The Last Cadillac

by Nancy Nau Sullivan

  “Tick, really. We’re going.”

  “Where?” Little Sunshine shrieked.

  Yes. Where?

  “I’m thinking that today is moving day.” I tried to look wise and sound calm.

  “Where to?” said Lucy. She was already holding the door open with her back, and having some difficulty, her arms overloaded with magazines and bags. “To that new house of yours? You don’t even have beds and stuff. Why don’t you come to the motel? There’s plenty of room there.” She’d had no trouble finding a vacancy, since most tourists stay away during hurricane season, except for Lucy. She let the door bang shut, then hastily scratched down the name and number of the motel and waggled it at me.

  I was scurrying around, garbage bags flapping. “Thanks, but I think we’ll head over to our new place,” I said. “We do have mattresses.” My eyes scanned the kitchen and living room for the things I needed to grab.

  “That’s just great,” Lucy said as she turned and dashed for the rental car. I watched her in awe. Backing out of the driveway, she struggled to roll down the window. “Good luck,” she yelled. “Call me!” She peeled away, sending bits of shell into the blowing sand and rain. “Happy Birthday to me,” she howled.

  After her departure, the wind forced the front door of the cottage open and blew it back and forth as I tried to control this large hunk of metal and glass. A final swing in my direction had the impact of knocking some sense into my head.

  I ran from the kitchen to the bathroom, throwing pills, peanut butter, diapers, and schoolbooks into a garbage bag. Fortunately, I had a sort of “hurricane kit” already prepared—we had one for the renters, so I decided to borrow it: canned food, flashlight, batteries, bottled water, plastic bags, towels, a deck of cards, and some dice.

  “Mom, where are we going?” This time the question came from Little Sunshine and Tick in one loud voice.

  I stopped flinging myself from one end of the cottage to the other and dropped the bulging garbage bag. I hugged my daughter and nodded to Tick. His arms were folded and his feet planted, like he was awaiting orders, thank God. “We’re moving in. We’re going to move into our new house!”

  From the look of the roiling Gulf, we probably had less than half an hour to get off the beach. Josephine was not going to land directly, but she was bringing water with her. A lot of water.

  Our new house was at a safe elevation, the inspector promised. It was built of cinder block and the canal had never breached the bank and flooded the house—at least not in the last forty years. Then I thought: There is always a first time. But we didn’t have a choice. There was no time to get over the bridge with Dad and the kids and all the stuff I had to pack into the Cadillac. We didn’t have the beds put together at the house, but we had water—plenty of water—and electricity and mattresses. I kicked myself for not paying closer attention to the weather. I’d wasted time running around picking out colors for the kitchen and the front door, thinking about what flowers to plant in my new urns on the patio, and sketching furniture arrangements for the new family room.

  I heard it from Cynthia before I heard it on Channel Five. She called to warn me, but I had not listened. “This one’s unusual. It’s getting most of its strength in the Gulf!” she said. Tick ran back and forth with pillows and blankets, loading them into the car, along with clothing, books, towels, blankets. He was, as usual, way ahead of me.

  “I’m going to get Big Sunshine,” my daughter announced. She broke away from Tick and raced up the stairs. I followed her.

  Dad was snoring, oblivious to Josephine, or us. I hurried over to the window and slammed it shut, the salt spray blasting me in the face. I’d left it open to let in the cool October air, but now I met a vast, grey humid presence. I peered out of his bedroom window. Josephine engulfed us with no definitive sky or water line. And the beach, as far as I could see, was one heaving expanse of grey and white-capped waves, churning dirty water, restless, like it was being shaken by crazed deep-sea creatures.

  “Jesus,” I said.

  Little Sunshine held a bag of her grandfather’s goods while she nudged his shoulder that stuck out of the quilt. He still had his hat on.

  “Sunshine, get up,” she said. “We have to take another trip.”

  Dad began to come around, and I helped my daughter sit him up. He was confused. This was not going to be easy. The wind picked up. Irregular, howling gusts rattled the windows. I could hardly hear myself think, even with the windows shut.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “Dad. Honey. Got to go,” I said. I was searching under the bed for his shoes, zipping his windbreaker. Little Sunshine had one of his hands and was stroking the wrinkles smooth. “I mean now, Dad. Let’s get these shoes on. Josephine is coming.”

  “Who?” he said. “I don’t know any Josephine.”

  “It’s Josephine … the hurricane, and if we hang around much longer, we will be sorry we met her.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” He looked out of the windows, at the sky, full of wild, flying clouds, and I could see him listening. He was still for a moment, and then bent over to slip his foot into a shoe.

  “Yes, I see, I see,” he said. “Looks like the deck of the Barnes.”

  Dad related more and more to his old Navy days, to the terrifying, heaving days on the ship. Looking out at the water, I felt like I was on the deck of a ship.

  Tick hovered in the doorway to the bedroom, waiting for us.

  “Take everything, and your sister, and get in the car, Tick,” I told him. They both hesitated a second, before bolting for the stairs, but not before Little Sunshine patted Old Sunshine’s arm and Tick affixed his grandfather’s hat back on his head.

  Dad didn’t seem concerned about Josephine, no more than Lucy had been. At first. He moved at a snail’s pace, carefully running his hands over his jacket and checking his pockets. He picked up a few wads of Kleenex. He put his glasses on. I wanted to hustle him along, but I was afraid of unnerving him—and myself. If I fell apart, it would wreck us all. So, I prodded him carefully down the stairs, all the while he banged the cane on the steps and hung on tight to the railing. I followed with the walker.

  When we reached the bottom of the stairs, the water was rushing furiously through the cracks under the window. With maddening predictability, a wave hit the windowpanes, but they resisted. My immediate destination was the car. The beach was gone, and soon the water would be swirling around the cottage and cutting off our escape route. The thought was terrifying. But still, we had time.

  I coaxed Dad through the porch and toward the door. Little Sunshine and Tick were already in the Cadillac.

  Then, Dad stopped. “I don’t want to leave.”

  “What? Dad, we have to get out of here. Now!”

  “This is my mother’s house. Elizabeth’s house! More water has come and gone here than you can shake a stick at!” He shoved his cane up into the air like an exclamation point.

  I was at the point of screaming.

  Tick and Little Sunshine peered at us from the back seat of the Cadillac. “Hurry!” Tick yelled, “You can make it. Gamps!”

  A wave burst around the corner of the cottage and raced up the front hubcaps of the car. Two plastic chairs and a green-stripe chaise lounge cushion whirled past the cottage door, riding a torrent of water that had washed around from the beach and out to the street.

  Dad wouldn’t budge. He was a large man, six feet, 235 pounds. I would never get him out of there if he didn’t pick up his feet and walk. I could have killed Lucy for leaving me alone, but it was my own damn fault. I had put us all directly in the path of this mess.

  Something snapped in my head.

  “Dad, if we wait much longer, I can’t get you into the car.” The words came through clenched teeth. “You’ll have to swim. We’ll all be swimming up to our asses in alligators.”

  Little Sunshine leaned out of the car window, waved, and screamed over the wind. “Come on, Sunshine. You can
make it. We need a little sunshine.”

  Dad lifted his head slowly, and then, of all things, he chuckled. Carefully, he stepped over the threshold. I held on to him, all the while the damn walker dangled on my arm, flailing in the wind.

  Before I knew it, Tick was out of the car, his hands at his grandfather’s back, guiding him. Steady, sure, strong.

  I pulled Dad forward against the wind, which he hated, so I had to be ginger, or he’d dig in for sure. Fortunately, Tick was doing most of the work, talking and encouraging his grandfather toward the car. They were like two old fellows going for a walk—oblivious—their heads together, mumbling something I couldn’t hear over the wind. As we made our way to the car, a wave broke over my ankles. The force was like a nasty, insistent wall shoving against me, moving me where it wanted me to go. Not the way I chose to go. Dad sloshed through the water, yelling about his shoes. Then with another step, one of them came off and whooshed down the street after the chaise lounge.

  Finally at the car, and, God help me, I don’t know how, Tick, that young wire of a son of mine, lifted his large unwieldy grandfather into the seat in one piece without any broken bones or other mishaps.

  It took all my strength to open the driver’s door, but with a gust of wind, courtesy of Josephine, I managed. I climbed in and slammed the door, which skimmed over the top an ebbing wave.

  “Jesus Mother of God,” I said.

  “Yes, pray,” said Dad. “And let’s put a nickel in it.”

  Oh, now you’re ready.

  In the backseat, Tick and Little Sunshine huddled together between stuffed garbage bags, their faces pinched, their eyes wide, as indistinguishable objects flew past the windows.

  I grabbed the steering wheel and stared frantically through the windshield where the water fell in wavy, glistening sheets. It gushed deeper and deeper around the side of the cottage, its force worse than the wind, heavy and fierce, and dark. Only yesterday, the water shined blue on the white beach. I backed out of the driveway as the Gulf surged around us and pushed us away from the beach. No one said a word. The wind shrieked. The Cadillac picked up speed. Huge wings of water rose on either side of the car, like some enormous bird lifting us to higher ground and to our new home on Willow Avenue, where we landed sopping, but relieved and tired. And safe. At least for the time being.

  The rain thrashed, and buckets from hell dumped from the sky, hurling mangos off the backyard tree onto the roof. I watched from the porch while tree limbs snapped and tore through the yard like hapless arms and legs.

  That night we huddled in our new house, each of us settled on mattresses with a scant assortment of bedding we’d dragged from the cottage. In the absence of electricity, I lit candles, and we ate peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and listened to Josephine barrel across the island.

  Tick’s answer to everything lately was music. I’d bought him a second-hand Martin guitar, and while listening to blues, he carefully picked his way through each tune. He’d done the same with Beethoven on the piano—a gift from father to son, each one with a fine-tuned ear for music. Tick found an old bentwood chair in the garage and placed it in a corner of our mattress-strewn living room, where I hoped to settle Moroccan rugs, and my Sheraton sofa and side chairs one day, if we ever got out of this high and dry.

  Tick hunched over his guitar and sang Robert Johnson’s “Terraplane Blues,” his voice cutting through the terror of the wind. My father lulled, resting his large white head on a stack of pillows. I sat cross-legged with Little Sunshine, arranged amidst an assortment of quilts and pillows in a corner opposite Tick. I was plenty happy—that we were together, that the wind was dying, that we’d made it through the hurricane.

  Later that night, curled up under a blanket with my daughter, who finally fell asleep, I listened to the hurricane surge in monstrous gasps over my new old house, and I prayed that the tiles—and the canal—would stay put. Finally giving up, I drifted off. And Josephine whirled away, making a beeline for the Panhandle where, finally, she died.

  The next morning, the sun shined bright on the detritus that Josephine left. A scattering of broken trees and leaves littered the roads and yards. The water had risen in the canal over the dock but only splashed onto the curve of lawn where the salt water killed the grass. The storm left us, not only with relief in our hearts, but brooms and plenty of garbage bags for the clean up ahead of us.

  17

  ONE BEAUTIFUL MESS

  My sister Lucy had her fifteen minutes of fame that day, too. She appeared on the front page of the Sarasota Herald Tribune, standing on the porch of the cottage, holding her forehead, and grimacing. The caption read: “Owner Distraught Over Loss of Property.” But, in fact, Lucy was badly hung over. She and her friends had, after a quick stop at the liquor store, made it to the Blue Dolphin. While they listened to the hurri-train roar through the pine trees overhead, they chugged half a dozen bottles of Murphy-Goode pinot noir and chardonnay.

  Standing on the porch of the cottage, I surveyed the damage. Broken chairs, bent window screens, and debris perched atop mounds of sand dotted the beach and created a new landscape. Two walls of the cottage were missing. The rooms upstairs, without support, were cantilevered over the porch. Much of the lost timber, nowhere to be seen, had probably rushed away in the flood, along with the chaise lounge and Dad’s one shoe.

  Marque stood next to Lucy, wearing the only outfit I’d ever seen him wear—his Speedo. His curls were still tussled but shorter, and he grinned while he sipped a Dos Equis. He looked like a shiny, golden object d’art, something akin to Michelangelo’s David because he seemed to have no hair except on his head. He continued to be one of Lucy’s longstanding joies de vivre.

  “You have theez hurricanes. Why?” he said.

  “God only knows,” I said.

  “Ah, yes, zee gods. They have made quite a mess here, no?”

  “Yes.”

  Lucy sat down on one of the broken chairs. Ellie and Bruce were out at the water’s edge thirty yards away with a case of beer and enough oil to grease their way back to Chicago. They were asleep, or dead, face down on the towels with their feet in the water. The Gulf had again performed. Yesterday she was a grey demon. Today she was a rare jewel. The day was glorious, a perfect specimen of fall in Florida.

  They’d had themselves quite a time at the Blue Dolphin, partying through the storm and ending with a very early morning skinny-dip in the motel pool. They made more noise than Josephine, so they got kicked out of their motel rooms. They decided to end the weekend with a sort of camping arrangement in the remnants of the cottage. It was turning out to be an open-air adventure. Most of the northwest corner of the cottage facing the beach, including the door, had blown away. They dared not use the upstairs for fear of crashing into the living room, although Lucy fearlessly crept up there to one of the side bedrooms for towels. The interior was safe and dry enough to survive, so they were reasonably comfortable, which didn’t seem to matter, since the whole bunch of them were pretty much anesthetized with various types of liquor.

  We studied the picture in the newspaper. We were not in danger of having the cottage come down on our heads because the contractor, my savior, hurried over and propped up the second floor with two-by-fours.

  “What a mess,” said Lucy. “I hope we don’t have to clean this up.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “When have you ever cleaned anything up?”

  She tossed the newspaper in the direction of a sand-clotted plastic chair. Marque plopped down next to her on the new, small dune on the porch floor. Lucy still wore her black bathing suit that clung to her like skin. The front of it plunged to her navel with peek-a-boo silver net coverage. She didn’t seem to care what she wore, as long as she could shed it quickly.

  “Now, you’re giving me another headache. How about we forget this,” she said. “Want to go to the Sand Bar for margaritas?” She stuck a fingertip in her cheek and looked to the heavens. “Or piña coladas?”

  “Now th
ere’s the answer,” I said. “Happy birthday.”

  “Ah, my sweet,” said Marque. “I do not try to escape you, but I think I will go have a little nap, down there on the water with those terrible people we came with.” He broke into an incredible grin, already flushed with a sunburn to match his deep brown, bloodshot eyes. He was still the most gorgeous thing this side of Antonio Banderas. “You go with your seester.” He got up and kissed Lucy on the top of her head and dashed off toward the beach, his backside a display of muscles carved from perfection.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “Yes, nice, and young. I think too young.”

  “Really, how mature of you.”

  Lucy shot me a look. One thing she avoided at all costs—from imperfect teeth to grey hair—was maturity. She did not wear it well.

  “OK, let’s go,” she said. “But first, I have to primp, make myself cute as I can.” She headed off to the bathroom where the sand was piled up all around the toilet bowl—which, surprisingly, still worked. The electricity worked, too, even with most of the porch gone. Lucy and her entourage would content themselves for the duration of their stay with what was left of the cottage—the kitchen, still functional, and still bedecked with its orange Formica bar—surrounded with new sand dunes.

  I’d swept up a bit, but it was pretty useless. The boards had popped up and curled like fruit peels. They would eventually retreat to their once level plane after they dried out, like a dozen times before. The cottage had survived one more storm.

  And all the previous and glorious bright spots remained. The sunsets, the beach, washed clean and newly reconfigured, the birds that didn’t seem to mind a bit—all reasons why my grandparents chose the island.

  “It’s a postcard, sent from God Almighty Himself,” my grandmother said. “If He had written anything on it, it would be to remind you that life is all about change. Just keep going and nothing will ever get you down.”

  This was true, even though Josephine tore a hunk off my postcard and took it with her into the Gulf.