Absorbing the suffering

By Karen Krakower

Two thoughts came to mind as I crossed the steaming asphalt of the Astrodome parking lot to volunteer: 1) I’m already hot and oh, swell, my Diet Coke is flat. Two more thoughts quickly took their place: 1) how did those people survive four days on a steaming freeway 2) a flat Diet Coke would have saved a life.

I stood at the Dome entrance, slackjawed. I could not wrap my mind around this deafening stadium-sized swirling mass of suffering. Miles and miles of cots cradling numbness and exhaustion, wrapped in donated My Little Pony sheets. Bare feet mummied in bandages hung over the edges. Hundreds and hundreds of people shuffled between cots, going nowhere in particular. Coming from nowhere, either.

Choreographed chaos.

An EMT from Brazoria leaned into my ear, “Take a mental snapshot, hon. We’re makin’ history here. And, man, I hope that’s where it stays.”

Seeing the blood pressure cuff dangling from my neck, a harried, sleep-deprived volunteer asked me about my “skill sets.” I said I played guitar. (I was still taking my mental snapshot. The question caught me off guard.)

“Right,” I listed, “grief and hospice work, Spanish, medical intake...” and I can listen. I just want to listen.

So, I started at Third Base. I knew Third Base. I could see my old season ticket seats. A woman about my age – middle age – was sitting in them, rocking to and fro, whimpering, as a volunteer rubbed her back in slow circles. The volunteer never opened her mouth, nor did she once take her eyes off the woman. She was busy absorbing the suffering.

Snapshot.

As I rubbernecked left and right, deciding where to start and what to start, I felt a tug on my jeans. I looked down to an enormous pair of chocolate eyes in a 7-year-old body.

“You lost your mamma, too?” he asked.

“Why, yes I have,” I lied. “Let’s go find our mammas.”

He took my hand as if he were the one in charge and I steered us toward the announcement area. I had assumed that he had become separated from his mother inside the Dome. Not hard to do. As we walked, however, I realized that he had been separated from his mother since Katrina, “since the water came.” We found a fledgling database center and entered his mamma’s name. Then I returned him to his relatives.

“You’re too old to have a mamma,” he said suspiciously, as I prepared to move on. I said, you’re never too old to have a mamma, and hugged him. He rolled his eyes.

Snapshot.

I squeezed my way through the rows of cots, taking blood pressure, taking names of the missing, wondering how long we humans can live this close together, without privacy, dignity, without our prized “personal space.” A question for another day. For now, I was standing over nine cots that had been shoved together on purpose, made up like a giant bed.

“Looks like you’ve got a family reunion going on here,” I said. A crusty laugh erupted from what had to be the matriarch of the bunch. And in a Cajun-Spanish blend, “Pues, Che, es una familia hoy.” Translation: Well, cher, it’s a family today.

Come to find out, strangers a week ago, they had clung together at the Superdome, each taking shifts to watch each other’s backs, walk each other to the restroom, until there was no restroom, and nowhere to walk. They were all colors and dialects and ages. And they were delirious with relief. “When we get back to ‘Nawlins, we’ll make you frijoles for breakfast y boudin for lunch! ”

Snapshot.

I wandered up the ramp to the second level, where we used to get our dogs and relish and escape the watchful eyes of our parents during season openers. Security was thick through this darker, more “private” corridor. People dozed, stared off into...their pasts, I imagine. Bathrooms were closer here, phone banks installed. There were shadows, for crying alone.

I looked to my right and a giant pair of bare, swollen feet dangled off a cot. They belonged to an elderly gentleman who held his head in his hands. It was the universal body language of despair. Unmistakable in any culture, in any country.

“He’s the last one left,” said the blonde female constable behind me. “I’m worried about him.”

Her assigned beat was to patrol the bathrooms on this level, and she had noticed his makeshift family had, one by one, found their relatives or been sent to shelters. “He was all perky and active yesterday, but now...”

He was disoriented with skyrocketing blood pressure and filling up with fluid by the minute. He said he had been on one of the first buses from the Superdome and felt very blessed. But, he was tired now. Enough was enough, he sighed. I told him his pressure was very high but that we could control it downstairs. He said he just didn’t want to be alone.

“And you won’t be, Sir,” said the constable, as she hoisted him into a wheelchair. “I haven’t left you yet, have I?”

Snapshot.

By the time I returned to the Dome for another shift, folks had settled into “neighborhoods” and they knew where they could shower, find a pastor, find a doctor, find a phone – if there was someone to call.

“Dr. Phil” was scheduled to visit in Section 274 and Presidents Bush Sr. and Clinton were due to arrive any day now.

And I will have moved on to George R. Brown UT Clinic, where my family is – my burnt orange and white family. And this time, I will ditch the blood pressure cuff and bring the guitar.

And while I pick and pluck, I will listen. I just want to listen.

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