chapter 9

ZAVION

“Have you tried to go inside?” Papa asked a man standing outside the door to the convention center. He and Zavion couldn’t find the man and woman and grandmama to give them some of the chocolate bars.

“No,” the man said.

“We shouldn’t go in there,” said a woman standing next to him. She shook her head and Zavion saw them again. Fear footprints. All across her face.

“Someone saw a boy carrying a knife,” she said. She pointed to Zavion. “A boy his age.”

“Someone saw a man with his throat slit open. His pockets turned inside out,” said the man. “It’s the end of the world in there.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Papa. “That firefighter told us to come here. We need to get inside. It’s the middle of the night. We have to sleep.”

The convention center was overflowing with people. It was hard to walk forward even a few feet. Papa pushed his way farther into the lobby. “It’s less crowded just up there,” he said over his shoulder. Zavion walked behind him, the sweet taste of stolen chocolate stuck on his tongue. His leg pulsed with a dull ache. His head did too. He just wanted to lie down.

Papa stopped abruptly. He was silent for a moment.

“Sweet Jesus,” Zavion heard him whisper under his breath.

“Cover the kid’s eyes,” said someone in front of Papa.

But it was too late. A woman sat in a wheelchair, slumped forward. A dead woman. Zavion had only ever seen Mama’s body, after she died, still and quiet and laid out flat. This body was different. It was puffy. Bent into a strange shape. Like a puppet from a Mardi Gras parade. Zavion hadn’t ever seen a body like this, but he knew it was dead.

“No kid should see this,” someone else said.

But it didn’t matter what he saw. He couldn’t escape the smell. The smell of urine. Of sweat. Of death.

Papa turned around then. He pulled Zavion away from the convention center. Away from the boy with the knife. Away from the man with the slit throat. Away from the dead Mardi Gras body. He pulled Zavion away from the parking lot where the man on the pallet tossed and writhed and screamed out in his sleep, away from the man and the woman and the grandmama who hummed “This Little Light of Mine.” A gunshot rang out. Papa pulled and pulled Zavion away from it all, but fear stretched its body long and taut. It followed them. Stepped on their heels.

They walked until they came to the Crescent City Connection Bridge. A soldier, maybe a National Guardsman, turned them around. Told them they couldn’t cross the bridge unless they were in a car, and he pointed a gun at them when he said it. So they walked up and down side streets until they found an abandoned car. Papa got in the driver’s side and opened the door across from him.

“Survival,” he said firmly. Just like he could read Zavion’s mind. “Get in.”

Survival?

Or stealing?

Zavion couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

No, that wasn’t exactly true. He could tell the difference, but he couldn’t make a choice based on the difference. He was so tired.

And then Papa said, “That soldier had a good idea. To find a car. This is a good place to rest. Sleep, son.”

Papa locked the car doors and closed his eyes. Zavion closed his eyes too. But fear kept him awake. It padded its small, cold feet up and down his back all night long.