3 The Moon and Heart There was a moon with shadowy clouds seeping above the levee, like a canopy that had been broken open by God-Himself. There was brightness then a dimness that came from this flickering intermittent, phenomenon; "?everything seeping through the houses and trees of the levee. The heads of dogs were bobbing up and down in the water which could be seen when his dimness was covered by the brightness for a moment. From the echoes out of the water, one could hear the voices of the drowning men and women, sounds of choking, snorting and spitting out of water"?more so than before: painful sounds prolong sounds; everybody soiled and drenched; the whites of their eyes stained their face. The old man was hungry, but all that appeared in his mind was tasteless"?it was if the iron from water drained his taste buds. Only voices, sounds of movements all around him prevailed, grieving sounds, anguished sounds for themselves. As the water poured on his head, like buckets, buckets of water drilling, and pounding, buckets upon buckets: he tied a handkerchief over and around it so it wouldn't be so cold, so drilling like it was, the rains pounding and pounding, and trying to drill a hole in his head, as if someone were playing the drums on his head. His ears were getting the sound and pounding of thumping water drops on them, constantly on them; likened to some one snapping their fingers inside your ear, at them, on them, over them in them, at moments, he couldn't tell where they were coming from, they just were there"?they just kept coming. "Get out...out of the way!"? yelled a voice afar, in the river, a man swimming, and the boot filled with people hanging on, no one helping the drowning man: everyone worried about their space on the boat, thought the old man, 'no room for me' he mumbled, he said with a grief stricken cramp in his stomach, as he shifted his gaze, shifting it from nowhere to somewhere, looking down from the roof top to where his daughter remained. Gnter was now breathing hard, short of breath, and hardly breathing, taking in sips of air"?slowly, very slowly, his mouth hanging open, and over as if he had swollen lips, run a hundred miles: trying to open his chest up by pushing air down, deep down into his stomach, it might give him strength he proscribed, considered; he also measured his heartbeat, he could even hear his own heart beating, it was racing, racing, running akin to a dog after a rabbit, it was as if to jump out of his chest, jump and leap to the State Capitol six blocks away. The Mississippi seemed to be on top of them, the levee was made from earth it was to protect the land form over-flowing bodies of water and waves. But it never did. Logs, beams and large blocks of wood that kept the dike secure, now floating every which way were starting to block people from swimming, a few hit a, a small number of people, pushing them under the water, a few got in-between the logs crushing them to death, snapping ribs and puncturing lungs, saving them from drowning. No one had protection, matter-of-fact, being in the hut the way Jean-lee was, allowed her to be safer for the moment, at least for the moment. Luckily the floating logs, and driftwood hadn't hit sharply, or hit directly his daughter's house, not yet, not yet, but as he scanned the area with his tired ole ox-bloodied eyes, luck would not holdout forever he knew"?floating blocks of wood, or logs hand not hit yet, but would sooner or later. "Luck,"? he murmured, Luck, what is luck? "?luck is a poor mans way of saying he has no courage, that is what luck is. You make destiny, you do it, something has to be done, and luck will not save anyone. 'Nor will I,' he murmured, if them floating logs hit her shack. How true that was, but possibly, maybe providence would do so, divine providence"?it would have to be though a small miracle, yes divine intervention he thought, that would do it, help. The levee was for the most part, a free government piece of land at one time: or at least at one time it was free if you claimed it, and built on it before someone else did. The Italians, gypsies had taken it years ago, and now it was the people's land, they had combed it into a small community, as long as it lasted. But the question always rose, always came about, especially during flood season, to get rid of the levee, the houses on the levee, it was never meant for that purpose"?it was meant to slow the river. But tell that to the once homeless folks, now of the same community; the folks above the levee, that community, not the community of the levee, didn't want it; yes, they deliberated it out; it was a dangerous place to live: oh yes, at one time it could do well to slow the river, when there were no other ways of water control, but now dams were built. And today, this moment would be a deciding factor for its future survival of the upper levee. Was it more or less of an asset to the surrounding populations? Was the question to be answered at a later date? Everything in the water was moving with its own inertia. He forgot about the moon now: the old man told himself, pay more attention to the silver gray water slapping my face, so he told himself as he opened his mouth, unwillingly gulping water down, right down to his burning throat, more than he wanted. The Heart There was a tremendous panting, needle like sharp pains in the old man's chest, his heart; such endurance was not made for such aging men. A strain to the pendulum, as if it was an endless clock ticking, ticking away, for fifty-eight years it ticked with an odd cadence, but now it was jumping out of that rhythm, or so it seemed, and racing, racing for a collusion"?a demolition. He could hear the crying of his daughter now, a quiet whimper, a shallow one [snivel you might say], but his ears could hear it; his senses were heighten. He had raised her a few years during her adolescence life; precious years to him, years he got to know her better. Before the man she married took her away from him, cursed him for his trying to help them, and made their relationship sour. She had wanted to leave him once, saying in essence: he wouldn't become much in life, he was too lazy; "?but he told her to give him another chance, try and work things out as best she could, and if they couldn't, she could always come home, and that he'd take care of her and the kids, yes, take her without anything, at that time, but she had one baby boy and a husband and needed to think about that at the time, now she had two, two boys; both children and father visiting with their grandfather on the eastside of town, over by Arcade Street some three or four miles away. By and by, it did prove to work itself out; he was happy for that, lo, it was not right to divorce because of simple differences; only because it wouldn't work would be a good enough reason"?good enough to leave that is, and it proved to work that way, work itself out. He even let them live in a four-plex he owned, a mansion he bought and had built into an apartment building with four-apartments to it, and had them be the caretakers, but the husband was stubborn and moved out. Then he bought the little hut for them, a two room shack, to appease them I suppose, which didn't work either. Nothing seemed to work, but then envy seems to always have a tight grip around a mans soul, so tight it makes him feel smaller than the person he begrudges for having what he has, and not himself. Actually he was fond of him [the old man], liked him, and he gave the money to a man now who had passed on in life, gave him $500, for the hut, and he kept it for such an occasion as when someone might need it, like his daughter and her husband. Although the land was free, the structure was not. And wherever the structure was, the land belonged to the structure, and he had a bill of sale, and deed. "Envy and jealousy, crawls deep in an empty man's jug,"? he told his daughter once, and that was the character of her husband. His son-and-law's face seemed to appear to him as he continued with the rescue. The son-in-law that had worked on a few of his properties, and one afternoon, took a sweeping blow at him, and that caused bad blood between them. Although he tried to settle the issue, it was not to be settled so easy, and he wished them no harm, to the contrary, feeling stabilization was the pillar they needed, and for him to demand his rights to see the kids and daughter, would not bring a successful conclusion to the envy of his son-in-law's heart, (it seldom does) consequently, cracking if anything, the pillar of security for the kids. On another note, he knew, once poisoned, once the heart gets resentful, he knew he would be asking too much to be sacrificed of him to restore a family relationship which he did not want restored, and again, for his involvement would only make the situation more difficult. As far as he felt, he was decontaminating himself by staying his distance, and now, this very moment, possibly the purification process was taking form in its final draft, its final stage; its current winds would settle one way or another. Accordingly the pain the son-in-law could inflict on his wife's father was to hold him at bay, ransom, blackmail, not allow her to see him, or their children, at the cost of offending him, would be a final cost to harming them. Nor for that matter would the husband allow his family to visit any of the relatives on her father's side"?even the great grandmother was deprived of this right"?right up to the day she died. Yet, no such dispute would be allowed to develop to such a degree on the son-in-laws side of the family, another thorn in the side of right and wrong, and undue punishment; repercussions of a acid heart. Should he die, he'd be the first in line he knew that: the first in line to count the money: counting the money as if it was in his pockets. I suppose he couldn't die soon enough. |
