This Month's Story

I’m exhausted by the time we arrive in Bay St. Louis and I sleep late in our FEMA trailer parked on our borrowed lot off Blue Meadow Road.

Stella wakes me up at mid-morning with a fresh cup of coffee and the news that our trailer is empty of food and she is going to Walmart.

Did I want to come?

She drives, and I sit trying to recover from the long trip down to Mississippi from Pennsylvania. It is now mid-October, and I idly look over the changes that had taken place in our twin cities of Waveland and Bay St. Louis since we left in April.

Highway 90 is cleaner, less wreckage, and I see a lot of new buildings going up. However, a closer look shows this is somewhat superficial. Much of the new work is on 90. The trip down Blue Meadow Road to get to 90 still shows extensive wreckage. A thirty-foot yacht lies on its side a hundred yards from the door of our trailer.

Stella detours from 90 to the area south of the tracks so we can view our beach front property.

Things have changed here as well. But it is an eerie sort of change. Along the coastal road, there is little wreckage; almost all the lots have been cleared. There are a few houses going up, but very few. Since the water table is about five feet down, there are no basements; all houses along the coast are built on slabs. What we see in abundance are very clean, but very empty slabs. There still are no street signs. You have to know where you are going in order to get there.

But even if you know, it’s hard. It’s like finding your way on the surface of the moon.

Along the coast road is a broad landscape of live oaks struggling to come back and pine trees dying from their lethal dose of salt-water poisoning. These defoliated trees, stretching mile after mile, present a vast sense of emptiness, of desolation. It looks like an immense park in the grip of a barren winter.

When we drive up Nicholson Avenue to return to 90, it is as if we are resurfacing from a deep well. All about us, there is a strong bustle of activity, of noise; and everywhere there are obvious changes taking place in the stores and general landscape. It is markedly different from the sterile emptiness of the costal road.

We go into Walmart, where Stella is almost instantly greeted by friends who warmly welcome her back. This goes on for almost every other aisle. Our half hour shopping stretches to an hour and then another half hour.

The change in that time in Stella is marked.

Most of the attention is on her, so I concentrate on pushing the heavily laden cart in front of me (what in the world is she buying? Where are we going to put it all?).

Finally, we are in the checkout line and, glancing at her, I see she is relaxed and has her old look back that I like so much.

As we drive back to Blue Meadow Road, I suggest we stop and get a “pig” of draft beer. I should explain that “pigs” are small, plastic kegs made by a micro-brewery located about five miles to our north, toward the Kiln. During normal times, I usually keep a pig of Southern Pecan, their dark beer, sitting in the refrigerator.

It’s nice to draw off what I call a “shorty” to drink with a meal. Stella argues that it was nice at one time, but now it takes up too much room in our small trailer refrigerator, but I argue that the convenience of having a cold draft whenever I want, easily offsets this, and we usually keep a “pig in the frig.”

When I go into the store, take my pig out of the store’s refrigerator, and bring it to the counter, the young clerk tells me the computer is down; she can only take cash.

I’m still tired and slightly confused from the long drive the day before. I stand there staring at the keg on the counter and my eighteen dollars lying beside it. All I can think about is that I don’t have enough money.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Paul, I’ll cover you. Pay me back when you get a chance.”

With that the man behind me throws a twenty on the counter and walks out the door. I turn wildly around, trying to catch a glimpse of his face before the door closes. I turn back to the clerk at the counter.

“Who was that?”

She has already picked up our joint monies and is laying out my change. She looks after my friend who is already in his truck and starting to drive away.

She shakes her head.

“I don’t know him, but, he seemed to know you.”

Grabbing the small keg and my change, I run out the door to where Stella sits patiently waiting in the car.

“Stella, who was that in the white truck?”

“That was Jimmy Ladner. He waved hello. Why?”

“Nothing, nothing,”

I stare for a long moment at the large, white truck now moving west down Highway 90.

Putting the pig in the back seat, I get in the car. It’s hot and the pig is cold. I figure it will still be cool enough to drink when we get home. Stella starts the car. I lean back on the headrest and start to relax. After we had driven a little bit, I say aloud I was thinking.

“I just realized something. We’re back home.”

Stella nods agreeably; she’s known that for some time and, in the quiet that follows, continues to our FEMA trailer off of Blue Meadow Road.