Jennifer Brown: Torn Away

Next to the bucket, I spotted an old pair of Ronnie’s work boots. They were filthy and ugly, clumps of dead grass and blots of dried paint crusted on them. But old shoes were better than no shoes.

One by one, I tipped them upside down and pounded them against the floor in case there were bugs in them, then crammed a rag into the toe of each and slipped them on, lacing them tight around my ankles.

I felt like Frankenstein stomping across the basement floor, and I tripped over the toes a couple of times. My feet were hot, making me feel sweatier than I already was, and I wished I had an air conditioner to sit in front of, or a cold shower to stand under. But instead I had the humid Missouri air pressing in on me, keeping my sweat tight against my skin.

With the light flooding in, it was easier to see where I was going this time, and I was able to spot some of our things buried under toppled furniture and shingles. I made my way upstairs and stood in what used to be our living room, pulling out items I thought Mom would be interested in keeping. Her bathrobe, dripping and smelly and warm, streaked with mud, which I draped across an overturned table. DVDs, still in their cases, which I stacked neatly on the floor. Bedsheets, which had twined their way around furniture legs and twisted into ropes. I wondered what those must have looked like as the tornado passed over. Did they reach up to the sky, great white flags of surrender?

I cleaned up as much as I could—which wasn’t much—and then headed outside, searching for Kolby. I found him sitting on a patch of grass eerily close to where I’d seen him standing outside my kitchen window the day before. He was holding a cloth against his arm. I headed over.

“You made it through the night,” he said when he saw me coming.

“What happened?” I motioned to his arm as I sat down next to him.

He shrugged. “Cut it on a window.”

I could see blood seeping through the makeshift bandage, which appeared to be a damp purple bandanna. “Is it bad?”

He stared off into the sky, pressing the cloth down harder. “It probably could use some stitches, but how am I gonna manage that?”

I reached over and picked up a corner of the bandanna and gasped. A deep five-inch gash sliced through his skin and was weeping blood. “That’s really bad. You need…” But I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. He needed a doctor to look at it, yes, but how were we going to get him to one?

“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I just need to find something that I can use to tie this to my arm.”

I scanned what would have been our backyards, trying to make sense of what I was seeing, trying to pick out individual items that might be useful. It was hard to see anything but massive piles of trash.

“There,” I said, and pulled myself up, clunking over some bricks to where Kolby’s mom’s clothesline used to stand. The pole was still there, but the line was snapped and wrapped around the base of it. I unwound it and brought it back to Kolby, then sank down next to him and began wrapping it around the cloth on his arm, trying to get it tight enough to stay, but not too tight.

“How long have you been up?” I asked.

“Most of the night, really,” he said, wincing every time I tugged on the line. “We remembered that Mrs. Donnelly had an old cellar. It took us a couple hours to pull everything off the doors. But I don’t think anyone really slept at all. My mom’s down there now. She was up most of the night praying over people. I should have come and gotten you.”

I shook my head. “I made a bed under the pool table. I was okay.”

I got to the end of the twine and knotted it, tucking the loose ends under. Kolby smoothed the bandage over his forearm. Already, blood was blooming on the outside of it. I could see darker-purple spots growing under the rope.

“Some trucks made it through this morning,” he said, looking out at nothing. I followed his gaze. He turned to meet my eyes. “It’s bad, Jersey. They said a lot of people died.”

I held his gaze for a few seconds, then looked back over the field of fallen houses. A couple of children had appeared and were climbing on top of a car. The car’s nose had been punched in, the windshield caved.

“I can’t believe we’re all just… homeless now,” I said. “Where are we supposed to go?”

Kolby picked up a splintered board and tossed it to the side, unearthing an iron. He picked up the iron and studied it idly. “We’re going to Milton to stay with my aunt. I think some people are going over to Prairie Valley to stay in motels. People are going… wherever they can.” He pulled himself up with a grunt and started back toward the rubble of the house. When he reached the edge, he picked up a section of siding and tossed it away. “I’m trying to find my mom’s purse so we at least have some money. Who knows if it’s still here? Could be ten miles away, for all I know.”

I got up and followed him, clomping over things in Ronnie’s boots, bending to pick up a brick here, a board there, a hill of sopping clothes or a ruined book somewhere else.

“Careful,” Kolby kept murmuring. “I don’t know how stable everything is.”

“I’ll be okay,” I repeated over and over again, sweat rolling down my lower back and dripping off my forehead.

We searched until we were both filthy and thirsty. One of the trucks that came through had deposited a couple of cases of bottled water on the street, and we took a break to get a drink.

“I don’t think we’re gonna find it,” Kolby said at last.

“We might,” I said. “Marin’s purse was still by the door.”

He took a long sip of water and didn’t respond. I watched Mr. Fay toss little bits and pieces of things into a hip-high pile.

“Where do you think they are?” I said at last, giving voice to the thought that had been running a loop in my head ever since Kolby had told me that trucks had made it through.

Kolby looked down at his feet. He knew who I was talking about without me even saying it. “I don’t know. Where were they when it hit?”

“Mom and Marin were at dance. I don’t know where Ronnie was. But…” I trailed off, unable to say what had been weighing on my mind. If they could have gotten through, they would have. Mom would have come to get me. She’d have been scared out of her mind for me.

If they weren’t here, it was because something was keeping them from coming.

“We can go there,” Kolby said. “It’s not that far.”

My hand shook, the water inside the bottle rippling with the motion. “It’s a couple miles, at least.”

He motioned toward our houses. “It’s not like there’s anything good on TV right now,” he said, and though he was joking, neither one of us laughed. Nothing about any of this was funny. “Let me tell Tracy, so my mom won’t worry when she wakes up,” he said.

And before I could say anything in protest, he loped off toward Mrs. Donnelly’s cellar.

Part of me was definitely ready to do this. To go out and find my mom and Marin and Ronnie. If they couldn’t get to me, I’d get to them.

But part of me was scared.

What if I didn’t find them?

What if they weren’t there to be found?

More and more vehicles were creeping down Church Street by the time we got to it, some of them stopping to pick up people who were still walking toward town, still hoping to find help. Some passengers offered bottles of water and first-aid kits. Others rolled by with cameras, taking photos and gabbing about the devastation as if it were there for their entertainment.

By comparison, all the people who were walking looked filthy and grim. Some wore stony, distant expressions, as if they had no idea where they were or where they were going. Some were carrying children. Some were covered in dried blood. Some were telling stories, and all of the stories were similar—the house fell apart, the wind tugged at us, we got hit with something, our houses are gone, our cars are gone, our streets are gone, our lives, as we knew them, are gone.