Zane and the Hurricane

by Rodman Philbrick

  So far Malvina hasn’t said a word. She stares at the ground, not at the man, not at nobody.

  “What you want?” Mr. Tru says again.

  “What I want? Ain’t about that. It about Dylan Toomey doin’ a favor for a friend. You flooded, right? House gone? Nowhere to go? I’m a fix you up. Get you a dry crib, give you food, clothes, TV, anything you need. Let me watch over you and the girl, make sure you all come to no harm.”

  Mr. Tru starts to say something but thinks better of it. He looks smaller, like the air has gone out of him somehow. After a moment he says, in a real meek voice, “Might be for the best, Mr. Toomey. We, um, we can sure enough use a roof over our heads.”

  The man in the shades looks satisfied. “Good. We take care of yo situation soon we done here.” And then he saunters back to the grill, holding out his plate for another helping. Everybody making room for him, being extra careful not to step on his toes or offend him in any way.

  Mr. Tru crouches, smiling around at everybody but talking to us in an urgent whisper. “Malvina? Zane? We in trouble, children, bad trouble, and we got to move quick. Get ready now. You ready? I’m a go make a fuss and when I do, you all run for that canoe, fast you can.”

  Malvina says, “What about you, Tru?”

  “I catch you up. Don’t look back, just go!”

  He stands, real casual, nodding and smiling like everything is okay. Heading for the grill as if he wants another helping, too, and that’s when he seems to trip over his bad foot and sprawls, knocking over one of the grills.

  Everybody screams.

  Me and Malvina, we’re gone before the smoke clears. Heading full speed back into the school, racing through the long, dim hallway and out into the bright sunlight. Me praying that nobody has stole the canoe. And they haven’t, because there it is, battered and green and beautiful.

  Malvina leaps into the front, with Bandy right behind her. I give the canoe a shove and manage to climb aboard without tipping us over. Then Mr. Tru explodes out of the door, running and limping at the same time as he keeps hold of his battered top hat. Yelling, “Go! Go!” he drags himself into the rear of the canoe.

  We’re maybe fifty yards clear of the school, paddling hard, when Dylan Toomey saunters out, the sun glinting off his gold chains. Pretending to dip a toe in the water and then recoil, he grins like this is all a big joke, like he can’t be bothered to chase us, not if it means getting wet.

  Then he gives us a little wave and shouts, “See y’all next time! That a promise!”

  After paddling like mad for a mile or so, Mr. Tru takes a pause, sliding the canoe out of sight between a couple of half-sunk cars and a building that was turned sideways by the flood. Branches reach out of the water from drowned trees, some of them with leaves still green, as if a crazy, junkyard jungle has started to sprout from down below.

  We haven’t said barely a word, none of us, since we made our getaway, but you can tell Mr. Tru is trying to decide about something. It feels like we’re all stuck between one second and the next and can’t take a breath until the clock ticks over. Finally he goes, “Dawlin’? Time we told this young man the troot about what he got hissef into.”

  Malvina avoids looking at me. Instead she fusses over Bandy, scratching his ears. The little dog whines, like he’s trying to understand why the humans are acting so stiff and weird, and finally I go, “It’s okay. Really, it’s none of my business.”

  “You part of it now, like or not,” Mr. Tru insists. “Malvina?”

  She folds her skinny arms across her chest. “My mom got arrested and sent to rehab,” she announces in a flat voice, staring out at nothing. “She an addict.”

  “She gone beat it this time,” Mr. Tru says softly.

  “That what you always say.”

  “Have faith in your heart, dawlin’. Your momma love you more than anything.”

  Malvina shrugs, like she’s heard this all before and it can’t touch her anymore.

  “Rehab doin’ its work. Your momma getting well. You see.”

  Malvina only looks away.

  “That man back at the school, Dylan Toomey?” Mr. Tru says. “He a local drug boss. Like he say, he done Malvina’s momma a few favors, if givin’ her drugs is a favor. And when she got arrested in possession, and they send her to rehab instead of jail, might be he’s worried she say somethin’ to the po-lice about his bidness.”

  “My momma ain’t no snitch!” Malvina says defiantly.

  “She do the world a favor, lock up a gangsta like him. And you know that, dawlin’.” He glances at me. “So, Zane, you understan’ why we leave? Why we had to make our run?”

  I shake my head. “Not exactly. I mean, he’s a scary-looking dude and all that, but it seemed like he was trying to help us.”

  Mr. Tru nods. “Oh, I can see how it might appear that way to you. But he intend to help hissef, not us.”

  “By giving us food and shelter?”

  He shakes his head. “Nah, nah. No gift. Man don’t give nothin’ away. Always a price. Dylan Toomey, he worried. If Malvina’s mom have to choose between going to prison and coming home to her child, she choose her child. She love you, dawlin’.”

  The heat and stench of the floodwaters makes our eyes sting, so I can’t be sure if Malvina is crying or just blinking away the sweat.

  Tru sighs and says, “If Toomey get hold of Malvina, and keep her under his evil eye, then her momma don’t dare say nothin’ to nobody about his criminal ways. See, he own a bunch of fourteen-year-old boys, dealing his dope on the corners. Malvina’s momma know the name of every boy. What you think happen to Dylan Toomey when the po-lice hear that? You understan’ now?”

  “Yeah,” I say. And I do, sort of.

  “I promised her momma I’d keep her safe, come hell or high water. Ha! High water already come, but I’m tryin’ a keep us safe as I can. Malvina?”

  No answer. From the set of her mouth it’s obvious she’s done talking. She sits as still as can be, like a carved mermaid on the bow of a boat. A skinny black mermaid with electric hair, and salty tears dripping from her chin.

  Mr. Tru paddles us out into the harsh sunlight of the afternoon, resuming the quest for dry land and a safe place to stay. “Zane Dupree? Guess you figured out by now, you dint get rescued by no Red Cross!”

  This one time on my birthday, the year we got Bandit, I’m fooling around with the new puppy and my mom gets this funny look. She goes, “That is so weird. I just heard your dad,” and I say something stupid back, like there’s no such thing as ghosts, and she goes, “It wasn’t a ghost, Zaney, it was the way you laughed.”

  That’s when she told me the story of how she met my father. She was in the Air Force and had to go to this promotion party for someone she barely knew, and she was trying to figure out how to leave without being impolite when she heard this dude laughing in another room. Had no idea who he was, but something about the way he laughed made her want to see what he looked like. So she excused herself and went and saw my dad yucking it up with a couple of his friends. “We looked at each other and we knew, from that very first moment,” she said. “The funny thing? Your father was a really serious guy. He didn’t laugh all that much, okay? But he did that night.”

  “And the rest is history,” I said, smart-mouthing her.

  But she got me back by saying, “You know what? That’s something your father would have said.”

  Which basically left me speechless. I mean, what do you say to that? It’s not like I hate my father or anything. You can’t hate someone you never knew, even if he did something stupid like get himself run over by some old gumby before you were born. But it’s weird knowing part of me comes from a dead man who grew up here in New Orleans. A dead man who was once exactly my age, and who looked at this place through eyes not much different from my own. Except that he wasn’t a stranger here. He had family and history in New Orleans, he had a brother that died here. This was his home till he ran away for whatever reason. My fathe
r must have known these neighborhoods like I know my neighborhoods back in New Hampshire. He probably rode his bike down this very street, except it wasn’t underwater then, and old people hadn’t been left behind to drown or die in the awful, stifling heat.

  Anyhow, for some reason that’s what I’m thinking as we glide along, paddling straight into the hard, sun-blasted shine of dirty water, and the sky smeared with smoke. What would my father make of all this? Would he understand it better than me? Because, to be truthful, I don’t really get what happened back at the cookout, or if Dylan Toomey is really as fearsome as he looks, or if we really needed to run away. But I do understand one thing. Something powerful is happening, even if I can’t quite see it. Something bigger than the storm, bigger than the ruined city, something awesome and terrible, rising up from destruction.

  I’ve got this awful feeling the bad stuff isn’t over.

  Along in the late afternoon we come upon a different neighborhood, where the houses are a little bigger and farther apart, and the dirty mark left by the flood never comes much over the front steps. The water isn’t but a foot deep, barely enough to float the canoe, and when we start scraping bottom Mr. Tru gets out and tows the canoe up behind some bushes.

  Me and Malvina and Bandy scramble out of the canoe, onto the soggy ground.

  “Best we stretch our legs,” Tru says. “And I bet that dog needs to do his business.”

  Which he does, with a grateful look.

  “Good boy, Bandy.”

  “Keep hold his collar,” Mr. Tru advises. “Don’t want him runnin’ off wit no pack a wild dogs.”

  “Bandy’d never do that.”

  “Call of the wild,” he says, cocking an ear. “Hard to resist.”

  Off in the distance dogs are barking, and they do sound wild and probably vicious. So when Malvina hands me a little coil of yellow rope from the canoe, I tie it to Bandy’s collar and wrap the end around my wrist. Better safe than sorry. And it’s not like he’s never run away.

  The patch of grass we’re standing on leaks water with every step, like the whole city, even the dry part, has become one big sponge. Heat rises from the damp ground, a heat that steams you to the bone. And to make it even more miserable, swarms of mosquitoes feast on us.

  Malvina, swatting at them, goes, “You know why these bugs are like the Red Cross? ’Cause they want us to donate blood,” and grins at her own joke.

  “Don’t tell me about no Red Cross,” Mr. Tru responds, frowning. “They gone. Evacuated and left us to our troubles.”

  He swats at the mosquitoes with his top hat, eyes all squinted up behind his clunky black-framed glasses. We’re on dry ground, more or less, like he promised, but he doesn’t look all that happy about it. “Got to be careful hereabouts,” he says uneasily. “This a place don’t take kindly to strangers.”

  “Looks like everyone got away,” I observe, glancing at the boarded-up doors and windows of the big, stately homes.

  “Maybe so,” Mr. Tru says. “Or maybe they hidin’.”

  “What we do?” Malvina wants to know.

  He shrugs wearily. “Knock on doors and hope for the best,” he says.

  We don’t actually knock on doors because Mr. Tru is worried about what he calls “possible booby traps.” So he calls out to each house from the street, “Anybody home? Can we get some help?!”

  It’s pretty obvious that Mr. Tru doesn’t feel comfortable in this neighborhood, or for that matter begging for help from strangers who won’t show their faces. So he stands in the street, a respectful distance from each house, cupping his hands to his mouth and calling out. When no one responds we move on. House after house. Greeted by silence, and sheets of plywood nailed over windows like closed eyelids, blind to everything.

  Sometimes we hear motors running from behind the houses. Generators. That means people, right? But none are willing to show themselves, not to us. It’s a lonely feeling, thinking that some of the owners might be in there, hiding behind the plywood. Not that we know for sure, although Bandy barks at certain houses, as if he can sense life within. More than once I see something flit in the shadows behind the shutters, as if a person moved out of the light, away from our sight.

  “Folks scared,” Mr. Tru mutters under his breath, like he’s trying to convince himself. “Why else they ignore us? A man and two child, presenting no threat to none of them?”

  Some places, if you ignore the torn-up shrubbery scattered around like dirty confetti, and a few trees leaning over to touch the soggy ground, you wouldn’t know there’d been a hurricane or a flood. The houses in this part of the city are mostly untouched. Big sturdy homes built on higher ground, with maybe some leaves clotted into the intricate trim of front porches, like spinach stuck in their front teeth.

  We’re most of the way down the block, and the houses keep getting bigger and grander and more closed up, some with steel hurricane shutters pulled down like shades, when Bandy stops in his tracks and starts growling deep in his throat.

  “What he sense?” Mr. Tru wants to know.

  A moment later we humans hear it, too. The low thrum of an approaching helicopter. I expect to see a flash of orange and white from the Coast Guard, but that’s not what passes overhead, blasting hot wind from above. This helicopter is smaller, darker, unmarked. After it slips over the horizon we hear the engines throttle down, the whine of the blades quickly subsiding.

  I don’t know much about helicopters, but it sure sounds like it landed somewhere in the neighborhood.

  “Might be they come to save us!” Malvina suggests.

  “Might be,” says Mr. Tru doubtfully.

  Malvina starts to run off in the direction of the helicopter and Mr. Tru hollers at her to hold up. She turns back, looking hurt at the sound of his raised voice.

  “Mercy, child,” he says, much softer. “Can’t keep up wit you runnin’ like that.”

  He’s been limping pretty bad since we got out of the canoe, wincing with every step. Whatever he did to his ankle or foot, it appears to be getting worse. Not that he’ll talk about it, except to say it ain’t nothing to worry about.

  Malvina takes his hand, and for a moment she looks younger than she is. “I gone stay close by you,” she promises.

  He takes a deep breath. “We check on this, if nothin’ come of it we get back to the canoe, find us a safe place to shelter, dry or not. That the plan.”

  “That a good plan, Tru.”

  He grins and shakes his head. “You got me all confused, dawlin’, being so agreeable.” He turns to me. “Zane Dupree, you keep hold of that dog. Some folks round here will shoot a stray dog, they see it off the leash.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  So we keep together. Mr. Tru limping and not wanting any help, not even a shoulder to lean on. The girl with the wild hair holding his hand, and me with my dog on a leash of borrowed rope. All of us simmering in the unbearable heat, tormented by endless mosquitoes, and desperate for a helping hand.

  Doesn’t make sense that no one is willing to help us. Folks were helping survivors get out of Grammy’s drowned neighborhood, like me and Bandy got rescued from the attic, okay? Why not here, where the storm barely did any damage? Is there something about big houses with fancy trim that makes people hide from those in need?

  In the distance we hear sharp, echoing bangs that could be gunshots. Malvina shrinks against Mr. Tru, and he groans as the weight comes down on his foot. “Pay no heed,” he says, as more shots go off like muffled firecrackers. “Long ways gone. None to do wit us.”

  We trudge along, Bandy tugging eagerly and me holding him back. Fearful of those gunshots, if they are gunshots. But what else makes that noise? So what are they shooting, out there in broad daylight? Maybe firing to signal they need help?

  “Best not to dwell on,” Mr. Tru says.

  Maybe Malvina has it right, maybe the helicopter has come to rescue us. It’s not like we need so much. Shelter from the sun, water to drink, and a phone to call my mot
her. Oh, and a doctor to fix Mr. Tru’s foot.

  Truth is, right now I’ll settle for the phone. This may sound kind of weak, but I miss my mom something awful.

  “We gone far enough,” he says, heaving a sigh. “Time to turn back.”

  Malvina drops his hand and skitters ahead, trying to see around a pile of thick-leaved branches that have been piled in the middle of the street like a green barricade. “There it is!” she exclaims. “Come on, Tru, lean on me, we almost there!”

  I pull down a branch and take a look. At first I’m not really sure what I’m seeing. Because the way the helicopter shines in the fierce sunlight, it might be a giant insect. A glittering dragonfly perched in the garden next to a white, three-story house. A house so big it has tall columns holding up the roof. A mansion, like you see on TV. On one side of the mansion are enormous, moss-covered trees, untouched by the storm, and on the other a wide lush garden that has been flattened either by Katrina or the downdraft from the helicopter itself.

  The blades of the helicopter are still turning and the elegant machine whines like a dog begging to be let off its leash. Me and Malvina want to run into the garden, see if they have room on the helicopter, but Mr. Tru holds us back. And a good thing, too, because a moment later men swarm from the house. Men in matching green polo shirts and baggy camo pants. Men wearing mirrored sunglasses and carrying shotguns.

  The guns swing in our direction, until all you can see is the black holes at the end of the long barrels.

  “Hands up! Down on your knees! Now!”

  Have you ever tried raising your hands and dropping to your knees at the same time? Not the easiest thing to do in the world, and Mr. Tru has the most trouble getting down. He’s trying to lower himself without hurting his foot when one of the shotgun men plants a shiny black combat boot on his chest and shoves him to the ground.

  “You leave him alone!” screams Malvina, launching herself at the man with the boots.

  He peels her off the way you’d flick at a bothersome bug, and hands her to me. I can feel her heart slamming in her chest, and the tightness of her anger.