category five

dinner was almost ready and the table was set. in the new house the den and the dining room were in the same open space, so as she carted food from the kitchen to the table she could see her father watching the news and drinking jack daniels, his right ankle resting on his left knee like a cocked bow. there were noises from the kitchen like oven doors opening and the smack of the refrigerator door as it closed. her nieces had just been over with her older sister and had left a trail of books that talked and naked barbies and crushed cheerios. this was her favorite time of day, this ebb. it had a color to her- the deep brown of the leather couch, the deep brown of the books and the bookshelves and the wood of the floors. it was a quiet color, it was a satisfying color, a color that means your stomach is about to be full and you can curl up on any number of warm surfaces and stay there for as long as you would like because your day is over and there is nothing left to do but that. the windows were open for the first time that summer and the sturdy whrrrl of the air conditioning was replaced with the birds outside, with childrens voices on the street, with cars starting and people coming home from work. it wasnt hot, though before the sun began to set it had been unbearable at times during the day. it wasnt hot but it was thick and she liked that, the weight of the air on her, reminding her that she was back in the south, that she was back home.

her father was watching the news and with each trip from the kitchen she noticed his face getting increasingly layered, like someone was slowly stepping on his foot or twisting his arm and it was growing more and more unpleasant. there had been a hurricane a few days before, it hadnt affected them except for a storm during the night that made the power flicker, but it had been a bad one, a category five, and all she knew was that new orleans was practically submerged in water. she hadnt been watching the news at all since she had been home, preferring to sleep and read and detach herself completely from what she felt was a dependence on entertainment produced for the masses. but by overhearing the news anchor and by seeing the concern on her fathers face she was beginning to understand it was much much worse than she had originally thought.

she sat on the couch beside her father and asked what was happening and, in his typical response, he said nothing. whether it was the trauma of fighting in vietnam or his old age or some other less grave reason, he often did not respond to people's questions and had to be asked multiple times. this had been happening her entire life and thus she had always assumed it was the residual effect of having shot people, of having been shot, of having watched life end over and over and over for reasons beyond his ability to understand. he never talked about it.

she watched the news with him. there were images of utter devastation- water up to people's waists, entire communities reduced to piles of wood, like matchsticks, tiny shards of what once were people's lives. there were fires raging caused by chemicals and electrical explosions. people were looting stores because there was no potable water anywhere in the city, no food for sale anywhere and no food left in anyones houses since most houses were completely annihilated. people started shooting each other, shooting strangers, walking into hospitals and shooting patients. hospitals had no power, nurses were watching patients die because they simply could not keep performing mouth to mouth forever. people were stranded on their roofs, with nothing, waiting for someone to come and lift them away. they were stranded on their roofs with nothing and no means of communication except for desparate pleas of SOS carved into the shingles. there were tens of thousands of people being housed in a convention center with no resources, no help. people were shitting on the floors, people were dying and being covered by shoddy blankets and newspaper, their dead bodies pushed to corners. gravesites were loosening and coffins were floating to the surface; the entire city smelled of death. peoples houses flooded and they tried to claw their way through the roof, out the walls, using whatever they could grab. mothers had to let go of children and watch them literally drown, helpless. husbands were missing wives, with no idea of where they were or how they would ever be reunited again. the images made her stomach sick. her mother had wandered in from the kitchen, her apron still on, and had mumbled dinner was ready before being silenced by the newscaster's endless torrent of tragedy after tragedy. as the broadcast was ending they played "amazing grace" sung by a man who was from new orleans, and showed image after image of the displaced people, the ones who were so poor that many lived with their entire extended families, many had no cars and therefore couldnt leave at all, even if there was another place they could go.

a commercial came on and the three of them stayed in their positions: she and her father on the couch, her mother leaning against it, her apron now balled up in her hand.

"dinner," she said quietly and slowly they walked toward the table and took their assumed seats.

they held hands and bowed their heads like they do before every meal and waited for him to say the prayer but he didnt say anything. they waited, hands holding, the food on the table steaming hot and smelling of beef and butter and garlic and bread. still, he said nothing and still they kept their heads lowered. she had never seen her father cry and she was terrified, paralyzed with fear, that if she opened her eyes she would see his face twisted, she would see tears on his face. she kept her eyes closed and waited.

he sniffed and she knew. as soon as he sniffed it was obvious that he was crying, that his whole body was clutched by the sobs he was refusing to allow out.

her mother immediately said "thank you god" and they each gave each other's hand a tiny squeeze as they do every time they pray, wiped their eyes and began serving themselves.