Another Kind Of Hurricane Part 9

Zavion knew it was wishful thinking, thinking if he could just pay back the money for the chocolate bars he could make the whole hurricane mess go away. But he still felt like he had to try.

Zavion found Papa in the living room hunched over a tiny canvas.

A tiny square slate roof s.h.i.+ngle, actually.

The kind Zavion had given as an IOU at Luna Market. More s.h.i.+ngles were scattered all over the table.

Zavion had overheard Tavius and Enzo offering them to Skeet and Papa.

"We figured Skeet could use them for some art project, so we collected them as we walked," said Tavius.

"You should have seen us. Waterlogged and weighed down with these s.h.i.+ngles in our pockets," said Enzo.

"It gave us something to focus on," said Tavius.

"You should use them too," said Enzo to Papa. "Make lemonade out of lemons."

"Make slate-ade out of slate," said Tavius.

Zavion had watched as Papa picked up a piece of slate and turned it slowly in his hands.

Now he was painting on one.

"Whats up, Zav?"

Zavion knew for a fact that if mothers had eyes in the back of their heads, fathers had them on top of theirs. How many times had Papa been bent over a mural sketch working but still knew that he had entered the room?

It wasnt Mamas soft-eyed stare and bear-hug combination, but it was still comforting. Most of the time. Not today, though. But that wasnt Papas fault. Zavion was on a specific, scary mission today.

Zavion sat down across from Papa. His short hair was grayer than Zavion could remember seeing before. Papas hair was often all different colors-he had a habit of rubbing his fingers into his scalp while he was painting-but this gray was not paint.

Zavion breathed in the familiar smell of acrylic mixed with hair relaxer and cedar deodorant. It was the only familiar thing his body had experienced since they left their house to slog through the water, and it made him suddenly and forcefully sad.

"What are you painting, Papa?" he asked.

He was stalling for time before he asked his question. The question that could only have one answer.

"Tiny landscapes."

"You never paint tiny."

"True."

"Youve only ever painted one landscape."

"True too."

Papas paintings were of Mardi Gras and musicians and fis.h.i.+ng for shrimp and oysters and catfish. They were huge too. He usually painted right across a whole wall.

"Sometimes the world tells you to do something new." Hearing that made Zavions sadness break apart like fireworks. Maybe this wouldnt be so hard. Maybe Papa was ready for something different. "I woke up with this mighty strong urge to paint some very small landscapes," continued Papa. He picked up a slate s.h.i.+ngle that was drying next to him. "The slate makes the colors pop," he said. "And it feels good to hold this tree in my hands." He opened his fingers so the s.h.i.+ngle balanced in the middle of his palm. "Its in one piece. I can see the whole thing."

The tree was from the Appalachian spruce-fir forest.

"A red spruce?" Zavion asked, but he was sure he was right. Its green needle-tipped branches reached to the very edges of the s.h.i.+ngle, and the sky around it was a tropical blue, almost like the sea, but quieter and flat, no brushstrokes to indicate waves. "Mamas tree?"

Papa nodded.

It was the tree at the top of the mural that Papa had painted in Zavions room. The tree that stood on top of Grandmother Mountain, where Mama had grown up. It wasnt actually there-the University of North Carolina Public Television broadcasting tower was on top of the real Grandmother Mountain-but Papa had given Mama a red spruce on theirs.

Zavion wanted to climb the tree, jump from the ground to its lowest branch and climb all the way to the top, all the way to the still, silent sky.

"I like it," he said.

He had to do it.

He had to ask Papa now.

"Speaking of the world telling you to do something new-" he began.

"Yes?" said Papa, placing the red spruce tree down again and picking up his paintbrush.

Zavion picked up his own dry paintbrush and pushed it along the wooden table, tracing the shape of a mountain, as if a picture would speak to Papa better than words.

"We need to go to Mamas mountain."

"Weve had this discussion."

That didnt sound like a promising beginning. Maybe a picture really would be better. Zavion was going to have to be clearer.

"No, we havent had a discussion about this. Weve had a mention of it."

"A mention?"

"Yes, I mentioned it and you made fun of me, and then you left the kitchen."

Papa dipped his paintbrush in water and wiped it dry with a rag. He squeezed a dot of orange paint onto the corner of the slate. "Why dont you go for a run, Zavion? Wouldnt that feel good?"

Zavion couldnt imagine running. He was exhausted. Trying not to think about...before...was exhausting.

"Lets go to Mamas mountain," he tried again.

"I dont know why you are so obsessed with this mountain idea."

Zavion stuck his paintbrush in the orange paint on Papas slate and grabbed a slate of his own. "Ask me." He painted the top.

Papa opened the pink paint and squeezed it next to the orange. "Why do you want to go to that mountain, then?"

Zavion dipped his paintbrush in the pink and added it to the edge of the orange. He unscrewed the red paint and stuck the tip of his paintbrush in the top. He blurred it into the edge of the pink. He tried to remember the shape of the mural in his room and drew the jagged edge of a mountain and filled around it with red paint.

Before came flooding in.

Except for Papa, everything he had known his whole life was gone. The big oak tree and its shade and the brick walkway leading up to his house. Gone. The house. Gone. Everything inside the house. Gone. And the one last thing that had reminded him of Mama. Gone.

All of them swept away in the hurricane.

And before that-Mama herself. She was gone too.

After Mama died, Zavion spent every waking moment searching for a way to feel like he wouldnt just float away. And after the moments turned to days, and the days turned to weeks, and the weeks to months-seven months, to be exact-he had found it. It was in the pathway from the bathroom through the art studio across the hall and into his bedroom, the long way to his room after he brushed his teeth, but he walked it the same way each night. It was on the slices of bread he laid out every morning, between the peanut b.u.t.ter and the honey, tucked tight into the wax paper bag he placed in the backpack he took to school. It was tied in the laces of his lucky running sneakers. It was on the thin rim of the molding over the archway between the kitchen and the living room he jumped to touch every time he pa.s.sed through. And it was embedded in the gray rocks that sat across the edge of his windowsill, each of them with a white crystal line running through the middle-rocks he had found by the river, made wishes on, and placed on his sill to come true-all these routines and rituals designed and practiced and perfected in order to feel like his feet were firmly on the ground.

And always, always, Grandmother Mountain standing guard over Zavion as he slept each night and woke each morning to begin his maze of a day once again.

That mountain-Mamas mountain- And now everything from his room, his home, his life, was- maybe- maybe not- probably- surely- completely- gone.

Zavion put down his paintbrush and held the white mountain-rising up inside the blazing sunset-in his hand.

"Because sometimes the world tells you to do something new," he said.

chapter 20.

HENRY.

"Please, Jake."

Henry watched Jake close the door to the trailer on the eighteen-wheeler. He was doing a last check of the truck before he headed out of town.

"Please let me come with you."

"I dont know, Henry." He opened the drivers side door of the cab and climbed in. He turned the headlights on, then turned them off. He turned the winds.h.i.+eld wipers on, then turned them off.

Henry put his hand on the giant cab door and looked up at Jake.

"I need to get out of here," he said.

Jake started the truck. It rumbled to life. Henry felt its vibration through the metal. A buzzing feeling in his hand.

"Jake-" he said.

Jake was testing the gears.

"Jake-" he said louder.

Nothing.

"Jake!" he yelled above the engine roar.

Jake turned his head. He cut the engine. Henrys heart was racing from raising his voice. "I need-" Henry began. But he didnt know what to say. He looked past Jake, out through the pa.s.senger window to Mount Mansfield. "I want-" he tried again.

Jake jumped down from the cab. He began inspecting the front tire, running his hand along its tread.

"The red-breasted goose in the Siberian tundra is vulnerable to arctic fox attacks," Henry said all of a sudden. "The foxes are always hungry. Theyll eat the geese in an instant. If the geese build their nests alone, the foxes eat their eggs and chicks too. Like that-" Henry snapped his fingers. "But they dont make their nests alone. They wait until the peregrine falcons build their nests, and then the geese build theirs around them. The peregrine falcons fight off the arctic fox." Henry paused.

Jake stared at him, listening intently.

"The peregrine falcon is small but fierce," finished Henry.

"National Geographic special?"

"PBS."

"Cool birds. I can always count on you to find the cool animals."

Henry looked Jake right in the eyes. "I want to be a peregrine falcon, Jake." He glanced out the cab window again. The edges of Mount Mansfield glimmered under the sun. He looked back at Jake. "I can help in New Orleans."

Jake leaned against the truck. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"It isnt going to be easy there."

"I know."

"It isnt going to be pretty."

"I know."

"Have you seen it on TV? Its...pure survival," said Jake. "Nothing pretty about it."

"Nothing pretty about here," said Henry, glancing back at the stupid hulking mountain one more time.

Jake nodded slowly. He pressed his lips together and took in a deep breath through his nose. "Nope," he finally said. "Youre right about that." He turned and looked at Henry. "I gotta go. I cant explain it, but I need to be in the middle of that city. I need to be right there in the middle of that hurricane-torn place, like maybe it will stop my own spinning-" He laughed. It was a sad, small sound. "Im a nut, is all."

"Youre a peregrine falcon," said Henry. "Me too." He held his breath, the air inside him filled with hope.

"Okay, bird boy," said Jake. "Ill take you with me. If your mother says its okay."

Henry blew the air out of his body. And the hope that he had held spun and curled into the wind and headed south, which happened to be the way the wind was traveling.