Hurricane Song

Some say this world of trouble
Is the only one we need
But I’m waiting for that day
When the new world is revealed

Pop didn’t try to talk me into going back. He just looked at me like maybe I really did belong next to him. And the two of us pushed through that water together as Pop clutched the horn in its case against his chest.

“It can’t be this deep all over,” he said, with the water up to this waist. “That ain’t possible.”

Garbage, tree branches, roof shingles, and logs of what looked like human shit moved across the top of the water. It was cold as anything at the bottom, and my toes were turning numb. A photo album got caught up inside a little current, and was spinning in circles before I grabbed it to see. That water had slid a dozen pictures together, and stained some kid’s first birthday party brown. I didn’t want to see another page, so I chucked it behind me and kept on moving.

“Don’t get near it, Miles. He’s probably got disease on him by now,” Pop said, shoving water away with one arm.

The man had on a bright yellow shirt with a pattern of big red flowers, and shorts to match. He was dressed like he could have been walking on a beach in the Bahamas. But he wasn’t. He was lying dead in a flood in New Orleans under a black rainbow of smoke.

After five or six blocks, the water level had dropped a few inches. The water was pitch black, and my body just disappeared into it. We were wading through it as fast as we could, and if the muscles in my thighs weren’t burning from the strain, I would have believed the bottom half of me was gone.

Helicopters were buzzing everywhere. People were up on their roofs or hanging out of shattered windows. They were waving shirts and towels tied to broom-sticks, trying to signal those copters to be rescued.

“I wanna get out of the line of sight from that damn Superdome,” Pop said, pointing to a side street with a red stop sign on the corner turned upside down. “The bigger streets are gonna get more attention. Nobody’s draggin’ me back.”

There was a dog stuck up in a tree. He was balancing on a branch on all fours, barking wild like the end of the world was here.

Two grown men were pushing an air mattress towards us, with an older woman stretched out on top. She was tied to it across her waist by a bed sheet, and was almost unconscious. They said she was their mother—that she was a diabetic and they had to get her to the Superdome for insulin quick.

“We can’t worry ’bout that,” one of them said. “Police told us a three-foot shark got loose from the aquarium and is swimming somewhere in these streets. If that didn’t stop us, nothing could.”

“It ain’t nothin’ but hell back there,” the other one answered, before they started moving again.

The water level was down to our waists, and the sun was so steaming hot, I thought maybe that flood was just evaporating.

A few blocks later, a boat showed up at an intersection. The man inside stood up to see us. He was wearing sunglasses and some kind of uniform, leaning on a long pole he used to steer. He waved us over, but we wouldn’t go anywhere near him.

We climbed some concrete steps and walked out of that stinking shit-filled river onto solid ground. A family was camped out on a corner, cooking over a fire on the ground. I could smell the chicken frying, and my stomach started turning cartwheels. The father had a huge machete knife hanging from the front of his belt, and there were gunshots sounding from a few blocks over, by a row of stores.

He looked us up and down as we dripped a puddle on the sidewalk. Then he patted the handle on his knife and said, “You’d better be strapped with more than a horn if you’re goin’ into that mess up ahead.”

Pop looked me square in the eye, like we were standing at those crossroads he told me about. I couldn’t see any devil yet, promising me an easy ride. But I’d already heard Cain’s empty screams. So I wasn’t about to trade away my soul for anything.

“I’ve always made my own way, Miles,” Pop said, like a warning. “I’m not used to worryin’ over somebody else.”

“Maybe I’m not used to being looked after by you,” I answered him, pushing my feet into the ground till the water squeezed from my shoes. “But I guess you got a son to stress over now, and I got a Pop.”

Plenty of buildings had been blown to bits—sometimes just one or two spread out on a block, like Katrina had took her pick. The ones made from brick were still mostly in one piece, and I pictured those three little pigs from the kid’s story with their backs pressed up against the door to keep out the wind. Only this was no fairy tale you could close a book on and walk away from. And there wasn’t any big bad wolf you could kill. It was something nobody could touch, not even an army of soldiers with machine guns.

“Look what that bitch did here,” Pop said, pointing to a house that got picked up and shoved right through the one next door.

There was even an upside-down car, like a turtle stuck on its back, sticking out from under that whole mess. And both those houses were made out of wood, the same as Pharaohs.

We walked past that row of stores where the gunshots had come from. Only we were moving slow and cautious, like we were coming up on a hornets’ nest. People were running in and out of the different stores with their arms full of stolen stuff. Katrina had cracked some of those stores wide open for them. But to get into the others, people had pulled down the sheets of plywood covering the windows and doors and smashed through the glass.

There were ’fros, fades, dreadlocks, cornrows, twists, and braids knocking each other senseless, trying to grab for all they could.

“I hear ya, Miles. My insides are starved for something, too,” said Pop. “But I can’t stomach what some of these bandits are making off with. Except for the food, it ain’t nothin’ but stealing.”

Some people had their arms wrapped around TVs, or were rolling out shopping carts filled with radios, rugs, and cartons of car wax.

“It’s everybody’s store now!” crowed a guy, carrying away a whole metal shelf stacked with CDs and videos.

There was even a woman in the street trying on clothes she’d robbed, and tossing anything that didn’t fit.

A bunch of cops were standing way off to the side, watching everything. There weren’t enough handcuffs in a whole police station to arrest all those people, so they didn’t make a move for anybody. But you could see how the cops were scared, too, and they never took their hands off the guns in their holsters.

Pop and me passed too close by an iron gate in front of somebody’s house, and out of nowhere a man and his rottweiler charged the bars from the other side. The man swung a big claw hammer, and the dog was out of its mind barking.

“Nigger thieves—keep off my property!” the man seethed from behind the locked gate, with his black dog tearing his teeth through the air.

“Don’t waste it on him, Pop. He’s touched. Katrina musta pushed him over the edge,” I said, with the most sickening tune I’d ever heard rattling through those iron bars as the man pounded them with the hammer— piiing-piiing-piiing-piiing.

After that, Pop needed to sit and settle himself, so he squatted on a steel rail outside a store. The sweat was pouring from his forehead, and I held his horn while he pulled his soaked shirt up over his face and then wrung it out.

The sun had already started sinking, but it was still blazing hot. I looked down for my watch and saw that it was gone. There was just the imprint of its face and the band left across my wrist. That’s when a teenager broke out of the store, carrying away as much as he could. He was wearing a Saints football jersey and my eyes landed dead square on his.

"Yo, who you lookin’ at?” he snarled, stopping in front of me. “Don’t be eyeing my shit when all your sorry ass could snatch was some old trumpet.”"

I could hear Pop saying something to that kid, but I couldn’t focus on what it was. There were a million thoughts streaking through my mind, and I wasn’t sure which one would win out. Part of me wanted to lower my shoulder and knock that kid fucking flat. But another part wanted to break down and cry in front of him. Then one foot moved and the other followed, as I stepped to the side and out of his way.

That’s when we saw a crew of four Rasta-looking guys walking straight towards us, and Pop took the trumpet back from me. They were all wearing skullcaps with Jamaican colors—green, yellow, and black. And at first, I thought maybe they were with that loudmouth kid.

“There must be a reason you’re out in these streets,” one of them said. “’Cause I know you ain’t here to play a concert.”

Neither Pop nor me answered, and I fixed a hard look on my face to show we weren’t going to roll over easy.

They opened a bag full of bologna and bread they must have boosted from a store. Then they gave Pop and me each a sandwich and a bottle of beer.

“We’re here to make sure nobody goes hungry and— if we can—nobody gets hurt,” another one said. “Even if we gotta play like Robin Hood to make it happen.”

People around us were calling them “Soul Patrol,” and they even had formula and juice boxes to give mothers for their kids.

“You better make it before dark,” said one of the Soul Patrol. “There might not be much love on the streets tonight.”

A car came rolling by slow with its trunk popped open, and a man riding outside on the bumper. That guy jumped off before the car stopped, running up to some woman who was wheeling off a brand-new TV set in a shopping cart.

“You got to give that over, sister—law of the jungle, ” the guy snapped, shoving her down as she tried to fight him for it.

The Soul Patrol went running over to help her, and Pop and me followed behind out of shame. They didn’t do a thing to stop that man from putting the TV in the trunk. But they made a human wall in front of that woman, so he couldn’t touch her again. Only she didn’t give a damn about being shoved to the ground, and just wanted that TV back.

Then she cursed out the Soul Patrol for getting in her way and letting that guy make off with her stolen TV.