Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Richard A. Webster

The first body I saw was in Gentilly.
Someone spray-painted an arrow on a nearby wall pointing to the left. Above the arrow they wrote in large block letters, "Body Here."
I didn't see him at first. Mud and debris covered the streets. Everything was brown and misshapen.
I pulled my car to the opposite side of the road and parked. I didn't immediately get out. I sat in the desolation and devastation of what was once Gentilly and listened to the sound of my breathing.
There were no birds or dogs or cats. There were no wandering bums or even a slight breeze to indicate that this was all real, that this was where man once roamed.
I felt a drop of sweat slide down my forehead. I let it slip into my eye and burn, if only to feel something.
It was two weeks after the storm. Clean-up efforts wouldn't commence for another month or two.
I moved my eyes slowly across the scene—the smashed windows, shattered doors and stillborn black puddles of water eating up half of the sidewalk.
A small mound of dirt with a tree branch extending out of the middle clogged a nearby storm drain.
But no sign of "Body Here."
A few days ago I was in a hotel next to the Houston Astrodome where I spent a week interviewing evacuees. At night I'd return to the seclusion of my hotel room and drink myself into a coma while watching the 24-hour cable news coverage of what was happening in New Orleans.
With all the correspondents and cameras and politicians and masses crowded outside the Convention Center and Superdome, New Orleans seemed like a hive of constant activity. Through the lens of CNN it appeared as if the streets were clogged with troops and cops and shell-shocked residents eager to tell their stories.
But not here, not in Gentilly.
I got out of my car and stood in the middle of the street--the last man on earth, completely alone except for the stench of something rotting. I didn't try to place the smell because I had no reference.
All I knew is that it was everywhere and soaked my t-shirt and shorts.
I reached into the backseat of my car and snapped a beer out of the six-pack. I popped the top and took a swig. The warm liquid filled my mouth and for a moment a soothing sensation calmed my jangled nerves. But just as quickly, my muscles seized and my gagging reflex took hold. I lurched forward and the beer shot out of my throat. It tasted like that smell.
I bent over, hands on knees, and struggled to catch my breath.
But every new wave of oxygen I sucked into my lungs tasted like the beer, that smell, and my throat closed causing me to choke on my own tongue.
I dropped to the ground next to the dirt mound with the branch sticking out of it, clogging the storm drain.
"What the fuck?" I gasped like an asthmatic.
That smell, it filled my throat like tar.
I rolled to my left and placed a hand on the dirt mound to brace myself, for leverage, in an attempt to stand.
Ok Rich. This is just in your head. You've been off the ranch for two straight weeks, drinking like you've been on a death-kick. It's natural to collapse every once in awhile. It's just your body telling you that you've pushed it to its limits. Add to that this incredible stench and all the makings of unconsciousness are present.
But you're stronger than this. So get yourself right and stand the fuck up.
My fingers tensed. I laid all my weight into the dirt mound and managed to stumble to an upright position.
Good. Now straighten your back.
The blood rushed to my head and I blacked out for a second or two. When I came to, I looked down to my fists. In my right hand, where I expected to see a clump of dirt, a ragged piece of brown cloth stuck out from between my clenched fingers.
I inspected my shirt but it was intact.
What the fuck?
And then I looked down to the dirt mound with the tree branch sticking out of the middle.
I stared at it, trying to convince myself that this was all a by-product of my alcohol-induced delirium.
The smell rocked me backwards and the heels of my shoes skidded on the dry mud as I crashed to the pavement.
Quick strikes of pain stabbed me along the path of my spine. But I ignored it. All I could focus on was his eyes, his bulging, chalky eyes.
It was Body Here. The dirt mound was a man and the branch was a rope tied around his neck, attached to a nearby telephone pole.
This is what people did in the aftermath, when the waters were high. They tied bodies to poles and street signs to prevent them from drifting.
I dropped the cloth, the piece of his shirt that peeled off his body like cheap tin foil.
He was black, like the rest of them. I tried to make out his age but the water and sun and wind distorted his flesh, turning him into something unidentifiable, a cracked and broken piece of meat left to rot on the sidewalk, now two weeks dead.
His jaw was opened slightly and the tip of his black tongue dipped out from between his yellow teeth.
I forgot about the smell and the taste of it in my mouth. I forgot about everything I experienced in the past two weeks. My memories bled from my brain and sunk into the dirt. My mind went blank.
The echo of a truck roared in the distant but there was no truck to be seen.
No dogs or cats or birds or rats.
Just me and Body Here.
I sat on the street and stared at this man for what could have been hours but what was likely no more than 15 minutes. I tried to piece together a history for him, a past life to give some dignity to what was laid out before me.
I decided his name was Jack Robertson. Nothing fancy. He didn't seem fancy. Just another hard-working guy from Gentilly. I decided that he was 45 years old. He worked as a mechanic in an auto shop. He was divorced with two children who lived with his ex in another part of town. He loaned his ex-wife a car from his shop so she could get out before Katrina with his children. But he insisted on staying.
He was proud and brave but a little foolhardy, maybe a bit of a drinker. He was a tough son of a bitch and figured that people would need his help after the thing touched ground. So he stayed. And during the height of the howling winds he heard a woman screaming, so he left the safety of his apartment and with a flashlight in hand went in search of the lady in need.
The rain came at him head on, parallel to the ground as if shot out from a cannon down the street.
"Where are you?" he screamed, unable to see more then 10-feet ahead. "I'm here to help you!"
As he struggled against the vicious gales, shielding his eyes with a thick forearm, he spotted movement just down the road. It looked like a skinny figure, helpless, tossed about by the hurricane.
"I'll stop you!" he shouted, bracing his legs like he did when he played linebacker in high school. He imagined how proud his ex would be and imagined telling her this story, how brave he was, how he saved the life of this near-death soul. And he pictured his ex welling with tears, filled with love for him once again.
I am a good person, he thought as the woman careened closer. I have made mistakes in my life but underneath it all I have always been someone willing to risk his life to help anyone in need.
This is a blessing, he told himself. I now understand that I have wasted so much time being selfish. Once I save this poor soul I will stop drinking and devote myself to my family. She'll finally see that I am worthy of her love.
A tear rolled down his cheek and a smiled creased across his leathery face just seconds before the uprooted stop sign appeared out of the rain and wind-fog and caved in his skull.
And this is where he fell, where some kind soul tied him to the nearby telephone pole so he wouldn't drift into the river and out into the Gulf of Mexico.
He tried goddammit.
He tried to show her, his ex, that he was a good person. And though this woman he tried to save was nothing more than an unmoored stop sign, he died a hero.
Two weeks later, Jack Robertson, Body Here, lay festering in the September sun as flies gorged on his flesh.
An hour later I was back in my car, driving through Holy Cross, and suddenly, everywhere I looked, I saw the bodies, what I previously mistook as debris and piles of garbage and dirt. They were everywhere.
And it was too much to take.
So I turned my car around and headed to Molly's. It was the time of the 6 p.m. curfew. I had two hours. And in those two hours I threw back enough gin to seriously damage a water buffalo.
I don't remember leaving the bar.
And to be honest, I don't remember much that has taken place in the two and half years since that time I spent in Gentilly with Body Here.
And I think it's better that way.
Let's just make it all up.
Let's craft better memories.
Let's pretend and imagine and maybe it will all be easier to take.
Because the only other option is tattooing this shit on our chests.
And between the heart scars and soul wounds I ain't got no more room.

This writing in particular had my attention. For some reason it gave me flashbacks
to every dead body I've ever been around. Weird. I don't have the words to describe
how I feel about it. So...eh...fuck it.