Chapter 24: Faith, Charity, Hope

30 August 2005 – Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans, Louisiana

Jeff pressed the backlight button on his watch.

03:07

He rubbed Keiko’s back, trying to calm her while she twitched and whimpered in her sleep. She put up a brave front while in public after the previous day’s incident. Once in private, however, she broke down. Keiko studied karate all her life, but yesterday was the first time she ever had to use it for real and fight for that life. This was her second episode of distress that night. Jeff wanted to go – hell, needed to go – back to sleep but his mind wasn’t letting him.

The leader of the gang from last night received a broken jaw for his trouble, as had the one holding Keiko. The one guarding the door had a probable knee injury and a concussion. The two he took down suffered a bruised sternum and broken ribs, respectively. Ezra’s other friend: a broken wrist. The rest received various other injuries thanks to the folks who helped take back the convention center. The thugs all needed to be taken somewhere else from both a medical and law enforcement standpoint. As far as Jeff was concerned they got what they deserved. As he said the day before, the thugs were lucky they weren’t dead.

Yesterday’s foraging expeditions to the nearby hotels were successful, but only in the barest sense of the word. The supplies they brought back wouldn’t last much beyond this morning’s meal, not with so many people here. Breakfast wouldn’t be anything resembling a normal breakfast but at least it would be edible. The expeditions also brought back more people which added to the pressure to find more food for everyone. Any foraging expeditions today would have to range farther afield but could also use the trucks they realized they did have after they returned yesterday: the demo ambulances. They could carry lots of food if it could be found today.

Ezra told Keiko and Jeff to crash in this upstairs room last night. It was private, quiet, could be locked, and was carpeted. Jeff pulled a poncho liner out of his ruck last night for he and Keiko to sleep under. His Army camouflage uniforms made decent enough pillows. This relative luxury was in sharp contrast to how the others here slept.

Most of them lay without blankets on the cold floor of the exhibit halls overnight. Those with young children were given priority when assigning the second floor rooms last night, but there weren’t enough of the private rooms to go around, nor were they very large. They had to balance keeping the center livable and not freezing those in it to death with the air conditioning while they slept. Jeff was glad the rooms up here were in a separate cooling zone. Still, the disparity between those on the first floor and those on the second could be yet one more area of conflict.

Jeff blinked and heard others moving around outside their room. A check of his watch told him it was now after seven. He must have fallen back to sleep. Keiko, who rolled over in his arms while they slept, looked up at him.

“Good morning, husband.”

“How are you feeling, Keiko?”

“Better, thank you. I know you helped chase my nightmares away. Did I keep you awake for long during them?”

“No.”

“Liar,” she retorted before smiling and kissing his nose. “If I did I am sorry, Jeffrey, because you needed your sleep as well. Let us go see what needs to be done today.”

Jeff agreed despite not feeling rested at all. The gauze on his back pulled at his wound when he stood. He probably needed to find Jack and have him redress the laceration. The threads from the gauze might become lodged in the wound and cause an infection.

“Husband, you need to change your shirt.” Jeff tried to twist around and see why. “It appears your wound soaked through your bandage overnight and has stained the back of it.”

Jeff frowned, pulling the shirt over his head. The back of his gray t-shirt was now encrusted with a reddish-yellow stain by the bottom hem.

“Looks like plasma soaked through the gauze and the shirt absorbed it. Is the gauze about this color?” Keiko told him the gauze looked bloodier. “I’ll find Jack when we go downstairs and have my dressing changed.”

“You feel all right otherwise, Jeffrey?”

“As well as can be expected, Keiko. I got lucky. A knife to the kidney usually doesn’t end well.”

Jeff grabbed a clean shirt before putting the old one on. He waved Keiko out of the room ahead of him. As they stepped out of the room, they noticed two people strolling toward them wearing bright yellow ’STAFF’ shirts and carrying radios.

“Morning, sir,” one of them offered.

“Morning, Claude. Claude, you remember I’m a staff sergeant, right? You don’t have to call me sir, unless you want me to call you ‘Lance Corporal’ all day?”

“You’re in charge here, sir. The commanding officer. That means I refer to you as ‘sir’ when I see you, sir.”

“At the most I’m the NCOIC, Claude, though I’m not likely to change your mind on that, am I?”

“Sir, negative, sir!” Claude replied with a smile.

Jeff shook his head in resignation while Keiko giggled.

“Et tu, Brute?” he asked, making her laugh harder. He held up his hands in surrender. “How are things going?”

“Quiet overnight, sir. Father Beauchamp and Reverend Watson are holding an interfaith service in the theater down the hall.”

“I hope they put in a good word for us.”

“God will provide, sir.”

“Hope so. I’ve always been more of an adherent of the philosophy of ‘God helps those who helps themselves,’ Claude, but I’ll take whatever help we can get. A lot of lives are on the line.”

“You’re from Boston aren’t you, sir?”

“Close enough, why?”

“The rallying cry during the Red Sox’s run to the championship last year was ‘Keep the Faith.’ That applies here too, sir.”

“Guess we have to, right? Who’s this with you?”

“This is Ephraim Gallatin, sir. He asked if he could help out after he arrived this morning, so I’m showing him the ropes. Chief Washington grilled him pretty good.”

Jeff offered his hand. “The chief already put the screws to you?”

“Um, he questioned me pretty good, yessir,” the young man replied. “Momma and I saw the lights from the building last night. They lit up the sky, especially with everything else dark. Our neighborhood is flooded so we didn’t have water or lights, but our apartment is on the third floor of our building. We were dry last night at least. We waded through the floodwater to get out of the building after first light and made our way here.”

“And you still offered your help after you got here? You and your mother must be made of stern stuff if you two did that.”

“The chief said he’s as modest as you are, sir,” Claude added. “He and his momma led lots of other folks here, too. Those people would still be stuck in that building without food and water otherwise.”

“Jeffrey, we need to change your dressing,” Keiko reminded him.

“Doc Blanchard set up the aid station along the south wall, sir, by the two large roll-up doors to the outside,” Claude said.

“I’d better go see him, then. You gents be safe.”

“Thank you, sir,” they both replied. Jeff resolved to have a little chat with Ezra Washington.

“‘NCOIC,’ Jeffrey?” Keiko asked as they walked downstairs to the exhibit floor.

“Non-commissioned officer in charge, though it sounds like everyone already considers me the OIC. The polite term for the OIC is ‘The Old Man.’”

“You are in charge here, Jeffrey, whether you choose to accept that or not.”

Jeff shook his head again. Over fifteen years with Keiko and he’d yet to win an argument with his wife.

Nadine Pierre carefully peeled the old gauze off Jeff’s back at the aid station. There was no way for it not to hurt as she did so, despite how gently she removed it.

“Sorry, Jeff. I know how to put this stuff on but paramedic school never taught me how to take it off!”

“Mine school didn’t either,” Jeff grunted. “I know you’re doing your best, Nadine. Jack didn’t have any non-adhering gauze last night so it’s not like you can help it. It is ouch! what it is.”

“You’re a medic?”

“Yeah. I’ve been a civilian medic since ‘95 and an Army medic since 2002. I’m supposed to get out of the Army in a month.”

“It’s a good thing the EMS trade show was here this week. It’s why most of the equipment is here to begin with, and a good number of the staff. Close to half of us were presenting here, and the other half of us were attendees who got stuck when the airlines started to cancel flights. I live about two hours west of here but didn’t know about the evacuation until it was too late to leave.” Jeff felt Nadine smear something around the wound before recovering it with fresh gauze. “You’re all set, Jeff. I put some antibiotic ointment around the laceration before I bandaged it. Try to stay out of the way of knives from now on.”

“I’ll take it under advisement,” he snorted while slipping on his clean shirt.

“Are you from Tampa?” Nadine asked, motioning to the shirt.

“No, Central Massachusetts. I did ride time in Tampa as a trainee for one of my Army medic courses. I picked up the shirt there.”

“One of our new volunteers is from there. She should be here any minute to start learning the ropes.” Nadine pointed behind him. “Here she is now.”

Jeff turned to see Tamika Granger walking toward him.

“Hey, Tam,” he said, causing her to stop short. Her dark eyes darted back and forth between his face and his shirt. She broke into a wide grin before hugging her former ‘student.’

“Lord Almighty, what are you doing here, Jeff?”

“My wife and I were on vacation and got trapped here, thanks to that ol’ demon liquor.” He introduced Tamika to Keiko. “What about you?”

“Same, minus the alcohol. We were visiting Stacia’s family down outside of Empire, down in Plaquemines Parish, when the order to evacuate came down. We made it as far as New Orleans before the traffic got too bad to keep going. We were able to get a single room at the Omni for the four of us but they lost power yesterday. We came over after a group from here came looking for food. I volunteered to help here at the aid station, my boyfriend Taurean’s working with the maintenance crews, and JC and Stacia are in the kitchens. The rest of Stacia’s family is around here somewhere, too.”

“Sounds like a tour of the kitchens is in order then, Keiko. You’ll get to meet both of the ladies I caused trouble with in Tampa.”

“I am sure you are the one who corrupted them, Jeffrey.”

“Your faith in me is underwhelming, dear.”

“Hey, Boss,” came the call from Jack Blanchard as he approached.

“Jack, I’m not your boss, you know?”

“Yeah, okay, Boss,” Jack laughed. Jeff rolled his eyes and sighed at the response. “You need anything?”

“Not any more, Jack. Nadine changed the dressing on my back for me. I leaked a bit last night.” Jeff showed Jack his other shirt.

“If we could have stitched you up yesterday you wouldn’t have done that.”

“That’ll teach me to piss off people carrying knives.”

Tamika raised an eyebrow. Jeff indicated Jack could explain the events of the day before.

“Didn’t work out as well for you as that day in Tampa, huh?” she asked. Tamika then recounted the tale of their domestic assault call.

“You cannot help but get in trouble can you, Jeffrey?” Keiko asked.

“How long have you known me?”

“Jeffrey, I wish to head upstairs and look over the theater space,” Keiko said while they walked through the service corridor toward the lobby. “I have some ideas how we might keep the children here occupied.”

“I’m sure their parents would appreciate that, Keiko. You’ll need to coordinate with the two folks running the worship services if they’ve already started using the theater. They might have a schedule already mapped out.”

“Something to consider, true.”

“You know I brought my personal laptop with me when I left for Polk last month. If the AV booth has the right connectors, we might be able to keep them occupied with kids’ movies if we can also find some DVDs.”

“We need more of a plan than just movies and videos, however,” pointed out Keiko. “With the open meeting rooms around the facility we might be capable of hosting other activities to keep the children from becoming bored.”

“‘Idle hands... ‘“ offered Jeff.

“Quite right, husband.”

“You’re the certified teacher, Keiko. I leave it to you.” Jeff hesitated before he left his wife’s side. “Are you going to be okay?”

“I presume you mean, ‘Are you going to be okay by yourself, Keiko?’ The answer is yes, Jeffrey. I will not be caught unaware as I was last night. I believe our previous display of strength will both deter those seeking to do others harm and encourage those who would to stand up to them.” Jeff still hesitated. “Jeffrey, you cannot watch out for me twenty-four hours a day. You have to let people stand on their own at some point. Plus you cannot manage the center if you do not know what is happening in it.” She shooed Jeff toward the security office.

In the security office Jeff received a morning briefing from Ezra Washington. The overnight staff turned on all of the convention center’s exterior lights last night. The glow attracted thousands more evacuees like Ephraim and his mother once the sun rose. No one wanted to move around on dark and flooded city streets. The pressure to find more food mounted with each person arriving. The center’s population approached fifteen thousand and showed no signs of stopping.

“We’ll be up the proverbial creek in a real hurry without a steady supply of food, Ezra.”

Before Ezra could reply, a call came over the CB radio behind him. Charlie Proulx and Glenn Marchand, the Marine Charlie discussed radios with the day before, constructed a makeshift antenna farm on the roof, running the cables through already installed conduits from the top of the building. Unbolting the equipment rack from the back of Gary Smith’s SUV allowed them to carry it inside the security office and wire the radios to the new antennas. They worked all night for it to be in place this morning. Gary looked to be in okay shape emotionally as he sat behind the equipment, though the bruises on his face were prominent. He keyed the CB’s mike.

“To the person calling on channel forty this is the Morial Convention Center, how copy?”

“Five-by-five, Morial Center. This is Frosty. I’m hauling a reefer truck full of frozen food, looking for a safe place after spending the night in the cab of my truck.”

“Give us your location, Frosty.” The voice at the other end of the radio did so, and Ezra gave directions to the center.

“Okay, Morial, we should be there in about fifteen to twenty minutes.”

“‘We,’ Frosty?”

“There are five of us who rode out the storm in our trucks here. Will you have enough room for all of us?”

“Don’t think that’ll be a problem, Frosty. We’ll be waiting.”

As Gary finished the conversation his scanner exploded with chatter.

“That’s the city’s EMS service,” he said.

“There’s an EMS station under the highway a couple of blocks from here,” Ezra explained to Jeff. “One of their supervisors came over last night when she saw us all lit up. She asked if we needed any medical help. I showed her Jack’s aid station.”

“Sounds like they just lost their generator and have a big hole in their roof now,” Gary relayed. “A tractor trailer just rolled off the highway above them!”

“Can you raise them?” Jeff asked. “Do they need help?”

“Charlie and Glenn reprogrammed this radio last night...” Gary muttered. “They’re using direct UHF channels, so I should be able to raise them.”

Gary made contact and offered assistance. The on-duty supervisor answered that she’d get back to Gary in a few minutes.

“I’ll touch base with Jack and have him get ready for a possible influx of patients. We’ll need to see where the best place to keep their ambulances will be,” Jeff said. “They’ll need to protected from whomever. Gary, any luck making contact with any federal agencies like FEMA? Someone who can start moving people out of here?”

“No luck with any of the amateur-to-military radio ties yet but I’ll keep trying, Jeff. Might have to work through a couple of layers, depending who I make contact with.”

“Keep at it, please?” Jeff walked over and lowered his voice. “How you doing, Gary? I didn’t have a chance to thank you for what you tried to do yesterday.”

Gary drew a shuddering breath. “I’m okay though I’ve never been that scared in all my life. I’ll skip a repeat of that, if you don’t mind?”

“You and me both, Gary. Take a break whenever you think you need one, even if you don’t have relief. Don’t work yourself sick.”

“Same goes for you, Boss,” Gary smirked. Jeff shot a look at Ezra.

“You need to stop.”

“What’s the matter, Jeff? Lonely at the top?”

“I’m not doing this by myself, Ezra. I couldn’t have done any of this without all of you. You folks are really the ones doing all the work, anyway.”

“There’s always someone at the top directing things, Jeff. You’re our idea guy. And, like it or not, the boss.”

Jeff pinched the bridge of his nose once again and shook his head. Gary called out to him as he turned to leave.

“Take these, Jeff.” Jeff looked at the portable radio and keycard Gary handed him. “We’re using channel one as our admin channel, channel two as our maintenance channel. That keycard will open any door in the building with a card reader. Come back by later and we’ll have a charger for your radio that you can put in your room. We’ve just about got the building’s phone system back online also, at least internally. I haven’t had any luck connecting with anyone outside the building yet. Between the radios and the phones, we shouldn’t have to keep running around gathering info.”

“Good work, Gary. Thanks.”

“Take these as well, Jeff,” Ezra said, holding out two of the ’STAFF’ shirts he’d seen earlier, telling Jeff one was Keiko’s. “I figured we needed something to help our folks stand out, so I raided the supply room for these.”

“Thanks, Ezra. I’ll check in later.”

“Later, Boss!” Ezra called as Jeff stepped into the hall.

Jeff looked back through the window and flipped off the older veteran while he walked away. The window blocked Ezra’s laughter.

Jeff got to the south loading docks in time to see five fifty-three-foot tractor trailers back in. Tonia Hebert stood next to him while they watched. One by one the truck drivers hopped out of their trucks and onto the dock.

“Hi there! I’m Frosty Ducharme,” a white-haired man said.

“Well, you look like a jolly, happy soul,” Jeff quipped. “Jeff Knox.”