Rexanne Becnel: Blink Of An Eye

I stared at the dark, heaving waters, and the first tremor of fear hit me. Could I do it? I’d rejected shooting myself years ago, mainly because I was petrified of guns. That’s why I’d also ruled out suicide by cop. Sure, I could have pulled out my ex’s old handgun, confronted a cop and let him shoot me. But I didn’t want the poor guy to feel bad about killing someone who’d waved an unloaded weapon at him. Besides, what if he was a lousy shot and I didn’t die?

No, drowning in waters too powerful for me to resist was the surest way to do it. Once I jumped in, there’d be no turning back. And anyway, I’d heard that drowning was a relatively peaceful way to go. One big gulp of water would fill my lungs, and that would be it. My lonely loser of a life would be finished, but Clark would be protected. No matter how you looked at it, it was a win-win situation.

I guess I could have jumped in right then, but if someone saw my body too soon, the insurance company might suspect suicide. I had to wait. I decided the lake was my best shot, so around three in the morning I headed back toward the lake-front. By then the wind was really whipping. The trees were swaying and some of the branches had begun to go, littering the streets. The electricity was going, too, neighborhood by neighborhood. I picked my way down Elysian Fields Avenue, weaving through the fallen live-oak branches.

One fell on my car, hitting with a thunk that nearly made me wreck.

“Hell’s bells,” I muttered, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles hurt. I should have headed to the lakefront hours ago. What if I couldn’t make it? The rain was coming down in erratic sheets, blowing mostly out of the east. But it swirled around, too, like miniature tornadoes. No way I could walk in this.

I watched as a streetlight went down, and right after it, a utility pole in a shower of sparks. Even in the car I didn’t want to get hit by one of them. Electrocution did not sound like a pleasant way to die.

“Dead is dead,” I muttered. But I was getting really creeped out.

This is for the best. For Clark. That was my mantra as my little Corolla fought the howling winds. At the train overpass a powerful gust caught the car and it actually skidded into the left lane. My heart was in my throat, but I kept going. What else could I do?

It was way beyond weird. Gentilly Boulevard was a mess of tree branches, signs and pieces of roofing. There was water in the streets, but not much. So far this wasn’t a very wet storm. It was near Brother Martin High School that I ran into trouble. First a big oak branch hit the trunk of my car. It bounced off, but I veered left into another branch. After I backed out of that tangle, the car stalled. It sputtered a few times. Then it went dead. And all the time, the wind howled like a banshee.

After trying futilely to get the car started, I realized that I was out of gas. Why that made me start crying I don’t know. Maybe because after my miserable failure of a life, now I was also failing at death. In any event, I sat there in my car a long time, feeling sorry for myself and wishing a giant oak limb would crash down on my head and finish me off right then and there.

No such luck.

By the time dawn fought through the heavy clouds and sheeting rain, I decided I’d have to walk the last mile or so to the lake. I hadn’t seen another car on the road since about 3:00 a.m. No wonder. If the winds weren’t reason enough to stay inside, the now impassable streets were. I’d have to wait until the worst of the storm was past before I could make my way to the lake.

So exhausted by lack of sleep as well as tension, I crawled into the back seat and made myself as comfortable as I could.

You’d think all those hours curled up alone in a disabled car would have given me time to rethink my suicide plan. Instead, my failure—so far—only proved to me that I had to do this. My life was a hopeless shambles with nothing to look forward to but getting old. I’d failed at everything else, but I refused to fail at this.

I think I must have fallen asleep. I’m not sure. But the next thing I knew, the car was moving. I jerked awake and sat up, only to find water in the floor of the car.

Water?

I rubbed a clear spot on the fogged-up window, then gaped at the scene outside. Elysian Fields was flooded. Houses, street, yards, and cars were inundated in a roiling mass of water. And my car was floating! Sort of. Had it rained that hard?

I glanced at my watch—9:42 a.m.—then back at the surreal landscape. No way was this much water caused by rain. The levees must have been overtopped.

The car lurched, then lodged against a street lamp that was still standing.

Famous last words. In the next blast of wind the pole went over like a toothpick, bouncing off a van in someone’s driveway. But the wind was so loud, howling through the trees, screaming in the wires, that I barely heard the crash.

I gripped the driver’s side headrest. What should I do?

Go drown yourself. That’s the plan, isn’t it? So go do it.

In three feet of water?

Except that those three feet looked as if they would soon be four. Or more. “Just wait,” I muttered. “Just wait a little longer.”

Within fifteen minutes, the water was over the seat and rising, almost as deep inside the car as outside. I shivered as my capris soaked up the chilly water. Was I going to drown in a Toyota with the doors locked and the windows up? Or would I get out of the car and head toward the lake and deeper water? Assuming I didn’t drown before I got there.

That’s when out of nowhere a dog slammed into my front windshield. Somehow it righted itself, scrabbling around for footing on the wet hood. Then it stood there, spraddle-legged and terrified, staring me straight in the face.

I heard one yelp—or maybe I saw it. Either way, when the next wave sent the frantic animal sprawling, sliding off my car, I didn’t stop to think. I shoved open the door, lunged through the opening and into the water, and somehow caught the animal by the tail.

I don’t know how I caught hold of the dog’s collar, but it was just in time. The next thing I knew, we were both underwater.

The weird thing is that it wasn’t rainwater. Don’t ask me why I noticed that. It wasn’t rainwater, but salty, brackish water. And as I came up sputtering, with Fido still in my grasp, I knew that the worst had happened to New Orleans. One of the levees had broken.

And that meant I didn’t have to go to the lake.

The lake had come to me.

Some parts of that day remain a blur: how I managed to keep Fido and myself from drowning; why I kept Fido and myself from drowning. Between the tearing winds, the punishing waves and the debris missiles they both aimed at me, I could easily have just let go. Given in. Given up.

But I couldn’t.

It was because of the dog.

He was a medium-sized mutt, black and white, totally non-descript, like a million others. Mainly, though, he was petrified with fear. He’d decided I was his salvation and kept trying to climb into my arms. That’s because the water was too deep for him to stand in.

Unfortunately, between the wind and the waves, it was too rough for me to stand in. Tree branches, lawn furniture, street signs, garbage. It was like being inside a giant washing machine set on spin.

One thing I knew: avoid the cars. Because if one of them pinned me to a tree, I was a goner.

I know, I know. Five minutes ago I’d wanted to be a goner. And I still did. But I needed to save this dog first.

I could barely keep my eyes open; that’s how harshly the winds whipped around me. Like a drowning blind woman, I flailed around, looking for something solid to cling to. Then I slammed into a fence. A hurricane fence, designed not to fall over no matter how hard the wind and water pushed. The fence also had a gate—wide open, thank God. And the gate led to a house. Somehow I dragged myself up the steps. The minute Fido’s feet hit something solid, he was out of my arms. Right behind him, I crawled up the long flight of steps, out of the water and onto a porch. There I curled into a ball in a corner against the house. Fido, wet and stinky, wormed his way into my arms, and that’s how the two of us spent the next few hours. He shivered and whimpered uncontrollably. I shivered and alternately cried and cursed.