Recovering Charles

by Jason F. Wright

  I marveled at the economic system the city had spawned.

  “Hop in the back,” the officer said.

  I opened the door for Bela and climbed in after her.

  “We really appreciate this, Officer,” Bela said.

  “Call me Frank.”

  “Frank it is.”

  “Now Luke—it is Luke right?” He watched me in the rearview mirror. “Bela here tells me your dad is missing. Correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “And no one has seen him since before the storm, correct?”

  Bela and I both answered. “Correct.”

  “And he’s not contacted either of you? Or any acquaintances or kin?”

  I stole a look at Bela. She was staring out her window at someone walking past. “That’s right, Frank.” I spoke for both of us. “He’s missing.” I pulled the photo from my pocket and held it up.

  Frank reached through the thin metal bars separating us and quickly looked at the photo. “Hmm, nothing, but that doesn’t mean much. Someone’s seen him, you gotta believe that.”

  Officer Rostron started his cruiser and pulled out onto Canal Street. “I can get us just about anywhere we need to be. I’ve got an hour, ninety minutes tops.”

  “Where do you recommend we start?”

  “Convention Center. Might be someone there who knows something. I know there are Red Cross and FEMA reps everywhere. Should be someone who knows what kinds of records were kept about who went where. Sound OK?”

  I looked over at Bela. She was still looking out her window.

  “Bela?” I put my hand on her arm.

  “Sorry—yes, Frank, that sounds OK to me.”

  “Good. Done and done, sweetheart.” He quickly looked over his shoulder. “Oh, for pinko’s sake. I’m sorry,” he said. “I say that to everyone. Didn’t mean a thing by it.”

  “It’s OK, Frank.” Her voice was gentle and forgiving. “I know.”

  “Next stop, Morial Convention Center. It’s just about a mile away.”

  Frank began weaving our way through the mess. I pulled my camera from my bag and attached my telephoto lens. Bela was staring out the window again.

  “You all right over there?” I asked.

  She waited a few seconds before turning to me. “Yeah, it’s just a lot to take in.”

  “Right you are.” I wondered how many times she and Jezebel, and Jerome too, had stopped to cry since August 29th.

  I put my camera to my eye. This most routine act, something I’d done so many times the movement was involuntary, suddenly felt like sliding under a warm blanket during a Manhattan blizzard. I took a few shots of the trash. Piles of it. Mountains of it.

  Are there people in those piles? I thought.

  I took photos of signs—signs hanging from the tops of buildings that were covered with debris where victims had waited for a ride out of town. While waiting for some military traffic to pass at an intersection, I took a picture of a mound pushed tightly up against what looked like an office building. A sheet covered it and duct tape wrapped it tight at three places. I saw what looked like a note taped to the side. Later that night I blew that photo up on my laptop and clearly saw these words written in brown magic marker: We’ve been taken to Houston. This is my mother, Lori Christy. She died honorably. Please treat her that way.

  I noticed that Officer Rostron saw the body, too. He crossed himself and pulled away. I decided not to point it out to Bela.

  “Officer,” I said, “sorry—Frank—what can you tell me about the night the storm hit?”

  “Not much, I wasn’t here yet. I got asked to come down the next day, early afternoon. Sergeant called me and said they needed all the help they could get. It’s about a six-hour drive. I got here by dark. There were police coming in from all over. I heard there’s at least one officer from every state here by now, but I don’t know if that’s legit or not. No matter, we seem to be everywhere you look.”

  “So the levees had breached by the time you arrived?”

  “Affirmative. The city was still filling. We—well, really the Coast Guard I guess, and some civilians—were working to rescue people from rooftops, car tops, bridges, the whole shebang. A guy I drove down here with said he rescued a guy and his parrot from a ladder. No lie. A ladder. The man was carrying it on top of his truck. When the water rushed the street, he hopped out, set the ladder in the bed of his truck—A-frame type, you know—and grabbed his parrot cage from the cab. Was standing on the ladder when my buddy came down in a flatboat. Couldn’t see the top of the truck cab anymore, just this ladder sticking up. Might have saved his life that the guy painted houses for a living.”

  “Incredible,” I said.

  “So many stories like that, though. Tons of ’em. Real people became heroes. Put their lives at risk to save others.” He choked on the words. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Bela said. “You’re probably due.”

  Frank gathered his composure as quickly as he’d lost it and continued driving. A few blocks later he pulled over and turned off the engine.

  I put my camera around my neck.

  “Right over there is where HonorŽ helped the woman and her babies.”

  “HonorŽ?” I asked.

  “Lieutenant General HonorŽ, the three-star. He’s the guy Nagin called ‘John Wayne.’ He’s a bad dude. Been getting stuff done and done right. I hear he saw a woman with her little babies and scooped them right up. She’d passed out on the street from the heat and HonorŽ appeared outta nowhere to save the babies. Everyone is talking about it.”

  “I’ve heard that story, too,” Bela said.

  “More stories like that one will surface, I’m sure of it.” Frank put on his sunglasses. “So here we are. This area is really locked down tight right now. We’ll walk the last block.”

  “Whatever you say,” I offered.

  Frank turned around again and looked directly at me. “This is the center of it all. You understand that?” Frank sounded very authoritative.

  “Yes.”

  “Even if only a fraction of what we’ve heard about this place, about what went down here, is true, it’s a miracle anyone survived. Anyone who came here to help, especially after hearing the rumors in the street, deserves a medal in my book. This was the definition of a high-risk environment.”

  I was pretty confident I understood the seriousness of what had occurred there.

  “Ready?”

  “Yep.”

  Frank got out and opened the back door on Bela’s side. We both stepped out and onto the sidewalk. “Stay close,” he said.

  We followed him down the street toward the Convention Center.

  We passed by two dozen members of the military and National Guard.

  Some had their weapons drawn.

  All had some degree of fear in their wide eyes.

  So many of these soldiers are kids, I thought. Nineteen, maybe twenty years old?

  The first time we were stopped, Frank said, “They’re with me.”

  “With me,” he said the second time.

  “Mine,” he said the final time, gesturing to us as we passed by two guards near one of the main entrances. “Want to see inside?”

  “No,” Bela said immediately. “I’ll wait here.”

  “You sure?” I asked.

  “Completely.”

  Frank walked away, approached a contractor, gestured to us, then pulled two white masks from a box on the ground. He returned and handed me one.

  I put it on. “We’ll be right back,” I told Bela.

  Frank put on his own mask and then placed his strong hand on my shoulder. “You want to see this?”

  “I do.”

  “It’s crazy filth and death like you’ve never imagined.”

  “Understood.”

  He pushed the door open and held it for me. The smell didn’t wait for me to step in. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Bela cover her nose and mouth and walk away.

 
“You weren’t exaggerating,” I said, gagging.

  He said something I couldn’t understand. His mouth was hidden under both his mask and his uniform collar.

  Frank led me through the lobby. We passed hazmat workers beginning the daunting process of undoing Katrina’s human consequences. A water fountain had been pulled off the wall. The metal gates covering a concession stand lay on the floor. Empty Styrofoam cups and plastic lids were tossed everywhere. Cabinet doors hung from their hinges.

  Frank opened a service door, revealing a pitch-black hallway. He pulled a flashlight from the side of his belt. “Come on,” he managed. “I’ll show you the food-service area.”

  The hallway smelled even worse than the airy lobby had. Small mounds of feces and stained newspapers or magazines appeared every so often. What appeared to be dried urine was everywhere. With little warning I doubled over, pulled my mask down, and threw up in a trash can. I was thankful I couldn’t see what was in it.

  “Frank,” I called ahead to him, wiping my mouth on my shirtsleeve. “I can’t. I can’t go this way. Come—” I threw up again, this time on the floor.

  He turned around and led us back the way we had come. I quickly scanned the lobby again as I trotted out the door. Bela was sitting in the shade. I took my camera off my neck, collapsed near her, and put my head between my knees.

  “Luke? You all right?”

  I nodded but kept my head down. I saw Frank’s boots approach. He said nothing.

  “That bad?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m sorry. I would have gone, but I knew I wouldn’t make it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You need anything?” She put her hand on the center of my back. I stayed crouched another moment.

  “I’m good.” After another long moment, I slowly sat up and continued breathing heavily through my mouth.

  “Sorry, partner,” Frank said. “I knew it would be rough; I’ve had to go in there a few times myself. Hasn’t gotten much better. And trust me, I’ve thrown up too. Don’t sweat it. It happens.”

  “Were there still bodies out in the open?” Bela asked Frank.

  “Didn’t see any, but we didn’t get in quite that far. As of a couple days ago there were still some in the freezer. I think Command decided it was better to leave them there, safe, until they have someplace proper to take them. It’s not refrigerated, mind you, but it’s more decent than the street or the bathrooms.”

  I was breathing easier.

  “I’ll ask around,” Frank said. “See if I can find someone who knows what’s up and what’s down. Stand by.” He turned and walked toward a camouflaged tent.

  “Are you sorry you went in?”

  “No,” I answered quickly and confidently. “I wanted to see it with my own eyes.”

  “Get any pictures?”

  “Didn’t need to,” I said, putting my left index finger to my temple. “They’re all right here.”

  I leaned forward again toward the ground, my palms pressed against the dead grass. Bela put one hand on top of mine and the other on my back. She applied the softest kind of pressure.

  We sat quietly.

  I felt a mixture of emotions impossible to have predicted.

  Impossible to describe.

  The smell from inside the Convention Center had coated my sinuses.

  Frank returned, carrying a white slip of paper. “As expected, they don’t know much here. No real records of who went where. Rumor is they did all that at the other end—at the receiving city. But they gave me a number for the Red Cross. Call this and have them check every list they’ve got. If your dad took a plane or a bus out of here, these guys should know where he ended up.” He got down on one knee next to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “What else can I do?”

  “Let’s go home,” Bela said.

  Chapter

  20

  I don’t recall much about the drive back to Verses.

  I didn’t stick my camera out the window, watch for unclaimed dead bodies, or gawk at the military presence. I just sat in the backseat with my head on the headrest and my eyes closed. Bela, too, was quiet.

  “I still can’t get over this place,” Frank said absently. “It really is a bowl. Look over there, two blocks is all, water covers the street, but go another block and it’s five, maybe ten feet deep. Then you got this dry ridge of land along the river on the south side, up to the west, too. Craziness. Here I am going down a one-way street. No lights. No stop signs. I didn’t know what to expect, but in my craziest dreams I couldn’t have imagined I’d have seen this.”

  Frank rambled on until we reached the club. He got out and once again opened Bela’s door on the curb side of the street.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t see more of the city, or get to ask more people about your dad.”

  “I saw plenty,” I said, shaking his hand. My stomach was still tight and achy.

  “Anything else I can do?” Frank looked at Bela.

  “No. But thank you, Frank, for trying.”

  “You’ll try calling Houston?”

  “Sure will,” she answered.

  He said good-bye and drove off. I doubted I’d ever forget him or what he showed me.

  We walked back into the club. Quiet again. A huge stack of MREs had been added to the collection against one wall.

  “I’ll see who’s around,” Bela said as she walked back into the kitchen.

  I climbed the stairs, still feeling a little queasy, and sat on my bed—the couch—in the hallway. I dialed the number Frank had given me and spent ten minutes on hold only to find out that the Red Cross didn’t have a “Charles Millward” or a “Charlie Millward” or even a “C Millward” on any of their lists of New Orleans evacuees.

  “Try again,” the woman on the phone said. “We’re still consolidating lists. Keep hope.”

  I thanked her, hung up, and spent some time in the bathroom brushing my teeth and washing my face. Then I sat back on the couch and powered on my camera to view the pictures I’d taken en route to the Convention Center. If the images were so powerful on a small digital preview screen, I wondered how they’d look blown up. I quickly turned off the camera to conserve power—I had no idea how long it would be until I could charge anything again—and I walked down the hallway toward the rooms I’d not seen yet.

  The first room held a trumpet resting on a polishing cloth, what I recognized as two trombone cases, and enough other instruments to resemble a musical instrument ICU.

  The room Tater and Hamp had entered yesterday was open enough I could see in without entering. Just inside the door a suitcase and two Wal-Mart bags appeared ready to accompany someone somewhere. There were also two piles of clothes—one

  clean, one dirty, I reasoned. The small pile was probably the clean one. In the middle of the floor there was a twin mattress, an air mattress, and several blankets stacked on top of one another to create a third bed. A few MREs sat atop an overflowing trash can. The whole room smelled like the lake I’d learned to swim in.

  The door to the next room needed a gentle nudge to see inside. A woman was asleep under a table that held an unplugged computer, a stack of binders, and some dirty paper plates.

  The walls were adorned with watercolors of the Mississippi and the Bayou. Brass bands. Parades. Vibrancy. I pulled the door

  all the way shut and returned downstairs.

  “There he is,” Jezebel said as I came into view on the spiral stairs. “I understand you had a tough go.” She met me at the bottom of the stairs and hugged me.

  “It was something.”

  “I haven’t even been able to go in there. Haven’t had a need, really. But if it’s even close to what I’ve heard, then no thanks, right?” She hugged me again. “I can’t tell you how glad I am you came.”

  “Thanks, I’m really glad too.” It hit me I hadn’t been hugged by a woman who I hadn’t been dating since my mother died.

  “Jerome and Schubert are making some food out bac
k in the crawfish boilers. Gas is still turned off, but we’ve got propane.” She rubbed her hands vigorously up and down my back before releasing me from her comfortable embrace. “We’re saying good-bye to someone tonight.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Toby, though we just call him Castle. He’s a longtime friend of the club, worked here on and off for maybe five years. His sister is dying up in Washington, D.C.”

  “I’m sorry.” That’s what you say when you hear someone is dying.

  “She got evacuated right before the storm, but Castle stuck around to deal with their dogs. Find them homes before he went up to be with her.”

  “She was injured in Katrina?”

  “No, no, she’s been with cancer for years. Don’t remember what kind. Doesn’t matter really when the doctors tell you it’s about over.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  “So we’re saying good-bye to Castle tonight.” This time she said it with resolve. “We’ve got to make something out of this food or throw it away. Oysters, jambalaya, rice, and red beans. Won’t be four-star, but it could be worse. Normally places like us are all about frozen burgers, fries, pizza. College-kid cuisine, we call it.”

  “Can’t wait.” I wondered where Bela had gone.

  “I bet everyone who’s left in the Quarter finds us before the night is up.”

  Home maybe?

  “You want to take a walk? It will be a while still.”

  I didn’t, but I said yes anyway.

  “Back in a while, Jerome!” she yelled loudly, very loudly, to the back. “I’m locking the door behind me!” We stepped out onto the sidewalk and she did as promised. “I worry with no one up front.”

  “Understood.”

  “You been to Jackson Square yet?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I will seriously consider smacking you if you say that again.”

  Despite the fact she wasn’t smiling, I still figured she had to be kidding. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Test me.” Now she did smile, even bigger than last time we’d talked. “You need to relax, Luke. Loosen up.”