Tropical Storm: Rain of Terror

The rain kept coming. For days, the rain had been pouring down from Tropical Storm Alison; reports of flooding around south Houston plastered the news. I looked outside; no flooding here, just wet shining pavement.

I went to work. Friday nights were usually busy at the River Café, but I was scheduled as a manager, so my hourly rate was set. It was just as well because the waiters would not make any money tonight. No one goes out in the rain.

After only two couples in three hours, I sent everyone on staff but the cook, one bartender and one waiter home. The waiter’s girlfriend sat at the bar, complaining into her martini. I retreated to my office to start the closing paperwork; it was only 8:00 p.m.

“You have to see this!” Rudy, the chef on that night, laughed into the boxy office, his bandannaed head poking around the door. What was it this time? Our owner, Mark, had a tendency to appear in pajamas and vampire teeth, so I expected more of this type of spectacle when I strolled out to the main floor.

Instead, waves of water actually rolled up to the wall of windows that faced Montrose Boulevard, splashing and then rolling back to the middle of the street. Montrose looked like a river. “We really are the River Café now,” Rudy snickered. I rolled my eyes. We watched as only huge Chevrolet trucks and Ford SUVs dared to venture into the water. Other cars sputtered, choked, and drowned.

My friend Chien had borrowed my car. Oh no. I dialed his number, praying that he had the good sense to stay put. “Don’t come pick me up,” I told him.

“Too late. I’m on my way,” he said. Then, “I can’t see anything. The water is coming in through the doors. Oh.” A series of expletives followed and then nothing. I tried calling him back. Straight to voicemail. I didn’t know whether to feel more worried about Chien or the car.

“At least we have plenty of food,” the waiter, Jeff, offered.

“And drink” Tyler, the bartender laughed and gestured to the bar. I sighed.

The party atmosphere soon evaporated. Water started seeping through the front door, sneaking into the restaurant. We rushed to create barriers of rugs and towels. We ran to put chairs up on tables. We failed to save the floors and rugs as the restaurant let in more and more water.

Taking a bathroom break, I splashed through the thin layer of wet to the back hall. And screeched with frustration. “We forgot the back door!” I shouted. Indeed, the water rushed and swooped through this back hallway like rapids, swirling dark and white. Trying to save the office computers, we unplugged everything and heaved machinery onto desks and tables. We piled dripping files and papers one on top of another on safe shelves.

Despite our best efforts, the restaurant squatted in water more than a foot deep, water that reached my knees. We hopped up and sat on the bar. At least it remained dry. I heard the fans in the refrigerators hitting water. We could not shut off the refrigerators without losing throusands of dollars of food inventory. Fearing electrocution, feeling exhausted from futile efforts, I hung my head in my hands and wished myself home. The others wanted to leave too. Only Jeff and his girlfriend opted to stay, saying that they lived too far away to walk. I left the key with them, not caring about what happened at the restaurant, only wanting to see what had happened to my apartment, to my car.

I began my trek into the eerie wet quiet. At least the rain had stopped falling. Trudging up West Alabama, I struggled against the water rushed down hill and pushing against my thighs. I removed my shoes, using my toes to feel for the sidewalk and curb. People shouted two-a.m.-helloes from doorways, trapped in restaurants and homes, giggling at the absurdity of the situation. They already had begun formulations of stories to tell: “During Alison I hunkered in Mi Luna drinking Sangria and eating paella…”

Water covered streets and lawns. Some homes seemed surrounded by moats, others slumped crossly in the damp. Lamps glowed, lighting doorways and reflecting off the water. It looked like a muddy Venice, without the gondolas and music. The landscape had changed; I almost didn’t recognize the way home. I kept marching, step by step, toe by toe. Trash washed by: soda cans and paper bags bobbed on the false current. I prayed that I would avoid the broken glass and aluminum bottle caps that littered the streets even in dry weather. Later, I heard reports of dead squirrels and rats the size of soccer balls swimming in the streets. Had I seen such a sight, I doubt I would have moved on, but would have huddled paralyzed, crying in the dirty dank.

Somehow, after two hours of walking a half mile, I made it home without any abrasions, bacterial infections, or injuries worse than pulled quadriceps. However, I smelled like swampy sewerage. The first floor apartment owners bemoaned their losses. Everything was ruined, they complained. Luckily, I had a dry second floor apartment—number ten. I showered, threw my clothes outside to stink alone, and collapsed on my bed to sleep. The clock blinked 3:27.

Chien lived, but his phone and my poor red Honda died a sad death by drowning. When we collected my vehicle the next day, it barely spluttered and smoked its way to a dealership to join a long line of smelly wet cars. I would buy a new one with the insurance money. I will not even begin to describe the rank smell of a car that sat waiting for appraisal in humid heat for three weeks after being soaked in swampy muck. When I went back to collect my belongings from the totaled car, I held my breath as I stuffed my things into black plastic trash bags.

I also lost my job, not just because the restaurant closed for repairs, but also because I had abandoned my post. Like a captain, I should have gone down with the ship. Truthfully, I looked forward to teaching in the fall and did not mind not working for Vampire-wanna-be Mark. I was all washed up in the restaurant business anyway.

Rain caused so much pain and suffering. Rain closed restaurants, drowned cars, ruined lives, and even caused twenty-two deaths. Cleansing and refreshing or torrential and destructive, rain contains the power to give life or to crush it.

Two Starfish

Two Starfish

This was the first year that my family did not celebrate Christmas together in my parents’ home in Douglas, Massachusetts. Instead, on Christmas day, my mother, my father, my little sister, my husband, and I boarded a plane at the Worcester airport for Orlando. For two days, we visited my sister, Aimee, who lives in Gainesville, before we all headed up to St. Augustine to stay at a beach house for the rest of the week.

Although the weather and water temperature did not encourage swimming, I did walk along the water everyday, the sun shining down. I like to look down as I walk, searching for shells and beach glass. Childishly, I make a game of it, trying to find the largest or smoothest or strangest sea shell. Luck for me, my husband enjoys competition in any form, and happily walked beside me, trying to beat me in each category. We especially like the shells with holes in them, telling ourselves we could make shell necklaces (but we never do).

On our last full day in St. Augustine, we walked several miles down the beach. On the way back, I used my superstrength softball arm, to save several hermit crabs cowering in their shells from the frantically squawking seagulls looking hungrily on. Suddenly, my husband stopped and shouted for me to look at he sea find. He poked at a starfish. It was purple and outlined in a creamy yellow color and was a little bit larger than his hand.

It didn’t move. “Aw, esta morto. It’s dead,” I mourned.

He wanted to know if we could take it home. Envisioning the decay of all living matter, I said, no. We laid the starfish back in the sand and I went to wash my hands in the cleansing ocean waves. Leaning over, I saw an identical, if somewhat smaller starfish. This one too, seemed dead.

Wanting to capture their beauty, even in death, my husband put both starfish in the sand, told me to place my foot between them, and snapped a photo with the camera on his phone. We could almost pretend they were resurrected. Giving the two invertebrates a burial at sea, we walked back to the beach house, our bittersweet find captured forever.