X

The ride to work everyday has been a blessing. I say this with reservation.

I live in St. Bernard's parish, about 25 minutes from the city, and 30 from my work site. I have to cross over the levee that breeched in 2005, over an open field where houses once were, dotted with Brad Pitt's model green homes. The houses that remain range from completely livable to demolished, but most are gutted and left open with an X on the door.

I don't know much about them, but there is writing all over the X. The date someone searched the house is above, most were searched in the first few days after the storm. To the left, the company that did it. Underneath the X there is usually a 0. This number represents the body count.

Anna addressed the morbid fascination we all felt when we learned about this. On the second day in the city she said in the van, "I know it's wrong, but I want to see a number," and we all did. Unfortunately one by one we got our wish. I think Josh and Jamie saw theirs first. I hadn't seen one till today.

We were on the same road we always drive, and I was looking at these beat down houses like I've been doing for almost 4 weeks, when I saw a faded "8" under an X. It was a light red house and the X was in yellow paint. Only a moment after I'd realized what it was I told myself it was a "0", that there couldn't have been 8 people in one home.

Then after work we toured the lower ninth ward. There were thousands of homes destroyed, and I got it. I got the message earlier today, that people had died here, and this was where they'd lived. We drove down streets of driveways with patches of gray grass and no home. We saw monuments and posters and flowers and candles and everything and I got it. I wanted to sleep.

We got home and I forgot about it. Surprise! Service Learning project! We're going to watch When the Levees Broke.

I was so angry.
I was inconsolable and ill and fed up with all this shit that happened more than 3 years ago and it's still not better. Then the second act finished with bodies floating in the water in front of the houses I see every day on the way to work. Anna turned away as I should have.

I've come to hate this place and the gloom that hangs over it.

There's an old Sliders episode I think about when I get depressed here. The team jumps into this world where everyone is happy except for one person who absorbs all the pain in the world. They carry it on their back until they can't take it anymore, ceremoniously throwing themselves down a well. Then another is chosen. The cycle continues without the town realizing that pain is everywhere, and the only fair way is to share it.

The only way this is going to be better is for someone to come in and soak up the sadness, and in that way being depressed means I'm doing something good. If I can take one day of grief away from this place I feel like I've done my job.