Ike's aftermath.

The city is divided. There are islands of light amid pools of darkness. One can literally drive several city blocks and see places lit up and the home or business next to it or across the street sitting in the dark.  Charlie Brown (Mayor White) and city counsel still have the 12:00am to 6:00 am curfew in effect and the number of gas stations open is increasing.  Yesterday I went to the mall and skated as I do every week to see if I could at least pretend that the the previous week of living like a field Marine never happened. Some of the other skate-trash are still without power. 

        I went to Sullivan's and listened to Robert's Jazz trio playing without him. There was no cover in Ringside and I ran into Morgan Fairchild's doppelganger Kathy who was waiting on some friends to show. The place was dead and aside from flirting with Theresa 6 foot hippy/buxom Korean-American waitress the evening was filled with men and women who were attempting to pretend that we had just been hit by a hurricane and that all was in fact well.

        I found myself at home at 11:00pm and was assembling shelves and reorganizing my books. The storm and subsequent power outage made me realize just how many, books, dvds and tapes I owed and how they could have stood to be a bit more organized. Today saw me going to church and listening to the Catholic Church's equivalent of Ben Stein sucking the life and joy out of the gospel to a packed house.

         Les Girval the Bahn Mi shop that I frequent after mass was open and packed as it always is. I had to search to find a sports bar where there were both lights AND the Texans game and found one with no seats, a bitchy Asian woman with a lap top who assumed she needed an entire booth for herself and her computer, beautiful waitresses and possibly the worst bowl of soup a human being could possibly consume. Had they been giving it away at a soup kitchen it would have still been over priced.  I found an open laundry which was filled with everyone who hadn't washed his/her clothes in the past several weeks. The owner was a woman from Louisiana who had to be a little younger than my mother. She and I discussed the world over a cup of her strong coffee. At the end of my day I went home and ate half of the Bahn Mi which I was fortunate enough to purchase downtown. 

            Don't know if HISD will be open tomorrow but I'm ready to get back to work. The kids most likely will be complaining about how this was the worst thing that's ever happened to them and how it was so terrible living without electricity despite the fact that many of their parents and grandparents grew up in Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and other parts of central America without it. Fat, spoiled, lazy American teenagers in apathetic ingratitude. 

 

Thursday September 18th Hurricane Ike.

Day One:
Ike hit at 9:00 after my first entry. The winds were fierce and howled like a banshee. I lost power at 9:30 at was awoken by debris hitting the side of the house at various points in the night. I slept cradling a Chinese assault weapon hoping that no one would be stupid enough to attempt to enter the house. My mom and scuzzball brother were asleep downstairs and I remained upstairs sweating like James Brown at the Apollo.

Day Two:
I awoke at 7:30am and looked out my window thankful that a piece of flying debris hadn't broken it. My street had turned into a river and water came halfway up my driveway, fortunately I live on a hill top. I had the good sense to park on the side of the house where the water couldn't reach my car. I have canned goods and non perishables enough to last me and only want the rain to stop and water to recede. I've lost my phone service, but mother's line is unaffected. I'm now not feeling so bad that mom moved in three months ago. I call Trinidad who's proofreading my novel and she says how she's halfway done and has taken care of many of my mistakes. She wonders which characters are real people and how I was able to write a problematic teen aged girl "so accurately" and if the crooked cop in the story has a basis in reality. My mother and brother are downstairs arguing. I tune them out and try to finish Shaw's Pygmalion and start on Major Barbara hearing the "Posh" British accents of Colonel Pickering and Henry Higgins in my mind as I do. Night descends on us and I sweat through a good t-shirt.

Day Three:
Mom is frantic that she'll lose all the meat in her freezer. Not eating much meat I remember last time I prepped for a hurricane and remember why deep freezers are a bad idea. Scum and I get into moms car looking for an open store to procure supplies. The only one we find is a small ghetto supermarket in hard hit Sunny Side. It transcends being merely crowded and makes the fall of Saigon look like a company picnic. We scrounge for charcoal, coffee and some other essentials before standing in line for an hour to make our purchases. My brother is trying to buy beer but when we make it to the front of the line a buxom, bespectacled, pouty-liped, pot bellied Vietnamese teen whose family owns the establishment informs us that blue laws prevent her from selling it to him. Thank god. My brother is an Ass when he's drinking.
We look for ice and only find uprooted trees, homes missing rooves, gas station canopies and hanging traffic lights. We finally hear from a white haired gent with a thick South Carolina who seemed as out of place in Sunny Side as I would seem in Stockholm that Whole Foods on West Alabama still has both power and precious ice. Scum and I make a bee line to it and wait in line for another hour before buying two 20 lb bags of ice each as it was their set limit. In line waiting we met people from all over the economic strata. Rich and poor all buying ice. A girl in line behind me was only buying water. She lived in an apartment complex in the Montrose and hadn't lost power. I envy her. She's complaining about how there is nothing on TV but hurricane coverage. We make it home and against my better judgement we let my brother cook. It's obvious that I got the culinary skills. We listened for reports on the radio and went to bed in the dark house. I saw a light in my neighbor's house and called HPD. I didn't know that my neighbor (who had evacuated) had returned. I'm glad I called the cops rather than doing a Joe Horn and opening fire. That night a cool front came in and the humidity was gone.

Day four:
I couldn't hop on my treadmill and run three miles like a good little brainwashed jarhead, so I put on a canteen and walked four miles to survey the damage. Trees were strewn about the neighborhood. Signs were blown about and all was dark. The police ever vigilant were everywhere. I passed the redneck bar owned by my friend Xuan. She calls herself "Sandy" and is like every middle aged, busty Asian woman I know. A complete egomaniac and business genius. She worked two jobs to save the money to buy her own bar and made a success of it. Her truck is out front. No doubt she'd rode out the storm in there.
I walk home passing under impotent power lines and listen to my walkman as deejays tell me that FEMA is giving away water, food and ICE. I hear president dumbass and mayor White (Who looks curiously like Charlie Brown) tell me that FEMA is on the job. I make it home and a neighbor and I head to a FEMA site. We are respectively the 30th and 31st cars in line at 11:00 but despite the fact that the center was supposed open at 10:00 we beat the supplies there by two hours. We turn off our engines and sit as we hear that FEMA refuses to unload trucks without a forklift. I remember all the times in the two years in which I unloaded trucks that I'd never used a forklift. When the line finally does start moving, cutting is rampant. There are fist fights and the whole thing is one gigantic cluster #uck. I tell them I'm picking up for three people and I'm given 6 MRE's and a case of water. It was 2:30 in the afternoon. I go home and learn that my mother and brother won't eat MREs as neither likes them. I counter with the fact that noone likes them but people eat them anyway. Scum gets a ride into south park and mom and I clean the debris and haul it to the street. I finish reading Major Barbara and start the Book of the Five Rings and sit in awe of Musashi until it becomes difficult to read by lamp. My phone rings to my surprise as I hadn't even a dial tone earlier. It was Shuko calling from Japan. She was worried about me when she heard the storm hit. She had been trying to reach me since Saturday and couldn't . I love both her accent and the cadence with which she speaks. She brightens my mood before I blow out my candles and go to bed.

Day Five:
I wake up and walk to Pleasantville on the other side of 610. I see that some stores are running on emergency generators. Gas stations are starting to open up but there are lines that stretch for blocks. There are people hoarding gas in five gallon gas cans. Cops are at the front of every gas line to prevent "incidents" Scum returns and brings a guest with him My oldest nephew shows up with the pretty Hispanic girl he's living with. she and I talk about how head strong my nephew is and how he refused to listen to anyone about his newly discovered epilepsy and refuses to take any medication. Scum and his friend spend the night and I barbecue some turkey wings which get rave reviews from all. I go to bed listening to the two men discussing religion.

Day Six:
I have an MRE for breakfast and remember why I hated them so much as a young Marine. I walk to Pleasant Ville to discover another open gas station. On the way I spot an HL&P crew who are checking our powerlines. They SAY that we might have power back that day or the following but I know he's lying to get rid of me. My mom tells me we need more Ice so I head back to the FEMA center with her in tow. Scum and his friend stay and fire up and load up the barbeque pit. We're worried because Scum's idea of barbeque is burned meat. The line is a mile long and while sitting in the car we listen to the Robyn CD I borrowed from the library. Mom complains about how LONG the line is and how slow it moved. I remind her that I sat in the same line two days earlier and that it didn't move at all, but she continues to complain. The two blonde women in the SUV in front of us with the Utah are smoking a joint to pass the time and the AC in mom's car is out of freon. Mom eventually listens to the music and ask me about who we're listening to. She finds it odd that a small blonde woman from Sweden is doing what sounds like "black music." We make it to the front of the line. The two women who had been smoking a joint were a blonde in her 30s...and her 60 something MOTHER. FEMA volunteers are considerably more efficient than they were just two days before. We are given two boxes of MREs and two cases of water. On the way from the center I spot a Crystal. A pretty 21 year old who had a crush on me as a student that I told her she would get over as soon as she graduated. She walked down a busy street the embodiment of the hippy, buxom, blue eyed brunettes that occupy my every other fantasy. I had nearly forgotten the fact that I had to constantly stop telling her just a few years ago NOT to call my by my first name, or that I had to chew her out for running up on me and giving me a hard (but playful) slap on the butt.
We pick up propane and batteries for the radio. When we return home we learn that Scum and his guest (who the hell invites a guest over during a hurricane...TO SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE?) have eaten EVERYTHING they had put on the grill which would have been enough to feed all four of us. Not only that but they'd consumed all the turkey I'd barbequed the night before. They leave unceremoniously. I barbequed some deer ribs that were in the freezer and wrap some fish in aluminum foil and toss them on the pit as well. Mom's boyfriend comes over and brings us ice. I hop on my bike and find that Kroger is running on emergency power. I enter and am escorted by a teen with a flashlight to buy bananas and a bottle of flavored water. I ride around the neighborhood to see if there are any HL&P crews attempting to restore power. There aren't. I check my messages and learn that more of my friends in Southwest Houston have power back and that someone I know who lives in a mansion in Sugar Land not only never lost hers, but threw a massive party to which I wasn't invited. I sit on my balcony sipping a cup of green tea I made on a barbeque pit which has become my stove and read more of Musashi's take on martial arts and life in general. I can't help but think of the contrast between the Victorian England of Shaw with the feudal Japan of the great and legendary swordsman. My candles are starting to dwindle, and I'm beginning to hate the kid with HL&P who told me that I would have lights within two days. I listen to a Deejay whose just moved here from LA and is quite impressed with how well the city is coming together amist this crisis. She praises Mayor White (despite is incompetence and buck passing) and gives the web site to FEMA and their radio station that those without power can know when they can have it restored.
It never dawns on her that if we don't have power we CAN'T go to the damned web site. Slacker Dave (who never lost power) goes to the site for me and tells me that worst case scenario my part of town (which was the hardest hit by the storm) might not be restored until Monday of next week...or later. Lovely. The Galleria has had their power back since Monday but I'm stil in the dark. Looters have attempted to break into the homes of my neighbors and at night I can hear gunshots and sirens. The drug plagued apartment complexes down the freeway from us have their power back, but my little subdivision has not. It's nice to know that the criminals who are coming into my neighborhood to terrorize us have lights, air conditioning and cable TV while I sit in the dark sleeping with a sniper rifle. I called FEMA before turning in for the night and put in paperwork to file for "disaster unemployment" because HISD has been closed since last Friday and has said that classes were cancelled for this week. I hate asking anyone for anything, but in this case I have to be practical.

Day Seven:
I wake up and take the mother of all cold showers. I go to Kroger and buy a bottle of flavored water and the second I open it my bus shows up. Metro has resumed service to everyone who sits in the dark. The bus driver looks enough like Danny Glover to be his twin. I enter the library and enter this into history's record sitting next to a man who apparently has bathed in a Calvin Klein cologne that despite it's high price makes me nauseous each time I'm near someone wearing it. Will I have power when I get home? Probably not. Will I either have to fire up a grill or dine on the god-awful food that assaulted my palate as a 19 year old Marine? Possibly? Will either of these things bother me? Not by much. A good portion of the world lives the way I've lived for the past week EVERY DAY! Their biggest concern isn't when their electricity will be restored because they don't have any. They worry about men with automatic weapons destroying their homes and villages. They worry about diseases and predatory animals. despite all that's happened to me and the city in which I live over the past week, I still live in a great industrialized nation where a week from now, my biggest concern will probably be rather or not the batter on my MP3 works, or if I can get a Barrack Obama tee-shirt. I won't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. I might worry about getting the outline for my next novel finished but in the grand scheme of things I have no real worries.
By this time next week I'll be in a room full of teenagers who will act as if this storm was the worst experience of their lives despite the fact that none of them would have lost a family member, all of them will still have homes with running water and soft beds to sleep in. It will be the worst week of their lives because they had to live without hair dryers, tv, air conditioners, computers and MP3s. No wonder the rest of the world thinks we Americans are so fat, lazy and spoiled.

Houston: Friday September 12th 2008 The day before Ike

The powers that be with the Houston Independent school district told me, the rank and file and the grateful students that there would be no classes today in lieu of the coming hurricane. I went out earlier today to run a simple errand. Perhaps I'm oblivious to the oncoming storm, maybe I'm in a state of denial as to the destruction Ike may bring with him, or it could be I convinced myself that my mortality is of no significance. 

         Regardless, I got into my big maroon Oldsmobile and found myself on Interstate 10 East driving towards downtown. The sky was grey and the day seemed to have an almost erie stillness to it. I drove on freeways that seemed nearly deserted save myself and a few scant vehicles which all seemed to be passing me. I saw the faces of those who hastily drove past me. Men women and children all seemed to be limited to a handful of facial expressions. There was the young black woman who appeared to be ten years younger than myself. She was in a car with two small children and piled with clothes. Her face seemed to convey a nervous desperation.

        A middle aged white guy in an econo-box ziped past me and he looks like the posterboy for apprehension.  The look on his face seemed to suggest that he was running from the devil himself.

A big black truck roared past me. In the passenger's seat is an elderly Hispanic woman whose face conveys neither fear nor a sense of urgency. Her expression seems familiar, but I can't quite recall where I've seen it. I reach my destination on the nearly deserted streets. An, electronics store which had closed moments before I'd arrived. I was informed that the microphone and web cam I'd purchased for my Mac would only work on a PC and to get my refund when they re-opened.

       Law enforcement officials are everywhere. Men and women of the law try their best to look re-assuring as they stand in front of drug stores of men, women and children clamoring for supplies. The cops are scared, but can't let those of us whom they're sworn to protect know that their armor has the slightest imperfection. I leave the shopping center and drive past rows of stores and shops with plywood covering their windows. I can't help but notice that a gas station  which I drive past every day on my way home from work has raised the price of a gallon of gasoline 50¢ higher than it was yesterday. It's nice to know that in times of crisis the true humanitarians show themselves.

      I passed a homeless man pushing a shopping cart filled with every possession he owns in the world. Where will he be when the storm makes landfall? I passed a rough street filled with wiry  junkies and tired prostitutes who look as if they could flatten anything male or female that got too close. Where would they ride this thing out? I drove down a nearly deserted section of Clinton drive (which looks deserted most of the time normally) and put some gas into my aging pimp-mobile. I got back onto the empty freeway for a mile before getting to my exit and noticing that the two gas stations  outside my subdivision have sold all the gas they had and had closed shop. I went to the Dollar store (the only thing open) and while picking up something I didn't need make idle conversation with a gent  who much like myself was hoping either that the storm would veer a few degrees and miss us, or simply not be nearly as bad as the media was making out to be.

    I got home and noticed most of my neighbors had boarded up their homes. I saw one as he piled his beautiful wife and energetic son into his stereotypically suburbanite mini-van. He asked if I was staying and I told him that someone had to guard his house. I entered my home to the sound of a police helicopter and ascended my staircase. I cleaned my Chinese made SKS carbine and load shiny brass 7.62 x 39 millimeter ammunition into it's clip. I've water, I have food. I worry that something may fly through one of my windows or through one of my car windows. I'm concerned that if their is flooding that it not enter my home. 

    My companions are my computer and television which will both be rendered silent in the event of a blackout, an assault weapon and a razor sharp Marine Corps issued combat knife. I don't fear looters attempting to rob either me or my neighbors, but I don't want to see them either. I pray that my door doesn't explode from it's hinges at the hands of young thugs searching to plunder my domicile. I would hate to take a human life but wouldn't hesitate to do so if given no choice.  

     Should things get desperate. There is a wooded park behind my home where I know there are wild deer. I don't advocate poaching, and I'm relatively sure that the kind, clove footed creatures and snakes who share their wood are safe as long as I and the others who've elected to stay have our canned goods and our electricity is still on. I have a quarter bottle of  a smooth Swedish Vodka,  a bottle of chartruse, and a flask of cheap tequila, all of which I plan to consume from either an eagle globe and anchor Marine Corps shot glass, or a tall Houston, Texans shotglass given to me by a pretty girl in a bar who used her marketing degree by dressing as a cheerleader for a big beer company and passing out shot-glasses as her "entry level" corporate job.

    I'm either too stubborn, too brave or too stupid to get out of the path of Ike. I'll stay not knowing if it will pass us by and do no damage at all, or if this will be the glorious battle with the elements which sends me to a mead hall in Valhalla to drink and feast with buxom valkyries for the remainder of my days. In either case I'm staying put. If this is the last thing I write let it be said that I regret never marrying or having children, and not traveling as much as I would have liked. 

     I walked past a mirror a moment ago and saw something humbling. What I saw was a look on my own face which suggested neither fear nor a sense of urgency. I'd seen that look on a face I'd seen on the freeway earlier today. I am in the tranquility that precedes bedlam. My mind is clearer than it normally is and I'm prepared to face the absolute worse and hoping that I'm merely a pawn in a huge media circus who can return to his life when this fiasco has passed.        

Guns! Guns! Guns!

For years now I've heard the NRA saying how it's every God fearing American's right to own a gun. After years of arguing with them I have to say if you can't beat em...join em.
I'm considering joining the ranks of the National Rifle Association, but given that I don't believe in doing anything alone I've decided that should I join I should bring as many people with me as possible. To that end, I plan to go to neighborhoods like Watts, Harlem, Hough, Compton, The South Bronx, Bedford Styvessant, South Central LA, and places like the Cabrini Green Housing project in Chicago and the entire cities of East Saint Louis and Detroit.
I'll make it my mission to put a gun in the hands of every American citizen I can find who is willing to listen to me who understands that our founding fathers intended for them to possess the most powerful armaments available to them. I'll encourage them to:

a. Take Gun Safety Courses

b. Join the NRA

c. Buy as many powerful handguns and Rifles as is allowed by law.

d. Speak out against ANY legislation that would curtail their rights to own small arsenals.

During the dark period in which my ancestors were enslaved it was illegal in some states for a man of color slave or free to own a fire arm. Well fortunately we live in an equal society where ANY man or woman can purchase a powerful weapon and we have the NRA to thank for that. I will make it my mission to go to black churches and mosques and urge all in the sound of my voice to arm themselves and join the one organization that supports their constitutional right to arm themselves. Then I'll go to places like East LosAngeles, Little Havana in Miami and Spanish Harlem in New York and urge my Latino brothers to also join the ranks of this FINE organization which speaks for ALL Americans and their right to own a fire arm.
Ironically though Reagan signed legistlation as governor of California to prohibit Californians from carrying a gun on either their person or in their vehicles and supported the Brady Bill and Assault gun bans, we all know where he REALLY stood. Reagan would have said that some laws which existed in Tennessee and Texas which (even after 1867) forbade blacks from owning weapons were a CLEAR violation of our second ammendment rights.
Let us all remember that the constitution tells us that "The right to keep and bear arms shall NOT be infringed upon." It doesn't go on to say "Unless you live in a bad neighborhood."

For those of you with reading comprehension issues the proceding is satire. I support the right to own a gun, but I find it funny that many who do also are remarkably silent when men and women of color begin to arm themselves. Funny how the average American has the right to have a small arsenal of powerful weapons, but if he or she is a person of color then suddenly he or she instantaneously becomes a "person of interest" , "gun nut" or some kind of "Threat."

Fact: The Black Panther Party in California carried UNLOADED weapons on their persons in the 1960s largely to illustrate a point to law enforcement officials in Oakland. The gun laws in California were antiquated frontier laws which allowed any citizen to carry a gun and the Panthers merely exploited this.
The men and women of the Black Panther Party despite their militant stance opened day care centers, soup kitchens and food pantries and generally attempted to improve their communities. Bear in mind the two founding members of the Black Panther Party were college students in spite of any good they attempted to do J. Edgar Hoover declared them "The biggest threat to the American way of life" and instances like the Death of Chicago Panther Leader Fred Hampton, who was shot to death in his sleep as the Chicago Police opened fire on his apartment claiming that he had opened fire on them despite the fact that his weapon hadn't been fired.
I happened past an NRA convention here in Houston several years ago. I noticed something odd about the membership as they left the gathering. I saw no blacks, Latinos or Asians. That's not to say there aren't any, but I didn't see any. I doubt that the National Rifle Associate discriminates against anyone, but I would be lying to myself if I didn't say that I think their rank and file would be uncomfortable with the thought of me joining and encouraging large groups of minorities to do the same, despite how much it would help their image.