by Jay Quinn
“Yes. He says he’s ridden out every storm since he was 12 in that house. He won’t stay anywhere else.”
Heath nodded. “You’ll be fine. You might get your feet wet, but you’ll be okay there.” He looked up at the sky again and I followed his gaze into the wind. There were flashes of lightning far in the distance. “I’m very happy for you two. I told you at Christmas you’d be perfect for each other.”
A huge gust of wind made the live oaks sway and sigh. With their limbs raised into their leafy tops, they looked like old women tossing their hair in wails. “What I recall you saying was, I needed to see a man about a dog,” I replied.
“Well, that’s what you did, isn’t it? For what it’s worth, Chris, I miss our breakfasts at the pier.”
“Me too. You were a good friend to me when I first came down. You were a lifesaver, Heath. I thank you for sending me to see that man about the dog.”
He gave me a wan smile. “You know what the young gay kids here call me?”
“No, I hope it’s not unkind.”
“No, it’s funny. They call me the Welcome Wagon. Seems like I’m always the first one to get all the newcomers and the guys that are just coming out. Once I’m done with them, then I steer ‘em toward somebody who’ll take them off my hands.”
“I don’t think that’s funny. I think it’s mean.”
Heath laughed. “It’s only mean if it’s not true. And I really rather enjoy it. I get to bust a lot of cherry that way. And I like the variety.”
“You’re a class act, Heath,” I said with a smile.
He opened the driver’s door to my SUV and waited for me to get inside. “You take care of Steve. Me and your dogs will be waiting for you right here once Joan gets done with us.”
I stepped into the truck and turned to face him. “Could you call and tell him I’m on the way back to my place? He’s picking me up there.”
“Sure,” he said. “Leaving your car under your own house is smart. There’s a lot less chance water will get in it there.”
“You’re scaring me now.”
“You’d be a fool if you weren’t scared. Just do what Steve tells you to and you’ll be fine. Now get going. If I call right now, he’ll probably get there ahead of you.”
On the way home, the first strong rain band hit. For about two miles I had to slow to a crawl to keep from getting blown off the road or running off it blind. The rain passed quickly, but the wind was really picking up by the time I made it up my drive and under my house. I had just gotten out of the car when Steve drove up. He surprised me by turning off his truck’s engine and getting out. He peeled off his shirt and stood grinning in the hard spatter of intermittent raindrops. “Pull your shirt off and c’mon!”
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going to go walk on the beach. We might make it onto one of the TV stations. You know how they love to show the crazy rednecks who are out in the storm on television. Well, Little Bit, here’s your chance.”
“Why do I need to take my shirt off,” I hollered back over a gust of wind.
“You want to walk around in a wet shirt, leave it on. Now let’s go. There’s a TV crew just up the beach. If it’s Jim Cantore, I’m gonna kiss him right on his big bald head.”
Laughing, I pulled my shirt over my head and I tossed it in Steve’s truck. We took off down the street and over the dune beside my neighbor’s place. When we crested the rise, a big blast of wind nearly knocked me off my feet. Steve reached back in time to catch me by my wrist and pull me forward and on down the ocean side of the dune.
“Damn, Steve, it’s like getting sandblasted,” I yelled as he let me go and trotted toward the water and dirty brown bits of sea foam being blown up the beach.
“Get down here near the water, it’s not so bad here,” Steve hollered.
He turned and faced into the wind with a big grin on his face. He whooped as a rush of shore break hit us and raced up our legs as I reached him. He took off and I followed him as best I could.
The ocean wasn’t organized. The waves stacked on top of each other as if they were trying to beat each other down in their rush to run ahead of the wind. Between the blowing saltwater and rain, we were soaked within minutes. Steve pointed up ahead, and sure enough, there was a news reporter valiantly holding onto the railing of a set of steps leading down from the dune onto the beach. His cameraman crouched on the steps slightly above him, trying his best to hold his camera steady.
Steve looked at me and grinned. He took off in a trot, and I trotted along with him, both of us laughing. As we neared the camera crew, I watched the lens shift and track us in its sights. The reporter yelled something unintelligible and motioned us toward him.
“You wanna be on TV?” he yelled.
“Sure dude!” Steve yelled back. “C’mon Chris.”
Pummeled by wind gusts, we made our way up the beach and joined the announcer at the foot of the steps.
“Get them to give us a video release,” the cameraman said.
“I’m going to ask you to give me your full names and addresses on tape,” the reporter said. “Then I’m going to ask you if you give your permission for CNN to use your image for broadcast, okay?”
“You’re not going to put that part on television are you?” Steve demanded.
“No way—we just need it for legal if you get on the broadcast.”
“Okay. Now?”
“Roll it, Eddie.”
The reporter stuck his microphone at Steve and me in turn, and we recited our names and addresses and gave our permission.
“Okay! Now we’re going for a take. Eddie?”
“Got it framed, give me a count.”
“Five, four, three, two, one … As Hurricane Joan batters the southern coast of North Carolina on her way to make landfall near Ocracoke Island, we’re here with Bogue Banks residents Steve and Chris. Tell me, guys—do you really feel like you should be out on the beach just now with a Category 2 hurricane bearing down over your shoulders?”
“Well sir, it’s like this,” Steve said. “We’ve got everything tied down and locked up that can be, so we thought we’d get out for a minute before it got really bad. Beautiful storm, huh?”
“This is the first we’ve heard it was going in at Ocracoke and had gone down to a 2,” I offered.
“You sound disappointed, Chris,” the reporter said.
“Well, hell. You guys have had us hyped up for three days.”
Steve laughed.
“What about you, Steve?”
“I’m just happy we’re going to be on the weaker side of the storm, but I’m thinking about all the folks out on Ocracoke and up on the Northern Banks.”
“Yeah, me too. I’m glad it’s not going to be any worse than it is for all of us,” I said.
“There you have it, folks; words of relief and concern from residents of North Carolina’s southern Outer Banks. You guys get someplace safe okay? The worst part of this Hurricane Joan is still yet to come.”
“Take it easy,” Steve yelled over the wind. I just grinned like a fool.
“And cut. Good stuff, guys.”
“How long before we’re on CNN?” Steve asked.
“With the feed and the delay, you’ll be on within 20 minutes if they decide to use you.”
“C’mon, let’s get going,” Steve said to me.
We fought our way back up the beach and over the dune to my house once more. When Steve was satisfied everything there was as secure as it was going to get, we beat a rain band into the truck. Steve put it in gear and we took off to his house.
“Get us one of them beers out of the cooler under your feet,” he said.
It was awkward getting my legs out of the way to lift the lid, but when I finally opened the cooler, I whistled. There must have been two 12-packs crammed in ice there. I opened a bottle of Corona and handed it to Steve and opened one for myself. He gave me a grin and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“
We can relax a little bit now knowing the eye’s going in over Ocracoke or thereabouts. It’s gone down to a Category 2 didn’t the guy say?”
“Yeah, you wild ass,” I said.
Steve laughed. “That’s the best news I’ve had in three days.”
“Is it still going to get worse?”
“Oh yeah, Little Bit. It’ll get worse, but at least the worst part ain’t coming in over the top of us. Do you think we’ll make it on TV?”
By the time we got to Steve’s the sound had already spilled into his yard and under his house. The water was ankle-deep and rising between the high ground Steve left his truck on and his front steps. When we got in the house, he headed straight for the television and selected CNN from the remote.
For the next little while, Steve drank beer and paced between the living room—where the television was on—and the back of the house—where he could watch his boat riding out the storm in the deeper water of the sound. I was in charge of monitoring the broadcast.
Steve was on his fourth beer and I was on my second when I hit the mute button on a set of commercials I’d seen about a thousand times, or so it seemed. I followed them, reciting the dialogue in my head, when the scene shifted to two guys getting blown around on a beach. They were laughing. “Oh shit! Steve! Get in here!” I un- hit the mute just as Steve stomped into the living room. Wordlessly we watched ourselves, just as dumb and happy as hell on a network that broadcast by satellite all over the world.
Steve whooped loud in the small room. “I did it! I finally did it! I finally got me on hurricane TV, Chris!” He was genuinely elated and as manic as going nearly two days without sleep could make him. Immediately his phone started to ring.
“Who do you want to bet that is?” he asked.
“Probably one of my kids.”
Steve stomped over to the phone and picked it up, half drunk and dead tired. “Hello? Oh, yeah—that was us! No, it ain’t all that bad, I’m looking after him … Okay, hold on, he’s sitting right here, by the way, congratulations on that baby, Trey … Cool! I’ll get him for you …”
Steve walked over, beaming, to hand me the phone.
I laughed out loud at his kidlike excitement and took the phone, “Hey son! How’s the baby?”
“The baby is fine,” Trey said, “or was until Susan screamed when you came on CNN. Chris, please tell me you aren’t drunk.”
“No, baby. I’m not drunk, just kinda tired. I’ve been up since 4:30 getting everything—”
“Chris, do you realize what you’re doing to my nerves?”
“Oh Trey, settle down. I’m perfectly all right.”
“Well, at least you’re not caught on the highway in this mess. You know something Chris? Next time, if you want us to know you’re all right you don’t need to get on CNN. Just use the phone, okay?”
“I promise.”
“You’re having the time of your life, aren’t you?”
I looked around the tiny living room and snuggled deeper into the overstuffed cushions of Steve’s Pottery Barn sofa when a hard slap of wind and rain hit the window behind me. I had a beer beside me on the table and Steve gazing at me with a happy grin on his face. “Yes, Trey. I am.”
“Dad called,” he said after a pause.
“And?”
“He was livid. I think he’s totally jealous, but he’d never say so. He just went off on how he resented financing your second childhood.”
“So, he’s watching CNN too, huh?”
“Oh no, he caught you on The Weather Channel.”
“Hey Steve! We’re on The Weather Channel too!” I said and laughed.
“Enjoy your hurricane, Chris. Call me when it’s over, okay?”
“Sure thing, babe. My love to Susan and my grandson.”
“Please get on up here as soon as you can, we’re dying to see you.”
“I will. Bye.”
When I stood to carry Steve’s cordless receiver back to its cradle, a sound like a bomb going off came from not too far away. Everything in the house went quiet and still.
“There went the power!” Steve yelled from the back porch. I walked through the kitchen and onto the back porch to stand beside him at the windows overlooking the sound. The view was a near uniform gray—with the water distinguishable from the driving rain only by its darker color and motion. Steve’s boat, the Lina G, was riding along with the waves, still held fast by three separate anchors.
“Steve, I’ve never asked you, but why is the boat named the Lina G?”
“For my mother, Angelina Gagliardo.” He looked out at her with pride. “She’s doing all right out there.”
“Why did you anchor her out in the sound?”
Steve never took his eyes off the boat. “So she wouldn’t get beat up against the dock. If she breaks a line rope, or drags anchor, there’s nothing for her to bash up on. Even out that far, the water’s not real deep. It’s only up to my chest where I put her.” He sighed and looked down at me. “You look beat.”
“You look worse,” I said. “I don’t think you’ve slept in two days.”
The wind pushed so hard against the house that it creaked and moaned. Steve looked around and slapped the wall below the window. “Hold on, old girl. Keep your roof on.” With that, he walked into the kitchen. All his manic elation at being on television had vanished. I heard the battery-operated radio come alive with the familiar voice of the announcer from the Morehead City NOAA station. The monotonous litany of latitudes and longitudes began, along with the marine warnings. Only a few miles south of Cape Lookout, the eye was passing us now without even coming ashore.
I walked into the living room to find Steve sitting on the end of the sofa, looking out the living room windows that gave a view of the front yard. I willed myself not to look out to see how deep the water had gotten. As if he were reading my mind, Steve said, “Once the eye passes, it’ll be blowing the water away from us to the north. What’s up in the yard now is what was pushed ahead of the storm. Don’t worry—it won’t get in the house.”
I sat next to him on the sofa, and he patted his lap. Gratefully, I swung around to stretch out on the sofa and laid my head there. He tucked a hand possessively just inside the waistband of my shorts under my navel, looked down at me, and smoothed back my hair with the other hand. “You know, I think this is the first time my head has been between your legs without my having an ulterior motive,” I said.
Steve rubbed his eyes and leaned his head back. “I’m so goddamn tired, I bet you couldn’t get a rise in these Levi’s for love or money.”
“Can you sleep a little now that the worst is going by?”
Steve stroked my hair once more, then let his arm dangle down the side of the sofa. “Naw, but you can if you want. It’s been a long day for you Little Bit. Go on and rest your eyes awhile.”
From this angle Steve looked his age, if not older, from the fatigue. He had a two-day beard and the muscled weight of him seemed to droop with weariness. “I hope I wasn’t in your way, Steve.”
“No way. You did good. Besides, who else would go out on the beach with me in a hurricane to be on TV?”
“That was crazy, you know. But it was a hell of a lot of fun. You’ve been so dead serious the past couple of days, I had no idea you’d want to run into the teeth of it like that.”
“I wouldn’t have done it without you,” he said. “You make me feel like a kid, Chris. Oh man! We’ve only just started having fun, you and me. I can promise you that.”
“I love you Steve Willis.”
“Not as much as I love you.”
That said, I let him rest and keep watch. We listened to the wind howl and the old house moan. I felt like I was exactly where I needed to be.
The wind lay to near calm by twilight. Steve and I walked out to the dock under a sky full of stars that were struggling to show themselves over the remaining clouds racing overhead. Out in the sound, the Lina G rode calmly on the waves remaining in the sound. Near the d
ock, pieces of wood, shingles, and trash bumped up against the pilings; trash brought in from anywhere and nowhere, littering the water, souvenirs of the storm.
We retraced our steps along the pier, and Steve tensely checked out the sound side of his house. It looked fine. Wordlessly I followed him down the stairs from the back deck into the shin-high water running back to the sound. As we walked around the house, I could see his tense body loosen with relief. All that seemed to be wrong were some missing shingles on the many-times-patched roof.
“Looks okay, Little Bit. But I have to tell you, I could kill for a hot cup of coffee, a hot shower, and a shave.”
“The power could be back on at my house. Even if it isn’t, I can still make hot coffee. That’s why I have a gas stove and hot water heater. If you want, we can go back over there for the night.”
“You know, I’m getting tired of going back and forth between two houses, but for once, I’m glad we have your house to go to. Let’s get your stuff and me something clean to change into and we’ll head on over there.”
I didn’t know Steve was growing weary of our living between two houses—he’d never mentioned it before. I didn’t have a clue about the man sometimes, but this wasn’t the time to bring that subject up. We were both dead tired, and I knew our weariness wouldn’t bring good discussion, just an argument. I was dead on my feet, more from tension than anything else. I didn’t say anything, I just followed Steve into the house to collect my stuff.
We drove to my house without a word. It was dark once we got there, but there was enough light from the moon and the streetlight to see the house was mainly fine. Like Steve, I had lost a few shingles, but other than that, everything looked great. We climbed the stairs with leaden legs. Steve used his key to let us in and flicked the switch nearest the door, only to be rewarded with a responding darkness.
“Your streetlight’s on,” he said. “You ought to have power. What the hell?”
I pushed past him and headed for the breaker box. “I switched off the main circuit breaker before I left. Hold on.”
“Why the hell did you do that?”
“It’s a habit from living in an old house in Raleigh. Anytime we had a bad storm, I switched it off so when the power came back on it wouldn’t overload the system. I heard somewhere that was a good idea.” I found the main breaker and pushed it. Immediately we were welcomed by the hum of the house’s white noise. The switch Steve had turned on flickered to life down the hall.
