Rexanne Becnel: Blink Of An Eye

You’d think someone who wanted to be dead wouldn’t be afraid of anything. That she should stand up to the storm, beating her chest and screaming, “Come and get me, Katrina! Come and get me!”

But it was terrifying. I’d never seen such power. Mother Nature at her most furious. Ripping up trees, tearing off roofs, and flinging everything around like pick-up sticks. And all the while wailing her rage until I thought I’d go deaf.

Parts of trees and other buildings thumped against the house. I felt the floor shudder beneath me, and I prayed it would hold. A shingle flew across the porch just above my head, then cartwheeled across the floor before burying itself in the wood half wall, just like an ax thrown in a magician’s trick.

Suffice it to say, I did not fall asleep this time.

I kept checking my watch, but it had stopped. The water, I guess. It seemed as if hours went by with no change. I was afraid to lift my head above the solid porch rail; I could get decapitated.

Fido finally stopped shivering, but he didn’t sleep either. He just kept his anxious brown eyes on me, as if I might disappear if he looked away. Who did he belong to? And why on earth had they left him behind?

He wore a collar with a tag that identified him as Lucky.

Lucky. Yeah, right! Lucky to be huddled on somebody’s porch with a crazy woman while the whole damn city returned to the sea.

It felt as if two days had gone by before I sensed the first easing of the wind. It’s not that the wind slowed down, it was more that the worst gusts weren’t coming as often. Since the weathermen had predicted the eye would reach New Orleans around eleven, I figured it must be early afternoon.

Extracting myself from Lucky, I wriggled toward the porch steps. How many steps had I climbed? A full flight, I think. But only seven steps remained above water. That meant the water had to be at least four feet deep.

Holy crap!

I looked for my car. No sign of it, though I did see the top of what must have been the van we’d drifted into.

Holy shit!

It must have been late afternoon heading toward dusk before it was safe enough for me to venture down the steps and peer around the neighborhood. The water was still choppy and rough, driven by the wind, but also with a distinct flow to it. I tried to picture the map of New Orleans and where I was on it. Water was flowing generally from the east, even though the winds were now coming out of the north. The eye was past us, but the water was still coming in. It had to be a levee break. And if this part of town had five feet of water, what was happening in other neighborhoods?

I heard Lucky bark and turned to him. “It’s okay, boy. We’re okay.” But he kept on barking. Then I heard a shout, a kid’s voice.

“Lucky? Lucky? Where are you?”

It came from a few doors down. “He’s okay!” I shouted. “He’s up on a porch with me.”

Then I saw a kid with his mother hanging on to him as they ventured onto their porch. She looked petrified, but he was grinning like any kid who’d just found his dog again.

“Lucky!” He waved his arms over his head. “Good boy! I knew you’d make it!”

Lucky, of course, went berserk when he heard his kid’s voice. He bounced down the steps, only to back up the minute his feet hit water.

We carried on a shouted conversation.

“You two okay?”

“Yes. We’re fine. And you?”

“Fine.” Sort of. I was bruised and had a cut on my forearm that I didn’t remember getting. I was wet and I was hungry. But otherwise I was fine.

“Can you bring Lucky to me?” the kid asked.

“When the wind dies down,” I shouted back. And if the water quit rising. There were only six steps visible now.

I ended up sleeping that night on the porch, with Lucky curled up next to me. Whoever lived in the house had obviously evacuated. They’d also locked the iron security door and boarded up the windows with plywood. Under the circumstances, they probably wouldn’t have begrudged me breaking into their home, eating their food and sleeping in their bed. But I couldn’t get in, and believe me I tried.

So I spent a horrible pitch-black night listening to waves lap against the house—how incongruous is that?—and to cars dying. At least that’s what it sounded like. Cars that weren’t entirely underwater would spazz out when the water hit their electronics center. Horns honking, alarm systems beeping, trunks popping open. Even headlights coming on.

It was creepy beyond words, the prolonged death throes of Detroit’s finest.

At least the darkness allowed me to attend to my private functions. But by dawn I was hungry, thirsty and sitting on the top step contemplating my future.

It wouldn’t take much to complete my original plan. Just head north on Elysian Fields until I either drowned in the street or reached Lake Pontchartrain and drowned there.

But not until I got Lucky home.

The water felt a lot colder today, but what the hell. I had to pick up Lucky—he wouldn’t go anywhere near the water—and carry him down the steps. I thought he would claw me to death trying to climb onto my shoulders and head. He was that scared. So was I. The water was up to my chest and the sidewalk beneath my feet was an underwater minefield. Branches, a newspaper machine, garbage cans. At least the plastic cans floated.

And then there was the question of the living creatures that might be in that water. Snakes. Big hungry fish. Even alligators, if the storm had blown them over the levee.

It felt like a mile to Lucky’s house, even though it was only four houses over. Once on his own porch, Lucky started barking and leaping at the door. When they opened it, both the boy and his mom burst into tears.

He was thrilled to have his beloved pet back. She was obviously relieved to have another grown-up with her.

“Do you have food and water?” I asked as she wiped her face with her hands.

“Sure. Come on in.”

I hesitated at the front door, dripping nasty water all over the porch. “Do you have any dry clothes?”

In short order I had a shower, washed my hair, and put on a House of Blues T-shirt, a pair of jogging shorts and red rubber flip-flops. Then as we sat in the kitchen and she cooked me breakfast on her gas stove, we shared our stories. She was Sherry and her son, Bradley, was nine.

“We tried to evacuate,” she said. “But my car started to overheat while we sat on the interstate. Traffic was awful and I sure didn’t want to break down somewhere on the twin spans. So I exited on Louisa, and after the engine cooled down, we came back home. How about you?”

“Me? Um …I didn’t plan to evacuate.” No duh!

“Right. But how’d you end up out in the storm?”

Sherry was already on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Failed attempt to commit suicide” would probably upset her even more. So I smiled at her. “I was trying to get to a friend’s house, and then a big tree limb hit my car and it stalled. Then the water came and the car got swamped.”

“And then you saved Lucky,” Bradley said. He’d been sitting across the table from me, his chin on his hands, staring at me as if I were a superhero or something.

Perversely enough, it made me feel lower than low. I was such a phony. “Or maybe he saved me,” I suggested.

His mouth gaped open in amazement. “He did?”

I nodded because I realized it was true. “He floated onto my car and he was so scared that I forgot to be scared. I just grabbed him and then he and I found those steps and got up on the porch.”

Bradley’s young brow furrowed. “But how did he save you?”

I shrugged. “I think I might have drowned in my car if he hadn’t come along.”

“Really?” His eyes got huge. “Can’t you swim?”