Lost Memory of Skin

by Russell Banks

  Otis the Rabbit and Paco have abandoned their flooded tents and moved their possessions including Paco’s Harley up the steep grassy slope toward the highway and have stopped there in the wind-driven rain to take what appears to be a last look back at the disappearing encampment. Their island home is being absorbed by the Bay. The Shyster and most of the others stand in the doorways of their camps, shacks, and tents helpless and confused, unsure of whether to wait out the storm or flee. If they stay and try to protect their possessions from the rising water and the winds which have now reached Category 3 hurricane force, will they be blown into the Bay and drowned? But if they give it up and flee their island, where will they go? For the men who live beneath the Causeway there is no private or public shelter from the storm anywhere in the city or the adjoining suburbs.

  The Rabbit says to Paco, Where the fuck’s the Kid? You seen the Kid?

  Paco can’t hear him over the roar of the wind. He cups his ear and leans in close and the Rabbit asks it again.

  Must still be in his tent! Paco hollers back. With his dog and the bird!

  We better get him outa there! Water’s almost up to his tent! Wind’s gonna fucking blow it away any minute anyhow! the Rabbit shouts. He starts to hobble on his crutch back down the slope and stumbles and nearly falls.

  Paco grabs the old man by the arm and steps in front of him and tells him to stay here by the Harley, he’ll get the Kid. He likes being a hero. He’s wearing a black muscle shirt and gym shorts and high-tops, his usual workout clothes. His tanned shoulders and biceps flex and glisten in the rain as he descends to the encampment, makes his way along the embankment and crosses under the Causeway toward the Kid’s flapping tent.

  The waters off the Bay have risen to within a yard of the tent and the wind pummels its thin nylon skin and yanks on the taut cords the Kid so carefully tied to cinder blocks and stanchions when he pitched it. The Kid thinks of himself as ex-military and therefore an expert by-the-book camper who as head of the Executive Committee tries to set military standards for the rest of the men even though in spite of his and the Professor’s exhortations and warnings most of them seem not to care about keeping their quarters foursquare, neat and clean. The Kid doesn’t understand why everyone isn’t as orderly and fastidious as he is especially when it’s the only way to keep the police and the sanitation department from coming back and breaking up their camp again like it’s a filthy rats’ nest and sending them scampering away to darker dirtier more dangerous hideouts. Or if they can’t escape, if they don’t scamper into greater darkness and invisibility, putting them in cages, tossing away the key. Next time they’ll lock them up permanently, even the Shyster unless the men beneath the Causeway demonstrate that they’re basically good neighbors and citizens of Calusa who aren’t violating any municipal regulations or laws.

  A few of them have tried to follow the Kid’s example—Otis the Rabbit and Paco and P.C. and Plato the Greek have pitched their tents correctly or built themselves foursquare huts out of plywood scraps and polyethylene with the Shyster paying them to build his to the same high standard and were instrumental in constructing the latrine and organizing trash and garbage collection and disposal—but the rest have set up their households like drunks and druggies who all they think about is getting or staying high so they pay minimum attention to how and where they actually live. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone since many of the residents down here in fact are drunks and druggies in spite of having settled beneath the Causeway solely because they’re convicted sex offenders who have served their time for their crime and have nowhere else in the city to live.

  In most cases it’s the only reason they’re homeless. It’s the one thing they have in common. A bond that unites them against everyone else, even other homeless people. Just yesterday a bushy-haired bearded guy in a long topcoat who wasn’t a convicted sex offender wandered down under the Causeway from a park or abandoned building elsewhere in the city and tried to settle among them but they stood together shoulder to shoulder and cast the guy out. The Kid as spokesman for the group explained to the guy that standard-issue homeless people have easy access to dozens of public and church-run shelters that are not available to convicted sex offenders because sometimes there are children being sheltered, So fuck off, dude, or I’ll turn Paco and our other security guys loose and let them kick the shit out of you.

  Paco unzips and flings back the tent flap and the Kid takes out his earbuds and says, Wow, I was just thinking about you, man!

  Paco says, You got to abandon ship, Kid! We gettin’ flooded out! This a fuckin’ hurricane!

  The Kid takes a look outside and his eyes widen. Holy shit! It’s fucking Noah and the flood!

  Working frantically he and Paco shove his belongings into his duffel and backpack. He puts Annie on her leash, picks up Einstein’s cage and Paco tucks the expedition-size backpack under one meaty arm and wraps the duffel with the other as if rescuing a pair of children from a fire. He says to the Kid, You take care of the animals, I’ll get the rest.

  Einstein squawks and says, Women and children first! Women and children first!

  Where’d he learn to say that shit?

  Not from me, man. He says stuff all the time that he never heard from me. You can have real conversations with him.

  Yeah, right. Follow me, Paco says and the Kid obeys, holding Einstein’s cage and leading Annie by her leash. Leaning into the wind they make their way up the steep switchbacked path to the roadway where the Rabbit waits beside Paco’s Harley and a pile of black garbage bags stuffed with most of his and Paco’s clothing, bedding, and cooking gear. The Kid huffs and puffs his way behind Paco up to the Rabbit where he turns and looks back down at the drowning settlement and the men in flight, most of them scrambling to salvage their possessions by moving to higher ground and stashing as much of it as they can in the dark underside of the roadway, a few others following Paco’s, the Rabbit’s, and the Kid’s example by abandoning the settlement altogether and lugging what few possessions they can carry uphill toward them.

  Suddenly the Kid says, Jesus, I forgot my bike! I gotta try and get my bike. And my tent too.

  The Rabbit puts a hand on the Kid’s arm and stays him. Too late, Kid. They’re gone. You’re lucky you got yourself and them fuckin’ animals out.

  The Rabbit’s right. The Kid’s tent and bike are half underwater. The wind- and tide-driven surge off the Bay is rising faster now and is coming in waves with a heavy three-foot chop. The Kid hollers over the wind, Maybe we should try to wait it out under the Causeway where it ain’t flooded yet! Up high underneath, like those guys’re doing, the Greek and Shyster and them!

  Paco hollers back, Forgetaboutit, man! Them guys’re gonna get trapped under there and drowneded!

  That’s fucking harsh, Paco.

  That’s reality. Those guys’re too stupid to abandon a sinking ship. Even your fucking parrot knows reality.

  Paco sets a pair of garbage bags onto the back of his seat and straps his bundled goods onto the Harley with bungee cords, leaving barely enough room for him to ride. He slings one leg over the Harley and starts the engine.

  Where you goin’, man?

  Inland! If the wind don’t blow me over!

  What about us?

  Paco flashes a white-toothed grin at the Kid and Rabbit. It’s every man for himself. Better start walking!

  The rain falls on the pavement faster than it runs off and the highway looks more like a shallow rippling river than a six-lane roadway. It’s entirely empty of vehicles; from the Barriers to the mainland not a car or truck of any kind, a ghost of a road from nowhere to nowhere. Except for the men who live under the Causeway everyone who wants to be evacuated from the Barriers has been evacuated and there’s no one on the mainland foolish enough to be driving in the opposite direction. Paco guns the engine and cuts a wide arc across all six deserted lanes and rides his Harley up and over the long arch of the Causeway and in seconds has disappeared in the distance. />
  Bracing himself with his crutch the Rabbit leans against the wind. He looks exhausted from the effort as if he’s about to fall over. Both he and the Kid are soaked through and are shivering from the cold rain. The Kid says, What’re we gonna do, man?

  You heard him. Start walking.

  What about you? With your busted leg and all? The Rabbit doesn’t look like he can walk across a room, let alone get himself over the high arching Causeway and hobble down the highway for more than a mile to the mainland. Especially in this wind which the Kid estimates at fifty to sixty miles an hour with gusts in the eighties. And once on the mainland where would they go? They could find some sort of temporary protection against the hurricane maybe—a bridge they could hide under or a mall where they wouldn’t get busted for loitering—and could wait it out. But what then? Whatever they had going for them under the Causeway a day ago is pretty much smashed now and if Paco’s right and a bunch of the men living there end up drowning the city will put a high fence around it. And who would want to live down there after that anyhow? Who could sleep there with all those ghosts haunting the place?

  Shouldn’t we do something about those guys up under the bridge?

  Like what?

  I dunno. Tell ’em they’re gonna get drowned.

  Rabbit speaks very slowly and with effort as if struggling to get his breath. They won’t listen to you, Kid. Besides, maybe they won’t drown. Then after a few seconds, Yeah, you’re right. I’ll tell ’em. They’ll listen to me. You gotta take care of yourself, Kid, he says.

  The old man swings around on his crutch and starts moving down the soaked muddy pathway. The Kid shouts against the howling wind for him to wait, then to be careful, for chrissakes, it’s slippery, when the old man’s crutch slides out from under him and he collapses onto the ground and keeps falling. As if he planned on falling and even desired it he offers no resistance to it. His body crumples and seems to come apart, legs going one way, arms another, head lolling loosely on his skinny neck, as if he’s a marionette made of wet papier-mâché. He rolls some twenty feet off the zigzagged path to a ridge where the long slope from the highway to the settlement below turns into a sixty-degree drop. The old man drags himself to the ridge and goes over. It’s almost a precipice and he falls faster and faster tumbling down the incline all the way to the bottom where there’s now three feet or more of rapidly rising water and he ends up lying there facedown half in the water and half out.

  The Kid quickly ties Annie’s leash to the guardrail and scrambles down the long hill after him, pushing past P.C. and Ginger making their way up with their loads on their backs like hobos hoping to hop a freight. By the time he reaches the bottom the tidal surge off the Bay has already risen another foot and the Rabbit is floating away. The Kid wades into the water and reaches for Rabbit’s pants leg but before he can grab it a wave hits him in the chest, driving him back. The wave catches the old man and shoves him farther out. Otis the Rabbit floats away from the Causeway and the sunken settlement toward the open Bay. He does not resist. He’s gone.

  Struggling against the undertow the Kid backs slowly free of the waist-high water and turns and looks up under the bridge. The rest of the men are huddled up there in the shadows watching him like gargoyles. Above him on the right Ginger and P.C. have crossed the guardrail onto the empty highway and are trudging west heading inland.

  The bastards. They watched the old man fall and not a one of them made an effort to come to his aid. Not a one of them moved from his perch. But the Kid knows that the Rabbit had finally given up on living like an abandoned animal and didn’t want anyone to save him. He fell down that hill like a man jumping off a bridge. And who could blame him? Maybe they should all give up the struggle—just let go and fall down whatever hill you were trying to climb until you end at the bottom and the sea rolls in and takes you away like it took away Iggy and now the Rabbit. What’s the point of trying to solve your problems and get ahead in life if the only problems you can solve are the little meaningless housekeeping ones and you’re never going to get ahead in life anyhow because you’re a convicted sex offender and are condemned to be one for the rest of your life even if you never commit another sex offense. Your name and face are always going to show up on that registry and scare the shit out of people who will make you live outside the camp as if told to do it by Moses under orders from God.

  He casts his gaze over the flooded encampment and notices that the surge seems to have receded a foot or two. The wind has diminished to a steady breeze and has shifted from the east around to the west and the rain has let up slightly. The men squatting up under the bridge have ventured out a ways to where they can stand in a low crouch and they’re talking to one another excitedly as if surprised at not having drowned, as if they think that soon everything will return to the way it was yesterday—as if the way it was yesterday was worth living for.

  But the Kid knows it’ll never be like it was before the flood and the hurricane. Once you’ve seen your life and where you live for what they are they never look the way they did before. Illusions die hard especially when like the Kid you’ve only got a few to hold on to and when they’re dead and gone you can never get them back. He knows now what the Rabbit knew when he let himself fall: this life is the only one available and it’s not worth the effort. Fuck the Professor and his theories.

  The rain has stopped and the sky is turning from dark gray to a buttery shade of yellow. The water is receding rapidly as if the Bay is being emptied out through Kydd’s Cut back into the ocean. His tent is gone, swept away by the flood. Like Rabbit. All the tents and huts have been demolished and dumped into the Bay. Chained to the stanchion his bike lies buried beneath a huge pile of dripping debris, garbage, old boards and plywood, and tangled sheets of polyethylene. He can barely make out its twisted and bent wheels and frame. Everything is beyond repair or simply gone.

  He can’t think of what to do now or where to go. Maybe he should just stand where he is and wait for something to happen and react to whatever it is. As if he were an object, a thing instead of a human being. Because that’s what he feels like now.

  Then he remembers that his water-logged duffel and backpack and few remaining possessions are up by the highway. What the hell, he can be a thing up there as easily as down here under the Causeway. Head down he starts trudging up the path and halfway to the top he lifts his head and sees Annie soaked and shivering tied to the guardrail and on the pavement next to her is Einstein miserable in his cage with his head tucked under a wing, his long tail-feathers a soaked mat on the floor of the cage.

  The Kid never should have taken responsibility for Annie and Einstein. What was he thinking? It’s all the Professor’s fault, he thinks. He never would have taken them with him when he left Benbow’s if the Professor hadn’t given him the illusion that he was capable of taking care of them. That illusion is gone now too. Those two helpless creatures are way worse off with him than they were at Benbow’s.

  Then to his amazement just as the Kid reaches the top and steps over the guardrail he sees the Professor’s van coming down the highway from the west. Every time he thinks about someone that person suddenly appears in reality. He should start thinking about people he actually wants to see except that he can’t think of anyone he really wants to see. Nobody he knows in person anyhow. He wouldn’t mind seeing Willow the French Canadian porn star. He wouldn’t mind seeing Captain Kydd the pirate so he could ask him about the buried treasure.

  The van crunches to a stop beside the Kid. The Professor gets out of his vehicle and hurries up to the Kid. He’s in shirtsleeves with huge sweat circles under his arms and a gray wet blotch across his heaving chest. His face is red and he’s breathing rapidly as if he’s climbed several flights of stairs.

  Put the animals and the rest of your gear in the van!

  The Kid answers, You can take the animals if you want. But I’m stayin’ put. I don’t need you.

  The Professor slides open the side door an
d lifts Annie into the back and sets Einstein’s cage beside her. Yes you do. The storm’s only half over. You can’t stay here. He reaches for the Kid’s backpack but the Kid yanks it back from him.

  Fuck you, fat man! Like I said, I’m stayin’ put.

  Look at you! You’re soaked through. He glances down the hillside at what was once the settlement beneath the Causeway. Your camp is wrecked. You can’t stay here.

  Fuck you.

  The Professor picks up the Kid’s duffel and places it on the backseat. Come with me. I’ll take you to my house. You can come back here and rebuild tomorrow or the next day, after the hurricane’s passed out to sea.

  The Professor takes hold of the backpack again. This time the Kid doesn’t resist. He’s remembered that he’s an object, a thing, not a human being with a will and a goal, and that he’s only capable of reacting, not acting. The Professor’s the human being here, not the Kid. So he opens the passenger door of the van and gets in.

  CHAPTER THREE

  TO THE KID AS THEY DRIVE ACROSS THE city and along deserted suburban streets the Professor seems agitated and uncharacteristically urgent. Usually he’s calm, slow-moving, and talks in long complete sentences that keep your attention but today he rattles on about how until now he’s been protected and that’s all going to change so he’s going to have to protect himself. The Kid’s not sure what he’s talking about and thinks at first that it’s the hurricane that’s got the Professor in a lather so he asks him if he means protected from the hurricane.