Imagine the street you spent the most time on as a child. You can close your eyes and remember every nook and cranny down to the tire scratches in the road. For me, it is Chagall Road in beautiful Topanga Canyon, Calif. This typical middle- and upper-class neighborhood between Malibu and Los Angeles is where my best friend Alison lives. If an average person were to drive up Chagall, he would see track homes, green grass and childrens’ toys sprawled all over the yards.
If you were a resident or familiar visitor, however, you would quickly detect the insider information of the street. Number 21367 housed the crazy neighbors who on Halloween would get plastered and jokingly chase the trick-or-treaters with a real chainsaw. Then, there was the man down the hill at 21307 who would get the morning newspaper in nothing but his birthday suit. And in front of the corner house was the place where Alison and I swore on the bonds of “best friendship” by planting a penny in the ground for good luck.
Oh, the memories of Chagall are good ones, but extremely odd. What’s even weirder is to think that one day all of those details could be erased. What if your neighborhood didn’t get another chance to celebrate Halloween? What if eight feet of water washed away your good luck penny?
That incomprehensible thought, however, is reality for the residents of Arabi. Recently, I visited the St. Bernard Parish town just east of New Orleans. The damage from Hurricane Katrina was horrendous, and as I reached the top of the bridge leading into the area, I found myself shaking harder than I ever had before. Looking over Arabi to the north were piles of rubble; pieces of wood that used to shelter families were strewn all around, creating a flat desert of lumber. A gas station overhang had completely tilted onto the auto parts store next door. Four separate homes had been formed to create one elongated, multi-color house. Signs and flyers for “speedy construction” and “reliable house gutting” were placed on the grass on the medians and on peoples’ front doors. The sun was about to set, and without a living population in Arabi, the silence was striking.
My two friends and I stepped out of the car viewing the dilapidated house in front of us. I yearned to bring my camera, but eventually decided to leave it behind. However my conscience started to argue with itself: “Go for it, this is something you’ll want to remember,” versus, “Don’t you dare! This was someone’s home! This is now someone’s reality!”
For months I’d been away from New Orleans as an evacuated college student and from all the stories I’d seen on the news from my safe home in Los Angeles, this was my chance to connect to a tragedy that had affected so many, a tragedy that had implanted negativity into my once upbeat persona. I went back to the car for my camera. Taking pictures of the front yard wasn’t enough. I had to see what it was like inside. I had to experience the devastation for myself, so I went in.
I entered 1415 No Name St. The numbers on the house were crooked, and the screen door was making a horrible squeal in the wind. To the left was a closet completely full of dresses: patriotic red, dark ocean blue, even one with a black and white tribal pattern. The pink insulation hanging from above was complimented with copper wires and tin foil; however, the single tiered chandelier remained in place, still strongly bolted to the ceiling. The table by the door held multiple stacks of pictures and holiday cards: “Happy Holidays, Michael and Cindy, 2001.” Cindy’s face was cheerful, and her red sweater lit up her face. Michael was covered in mold and had deteriorated away.
The books on the shelf were exactly as the lady homeowner had left them, neatly organized and lined up by size. A wood-grained framed picture of a giggling baby lay on the floor wrapped in multiple copies of The Times-Picayune. It was as if the lady homeowner had planned to pack it for evacuation and simply forgot to grab it. Around the corner was a tiny bathroom covered in flower-print wallpaper. A plant of fake white flowers was still hanging from the skylight. Three toothbrushes, two pink and one blue, were perfectly placed in their holder. Two pairs of stockings were left to dry on the towel rack.
Who did all of these amazingly ordinary possessions belong to? Did she evacuate OK? Where is she now? What is her story? Speculating on the answers to those questions and embarrassingly trespassing through her house made me realize that something as devastating as Hurricane Katrina could happen to any of us at any point in time. We are all like the lady homeowner. We store our holiday cards as keepsakes and frame our beloved children. We hang our stockings to dry after each use and neatly place our toothbrush in its rightful position.
I hope that Arabi residents have a chance to rename their street, so that in years to come they are rewarded with the joys of celebrating Halloween together, swearing on the bonds of best friendship and love and cherishing every nook and cranny down to the tire scratches in the road.
Colleen McGrew can be reached at [email protected].
