"Don't talk to em, Cher. Don't look at em. Don't ask for directions. They trouble."

 

When the car pulled up I got a fear in my lower gut. It somehow turned all the good I'd been feeling to bad. The darkest hour is just before dawn and I had felt that clearly lying on my back on the pavement. But the second darkest hour is just before the darkest. Maybe, I thought, I had some more breaking to do.

 

"You lost mister?"
I shook my head and kept walking. The car rolled alongside of me.
"Have you been drinking?"
I stopped and turned toward the cop car. They stopped rolling.
"Looks like you got busted up there. Somebody rob you?"
"My friend beat me up. I'm walking down the Lower 9th to check it out. Seemed like something I oughtta see."
"It's something to see alright."

 

I looked into the man's eyes and I could see they were tired. He did not look like a nice man but he did not look like he had any mischief left in him. He was broken too.

 

"Get in and we'll drive you down there. This neighborhood ain't safe for you."
"I'm alright to walk," I said.
"Get in," he said. "You can't walk around here."
He was used to being obeyed and there was no compromise in his voice. His partner was black and he leaned over from the driver's seat to get a good look at me. He shook his head to himself.
"If you were where you are right now eight months ago," he said, "You'd be dead, robbed, and fucked."

 

The white guy raised his eyebrows at me and nodded to the door behind him. They were very insistent and I did not have the energy to disagree with them. I did not want to get in the car though.

 

"Just get in the fucking car and we'll drive you down there. Shit man, we're the cops not the fuckin robbers."

 

 

I got in. It actually felt good to be off my feet. They sped away and I leaned into the soft powerful roll of the car. The white cop began talking about what life had been like for the cops after the flood. How the gangs had been out with their guns drawn and how nobody trusted anybody. I had seen cops say similar things on the television and I could not listen. He sounded like a man trying to make sense of something that happened by accepting someone else's story of it. He was not telling me about himself. His voice was shrill though. I realized that he wanted to drive me because he wanted me to hear something. I looked out the window. We were still on St. Claude. The water lines were at about four feet on the buildings. The businesses were all closed permanently but it did not look too bad. It was just beginning to get light and the sky was turning a lighter shade of gray. We reached a bridge.

 

"Now we coming to it," the cop said.

 

The bridge rose gently and I looked out ahead through the low light. The water was a benign silver ribbon beneath us. On the other side of the canal the black shapes of the houses became distinct, their roofs all caved in, in the same chevron pattern, the piles of debris stacked next to them like metal haystacks. Away and to my right I saw row after row of houses and debris piles stretching into the blackness.

 

"I want to get out and walk," I said.
"It all looks the same," the black cop said.
"I know but I want to walk through it."
"You ain't supposed to be here at night."
"I'd like to get out," I said.

 

The Chief was calling me. This was where I was supposed to be and I wanted to get out of the car right then. I did not care what they thought.

 

"We can't let you out here," the white cop said.
"I have to get out," I said.

 

The black cop laughed. He stopped the car in the middle of the street. The white cop turned around in the front seat and he looked at me. I could tell from that look that something terrible had happened to him or he had done something terrible and I could not tell which.

 

"We are not the bad ones," he said, his voice cracked. "There's bad people out there are we are not them, you understand."
"Leave it alone, Benny," the black cop said. "He's drunk."

 

The white cop looked at me. He had brown eyes widely spaced in his head and red whiskers. He wanted to say something to me. I pulled the door open and got out. I crossed the street and started up a side street. I could feel the car behind me and then I heard it make a quick powerful u-turn and accelerate away.

 

When it was gone there was only quiet. The houses were all one-story bungalows painted blues and yellow and reds with front porches and peaked roofs. All the peaked roofs had caved in. The debris piles were as high as the houses. In some houses, cars stuck through the roofs. Every house bore the mark of the painted FEMA X, denoting the number of inhabitants, the number dead, the date checked. I could feel the ghosts all around me, watching me and discussing me. I walked a few blocks until I found a white church with an empty porch. There was red spray paint on the front door that read, "Snakes inside." I went up the steps and sat down and leaned back against the door. I was very tired so I closed my eyes and fell asleep imagining a sea of white people in the sunlight, packed close and laughing, Rebirth blowing his trumpet and brown-haired Melissa standing in the middle of that sea with her peaceful smile and the sperm flag with the rainbow pennant under it waving over her like a banner. The ghosts pressed very close to me and they made my skin cold. They were all laughing in high-pitched tones. Then the laughing turned into an uneasy murmur and the crowd of ghosts parted to make room for the Chief. He danced through them crouched very low to the ground and raising his knees to his chest. He stopped in front of me and I could feel his breath on my face.
"We callin em back," he said. "We callin em all back."