Hurricane

    We all stand huddled together just off the Grandview sidewalk. A dozen or so of us, maybe fifteen, all hunched against the early-morning chill, simply waiting. Waiting for one white fifteen-passenger van to match the gray one eight of us have already claimed seats in, along with one adult who will drive that van. Conversation runs.

            I wonder shy she’s so late.
            I’ll bet she forgot to set her alarm.
            That movie was incredible.
            Did you see Lost this week?
            Did you hear their new album?

    Et cetera.
  Finally, the van arrives minus one seat to make room for the luggage of fifteen high-schoolers plus three adults -- all bags that have lain dormant, waited as long as we have.
  One long day later and it’s another early morning, six or so, a hundred miles from the southern border of Missouri. By this afternoon, we are in New Orleans, parked along the curb outside a yellow house full of bunk beds three high that will serve as our home for this week and the homes of three other youth groups. One each from Minnesota, Massachusetts, and North Carolina. Even with nine beds and floor space for two or three more, North Carolina spilled over into our room. We arrive to a waiting intruder wearing Tar Heel blue and holding a sleeping bag.

            Can I stay with you guys?
            Yeah, sure. Whatever. No problem.
            My name is Michael Lee.

  Later, Michael would bring us some brilliant conversational gems, being the type of person who enjoys a good laugh with friends new or old.

            We saw Nick Cage at Cafe Du Monde.
            Seriously?
            Yeah. But he left after people started to notice him.
            He must have found a clue to the next National Treasure.

  We spend our mornings this week teaching first and second graders bible verses, crafts, sports. They love the sports, like the crafts, and at least learn the verses. But they come back, and when they come back, they keep learning, and then they start to learn to love the verses, too. Unless they got distracted. Or started shouting. Which they did. But only when they got upset. Or when we were alone with them; when we were with no other adult leaders. But they got distracted a lot.

            Can I eat my lunch?
            Then what will you eat for lunch?
            I just want a snack. I’m hungry.
            Okay, fine.

  We spend our nights visiting famous places in the city. Mostly the French Quarter. Places where famous people go so they can be seen in public. Tonight it’s Cafe Du Monde. The jokes practically make themselves (thanks to Mike).

            It’s Johnny Depp!
            It’s John Travolta!
            Look! I see Samuel L. Jackson!

    It wasn’t them.
  We finish our beignets and our coffees. Trekking back to the vans, we see a sad trumpeter in the blue light of dusk. Swing around a lamp post with one hand, lazily press valves that play a sad melody to reflect a sad tragedy just three years past with the other. People drop money in an open trumpet case as they pass by, eager and longing to one day, hopefully, wake up and not remember the pain and sorrow that he reminds them all of.
  On Friday, some of every group tour the city. We end in the Ninth Ward. Here, three years ago, almost thirty levees burst and let loose a wall of water that turned over houses, dropped them on cars, and killed hundreds if not thousands. Even now, we see spray-painted numbers on the doors of houses representing the numbers of dead and alive found inside. We see no signs that anyone has done anything to clean up the neighborhoods, and grass has already grown in lawns and through cracks to near a foot high. No people are visible, even in parts of the Ward further from the levees that let loose the kind of water that people fear. The kind of water that you forget about every time you see the weak flow from a water faucet. We end on one of the now-rebuilt levees and pray for a city none of us are sure can fix this and heal from this alone.