Russell Banks - Lost Memory of Skin

Paco unzips and flings back the tent flap and the Kid takes out his earbuds and says, Wow, I was just thinking about you, man!

Paco says, You got to abandon ship, Kid! We gettin’ flooded out! This a fuckin’ hurricane!

The Kid takes a look outside and his eyes widen. Holy shit! It’s fucking Noah and the flood!

Working frantically he and Paco shove his belongings into his duffel and backpack. He puts Annie on her leash, picks up Einstein’s cage and Paco tucks the expedition-size backpack under one meaty arm and wraps the duffel with the other as if rescuing a pair of children from a fire. He says to the Kid, You take care of the animals, I’ll get the rest.

Einstein squawks and says, Women and children first! Women and children first!

Where’d he learn to say that shit?

Not from me, man. He says stuff all the time that he never heard from me. You can have real conversations with him.

Yeah, right. Follow me, Paco says and the Kid obeys, holding Einstein’s cage and leading Annie by her leash. Leaning into the wind they make their way up the steep switchbacked path to the roadway where the Rabbit waits beside Paco’s Harley and a pile of black garbage bags stuffed with most of his and Paco’s clothing, bedding, and cooking gear. The Kid huffs and puffs his way behind Paco up to the Rabbit where he turns and looks back down at the drowning settlement and the men in flight, most of them scrambling to salvage their possessions by moving to higher ground and stashing as much of it as they can in the dark underside of the roadway, a few others following Paco’s, the Rabbit’s, and the Kid’s example by abandoning the settlement altogether and lugging what few possessions they can carry uphill toward them.

Suddenly the Kid says, Jesus, I forgot my bike! I gotta try and get my bike. And my tent too.

The Rabbit puts a hand on the Kid’s arm and stays him. Too late, Kid. They’re gone. You’re lucky you got yourself and them fuckin’ animals out.

The Rabbit’s right. The Kid’s tent and bike are half underwater. The wind- and tide-driven surge off the Bay is rising faster now and is coming in waves with a heavy three-foot chop. The Kid hollers over the wind, Maybe we should try to wait it out under the Causeway where it ain’t flooded yet! Up high underneath, like those guys’re doing, the Greek and Shyster and them!

Paco hollers back, Forgetaboutit, man! Them guys’re gonna get trapped under there and drowneded!

That’s fucking harsh, Paco.

That’s reality. Those guys’re too stupid to abandon a sinking ship. Even your fucking parrot knows reality.

Paco sets a pair of garbage bags onto the back of his seat and straps his bundled goods onto the Harley with bungee cords, leaving barely enough room for him to ride. He slings one leg over the Harley and starts the engine.

Where you goin’, man?

Inland! If the wind don’t blow me over!

What about us?

Paco flashes a white-toothed grin at the Kid and Rabbit. It’s every man for himself. Better start walking!

The rain falls on the pavement faster than it runs off and the highway looks more like a shallow rippling river than a six-lane roadway. It’s entirely empty of vehicles; from the Barriers to the mainland not a car or truck of any kind, a ghost of a road from nowhere to nowhere. Except for the men who live under the Causeway everyone who wants to be evacuated from the Barriers has been evacuated and there’s no one on the mainland foolish enough to be driving in the opposite direction. Paco guns the engine and cuts a wide arc across all six deserted lanes and rides his Harley up and over the long arch of the Causeway and in seconds has disappeared in the distance.

Bracing himself with his crutch the Rabbit leans against the wind. He looks exhausted from the effort as if he’s about to fall over. Both he and the Kid are soaked through and are shivering from the cold rain. The Kid says, What’re we gonna do, man?

You heard him. Start walking.

What about you? With your busted leg and all? The Rabbit doesn’t look like he can walk across a room, let alone get himself over the high arching Causeway and hobble down the highway for more than a mile to the mainland. Especially in this wind which the Kid estimates at fifty to sixty miles an hour with gusts in the eighties. And once on the mainland where would they go? They could find some sort of temporary protection against the hurricane maybe — a bridge they could hide under or a mall where they wouldn’t get busted for loitering — and could wait it out. But what then? Whatever they had going for them under the Causeway a day ago is pretty much smashed now and if Paco’s right and a bunch of the men living there end up drowning the city will put a high fence around it. And who would want to live down there after that anyhow? Who could sleep there with all those ghosts haunting the place?

Shouldn’t we do something about those guys up under the bridge?

Like what?

I dunno. Tell ’em they’re gonna get drowned.

Rabbit speaks very slowly and with effort as if struggling to get his breath. They won’t listen to you, Kid. Besides, maybe they won’t drown. Then after a few seconds, Yeah, you’re right. I’ll tell ’em. They’ll listen to me. You gotta take care of yourself, Kid, he says.

The old man swings around on his crutch and starts moving down the soaked muddy pathway. The Kid shouts against the howling wind for him to wait, then to be careful, for chrissakes, it’s slippery, when the old man’s crutch slides out from under him and he collapses onto the ground and keeps falling. As if he planned on falling and even desired it he offers no resistance to it. His body crumples and seems to come apart, legs going one way, arms another, head lolling loosely on his skinny neck, as if he’s a marionette made of wet papier-mâché. He rolls some twenty feet off the zigzagged path to a ridge where the long slope from the highway to the settlement below turns into a sixty-degree drop. The old man drags himself to the ridge and goes over. It’s almost a precipice and he falls faster and faster tumbling down the incline all the way to the bottom where there’s now three feet or more of rapidly rising water and he ends up lying there facedown half in the water and half out.

The Kid quickly ties Annie’s leash to the guardrail and scrambles down the long hill after him, pushing past P.C. and Ginger making their way up with their loads on their backs like hobos hoping to hop a freight. By the time he reaches the bottom the tidal surge off the Bay has already risen another foot and the Rabbit is floating away. The Kid wades into the water and reaches for Rabbit’s pants leg but before he can grab it a wave hits him in the chest, driving him back. The wave catches the old man and shoves him farther out. Otis the Rabbit floats away from the Causeway and the sunken settlement toward the open Bay. He does not resist. He’s gone.

Struggling against the undertow the Kid backs slowly free of the waist-high water and turns and looks up under the bridge. The rest of the men are huddled up there in the shadows watching him like gargoyles. Above him on the right Ginger and P.C. have crossed the guardrail onto the empty highway and are trudging west heading inland.

The bastards. They watched the old man fall and not a one of them made an effort to come to his aid. Not a one of them moved from his perch. But the Kid knows that the Rabbit had finally given up on living like an abandoned animal and didn’t want anyone to save him. He fell down that hill like a man jumping off a bridge. And who could blame him? Maybe they should all give up the struggle — just let go and fall down whatever hill you were trying to climb until you end at the bottom and the sea rolls in and takes you away like it took away Iggy and now the Rabbit. What’s the point of trying to solve your problems and get ahead in life if the only problems you can solve are the little meaningless housekeeping ones and you’re never going to get ahead in life anyhow because you’re a convicted sex offender and are condemned to be one for the rest of your life even if you never commit another sex offense. Your name and face are always going to show up on that registry and scare the shit out of people who will make you live outside the camp as if told to do it by Moses under orders from God.