Chapter 28 –
The beast leaves a mess
While we slept, the water continued to drop – slowly. Around dawn we all got up to see what the world looked like. There was still an inch or so of water on the concrete floor below, and most of that seemed to be mud. We slid as much as we walked. There were also assorted obstacles everywhere – branches, beer cans, even a car fender. I reached down to grab one of the branches only to have one of the guys shout a warning. Seconds later he fired his shotgun into the branch, killing a water moccasin. What a great way to start the day.
We rolled up a couple of the loading dock doors to see what was happening on the street. Just then a police boat happened to go by, one bad guy handcuffed and propped up in the bow of the boat for all to see. It was nice to see one caught, but I thought we might have more nights of watches before the area was safe again.
Looking down the street we saw lots of water and the tops of things – cars, trucks, trees, parts of buildings. It occurred to me as the water level dropped, moving around the area was going to get harder rather than easier. Where before we could boat over the top of the junk, now the junk was going to block our every move. And then there was the question of what might be sliding around in the junk. For the time being, I was happy to stay high up on the loading dock.
I called Elise. She was already up, of course. I learned the bridge had been successfully blown to pieces around six last night. The river was back in its banks. Crews were now evaluating the amount of debris in the river and the resources needed to get it cleared. How had my night gone? I mentioned we had had visitors. She said more than one hundred looters had been arrested over night. Did I need anything? Well, food, water, dry clothes, and boots – oh, and if she had a ready supply of shotguns, that seemed to be the weapon of choice in the warehouse district. I also said I would try to have some kind of Council meeting later in the afternoon, and I might have a new request list by then. I’d love to say the rest of the conversation got more personal, but we were both surrounded by people and rushed, so there was not much more than a quick “I love you” and we were off the phone.
What does a day cleaning mud feel like? I recall as a little kid loving to get into mud. My brothers and I would make rivers and dams and whole ecosystems of mud after a spring rain. This mud? If every broom and shovel had handles twenty feet long, I still would have thought I was too close to the stuff. It reeked, and too often it wriggled. We pushed and shoved, even attached steel plates to the front of our forklifts and used them. Gradually we got the stuff off our main floor, but all we were really doing was moving the mess just outside. We would get it to the edge of the loading dock and then see it drop into the water that still filled the streets. There was still five feet of nastiness out there, and it seemed to be taking longer and longer to go down.
Periodically someone would find something particularly nasty in the mud, and at first we would gather around and say clever things, but after a couple hours, there was nothing coming off that floor we wanted to think about. We just wanted it all out the door. So we pushed, and shoveled, and sweated and swore. Besides getting mud out the door, we also got plenty on ourselves, and it soon got hard to move with mud clinging to our legs, arms, and all over our hands. If you wanted to see miserable people, we had them in spades.
We worked about three hours and we were already pretty gassed. We took a break for over half an hour, then LeClerk got us moving again. This time we managed about two hours before we were exhausted. Someone made a joke about “how many foreman does it take to sweep a floor?” and in truth, there was something connected to their ages. They were all in their forties, and while they still worked well, they were not the guys they had been twenty years earlier. And my excuse? I was probably also a decade past my prime. As the afternoon progressed, we took longer and longer breaks and got less and less done. We needed some hourlies to come in here and show us what young backs could do, but we knew that wasn’t going to happen for a few days yet at the least. We were it for the time being.
About four I used my “council” position as an excuse to put down my shovel and make some calls. I made short phone calls to all of the men who had texted me the day before, asked for a short report, and requested another text with their priorities for the night. I heard a lot of heavy breathing from men who usually sat in the office. We weren’t the only warehouse trying to clear mud. As for priorities? Water, cops, and shotguns, although a little brandy would be fine too.
After the last call I tabulated every request I had gotten, just to be sure I hadn’t missed anything, and then I called Elise.
“I can give you a list of priorities, but I think our biggest shortage isn’t drinking water or food, it’s energy. These guys are tired. I think another day or two of this and these guys are going to be used up.”
“We can try to create a shuttle system to get employees down there.”
“That would help. If we can rotate people in and out, we can keep making progress.”
“In the meantime, want some good news?” It was clear from her voice Elise had something she really wanted to tell me. Before I could even respond, she continued. “Gustav came in today. It turns out he made it to the mansion and picked up Jean and Gabrielle, and actually drove over the bridge to the Missouri side before it collapsed. All three of them are fine, and all of them are very proud of the things they managed to salvage from the mansion.”
“What did they save?” I asked,
“Gustav is keeping that a secret until they can show both of us.”
“Who knew Gustav had such a flare for the dramatic.”
“I think it is actually Jean behind the mystery, but I can see they are really proud of their success.”
“I’m just glad to hear they made it off the island.” And it did suddenly make me feel much better about the day. “But back to my job. Top priorities from the council members? Drinking water, shotguns, food, and cops. Life here would be much better if we could sleep through the night.”
“There will be deliveries of water and food tomorrow morning. I hope you can wait until then. As for the police, we have called up reserves and brought people in from lots of places, but the thieves have of lots of targets, so the police are spread pretty thin. Nevertheless, they say they will have double the patrols in the worst areas, and you are in the worst of the worst.”
“It’s always nice to be noticed.”
“Take care of yourself. Supplies should get to you in the morning.” And that was that. She had meetings to get to, and I was overdue for an elegant meal of freeze-dried something or other.
What was our evening like? We all shared the last of our water, we talked about how much progress we had made during the day (knowing full well we had not done nearly enough), checked our weapons, locked all doors, rearranged our cardboard bunks, and wondered if there would be another knock on the door. We took two hour shifts sitting at the top of the stairs, shotguns across our knees, and waited. When my turn came I was so grumpy about being woken up I would have welcomed a few robbers just so I could get even with the world for making me so hot and tired. But no robbers came our way, and eventually I finished my shift and got back to sleep.