“Who is it?” he asked, before reaching for the knob.
“Is Jessica in there? She’s supposed to be at this address,” an impatient voice on the other side demanded.
“Joey!” Jessica jumped up.
After glancing in her direction and seeing it was obvious she knew his voice, Grant opened the door and introduced himself to the visitor standing on the porch. Joey looked as if he had been drinking all day, which he had. He was holding a beer in one hand and half a six-pack of cans dangling in their plastic rings in the other. He was wearing a New Orleans Saints T-shirt, flip-flops, and shorts, and looked as if he were coming to yet another in a long series of parties.
“I’ve been looking for you all afternoon!” he said to Jessica as he pushed past Grant, barely acknowledging him. “I thought you would stay home until I got back, or at least stay at Casey’s.”
“Well, I guess you can see that the lights are out, Joey. What was I supposed to do, sit there in the dark?”
“We came over here because my friend Grant has all this stuff,” Casey said, pointing out the lantern, the piles of gear, and the bags of groceries they had bought earlier that day.
Joey glanced around the room at all the gear and the three bicycles leaned against walls where they had brought them inside to keep them from getting stolen. “You must be a freakin’ Boy Scout, huh?” he said to Grant. “What the fuck are you gonna do with all this shit?”
“We were just making plans to evacuate the city,” Grant said calmly. “Things are not going to get better here before they get a lot worse.”
“That’s bullshit! I don’t know why everybody’s tripping out about a little blackout. They’ll have the lights back on tomorrow or the next day. Besides, how the fuck are you going to evacuate when nobody’s car will run? Mine sure won’t. They say we’re all gonna to have to get new computers in them because they’re fried. All we can do is wait ’til the lights come on and the parts stores open.”
“I don’t think they’re going to get this fixed any time soon, Joey.” Casey said. “Stop and think about it for a minute. What could we do if we stay here? What are we going to eat? The stores are already running out of everything.”
“Well, they still had beer back at the Circle K a while ago, even if it was just Coors Lite piss. But I’ve got a half a case of Abita back at my house, and plenty of sandwich stuff and chips. Come on, Jessica. Let’s go home. I can think of things we can do without lights.”
“I’m not walking all the way back to your house tonight, Joey. It’s too far in this dark. I’m staying here, and you should too. I don’t want anything to drink. I’m scared and I just want to be with friends until it’s daylight again. You need to just stay here with me; I’m not leaving tonight.”
Joey put up an argument but seeing that Jessica was not going to change her mind, he acquiesced, and opened another beer for himself when no one took him up on his offer to share the three that remained. Casey could tell that Grant would have been happy to see him go and she would have too, but since Jessica wanted him there Grant offered the two of them his room, where the only bed in the apartment was located. Then he stretched out his sleeping bag on the living room floor, giving Casey the couch, which was a bit narrow, but comfortable enough. Casey spent at least another hour awake that first night, lying in the darkness listening to Grant’s steady breathing from the floor and thinking of her dad, wondering if he and Larry had made it to land yet, and if so, if they had found the electricity still on in the islands. She also thought about how strange it was that here she was sleeping on the couch in Grant’s apartment, just a few feet away from him—a guy she barely knew but had thought about often since first meeting him. It was so strange how circumstances had brought them together in a situation where almost anything could happen. So much had happened already since she woke up this morning, she could barely comprehend it, and if this much could change in one day, she wondered what might be in store the next morning. Sleep did come at last despite her worries. When she woke and sat up on the couch it was daylight, and Grant was standing in the apartment’s tiny kitchen, pouring hot water he had boiled on his propane camp stove into a French press sitting next to it on the counter.
“Coffee will be ready in about five minutes,” he said when he looked her way and saw that she was stirring.
“That sounds great! Good thing you had that stove.”
“Yeah, I would imagine quite a few folks here in the city are going to be doing without their morning brew today.”
“Are they still asleep?” Casey asked, nodding towards the closed bedroom door.
“I guess. I haven’t heard anything from them.”
“I’m sure they were both exhausted since they didn’t get any sleep the night before.”
“I can see why you don’t like that guy,” Grant whispered as Casey stepped into the kitchen where they waited on the coffee to steep another minute or two.
“Like I told you, he’s a real jerk. I can’t believe Jessica hasn’t already dumped him.”
“There must be something about him she likes.”
“His looks, I suppose. I’m afraid he’s going try and talk her into going back home with him today.”
“That would be a dumb idea,” Grant said. “I think we need to be getting ready to leave, and maybe even head out later today.”
“Do you really think we have to leave this soon? Isn’t there some possibility help will be coming, and maybe we ought to wait just a little longer and make sure we really have to evacuate?”
“Based on how things were after Katrina, I have to say no, that’s not a good idea. Even with outside help coming in and a large portion of the population already gone, things got really bad early on and stayed bad for a long time. We simply
have
to go where there are not so many people crammed into one area. These people are going to get desperate, and it’s not just because they’ll be missing their morning coffee, either.”
“I just hope we can get to your cabin and it will be as safe as you say it is.”
“We’ll get there all right, assuming we get moving soon enough. I can’t guarantee it’ll be safe, but I think it’s a way better choice than staying here.”
“I’ve got to somehow let my dad know where I’m going. I know he may not be able to get here, but if he does, he’s going to be looking for me. I need to leave a note with detailed directions to the cabin. I need to leave one in my apartment and one in his car at the airport. Can we go by the airport on the way out? It’s not that far out of the way, is it?”
“It’s several miles out of the way, but doable. I don’t want to make this trip any harder on you two than it has to be. I’m actually more concerned about Jessica than you. I don’t think she realizes the danger, and I wonder if she has the stamina to make it.”
“She’ll be okay,” Casey said. “I don’t know what either one of us would do without your help, though. I guess we would just be stuck here like everyone else.”
“I’d hate to leave you two here in this mess if I can do something about it. And as I said before, if I didn’t bring you along, I’d just be making the trip alone. Speaking of which, why don’t you write that note for your dad’s car now—I’ll draw a map of the route to the cabin to go with it—and I’ll ride over to the airport alone this morning. That way I can scope out what’s going on today and see if I can hear any news of things beyond the city. Do you have a key to his car?
Casey said she did and went to get her key ring out of her backpack. She told Grant about her mom’s accident and how after they lost her she and her dad had been nearly inseparable throughout her teen years. Though it hadn’t been easy, Casey thought her dad had done a great job as a single parent. Hardly a day went by that they didn’t talk for at least a few minutes, and she knew her dad would be frantic with worry about her after being completely cut off from all communication. He had not liked the idea of being out of touch even for the three days he would be sailing offshore with her Uncle Larry. Though it might be impossible for him to get to New Orleans any time soon, she had to leave him as much information as she could about her plans on the off-chance he would somehow find the notes before she could return to the city.
“Just let them sleep for now,” Grant said when Casey mentioned Jessica and Joey as he was readying his bicycle for the 24-mile round-trip ride to the airport. Maybe by the time I get back they will work out what they’re going to do and he can decide if he is going with us or not. Please stay here where it’s safe, Casey, and try to keep her here as well, even if Joey tries to get her to leave. Today will be a lot worse than yesterday, and it could get dangerous out in the street. There won’t be any traffic holding me up, so I should be back in two hours or so if I don’t run into any problems. We can leave the other note at your place when we head out for good, since it’s right on our way.
With no one to worry about or hold him back, Grant Dyer zipped through the stalled cars choking every street and headed west from the university area, easily keeping his lightweight Cannondale hybrid at a cruising speed of 18 miles per hour. He could maintain this pace for hours on an unloaded bike, but as he pedaled he wondered how long it was going to take to get to the cabin on the Bogue Chitto River with two or three riders in tow who had probably never pedaled a bike more than five miles at a time? Aside from their lack of conditioning, Casey had an entry-level Trek mountain bike that was hardly suited to long-distance riding on pavement, with its fat, knobby tires, and Jessica’s bike was basically department store junk. He didn’t know if Joey had a bike at all. Grant knew that he was taking on an enormous burden, trying to get these two girls and a guy he barely knew to safety on loaded bicycles, but doing anything less was simply not an option. And what would be the point of going alone anyway? He knew if he were traveling solo, he could leave now and probably be at the cabin before night fell again, but then what? He had already spent too much time alone, of that he was certain, even in normal times when he lived surrounded by the city and spent most of his days in classrooms or the library around other students.
There was something about Casey Drager that intrigued him and made him want to get to know her better. She was attractive, for sure, and he could tell she thought he was too, but there was more to her than her looks that made him want to know more. Grant figured most guys would think that Jessica was even better looking, if appearance alone was the kind of sex appeal that could turn heads on any campus or street. She had the body, the face, the smile, and the eyes—everything—but though it was going to be nice to look at her every day, it was already obvious that she was a lot higher maintenance than Casey. She didn’t seem as grounded in reality and certainly had not accepted the seriousness of the situation they were in. Grant wondered how she would cope when the going got really tough. It was also a major hassle that she was a vegetarian. Food was going to be hard enough to obtain even for those who did not have restrictions on what they could or would eat. On top of that, there was the issue of Joey. Grant went out of his way to avoid guys like him. There was no question that Joey was only into Jessica for one thing, and other than that, his main interest was partying and having a good time. He was going to be one unhappy camper when it finally sunk in that the party was over and the cold beer was gone. Grant wished he would just go away, but that was mostly up to Jessica. If she wanted him to tag along too, Grant wouldn’t tell her he couldn’t—because if he did, she might refuse to go, and if she stayed behind, Casey might too.
No matter how many problems and obstacles the trip would entail, Grant was convinced that they would all be better off in his parent’s rural cabin than just about anyone would who chose to stay behind in New Orleans. He knew that taking these two girls anywhere in the unrest that was sure to follow the shutdown would expose them to danger, but he felt the risks of travel were preferable to the risks of staying in the midst of so many people, especially if they left soon, before everyone else got the same idea. Grant was under no delusion that he was any kind of expert who could guarantee their safety and survival, but he did feel better knowing that he had
some
experience living and traveling in extremely remote areas with few of the conveniences of civilization. The field work in Guyana was fresh in his memory and something he thought about almost every day. He had been surprised at how easily he’d adapted to life in the jungle, and how little of modern technology he’d actually needed. He had learned from observing the Wapishana, and those lessons might be the most valuable knowledge he possessed in the new reality they had all awoken to the day before. Leaving the narrow, live-oak-shaded streets of the Garden District and Audubon Park area behind him, Grant made his way towards Metairie and Kenner along the old road paralleling the Mississippi River. Normally, this would be a dangerous place to be on a bike, with a high likelihood of getting taken out by a speeding car. But today, cars were not a threat, and the road was faster than the bike path that ran along the top of the levee. He saw other people riding bikes, just as he had expected. Some were just moving about around the city, while others were carrying stuff in handlebar baskets, on racks or in backpacks or bags slung over their shoulders. A lot more people were in motion today than had been the first day after the event. Most were scrambling to get stuff they needed and move it back to wherever they lived or planned to stay. Many more were on foot than on bicycles, and a few were still using motorized vehicles if they were fortunate enough to have older models that would still run. Grant was passed by several still-functioning motorcycles, most of them older-model Harley Davidsons with loud exhaust pipes and simple engines of decades-old design.