gone, but where every row house and shotgun shack had been swept away by the surge following the failure of the 17th Street Canal, now stood a perfect, if boring looking, Dan Ryan style modular home. All the plumbing plumbed, all the electricity wired, everything waiting for the city to do its part and flip the big switch that would restore basic services to the community.
It was an emotional thing to watch on the evening news, as the shreds of disintegrated families were led back to their homes under the protection of their nation, for once. Women cried, men cried, we all cried to see it. And we all waited for the administrative shoes to drop on those people’s heads, but that never really happened. There were tax issues to be ironed out, but in Louisiana government crawls at a snail’s pace. So here was a new, shiny neighborhood. Two strips of little putty colored, mushroom houses in the Lower Ninth Ward to form a sliver that looked a lot more like a Northern Virginia suburb than the cradle of jazz.
Rollie intoned, “No, we have no problem with God, but His intermediaries? We can’t count on them. Not priests, not government, not any appointee who was in place and failed us before. Do you remember waiting for help and charity? Do you remember how none of the structures of responsibility, from the levees to the ministries to the White House, were adequate after the storm? The only real help came from family, friends, and heroic neighbors. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not here to talk anarchy, I’m here to talk about local interest.”
I leaned forward in my seat. I wished I’d been able to convince Martine to come along.
“We have no science other than statistics to support the suggestion that Death Wishing favors our region. But the numbers are too important to ignore. We must take measures to ensure our own safety and, you bet I’m gonna go there—prosperity. This is no longer a question of believing or not believing in the phenomenon of Death Wishing. No one can live outside it any more.”
At this point Pebbles slipped her hand into mine, making me want to utter my own “Amen.”
What followed then was an impassioned but sometimes strained argument that the Wish Local movement was a deity free philosophy of opportunity, though the mystic subtext was undeniable. Rollie and Mirella came off as High Priestesses, even though they insisted they were merely community leaders. Back in the cheap seats of my mind, I knew they were just as prone to corruption and inefficiency as anyone else, but I didn’t care. I was thrilled to be part of the drama. Rollie was an artist, and it was a delight to watch her work the crowd, slowly releasing and cranking the tension until all rationality gave way to stomping, hooting, and other forms of sweaty affirmation.
My favorite part was the end. We were on our feet, and Rollie stepped back to accept our wild applause, her eyes wet with triumph. Then we turned our attention to Mirella. She had come down from her display to balance on those wicked heels, and the light that cradled her seemed to pulse and swell. We quieted down. She raised her chin. Her eyes went liquid black. When she spoke her voice was burnt sugar: “Looking out on the morning rain . . .”
Pebbles squeezed my fingers.
“ . . . I used to feel so uninspired,” said Mirella.
And then she proceeded to sing the rest of “You Make Me Feel (Like A Natural Woman)” a capella. So terrible, but so amazing. I held my breath. I wept. It was the most powerful religious experience of my life.
6.
The rally had been very much like a good church service in that we were released into the wet heat of a Sunday afternoon, feeling utterly perfect for a moment. But all perfect emotions degrade. That’s why church goers keep going back.
On our way to the trolley shelter, Pebbles walked between Val and me. She tested out a line from Mirella’s song: “Now I’m no longer doubtful . . .” It’s a tough song for anyone, and more than talent you need confidence. Pebbles didn’t have a lot of either. She coughed at the end of the phrase, and I placed an encouraging hand on her back only to find myself touching Val’s hairy fingers, already in place. He should have at least stayed on his side of the girl’s spine.
And then she dropped the bomb. “We’re supposed to think about what we want.”
Correct, but difficult to embrace. Even convinced of the need to Wish Local, I didn’t find it any easier to think of the world without me in it. And that was the real problem wasn’t it? To think of a place and time beyond death that was a lot like this place, this time. I glanced at Val and found his face unreadable. I couldn’t tell if he was worried, upset, confused. Pebbles, however, looked as if she’d risen a level above us. Her face was blissing, all cheeky sparkle, like she could see many kinds of wonderful futures, and it didn’t matter that she wouldn’t be there to enjoy them. I put it down to her upbringing in the church. All intellectual arguments aside, she had been raised right for the current situation.
Not so Val or even myself. We were doomed to wallow in rationality, at least for a time, until we could pull ourselves out and come to grips with duty.
I think I was supposed to say something wise at this juncture. Material responsibility is actually the least difficult duty of being a Grown-Up. Any boob can get a job, feed his family, and guard the perimeter. There’s no craft in that part of life. Where it gets tricky is in that impossible area of making sense out of uncertainty and stabilizing chaos. It can’t be done you see, but it’s still part of the job.
I had no wisdom to impart. Worse than that, my panic was on the rise. “Here’s what I wonder,” I said. “Are we supposed to not tell?”
Val laughed. “You mean like throwing a penny in a well or blowing out the candles on a cake? You think that by telling your wish it won’t come true?”
“Who knows? You say that like it’s crazy talk or stupid. Truth is we don’t know the rules, so nothing is crazy. Or maybe it all is.”
“Telling doesn’t make a difference,” Pebbles said. “It can’t.” Clearly, she didn’t like this line of discussion. She stopped us, pivoting around so she could put her hand on my chest. “I’m going to wish something to do with music. I don’t know what yet. Victor? What are you gonna wish before you die?”
I felt woozy under the mad sun. Val stood apart from us, his arms folded, keeping an eye on the distance so we didn’t miss our ride. “I really don’t know,” I confessed. “I don’t think about death. At least I haven’t before.”
Pebbles nodded, more sympathetic than I deserved. She turned to Val. “What about you then?” There was a little icy edge in her voice that said she still hadn’t forgiven him for making her feel awkward the night before. Val didn’t seem to know it, but the balance of power between them was shifting.
He unfolded his arms, ran fingers through his hair to stall. But then he came out with what was on his mind: “Why does everyone think they’re a wisher? Rollie says there are more successful wishes here than anywhere else, but the odds are still insane.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Pebbles said. We started walking again, the three of us in a row. “I don’t think the odds have anything to do with this.”
“I don’t either. Not really,” said Val. “I just think that if you’re a wisher, then maybe you’d know. You’d have some kind of feeling about it. And I just don’t.”
My heart sank. Val had me going with his talk of odds—a tidy little argument against having to decide. But knowing wasn’t feeling, and feeling was king. He felt nothing about the Wishing, and he was off the hook. Me? I felt something. A little, tiny, scared something.
We reached the trolley stop and came upon a man spread out across the bench, not quite asleep but certainly not very conscious. He wore a red and white checked long sleeved shirt buttoned all the way up to his brown throat. He might have been a restaurant worker. He certainly smelled like food garbage. He shielded his eyes with his forearm, showing off pits stained with ancient perspiration. In black uniform slacks, he’d propped a bent leg up on the bench and let the other dangle. He seemed to be roasting himself. The mere sight of