by Linda Ellen
Knowing he was right, Liz clamped her mouth shut and turned away, rolling her eyes and huffing a sigh.
Unable to resist, Vic added with a touch of bitterness. “Besides, what’ve I got to show for slavin’ all summer in the C’s, diggin’ ditches in the California heat?” he asked, referring to the nationwide ‘Civilian Conservation Corps’, in which he had served a stint when he was eighteen. “I sent all my money to you to save for me, and you went out and bought a car with it! A car you wouldn’t even let me drive when I came back!”
“Now hold on…you know the reason for that,” Jack backpedaled, feeling only a trifle guilty for splurging with his younger brother’s nest egg…but Liz had convinced him at the time that Vic somehow ‘owed’ it to them.
“That’s over and done with,” Liz argued, refusing to back down. “And besides, we went back to lugging the kids around on buses and trolleys after somebody stole that car, so you should be happy.”
Vic sighed tiredly and moved to drop down in a chair, resting his head in his hands as he stared at the floor between his still wet boots.
“It didn’t make me happy,” he mumbled, his momentary defensive anger dissipating as quickly as it had arisen. He felt bereft and hollow, sunken like a cake after someone slammed the oven door.
The three fell silent, each submerged deeply in their own thoughts, and not paying attention to the now familiar rain and the ever-present drone of music on the radio in the corner. If they had been listening, it might have given them at least a bit of a chuckle. The deejay had, perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek, chosen to play Guy Lombardo’s latest hit, September in the Rain.
Finally, Vic dispiritedly raised his head, meeting his brother’s similar mahogany brown eyes, and then his sister-in-law’s moss green gaze.
“Believe me…I want outta here just as bad as you want me outta here. And just as soon as possible, I’ll make tracks,” he vowed in quiet seriousness, but added with narrowed eyes, “That is…unless you want me ta join the ranks of the hobos and sleep under the Second Street bridge…”
Liz winced a little at his words, and had the grace to feel a pinch of guilt that she was making such a fuss again.
Meeting Vic’s wounded stare, her eyes finally softened some as she whispered, “No, of course not.”
Their gazes held for a moment as Vic struggled to let go of the stab of hurt her earlier words had caused.
Clearing his throat, Jack offered wryly, “If it ain’t under water yet.”
Then, as if the radio announcer had heard his words, he chose that moment to break into the song. Just as the Hoskins were listening thirteen blocks away, the announcer reported on the river’s levels at the upper and lower gauges, then mentioned the Red Cross’ predictions regarding the eventual evacuation of the city.
Glancing at his brother and wife, who were looking to him questioningly as the ‘master’ of the home, Jack again uncomfortably cleared his throat and swore quietly.
“I wish they’d quit with all the flood crap. I’ve lived here all my life and I ain’t ever seen it flood like they’re saying. This rain’ll stop soon.”
Raising his eyebrows and remembering the swollen, debris-filled river earlier, Vic murmured, “I hope you’re right, brother. I hope you’re right.”
‡
CHAPTER 5
Flood!
The normally clear blue skies over the Ohio Valley had been drab and gray for weeks. Living under the heavy, ash-colored clouds for so long, the people had truly forgotten better days. Puddles of cold murky water, disagreeably damp clothing that never had the opportunity to get fully dry, and musty abodes…these had become their norm. Fireplaces and coal stoves couldn’t quite cut the dampness – and steam registers only added to the overall heaviness in the air. Despairingly, it seemed as if the world would never be ‘dry’ again. Many a Reverend thought himself quite clever to base his sermons on Noah, and drive home the point with the current feeling of impending doom.
Indeed, there seemed no escape.
Everyone in the rain-soaked city attempted to carry on the best they could, keeping one eye on the river and one ear to the weather reports. Men and women continued to go to work, spending every free moment discussing the rising river with their fellow employees. Men gathered in doorways and other dry places, muttering about the rain. Women dashed through the wet streets, juggling babies, small children and umbrellas, and fretting about the weather as they descended upon the local groceries in an effort to stock up – bracing for ‘the worst’. Predictably, the food markets soon began running short on stock. Children continued to attend school, nervously repeating what they had heard their parents discuss the previous evening – the very real possibility of a flood. The whole city was in a constant state of alert.
Mrs. Herndon reluctantly halted rehearsals for the play until the precarious conditions in the downtown area stabilized. Louise, Sonny, and Billy, slogged their way to school and back each day. Much like the early days of the Depression, the residents of Louisville found themselves in the same ‘boat’ – wishing, hoping, and praying for a speedy end to the incessant misery. The unseasonably warm temperatures had steadily dropped, to hover within a degree or two of freezing. This turned the rain at times into a mixture of sleet and wet, sloppy snow, although no accumulation occurred. It had become the most miserable January anyone could remember in years.
The unfathomable river, that ‘Old Man,’ remained a mystery to which no one knew the explanation. As the song said… That Ol’ Man River, he must know somethin’, but he don’t say nothin’, he just keeps rollin’ along. Indeed, the river seemed to have a mind of its own, and had continued rising steadily, at a measured rate of a half inch per hour. River Road and many of the outlying streets on the fringes of the metropolitan area were slowly flooding. Shawnee Park and Cherokee Park quietly began to submerge. Unlike a flash flood, however, the slowly rising water almost had a numbing effect, so that no one could quite grasp the seriousness of the threat. At each new level, the general consensus always seemed to be, “It’ll stop soon…”
Residents of The Point were given evacuation orders by the County Welfare Department, to which inhabitants of single-story abodes willingly complied. However, positive they could make it through, the poverty-stricken residents in second story refuges refused to leave. County police had to work for forty-eight hours coaxing them into boats for their own safety. By eight o’clock Tuesday night, January nineteen, the last stubborn straggler climbed down into a rescue craft. By then, the surface of the water was mere inches below his second story window.
Clutching a meager armload of possessions – all he was allowed – silent tears slid down the elderly black man’s wrinkled face as the oarsman rowed him away from his home.
He feared he would never see it again. Sadly…he was right.
*
The next morning, the Hoskins family awoke to the now familiar sound of rain pattering against the windows of their apartment.
Willis had returned home on the previous Saturday, unsure of when he would be able to return to work. The man with whom he normally caught a ride advised him that he would forego attempting a return until the waters receded, as his truck had nearly stalled multiple times en route to Louisville. Indeed, the encroaching water was increasingly submerging every road leading south. Although they needed the money, Lilly was very glad her husband would be home during such uncertain times.
As the family began their day, a shout was heard from the front part of the building. Glancing at each other in alarm, Willis wrenched open the apartment door and the six of them rushed down the hall – to be soon joined by the other residents of the apartment house.
Gertrude Higgins, occupant of apartment number one, a tall, gaunt-faced, gray haired, cantankerous widow and owner of the building, stood at the window next to the door. Repeatedly murmuring, “Good Heavens!” she kept wringing her hands as she gazed outside. A man from the front apartment on the opposite side threw open the ou
ter door, which elicited a collective gasp from his fellow residents. None of them could believe what they were seeing.
The pressure of the backed up sewers had blown off every manhole cover in sight, leaving the open holes resembling geysers, spouting water twenty feet high. But as the shocked tenants watched, the height of the geysers became shorter and shorter. The pressure eventually equalized, and the water settled down to merely gurgling and bubbling up. Slowly it began to fill the street, inching toward the curbs on both sides.
“Oh Will…I’ve never seen such a…” Lilly murmured, clutching her husband’s arm as they stared at the spectacle.
“Nor I,” Willis murmured, moving his arm to encircle his wife. Although the city had suffered a major flood in 1884, neither Willis nor his wife had been around to experience it. The truth being that Lilly had been born and raised in Bourbon County, while Willis had hailed from Wisconsin. They were both, to coin a phrase, in ‘uncharted waters.’
Billy was the only one in the doorway enjoying the spectacle. “Oh boy, that was neat! I hope they do it again!” he gushed, prompting the others in the large foyer to glance at the little boy and shake their heads.
After a few minutes, Lilly turned her gaze from the menace in the street up to her husband’s face.
“Will…what should we do?”
Glancing at the others, who were nervously dashing in and out of their apartments – not a soul knowing what their next course of action should be – Willis tried to be calm and reassuring for his family.
“I think we should just try to go about our day, Lil. The water’ll probably fill the street and then stop until the sewer pumps can drain it away.” Then leaning to press a kiss to her cheek, he added, “Don’t worry.”
Turning, he smiled at the rest of his family. “Come on,” he encouraged as he reached both hands out to usher them back down the hall.
“Aww Dad!” “Do we hafta?” “What about the water in the street?” they responded simultaneously, even as they obeyed.
“Never mind, just do as I say,” Willis ordered gently.
“You think I should go on to work?” Edna asked with a frown, referring to her job at Fleischman’s Delicatessen at Sixth and York.
“I think we should carry on with our lives the best we can until…well, until whatever,” her father answered. Giving her a little nudge on the back with his large hand, he encouraged, “Go on, honey. Get dressed.”
The family did as he bid, eating a quick breakfast and going their separate ways. Leaving the house at the same time, Edna turned east while Sonny, Louise, and Billy headed west. Each one stared apprehensively at the slowly creeping water in the street, which by then was about six feet from the curbs on either side.
*
Vic awoke to the now familiar splash of water falling down the drainpipe outside the wall of the apartment. He turned onto his back and yawned.
Observing a fast moving cockroach skittering past his pallet on the living room floor, he moved quickly and smashed it with a shoe, muttering a curse of disgust for the revolting creatures.
Sitting up, he stretched the kinks out of his back with a grimace, then stood and padded to the bathroom to attend to his morning business. After a few minutes, he could hear the muffled sounds of the others in the apartment as they began to stir. Finishing quickly, knowing there would soon be a line waiting outside the door, Vic hastened his shave.
At the sound of an alarmed shriek from somewhere on the building’s first floor, he jerked the blade, lightly nicking the skin along his square jaw.
Everyone emerged from their apartments, including the Matthews family, and converged downstairs in the foyer. The group gawked, laughed, and squealed excitedly about the sewer ‘geysers’ in the street.
Realizing this did not bode well for the city, Vic scowled at the jokesters and made his way quickly back upstairs. He knew his friends, Earl and Alec, both lived with their families in first story residences on flatter ground, and he wondered how they were faring – and if the sewer ‘volcanoes’ had erupted on their streets as well. Having been such close friends since grade school, he knew Alec’s widowed mother frightened easily. Earl’s mother and father had many times made him feel like family, and the three young men were like brothers. Worried, he hurried to finish dressing and go over to see if they needed a hand. Jack, Liz, and the kids would be all right, he reasoned, since their apartment was on the second floor…
Ten minutes later, with the encroaching inundation covering the sidewalk at least an inch, Vic took off sloshing through the frigid water to Earl’s house three blocks west. When he arrived at 16th and Cedar and turned the corner, he grimaced to see the flooding even deeper there than back at the apartment. It was already lapping at the stoop leading into the Grant’s home, which was a one floor, wood frame, shotgun style house. The old black hearse was nowhere in sight.
Wading to the door, Vic could hear Earl’s mother fretting over the situation. He knocked quickly, letting himself in before they could answer.
“Oh Vic!” Mrs. Grant gasped upon seeing him, her long dark hair still mussed from sleep. She was a tall, big-boned woman with a loud voice and an easy laugh on most days. Now, her arms were full of what appeared to be clothing and linens. Her wide set green eyes, which both of her children had inherited, were fraught with the beginnings of panic. “I’m so glad you’re here! Help us get everything up off the floor!”
Vic glanced around at the chaos. Furniture and belongings were stacked willy-nilly in the front room. Earl’s ten-year-old sister, Bernice, came rushing from the next room, her arms full of clothing and her favorite doll. Tears of fright welled in her large green eyes, spilling over and wetting her face. Earl paused in the act of placing cinder blocks under the legs of the couch, hoping it would be enough to keep the furniture out of any water that might find its way in. He didn’t even want to contemplate the water rising any higher than that…
“Where’s Frank?” Vic wondered aloud.
“He left last night to go check on Grandma. Guess the water rose too fast and he couldn’t make it back.”
With a nod and a hope that Earl’s dad was not in harm’s way, Vic immediately joined in the family’s efforts. Lifting smaller pieces of furniture up onto larger items, the young men strove to leave as little as possible touching the linoleum covered wooden floor.
An hour later, with the Grant family’s possessions stabilized as well as could be, and Earl’s mother and sister awaiting news from Mr. Grant, the two friends headed over to Alec’s family’s abode. On the way, sloshing through four inches of water as the sky continued to drizzle rain; they cut through the road dissecting the Western Cemetery on Cedar Street.
Tall, majestic cedar trees, the reason for the naming of the street and the city’s oldest yet smallest cemetery, surreally appeared as if they were rooted in water. Viewing tombstones partially submerged, the two exchanged glances and grimaced. Vic, with a shudder of foreboding, realized the Alder home was situated in a low area. Mentioning this fact to his friend, the two stepped up their pace.
Turning the corner at 17th and Market, they stopped in their tracks as the enormity of the situation met them head on. This area was already under at least a foot of cold, murky river water. Three houses down from the corner, they could see a rowboat at the Alder house. Alec was struggling to help his panicked mother step from their front stoop into the unsteady craft, her arms full of as many possessions as she could carry. Losing her balance in that instant, she dropped the armload into the muddy water with a frightened squeal.
Seeing this spurred the two young men into action, and they rushed to aid their friends. With difficulty, they gathered the now sodden sacks of clothing and household goods, and placed them in the boat. Alec’s two older sisters were already aboard, huddling under a large black umbrella. Though shivering from the damp cold, both of the young women seemed dazed, as if they couldn’t quite believe what was happening.
“Where you gonna go?” E
arl inquired as the girls numbly reached to comfort their weeping mother and Alec sat down to take up the oars.
Alec flashed his friends a twinkling glance, smirking lightheartedly, “Higher ground!” as he placed the oars into the water. Always brimming with confidence and bravado, he was nevertheless scared witless. The fact that his mother and sisters relied upon him, as the only male in the family, weighed heavily upon his shoulders. He couldn’t let them see the cracks in his characteristically jaunty shell, as he knew that would frighten them even more.
Just then, two men in a small, shallow-keeled boat paddled over to their location. The men, wearing policeman’s caps and rubber rain gear over their uniforms, leaned toward the group.
“I’m Officer Kelly,” one of them spoke up. “This’ my partner, Officer Richards. You folks okay?”
At their nod, the policeman trained his eyes on Earl and Vic, who were still standing on the shallow stoop of the house. Without mincing words, he stated, “Fellas, we got us an all out emergency here. The Red Cross is callin’ for boats. We need manpower. Lots of it. There’s folks gonna be stranded all over this city before nightfall.”
The enormity of the situation hit Earl in the gut, and he stammered, “I…I oughtta get back to my mom and sister…my Dad…he went to Oldham County last night to check on my Grandma…he ain’t back yet…”
Vic glanced at his friend and then met Alec’s eyes. “You guys need me…?”
Alec answered with his customary flash of white teeth. “Nah, go on. I got this covered. We’ll float Junior here on back home,” he added as he motioned for Earl to climb in.
Turning back to the men in the boat, Vic offered with a shrug, “Count me in.”
Officer Kelly, with a relieved nod, motioned toward the back of the small craft. “Climb aboard.”
Vic waded to the back of the boat and hoisted himself in. As Officer Richards pushed off against the side of the house, and began paddling down the street, Vic turned and watched Alec skillfully maneuver his craft toward the opposite direction. Earl turned his head, and the two long-time friends lifted a hand in farewell.