Isaac

The black cat that lives under my stairs was out in the open, taking a shit next to a banana leaf shaking behind a fern. I should have known. If I had been religious then, I’d say the oval shroud looked like Mary, but the Mothers' time had yet to come. Isaac loomed.

At around eight p.m. the dogs started barking. The TV was absolute, full of dire prediction. Cats and dogs, they said. I was on the porch, and the fantastic cruelty of that hovering  was as of yet unknown.

Deciding I needed supplies, I walked over to Walgreens and bought a few lighters, a candle, some cigarettes and two Gatorades. As I waited in the checkout line, I caught a blurb from a TV reporter on CNN: “Widespread devastation possible in New Orleans.”

I better get home fast, I thought, and took a shortcut—through the hood, to see the deserted shotguns. To my surprise, people were everywhere. I passed a large black woman sitting on her porch and nodded solemnly, but she just looked at me—sort of confused. And I walked away

into the yellowing night with that unsettled countenance on my back. Then a man who was leaning against the wall called me a faggot, but I'd seen him around. He was an alcoholic. I realized, anyways, what they were saying to me was: “Be. Strong.”

Noticing the gusts of wind beginning to ruffle the trees, but emboldened by the suicidal bravery I saw in the children running around me, I hustled home, got on my computer, and turned on the TV. Then my heart sank. Apparently what was happening in the media world was far more important than what was actually happening outside.

Aided by the self-assurance of nearly 200,000 likes on Facebook and guided by the cyclic nature of national news coverage, Isaac was no longer a just a soon-to-be Category 1 hurricane packing high winds and a 10-foot storm surge—Isaac was now viral. “Possible widespread devastation” was now a communicable disease.

I was fucked.

I closed my laptop, turned off the TV, and sat on the couch to listen to the building wind and weigh my options. Evacuation would be pointless, I realized; I was already a willing participant, having posted “#Hurrication! J” on my wall that morning. How could I have been so god damned foolish, I wondered. Everyone was doing it though. 

So I sat there and thought. Smoked a pack of cigarettes and gathered by roommates mattresses to prop against the downstairs windows. And all else was silent. The power would likely be going out soon, so I retrieved my laptop and turned on the TV for some word from the outside world. It was bad: 215,000 “likes” at Isaac's back and a more defined center. The wind roared and receded, pulling and pushing the glass. A beam of dusty yellow light slipped past the edge of the mattress, extending through the hallway and sitting on the dirty kitchen floor. And there, a few cockroaches who had decided to ‘hunker down’ with me were belly-up on the floor. Suicide. Had it really come to that? Definitely.

Fated for disaster like the city I had come to love, if for only a while, and with the hopes of having my own children dashed, I threw the mattresses off the windows and embraced the storm. It was still pretty sunny out—but still, so eerie.

I took a moment to ‘like’ Isaac on Facebook (all of my friends and mom had) and started digging a small hole in the backyard to hold my remains. Which brings us to this moment.

5 p.m., Tuesday, August 28th. It’s raining. I am making final preparations for death. The bland, sordid atmosphere around me is fittingly divorced from that lonely wisp of air in the Gulf. Isaac churning toward me. Isaac—who I’d gladly shared with multiple friends—would now cover my bones.

I extend a grim wave to a neighbor—he’s new to the block, nice guy—sitting on his back porch. He watches sadly as I climb into my hole, fold my hands over my chest and shut my eyes. Then it occurs to me: I have no relationship with God—or my mother—and I might as well extend a hand. Now or never, as they say. After a quick prayer and a glance to the rotating clouds, I walk back inside and return with my laptop, lowering it with me into the shallow earth. Then bang out one last status, something encompassing, something that will remain after everything has been swept away:

“Hurrication!”