Leila

How did we get to this point? Where my guinea pig bats his fragile arms, propelling against the quick rising waters, condemned to his cage? Where my father, a cancer survivor, sits on the roof of our house waiting to be rescued? Where my mother and I hold the phone close to our ears with my father on the other end, stirring with paranoid fear for his life?

They told us to evacuate, but there is no telling my father what to do. Fifty one year’s hugging Sam Adams, an adolescence of nightly beer pong and a backfired intervention have my father’s stubborn Irish blood consistently above legal BAC.  After his liver transplant five years ago we moved here to Staten Island. With the idea of being closer to his doctor, comfortable financially and a drive away from the shore, my parents settled in comfortably. After finishing my degree at Colombia, I packed up my baby blue Honda and transplanted myself and my belongings to their quaint one-story chalet. Mom enjoys my company and needs help tending to dad’s basic needs. I come and go due to my graduate research at Colombia, staying weeknights on a makeshift mattress in a one room Manhattan apartment. The escape becomes necessary when dad’s weeks turn sour. His permanent residence in front of the television, relieved only to play with his therapy animal or step across the hall to alleviate his weak bladder, shortens his temper and my tolerance. I can’t stand seeing my father in this condition.

Now the vision of my father begging for help on top of our graying scaled roof in the blunt of this hurricane haunts me. I look over at my mother, on her third consecutive cigarette, rubbing her forehead.

“We couldn’t convince him, mom,” I attempt to console her grieved, hunched over body with a touch on her shoulder; “He refused to leave.”

My mother just hung up from a phone call to 911, imploring immediate assistance for my obstinate father. On Sunday the island was strongly encouraged to evacuate with Hurricane Sandy looming over distant waters. Memories of Irene flooded into my mind as sure as the warnings on each news channel. We didn’t evacuate that humid August morning despite urges from FOX, CNN and my overly cautious Aunt. The shrill gusts rocked the pale siding on our house as my mother and I huddled on the floor next to my father’s recliner.

“They said it may take days,” mom’s forehead sinks lower, hitting the fake cedar laminate of Aunt Shirley’s kitchen table.

“The National Guard is working with the FDNY and the NYPD on search and rescue efforts on Staten Island, Regan said, but many low-lying coastal areas remain inaccessible because of flood water. This has led to some dramatic rescues, as well as heart-wrenching tragedies.” Mom’s sobs increase, her shoulders heaving with each stifled inhale. My Aunt shuffles hastily over to the den and changes the channel.

The shrill ring of Aunt Shirley’s wireless acts as my alarm clock. “Yes…Yes…” My Aunt nods her head hastily and quickly gathers her car keys and jacket. “We will be there as soon as possible.” Slipping on her shoes she hangs up the phone.

“Your father is at Susan E. Wagner high school. They have a shelter set up there.” Mom and I quickly rise and head out towards the front door. Mom walks hurriedly down the steps ahead of us, leaning on her cane and holding the railing for support. My aunt leans in and whispers to me,

“Don’t tell your mother, he didn’t arrive at the shelter until this morning.” My heart sinks. Dad, out there in the wind and rain all night? Mom would have a heart attack if she found out.

It’s been three weeks. Three miserable, dehumanizing weeks in a make-shift shelter holding two hundred victims, with a water heater designed for a two story house. Where the sight of peanut butter and jelly causes immediate nausea and wool blankets have lost their secure warmth. Where the custodians lock the extra bathrooms to save themselves the extra work; this is the third time my dad wet his pants today. Last week we were moved from the high school to a homeless shelter,

“Everybody out the back doors and down the steps” directed the suited officer. Her weary-eyed expression contrasting her pressed uniform, “Officer Brown at the curb will direct you where to go next,” she habitually guided the human traffic jam with her stout arms, pointing towards the exit.

“My mother and father are both physically handicapped” I nodded in the direction of my parents while asking the emotionless guard if I could take them out the front doors.

In her monotone, unfeeling voice she repeated “The ramp is reserved for faculty and staff” and went back to funneling the unkempt shivering mass out the door. For a week we have suffered the bias of homeless shelter workers, who judge our stay as capable disaster victims who “have a place to go”. 

Mom and I decide today we will go home for the first time since the storm hit.  I help her out of the car; she leans on me as we walk up the front steps. My eyes avoid the roof and the haunting image that I have tried so hard to repress for three weeks. The nonexistent screen door is easily forgotten after stepping through the threshold. Furniture strewn, upturned tables, shattered mirrors, and Mom’s shriek stifled by the muffle of shock covering my ears. Sinking to the floor, her cane drops like a soldier’s weapon upon being wounded. Someone has already been here.

Prying mom’s head from her hands, I see the flood and tear stained wedding picture she cradles. Her sparks of passion fan my memory to flame; I dart past the kitchen to my bedroom at the back of the house. Devastation has been waiting here to meet me: I see his name written in the brown water line that cuts across the room, at shoulder’s height. I smell him in the dank emptiness filled with soggy insulation and yellow stained drywall. I hear him in the silence that will never be broken by my stolen viola. My songbooks, keyboard, lesson plans; taken from me by a coy Sandy mistress who left my soul shattered like the cracked kitchen tile.

I stand in the doorway to my backyard and hear a melody of hammers, chainsaws and car horns polluting the cold November air. My persistent contribution to this tragic symphony is the harmony of hopelessness.