126. Flood
NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Lou and Diddlie are already at the corner table agreed upon for lunch, to the left of the H Bar’s bow window. A sprig of goldenrod in the bottom buttonhole shines against her blue t-shirt. Rain flooded the parking lot this morning and the clogged street drains have been cleared of detritus. Two dripping cars just towed in at the Lighthouse gas station are parked with their hoods up and all doors open to the clear sky reflected in the mirror on the opposite wall.
“The water was halfway up the wheels!”
“Is that when you got out?”
“Well, about a minute later.”
Diddlie looks up.
“Hi Fred, and how long have you been standing there behind me?”
Lou is trying to stifle a laugh.
“Okay, poker face, don’t say it!”
“Did, it has only been half a minute. Didn’t want to interrupt your story.”
“Well, I could see you in the mirror when I looked up, you know.”
“No doubt.”
“I am telling Lou about my adventure last week.”
“Where was this?”
“At the bottom of the hill on Huygens St. at the intersection with Feynman Boulevard.”
“Yes, opposite the entrance to Melitus Marsh Park.”
“Right, it was wet. I was going shopping with my friend in her Prius and this rain started coming down like I have never seen before.”
“The world is heating up. More energy in the system means bigger storms and more rain.”
“Well, Lou, do you believe all that stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“About the carbon dioxide and climate change and all that.”
“Not much doubt in my mind.”
“Don’t you think it is all exaggerated to scare us, Fred?”
“Yes, often it is, but I think the facts are scary enough by themselves.”
“Yeah, but who’s facts do you believe?”
“Diddlie, Diddlie, just check the science. Those are the only actual facts. The rest is spin and politics.”
“Yeah, but scientists don’t agree, Lou.”
“Politicization of climate science is a trap. It is not a matter of belief; science is about data, measurement, and facts. Don’t fall into it.”
Lou drains his ice-tea with a loud draw on his paper straw and holds up his glass as if in a toast.
“Just look at the data.”
“Don’t you see Did? Our parents had World War II to survive, our grandparents, World War I. Climate change is even bigger. It threatens the next generation, every living thing, really.”
“Well, okay you two, all this rain is washing out my flower beds and pounded the hell out of the Spiderwort, and it was way too hot for Mr. Liddell yesterday. He had to stay in the living room.”
“The way this is playing out politically, thousands of people may die in various disasters, blaming the latest scapegoat, and never know what really killed them.”
“Lou, I have stopped listening to all that crap on TV. All-day and all night, people jabbering, noise, noise, noise.”
“Too true Did.!
“Yeah, well getting scared isn’t helping anybody. What do you expect me to do? What are you guys doing?”
“One thing is to keep informed and support movements to address the issue rather than deny it.”
“Well, okay Lou, ah, I know it is an important story. But anyway, my story is, that the car stalled in all that water and wouldn’t get going again and there was a truck ahead and another car beyond that, in deeper water and the water got higher and it was hard to open the doors.”
“How did you get out?”
“Fred, I barely squeezed out before it got too deep. More water came just as I had one foot out and trying to push myself through the door with the other on the floor of the car.”
“Did your friend get out?”
“Yes, she got out through the sunroof.”
“Can I start you off with a drink?”
Lou leans back with one hand half raised.
“Pam, long time no see!”
“Yeah, I had a better thing going for a while. Mr. Hoffman hired me back last week. Thank God, or I would be on the street.”
“Oh, Pam! what happened?”
“Well, I won’t bore you with the details, but me and the boyfriend split and neither of us could afford the apartment alone, and I was between jobs, you know.”
Diddlie is fidgeting with her bracelet.
“You could have got someone else to share, couldn’t you?”
“Well, that didn’t work out either. She got injured in the flood and has no insurance, so we have no rent money, so that’s that.”
“Oh Pam, I am so sorry. We were just talking about that. I got caught in it too, but not hurt.”
Lou leans forward to get Pam’s attention.
“Pam, let’s us two talk later. You can start me off with an ice-tea, burger, and coleslaw.”
“Yeah, we are all having the same thing, right Fred?”
“Pretty much, except I would like a Stella and fries.”
“Got it.”
Pam moves on, with a wave from Lou.
“Anyway, my friend didn’t want to stand up on the roof, because of her short skirt.”
“Couldn’t she slide off onto the ground?”
“What ground? There was water up to my knees. She did slide down the windshield on to the hood and tore her little skirt on the wiper.
I didn’t care. I had my jeans on, not these by the way. The water was icky!”
“What do you mean, icky?”
“There was all this stuff floating in it, like dead leaves, branches, twigs, and bugs and plastic and other stuff bumping into my claves underwater. It was dark brown, and you couldn’t see down into it, even where there was a spot clear of leaves. I mean where did all those leaves come from? It’s summer! Then, this flatbed truck backs up towards us with a wrecked van on the back. The driver yells out of the cab. Says we can climb on and he will drive us out. So, at first, we can’t get on. It is too high. Then he tells us where to get a foothold. The rain starts again and a lot more water comes down the hill, full of mulch, and the truck stalls too. The mulch floats together and seemed like dry land. It is like, really weird.
We could hear sirens and I think, great! Emergency is coming for us, but they just fade away in the distance and we never even see them. Anyway the back of the van is intact, so we climb in, to get out of the rain.
Then the driver comes back from the cab to check us out, real big, with serious tattoos, a leather jerkin, and jeans. My friend yells, “Lad!”
I mean, they kind of forget I am there. They just get into this huge kiss. I couldn’t believe it! My friend’s little skirt rode way up and, ah yeah. It was ripped, you know. Well, she had her back to me, and ah, I could see why she was shy about standing up! Lad turns out to be Gladys, my friend’s gay lover, from way back. Then Lad looks at me. I saw that leather was all she had on, I guess she noticed me seeing too.
“Hi, you two, like, together?”
“So, I said, ‘yeah, soaked together in this flood.’ After that, Lad sat down between us and got on her phone for help. She was really funny and sweet to me too, you know. I mean I couldn’t really respond, but I, ah, we, had some privacy after Lad shut the two back doors. It was kind of cozy too, with rain drumming on the roof and a bunch of nice dry flattened cardboard boxes from De Hooch Windows Co. I mean we could have had a threesome, or something.
Diddlie giggles, looks away, and points outside.”
“Check the big white dog out there.”
“I have seen that Spinone, before around here.”
“What did you say it was, Lou?”
“An Italian bird dog, Spinone.”
“Okay folks, Stella for you, and iced teas for Lou and the lady.”
“I am Diddlie, Diddlie Drates.”
“Hi Diddlie, sure, I have served you before, and you too sir.”
“Yes Pam, I remember; Fred.”
“Fred, enjoy your lunch.”
Pam pauses for a moment while she and Diddlie exchange smiles and goes on to her next table.
“We just had to wait. After a while, Lad gets up and opens the doors to let some air in and yells to someone. She hauls up this angry guy in his brand-new business suit, all soaked and oily. Then a cute young woman, shaking and drenched and self-conscious about her nipples thrusting through her soaking t-shirt. Lad tries to comfort her but she just keeps her arms folded and turns her back on us all. It gets too hot and embarrassing after that, with five of us in that confined space. Lad goes back to the cab with my friend, leaving us three strangers to get acquainted, with the doors open and the rain blowing in.
The guy in the suit starts yelling into his phone about the ruined suit and missing his interview. The woman’s phone is too wet or something. Anyway, it doesn’t work and she is sobbing.
Then the suite takes his coat off, saying, ‘Please excuse me folks’, then his shirt and t-shirt. I wondered where he was going to stop! He kept his pants on and sat against the back of the front seat, with a hairy bulging gut sticking out. After about forty minutes, or maybe only ten, the sun came out and it got unbearably hot. So, we sat outside in the shade of the wreck, for what seemed like forever.
Finally, a fire truck pulls up. Lad comes back to us and explains the ladder from the truck is going to be our bridge out. I am trying to chat with the poor drenched girl. I guess she couldn’t have been more than twenty and just totally freaked and crying and hiding her face. I think she said she was supposed to pick up her sister. Couldn’t get a lot of it, and then she stopped responding to questions.
I lost track of the suit. Lad had already carried my friend across when I got over to the ladder with the girl. There was a fireman, with one of those metallic blankets to cover her. Like wrapping her in tin foil. He offered to carry her, but she made it across on her own. Imagine that, a blanket in this weather! Then Lad said, you ready baby? and picked me up too.”
Diddlie grabs a hand full of fries, for her plate and adds more salt and some ketchup.
A long fry sticks out of her mouth with an upward slant as if she is dragging on a cigarette. She beaks it off with a flourish and dips the blunt end in ketchup.
“So, that’s how I got back on the mainland.”
Lou finishes up the last of his slaw and walks over to the bar, where he has a chat with Pam. Mr. Hoffmann comes out and they all talk for a while, before Lou returns to our table.
“I got this one, folks.”
“Why thanks, Lou!”
“You’re welcome Did.”
“Did you take care of Pam too? Is that what is going on?
“Something like that, Fred.”
