Begin at the Beginning

Immediately before I went to Louisiana:

We were at an end. It had been coming for a very long time. It had already come in April, when I smashed your guitar and you wrote all of those horrible songs about me. But we were saying goodbye. I was trying very had not to; I didn’t want to let go. I didn’t even like you any longer. I had been with you for so long that I just didn’t know what else to do. We had been camping for what was it, four, five days? Labor Day Weekend 2005. Throughout Idaho. Remember when we stopped at the Ranger Station along Highway 21 to pickup an Auto Tour Tape, only to find out that the tape player in the Goldsmobile was broken? I was so worried about returning that damn tape to the ranger station in Boise. Did I ever return it? The fallout shelter left over from another life at the Shoshone Ice Caves. Camping at Craters of the Moon. Taking pictures at the nuclear submarine forever run aground in the middle of the city park in Arco, a town ever-decaying from its heyday in the atomic age. The rows and rows of taxidermied animals at that strange man’s “museum”. A necklace made of dino-poo, or so the purveyor Bob assured us. A completely dead trip.

We didn’t watch TV or listen to the news on the radio the entire time we were gone, strange for both of us. The only things of concern were your attempt to break free from me, and my resistance to your escape. We had absolutely no idea that Katrina had happened. No idea that hundreds of people were drowning. No idea that in the wake of the mass evacuation tens of thousands of pets were being left behind to die. No idea that fairy tale courtyards and dank projects were drowning alike. No idea.

Once we were home, I reached through the window next to the door to move the chair holding the door shut. You had broken the door a few months back, and now it would not close on its own. Out of habit developed from the months of being unemployed, I flipped on Oprah. What was happening? Rather than an interview with Matt Damon or a Book Club episode, I was smacked in the chest by images of Nate, Oprah’s trusty decorating guru (why him?) talking to crying, dirty people, trying to say goodbye to their pets as they boarded busses(?) out of New Orleans. What the hell was going on? I sat down unable to move myself away from the TV. The front door was open and the trunk sat half emptied into the street. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the images I was seeing thrust before me in 27” portions. You walked in the door and I made you sit down and watch.

The disaster may as well been on some remote Pacific island, for the fleeting mention it received.
Oprah was dressed in what I can only remember as some sort of combat gear, sans makeup, unpretty like a real person, hair frizzy as it should be for that part of the country, flanked by Mayor Nagin, a man, who at that moment like most Americans, I did not know. The Superdome. I did not closely follow professional sports, and upon seeing the images of the Superdome, I assumed that the building was being used as a shelter because it was no longer being used as a venue. It was implausible to me that the building looked this way because residents had been sheltered within for a few days during the storm; it looked like this was a long-abandoned building that had simply served the purpose of providing a large, mostly dry space in which people could take refuge. I could not believe that the filth and damage to the building were caused by those taking shelter there. And later, all of the stories of horror about the place.

How the hell were these images true? And how had I missed all of this over the weekend? How was this happening in America? We were the good guys who were always rescuing the poor people stuck in similar situations have a globe away. We had spent most of the time in the car, and granted we weren’t listening to NPR, or an AM news channel, but I would think that something like this would have made it onto a special report on even Tejano station coming from the desert of Idaho. Maybe it was covered, and I somehow missed it. I am still not sure.
How were people trapped in a city? It didn’t make any sense to me. I grew up in Idaho, a land of big, open spaces. You can literally see for miles in any direction without a thing disrupting your view. With my limited geographical experience, it seemed impossible to me that people could live in a place that they couldn’t get out of. I wonder how many people shared this point of view when the disaster was unfolding? (Should I add a reference at this point, noting the geography of the city, and the very few ways to make it out?)

I had to do something. Never in my life have I been compelled to action as I was after seeing the images on Oprah. I didn’t know what I could do. I didn’t have any money, but since I had been laid-off, I had plenty of time. What could I do? I needed information, and the new channels seemed to be doing so only begrudgingly. The computer he gave me for my birthday had been repossessed, so I didn’t have access to the Internet. I had to get online. I hadn’t seen my parents since the week before when we had gotten into a fight, a real screaming and yelling match, rare for our family, and wanted to make up; plus, I needed to get online so that I could get some information about how I could help. I drove the hour to my parents’ house to search for something I could do, some way that I could help. I remembered seeing something about the Americorps on Oprah, I think. Maybe it was the first President Bush and President Clinton talking about them? I don’t really remember; it is all kind of mashed up in my head. The first place I went was the Americorps website. It didn’t look like it was something that I would qualify to join. So somewhere I got the idea to go to the Red Cross website.

I went to the main Red Cross website, and learned that I to volunteer I needed to contact my local chapter. Local chapter? I had no idea how to do this, but found a link on the main website. I clicked on it, and then found my way to the American Red Cross of Greater Idaho website. Here, I got a number to call. When I called, I was sent to voicemail. I left a message saying that I didn’t have much money, but I did have a lot of time and was really interested in helping the people affected by the hurricane. I really didn’t think that I would hear back from them.
I went home. You were asleep on the couch. I told you what I had done. I asked if you would call too. You didn’t want to, claiming that it would take away from time recording your album. I took it as you not wanting to spend time with me, and am still certain that that is what it was. How on earth did I pretend that everything was okay between us? You wouldn’t even sleep in our bed with me, and when you went out at night to play in the bars, I was definitely not welcome. After I had convinced you to move back in, you had a friend stop by one night, and told me that I was only welcome (in my own house, where I was the only one paying the bills!) if I stayed in the bedroom out of view the entire time. For some reason, I did it. I even listened as you said some terrible things about me. Why did I let this happen to me? Why did I think I deserved to be used like this? I still don’t know, but fight almost every day to remember the way I felt so that I will never let myself be treated that way again. You made me feel very bad about myself for a really long time. I don't think I will forgive you.

Even though I didn’t want to, I knew that leaving was the thing that I needed to do. I needed to get away from my life, completely.