Southern Legitimacy Statement: I am certified in using picket fence, rubber flooring, and duct tape to seal a bedroom for a Florida CAT4 hurricane before running inside to drink. My blood is mostly orange juice, BBW sauce, and a form of ethanol from bourbon and grit residue.
Here
It was heading elsewhere, there and not here, but here then became there. Everyone elsewhere, could rest their fear, saying it sucks to be there, now here. A week of honks and hollers, spending all their dollars, everyone was prepared but me. TV folk from there, and every elsewhere, screamed how bad it would be. Lines were shifting closer, Nature’s Bulldozer, and “run like hell,” they advised. All channels here and there, “honey, we’re on everywhere,” our destruction would be televised.
I tried to take measure, everything I thought I treasured, to pack it safely away. Most I couldn’t find or understand in my mind, why I valued them in some way. Found a letter from a friend, who sadly met his end, a young man way too soon. Then my dad’s pocketknife, a guitar from my wife, and a record about some side of the moon. The rest was there, in a box somewhere, in the attic layered in dust. It was too hard to find, not seen for some time, and move on I said, “We must.” If these things swept away, I’d be sad but okay, and pick up from there. I’d replace them with something, the same or anything, and store them the same somewhere.
Ashamed to say, I didn’t know the way, you’re supposed to board a house. Not in my résumé, for I’m in a cube all day, so I clicked on a mouse. Strangers on screen, elsewhere all seem, to know what to do. Drill before screwing, watch what you’re doing, 5/8ths wood will do.
Men with empty carts wandered barren marts. There was no wood in any store. Panic from East to West, certainly did its best. Everyone elsewhere had more. We all asked the same, hey whatever your name, you sure it’s not in the back of the store? Where’s the next truck, does anyone here give a darn, that we need more and more? They had families too and couldn’t wait to be through, to salvage what time they could. Days behind the rest, they did their best, I couldn’t ask again for wood.
I stood in defeat. Only needed a few feet, to secure a single window. But there was no wood, I searched where I could, and soon would begin the show. The power would go out, rain would flood the route, and the wind would do the rest. If the roof here didn’t cave, we’d drink and be brave, and hope for the best.
I peeked out my gate, to see how great, everyone else heeded the call. Some were done already, others working steady, and some not ready at all. I closed my picket fence, ready to commence, a search for any wood. Up wooden steps I raced, crawling in the wooden crawl space, searching everywhere I could. Down again in defeat, I took my seat, on my wood bench for a beer. I stared at my worktable, wishing I was able, to find anything useful near.
I laid in my lanai and watched time go by, looking at the cross on our wall. I said to the man, “I hope you have a plan,” to help here any way at all. I need some wood, like your cross if you could, so I may seal off that window. In three beers I found, inspiration all around, and the fence was the first to go.
Figured it on my own, considered the barrier a loan, from a fence that was never going to last. It was by no means pretty, in fact quite shitty, but beautiful for something made so fast. Thirty-three pickets, held by rope, screws, and wickets, would hold the winds and such. At the top I began to spray, a sign saying Irma Go Away, I thought it was a nice touch.
The neighborhood grew quiet, no longer a loud riot, and the wind began to blow. The trees started to sway, the storm was on its way, and to the safe room we had to go. The power was down, to my phone I looked down, and the weatherman was still there. He was scaring the shit, out of all still watching it, saying it was coming here and not there. A reporter at the beach, gripped a sign he could reach, the stores around him were gone. In the dark I said to my wife, I guess that’s life, it looks like here the storm is still on.
