No Ordinary Heroes:. Demaree Inglese
it. My office was quiet, and putting aside thoughts of inmates, sheltering civilians, and possible emergencies, I turned my attention back to the medical records. I wanted to finish them before dinner.
Chapter 7
An hour or so later, Gary opened my office door. “C’mon, Dem. We’re late.”
“And this could be our last meal,” Mike added.
“It’s probably not a good idea to tempt fate, Mike.” Gary frowned.
“I like living dangerously.” Mike met Gary’s anxious gaze with a mischievous grin. He knew that would get a rise from Gary.
“Since when is a no-fat-no-exceptions diet living dangerously, Mike? I want all the calories I can cram in tonight.” I cast a sidelong glance at Gary and added my own barb. “Just in case it is our last meal.”
Several new people had joined the families camped in the foyer outside of Medical Administration, and the security door by the elevator was propped open. The hallway beyond it led to another security door that opened into the fire escape stairwell. The inmates on the tiers upstairs were quiet. They had just eaten dinner and were probably watching TV and wondering how their own families were faring.
But here downstairs, the growing number of children added a level of high-pitched noise that grated on taut nerves, especially in the cement-walled stairwell where the acoustics amplified sound. As we walked down to the lobby, three teenagers—a boy chasing two squealing girls—burst through the doorway below and raced up past us.
“It’s going to be a long night,” Mike muttered.
When we got to the first floor, we headed down a hallway past the sheriff’s office. In a wide corridor at the rear of the building, the kitchen staff had set up tables with metal serving pans, disposable plates, and plastic utensils.
Gary stared into an empty chafing dish. The pan was coated with dried tomato sauce. “We really are too late.”
“Have a sandwich,” I said, picking up a plate. There were several racks holding turkey, cheese, and loaves of bread. I made three sandwiches for myself, then moved out to the back porch where dozens of people were watching the rain. The wind wasn’t bad yet. It could have been New Orleans on any stormy summer night.
Almost everyone stood under the protection of the overhang, but a few stalwart souls scattered across the thirty feet of tiled porch that wasn’t covered. A wrought-iron railing ran along the perimeter with a break at the rear steps. The kitchen and warehouse stood across a narrow courtyard.
I spotted Paul and walked over. “This isn’t too bad.”
“Just wait. The wind isn’t even tropical storm force, yet,” Paul explained. “It’s going to get a lot worse.”
Sitting down beside him, I pondered the many twists and turns my life had taken to bring me to this moment: sitting cross-legged on the porch of a New Orleans jail, eating turkey sandwiches and watching the first stages of a major hurricane. It seemed surreal.
It brought me back to a hair-raising helicopter ride in Korea when I was transporting a heart patient over rice fields, through a thunderstorm, dressed in body armor. I remembered wondering what choices I had made—me, a kid from an upper-middle-class family in Pennsylvania—that had brought me to such a bizarre and dangerous situation. That night I had no idea what was around the corner. Katrina’s dangers were just as serious, and again I couldn’t imagine what was in store.
Chapter 8
About 8 p.m., Gary, Mike, and I went back upstairs to Medical Administration. Paul was already there, standing in the hallway and staring over the dog barricade at the TV in Mike’s office. He was intent on the latest, ever more serious weather bulletin.
“Do you guys want to play cards?” Mike reached over the piled boxes to scratch his bearded collie behind the ears.
“I’m ready.” I grabbed a chair from my office and pulled it into the hall.
“Just so you know,” Paul said, “I brought some packages of turkey and cheese up from downstairs. They’re in the fridge in the file room.”
“Good thinking.” The kitchen had left trays of sandwich supplies in the hall downstairs for late diners.
Gary carried an unopened carton of copy paper out of the secretary’s office and dropped it to use as a table. We pulled our chairs around the box, and I shuffled the cards.
“Has anyone gotten a call out on their cell phone?” Mike asked. “I’ve been trying for an hour, but either the circuits are busy or”—he mimicked the computerized message voice—“‘Your call cannot be completed at this time.’”
Everyone from New Orleans—in the city, on the highway, and beyond—was probably trying to contact loved ones.
“We might not have any cell phone service before long,” Gary said. “Transmission towers were knocked out all over Florida in the hurricanes last year.”
I had called my parents on my office phone before going down to dinner. They were relieved to hear from me, but not reassured. After watching cable news coverage for days, they were sure New Orleans faced total destruction. I didn’t want to add to their stress and downplayed my own concerns—with the caveat that phone calls might not be possible after the hurricane—at least for a few days till essential services were restored.
“Use the jail phone,” Gary said. “I couldn’t reach any Louisiana numbers, but out-of-state area codes go through.”
“Anyone hungry?” Brady walked in holding the handles of a steaming pot. He had a hot plate in medical supply a few floors above us. “This is the best jambalaya in town.”
“I just ate,” I said quickly. His shrimp, sausage, and rice casserole was a staple in Louisiana, but it didn’t appeal to my palate. I was a firm believer that vegetables, meat, and rice should be separated in distinct piles and not mixed together. Besides, Brady’s Cajun cooking always had a kick.
“Hurry up and eat, Brady,” I said. “Paul doesn’t want to play, so you’re our fourth for canasta.”
“I can eat and play cards at the same time.” Brady set the pot down on a counter in the hall. “Help yourselves whenever you’re ready.”
Playing canasta relaxed me. My grandmother had taught my whole family to play, and the connection to her took the edge off my anxiety. The game also distracted us from Katrina—which was coming ten miles closer every hour—and worries about how it would affect the jail and its inmates.
Forty minutes later, Paul burst from his office. “The radios don’t work.”
Brady put his cards down. “The yellow ones I just took to the clinics?”
Paul nodded. “I called Templeman 3, and I couldn’t raise them. Then I tried Detention and couldn’t get them, either. I couldn’t reach anyone outside of this building.”
“So they work here?” I asked.
“Yeah. Talking to nurses here won’t be a problem, but staying in contact with the other clinics probably will be.” Without another word Paul turned and went back into his office. A minute later, he came out carrying two metal trashcans and strode down the hall to the sink.
“The wardens have police radios,” Mike said. “We can get an urgent message in or out if we have to.”
I dealt another hand, trying to block out Paul’s increasingly loud commotion.
He furiously scrubbed the trashcans. We ignored the thuds, scraping sounds, and metallic clanks until he lined the containers with trash bags and started filling one with water from the sink.
“What the hell is he doing?” Brady asked.
If Paul heard, he didn’t let on. He filled one can, then started