom of the pile all scraped up and bleeding, wearing nothing but a pair of blue denim shorts with the back pocket pulled inside out. Later, I heard it started because he asked to bum a cigarette off somebody. But everybody knew that him being white was a big part of it, too.

“I told you how it was gonna be,” Pop said to me. “This is shelter life super-sized and pushed to the limit. Now they got us out here in the blazin’ sun to boil up our blood. It’s a wonder we don’t all kill each other.”

Helicopters buzzed over our heads like dragonflies, and their rotors sliced the hot air with a thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump .

Lots of those copters landed on the other side of the Superdome. Some of them were bringing in people who’d been rescued from the flood, but others looked like they were hauling supplies. Everybody said it was food and water they were delivering, and people stood up on their tiptoes to see. But an hour later, we were still sucking our own spit, and our stomachs stayed empty.

A dude with a TV camera strapped to his shoulder was walking along the barrier, filming us. Some people stared straight into the camera and shouted things like “Save us, Jesus!” or “They sent us out here to die!” Others stuck up their middle finger or dropped their heads down in shame.

When that camera focused on me, I tensed up inside and felt like the whole world could see me stripped naked. I was about to turn around and look the other way when I figured Mom might see me and feel better to know for sure I was safe. So I looked into the cold black lens and saw the reflection of everybody around me—squeezed down small and stretched wide. I tried to keep my face blank and not show any expression at all. But I couldn’t tell if I did.

After the camera passed, I turned to Pop. I could see the worry in his eyes that nobody watching TV would ever pick up on. I felt it, too. And right then, I would have traded a cheeseburger deluxe with fries and a two-liter Pepsi to see if our apartment and Pharaohs were still standing.

That’s when a man jumped in front of the camera and shouted, “I don’t treat my dog like this! Is this the Third World, or is this America? We need help!”

Then he turned to everybody behind him, and yelled, “Let ’em hear you everywhere—We need help! We need help!”

At first, just a handful of people screamed it with him. Then out of nowhere, something big kicked in. People started pounding their feet and clapping their hands to those words. All of a sudden, a good rhythm got going. More and more mouths opened. Pop, Uncle Roy, and Fess were chanting it, too. I went into our stuff and grabbed my drum. I pounded out that rhythm harder and harder, till it sounded like thunder in my ears. Then almost everybody stuck outside the Superdome started shouting those words.

Hancock used his bullhorn, but nobody could hear a word of what he had to say. He was blocked out by our voices, and the captain’s bars on his arm didn’t count for crap.

Those voices wouldn’t die down or quit, either. It didn’t even matter about the TV camera anymore. I guess it was something that built up inside people so strong it needed to let loose. And for maybe ten minutes solid, the air was being rocked by that chant.

The stink from that sewer water in the streets got so bad it was like breathing into somebody’s armpit. People all around us were pissing and shitting everywhere, and the concourse got turned into a giant toilet.

“The stench of death’s mixed in there, too,” said Uncle Roy, pointing to that old lady in the wheelchair I’d seen inside.

She was sitting on the other side of the barriers where the doctors were. Her face, and the rest of the top half of her, was covered up beneath a plaid blanket. I guess she never opened her eyes again, or maybe she did and couldn’t stand what she saw. There wasn’t going to be a march or music for her passing. Maybe no one here even knew her name. But I prayed her soul was sailing over that river in Africa with Cyrus’s.

“Corpses are rottin’ all over this city, I guarantee,” Fess said. “There’s probably even some in this jamboree here who look like they’re sleepin’.”

“That’s right. I want to wake up to your horn, Doc. Not the angel Gabriel’s,” said Fess, without a smile.

It was just past four o’clock when the first signs came that we were going to be fed. The soldiers set up stations, and people turned frantic, trying to get into line. Then Captain Hancock got back on his bullhorn, and for the first time people shushed each other down to hear him.

“We have secured water and emergency rations to sustain you,” Hancock announced, stiff. “Remain orderly! I repeat, remain orderly!”

Even after standing in the hot sun all day and breathing in the same stink as we did, Hancock never dropped that army act for a second. I wondered if he was some kind of robot running on batteries, as I glared into the whites of his eyes. Then I thought about what his kids would be like after growing up in a house with him, and I quit right there.

Pop wasn’t in the mood to fight for space on any line. So me and him got a spot more than halfway back from the middle, with Uncle Roy and Fess staying behind to guard our stuff.

“Miles, I know I ain’t been the best father there ever was. But I want you to know that I love you,” he said. “Sometimes a man chooses a road and he can’t turn back. He gets tied up to certain things and won’t let go. So no matter what comes in the short term—if we get separated ’cause of anything that comes out of this storm—I want you to know I’m not cutting out on you.”

“I got to jump that barrier, Miles,” he answered, serious as a heart attack. “I can’t rest no other way—not till I see what’s happened to my life. I spent it makin’ music here. I can’t get on no bus and just ride away for someplace else.”

“That’s nothing new, Pop,” I said sharp. “You been ditching me for your music since before I could remember. So what’s changed any? I got a drum I hit a few times now?”

“You go ahead. I won’t hold it against you,” I sparked, all fired up and sarcastic. “You know where it is you belong. I’m just finding out what that feels like. Only I ain’t sure yet. Not like you, Pop.”

He backed up a step and told me, “I can’t fault you for what you said. But I can’t fix it now neither.”

Pop waved Uncle Roy over to take his place in line. Then he gave him his gig book to hold, and Pop pushed his jaw towards the barrier for my uncle to see.

But Roy didn’t look too surprised or try to argue with him. Instead, he gave his lighter to Pop, who put it in his shirt pocket.

“I’ll watch after Miles for ya, Doc,” Roy said. “But don’t do nothin’ too foolish. It’s bound to be brutal out there.”

Pop walked over to where our stuff was. I watched him slap Fess’s back and dig through the duffel bag for his horn. Then he stood by the barrier, eyeing the soldiers who were mostly getting people fed. Captain Hancock was busy barking out orders, but Sergeant Scobie was only twenty feet from Pop, looking over the whole scene. The three of them stayed that way for a few minutes, till I couldn’t take it anymore. So I walked off the line and headed straight for Scobie, with my uncle calling after me low, “Miles, stay put.”

He turned to fix his eyes on me, and when Scobie took the first step in my direction, Pop jumped the barrier and bolted.

Then Hancock grabbed for his gun, but Scobie bumped into him hard, probably on purpose. And Hancock lost his balance, falling down in a heap as his gun went flying.

That’s when I jetted, too. I hopped the fence and flew past a soldier who only put a hand up to stop me. It took the first ten yards to shake the rubber from my legs, but after that I was really moving. I peeked back over my shoulder, but none of the soldiers wanted to chase us down in that melting heat, and they were just jogging after us.

I was closing in on Pop quick, but I couldn’t catch my breath to call out his name, and he probably figured I was some soldier hot on his tail. He hit the end of the concourse ramp and was running toward the water in the street. Then I heard his feet start to splash through it. I geared down to look at it good and didn’t know how deep that water was going to get. But when I reached the edge, I didn’t hesitate and screamed, “Pop, it’s me! Wait, Pop!”