Another Kind Of Hurricane Part 3

Im stealing, he thought.

"Lets go," said Papa.

"Wait-"

We need to pay for these. But theres no one here.

"Now," said Papa.

Zavions thoughts raced. His leg pulsed. His head spun.

Were stealing.

Were surviving.

Were stealing.

Papa walked back toward the broken window. Zavion reached into his pocket and pulled out the two s.h.i.+ngles from his roof. The only things he had left in the world. He put them on the checkout counter. A sort of IOU. A record that he had been there and had taken something. A promise that he would be back.

chapter 8.

HENRY.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Henry woke with a stiff neck and no memory of how he had ended up on the floor. He sat and turned his head from one side to the other. Mount Mansfield glowed in the moonlight and Henry locked eyes with its eyes. His gaze traveled to its forehead, nose, and chin. In his groggy state, the famous face in the mountain looked real.

"Wayne will kick your b.u.t.t," he said.

Wayne would tackle the mountain to the ground, rip it from the earth, and fling it into s.p.a.ce.

But that wasnt going to happen.

Wayne was gone. And the mountain was here to stay.

Henry staggered to his feet. He slid his blue jeans off his tired body and chucked them onto the floor. He made his way to the bed and collapsed. Brae lumbered to his feet and lay down next to the bed. Henry reached his hand down and put it on Braes belly and felt his muscles vibrate with each breath. But Henrys own body felt still.

Like a corpse.

chapter 9.

ZAVION.

"Have you tried to go inside?" Papa asked a man standing outside the door to the convention center. He and Zavion couldnt find the man and woman and grandmama to give them some of the chocolate bars.

"No," the man said.

"We shouldnt go in there," said a woman standing next to him. She shook her head and Zavion saw them again. Fear footprints. All across her face.

"Someone saw a boy carrying a knife," she said. She pointed to Zavion. "A boy his age."

"Someone saw a man with his throat slit open. His pockets turned inside out," said the man. "Its the end of the world in there."

"I dont believe it," said Papa. "That firefighter told us to come here. We need to get inside. Its the middle of the night. We have to sleep."

The convention center was overflowing with people. It was hard to walk forward even a few feet. Papa pushed his way farther into the lobby. "Its less crowded just up there," he said over his shoulder. Zavion walked behind him, the sweet taste of stolen chocolate stuck on his tongue. His leg pulsed with a dull ache. His head did too. He just wanted to lie down.

Papa stopped abruptly. He was silent for a moment.

"Sweet Jesus," Zavion heard him whisper under his breath.

"Cover the kids eyes," said someone in front of Papa.

But it was too late. A woman sat in a wheelchair, slumped forward. A dead woman. Zavion had only ever seen Mamas body, after she died, still and quiet and laid out flat. This body was different. It was puffy. Bent into a strange shape. Like a puppet from a Mardi Gras parade. Zavion hadnt ever seen a body like this, but he knew it was dead.

"No kid should see this," someone else said.

But it didnt matter what he saw. He couldnt escape the smell. The smell of urine. Of sweat. Of death.

Papa turned around then. He pulled Zavion away from the convention center. Away from the boy with the knife. Away from the man with the slit throat. Away from the dead Mardi Gras body. He pulled Zavion away from the parking lot where the man on the pallet tossed and writhed and screamed out in his sleep, away from the man and the woman and the grandmama who hummed "This Little Light of Mine." A gunshot rang out. Papa pulled and pulled Zavion away from it all, but fear stretched its body long and taut. It followed them. Stepped on their heels.

They walked until they came to the Crescent City Connection Bridge. A soldier, maybe a National Guardsman, turned them around. Told them they couldnt cross the bridge unless they were in a car, and he pointed a gun at them when he said it. So they walked up and down side streets until they found an abandoned car. Papa got in the drivers side and opened the door across from him.

"Survival," he said firmly. Just like he could read Zavions mind. "Get in."

Survival?

Or stealing?

Zavion couldnt tell the difference anymore.

No, that wasnt exactly true. He could tell the difference, but he couldnt make a choice based on the difference. He was so tired.

And then Papa said, "That soldier had a good idea. To find a car. This is a good place to rest. Sleep, son."

Papa locked the car doors and closed his eyes. Zavion closed his eyes too. But fear kept him awake. It padded its small, cold feet up and down his back all night long.

chapter 10.

HENRY.

Henry woke up sweating and shaking and-wet. The side of his face was wet. Wet, then cold, then wet again, then cold again. When he was finally able to focus his eyes, he saw that Brae was licking his cheek.

He had been dreaming about Wayne.

- Henry ran back up the trail. Brae bounded ahead of him a few hundred yards. Henry tried to keep up, but he couldnt. He tripped on a root and fell on his hands again. The sting vibrated like before, only this time it traveled all the way up his arms, into his chest, his neck, his head. He got up, and stumbled again on a muddy rock face. He slammed his elbow and knee hard.

Brae ran back to Henry and licked his cheek and whined a low, throaty sound into his ear. Henry scrambled up and ran and ran and ran. How far back up the mountain was Wayne?

The trail turned right and a rock wall loomed in its path. Brae sat under it, leaned his head back, and howled like he was trying to set the sun and raise the moon all at once. The sound pierced the sky, and Henry thought the rock wall would crack in two. Brae closed his mouth, took a few steps back, and ran at the wall. He jumped. His front legs reached the top of the rock and his hind legs bicycled in the air until he got a foothold. Henry climbed up after him.

The trail turned left and opened into treetops and exposed rock. The fog had settled down thick, and Henry couldnt see far ahead. When had the fog come? Brae disappeared and reappeared, like a magic trick, as he ran up the trail, then doubled back to check on Henry. Brae here, Brae gone, Brae here, Brae gone. But the fog remained, like Henrys fear, heavy and gray and everywhere.

Brae stopped. He inched over to the edge of the rock. He whimpered. Henrys feet slowed down. His heart sped up. Oh c.r.a.p. Oh c.r.a.p, c.r.a.p, c.r.a.p. Had Wayne fallen over the edge of the rock? They had peered over that rock ledge a million times before. It was a sharp drop and there was rock at the bottom, but it wasnt very far down. Henry knelt, his hands still stinging, and crawled up to the edge. The fog followed him.

Wayne.

Henrys heartbeat sped up again and thumped out his best friends name.

Wayne. Wayne Wayne. Wayne Wayne Wayne Wayne Wayne.

- Brae whined and pushed his cold nose under Henrys hand. Had Henry just said Waynes name out loud? Henry sat up in bed and swung his feet to the floor. The wood was freezing, and he buried his toes into the thick fur on Braes warm back.

"You up?" Moms voice came from the kitchen.

"Yeah!" Henry yelled back. He slid his feet onto either side of Brae and sat like he was on a black and white horse. Brae was that big. When people asked Henry what breed he was, he always said part Border collie, part Holstein cow.

A knock at the door. "Henry," came Moms voice. Jeez, hadnt she heard him? She walked in.

"How many times are you just gonna walk into my room without asking me?"

"How did you sleep?" Mom tried to brush Henrys hair from his face, but he pushed her hand away.

"Like c.r.a.p."

"Me too. I kept thinking about all those families in that hurricane. Can you imagine? Your house floating in tiny pieces down the street? You floating down the street with it? Can you imagine if that were you, Henry?"

What if Henry had lost his home and was rowing a boat that used to be his dresser drawer? What if he was careening down a river that used to be his street? He didnt want to play a dumb What If game with Mom. He had enough of his own What Ifs to keep him busy. What if Henry and Wayne had stayed home that night? What if they hadnt raced? What if he had been able to save Wayne?

"What if that was me in the hurricane?" said Henry. He put his hands on Braes head and pulled his ears. "Id ride Brae like he was a dolphin until I hit dry land," he said, jumping up from the bed and pus.h.i.+ng past Mom. "I gotta get ready for school."

chapter 11.

ZAVION.

In the morning, Papa and Zavion walked back toward the Crescent City Connection Bridge.

"I wish there had been keys in that car," said Papa.

"You wanted to steal it?" Zavion asked. "We havent repaid the store for the chocolate bars, and you wanted to steal a car?" He rubbed his eyes hard, hoping when he opened them again that he would blink a few times and find himself home in his bed.

"Wed have borrowed it, Zav," said Papa as he lifted his hand to flag down a van. But it drove by them. "If the keys had been in the console, I would have taken it as a sign."

A sign that Zavion wasnt home in bed.

Borrowing, surviving-Papa had all these words for it, but it was still stealing.

The early sun burned the fog off the river and out of Zavions gut. Survival sizzled and popped and disappeared, and stealing remained in the bright light.

Zavion had argued this point with Papa plenty of times before. Papa would grab a paint can out from in front of someones house without asking and not feel one ounce of worry that the person might not be finished with it. It drove Zavion crazy. How could he be absolutely sure? It was only a few weeks into the school year and Zavion had already asked his teacher twice if thinking about looking at someones paper was the same as looking at it. His teacher had said no, but it still left Zavion feeling unsettled, knowing that he had the potential to look because he had an idea of it in his brain.

A pickup truck pulled up next to them. A man leaned across the seat toward the open window on the pa.s.senger side. He wore a New Orleans Saints baseball hat. "Need a ride?" he asked.