Hurricane

by Wilson Koewing

NASA

Hurricane Ethan was coming, so we drove to lake Pontchartrain and watched it arrive. The sky was sickly gray. Waves crashed over the levee, frothy washing machine. I took her photo, red hair blazing in the breeze. She wore blue sunglasses that matched her blouse. I posted it and several guys I hadn’t talked to since high school made thirsty comments. When we got home, she made a gumbo. I sat in a chair watching her stir the roux. The wind howled against the windows and eventually the power failed. Immediately, the house warmed, and the gumbo had us sweating. She dropped her dress to the ground and went to the bedroom. I filled a bowl with ice. She was sprawled out on the bed. I rubbed the ice cubes over her, and by the time she spread her legs it was like sinking into warm water.

***

When the eye was over us, we crawled onto the roof and smoked a joint. The clouds spun overhead, but all was calm. Trash littered the streets. A fallen tree limb disconnected a power line which hung above the ground, spitting sparks of electricity, and dancing. A man on a bicycle raced through. Garbage swirled in his wake.

“Where could he possibly be going?”

“Only one thing would make a man bicycle through a hurricane,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Pussy.”

I lost my balance, laughing and nearly rolled off the roof. I caught myself and she pulled me back to safety.

“You owe me one,” she said, mischievous.

“What did you have in mind?”

The wind picked up and a light rain rode upon it. She shrugged and looked away fighting a smile.

“What?”

She scooted up the roof, leaned against the wall and pulled her dress up over her knees. I started crawling and as the hurricane returned full force, wind whipping and rain pelting, I went down on her until we both dripped wet.

***

We drove around after the hurricane. Military was everywhere. They kept things in order, but mostly guarded the gas. The sky was stark blue, but off in the distance you could see the thick cloud edge of the hurricane. It was probably busting up Lafayette. There were armed soldiers at every gas station. The streets were deserted, but the bars were opening. The bars always reopened first after hurricanes. We were in Fontainebleau, so we rode through mid-city, down Esplanade then back up Claiborne toward Uptown. They wouldn’t let anybody drive into the Quarter. The Brown Derby was open, so I ducked in for a six pack and we continued up Claiborne, switched over to St. Charles and went over to The Fly.

There were more people at The Fly than I would have imagined, which is a park by The Mississippi. The river ran so high it looked like it could spill over and flood us all, but for some reason it didn’t. She spread a blanket and we watched the water gush and drank the beers. It was late afternoon. The sun beat down, but a sliver crescent moon was visible against the blue.

“If you could fuck anyone living or dead, who would you fuck?” she said.

“Why do you always ask this?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I guess I think people always think about fucking everybody else.”

A guy in a suit staggered past and walked over by the river and balance beamed on the concrete rail.

“I’d fuck you,” I said.

She rolled her eyes and lit a joint and took a long drink.

“What about you?”

“I’d fuck that guy,” she said, pointing at the suit.

I stared at her, trying to act serious, but we both fell out laughing and together and kissed.

When we looked up the suit was nowhere to be seen.

“I guess that ship sailed,” she said.

And while it was funny, I found myself mildly concerned he might have fallen in. But if he had, there wasn’t much we could do to help him against the current.

“If you could go back in time and kill anyone from history, who would you kill?” she said.

“Jesus, probably,” I said. “But that wouldn’t have done much good, would it have?”

“Unlikely,” she said. “He would have just risen anew.”

“What about you?”

She took a long hit of the joint and flicked it away.

“Hey!”

“It was cashed.”

I cracked two more beers and handed her one.

“Well?”

“I’d kill Zuckerburg,” she said and turned into profile.

High in the sky a plane sizzled a white trail. A slight breeze blew her hair into her face, and she calmly pushed it behind her ear.

“Yeah,” I said. “That actually makes a lot of sense.”

She turned to me and made a kissy face, and because of the angle of the sun I could see all the little hairs on her face, delicate in the rays, one of the many dead parts of us, and it was in that moment that I knew she had me, hook, line and sinker, and nothing would ever be the same.

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Wilson Koewing is a writer from South Carolina. His memoir Bridges is forthcoming from Bull City Press.