Landweir House Chapter 13 - Tony Lane's Blog

Landweir House

Chapter 13

Katrina

On Monday morning, August 29^th, 2005, hurricane Katrina made landfall at 7 AM CDT as a category four storm.

As the wind and rain picked up, Lisa Marie found herself gripping the arm of the chair that she was sitting in like she would the safety bar of a rollercoaster. For a brief instant this made her smile when she realized how silly it was. Outside she could hear things hitting the side of the house. Some were small but every once in a while it sounded like a car had been blown into the side of the house. She was glad that they had spent the last two days boarding up the windows of Landweir House. She was barricaded in the library while Donald patrolled the house every time he heard one of those car-sized thumps. The noise was that of a roar and it seemed to never end. Her training as a doctor allowed her to know that adrenalin made her mind work faster which made time seem as if it were passing more slowly than it actually was and so a few minutes seemed to last an eternity. She decided to poke around in the piles of things that they hadn’t yet gone through in the library while she waited. She thought that it was better to keep her thoughts occupied. After Lisa Marie moved a couple of boxes she was able to make out what had to have been the side of a desk. A little more digging and it began to show itself, a beautifully carved walnut desk. It was massive and she laughed to think that such a thing could be hidden by so much rubble. As she cleared the trash from the top of the desk she found what must have been Robert Breen’s typewriter. It was sitting in the exact spot where he must have left it when he wrote some of his movie scripts. Not only was it in position but there was a piece of paper in the carriage with words typed on it. She turned the typewriter towards herself and read what he had written.

There’s a dark place deep inside of me that should never see the light,

Just go into my duodenum and make a sharp turn to the right.

Wander back to the spinal column and trace it to its start,

Just be very careful that you don’t walk all over my heart.

Then climb up and down my ribs to get around to my lung,

Don’t pay any attention if you should hear a wagging tongue.

Swing on my stomach, twist up my intestines then crash into my bladder,

Pay attention to how you go about it unless you want to see it splatter.

Slide down my left femur and then past my kneecap to my shin,

Then quickly climb up to the other side and do it all again.

When you get back I’d like to hear about whatever you might find,

Because that dark place deep inside of me is where I lost my mind.

At first the poem caused a little concern but then she found, right next to the typewriter, a letter from Breen’s doctor explaining his impending gall bladder surgery. Then she smiled. She knew that patients were always apprehensive about an upcoming surgery and this was just a creative mind expressing his worries in a humorous way. Lisa Marie realized that she was holding a poem that had been written by a famous screenwriter and since it was still stuck in his typewriter, that she was quite possibly the only one to have ever read it.

By 8AM CDT mayor Ray Nagin reports that water is flowing over the levee. “I’ve gotten reports this morning that there is already water coming over some of the levee systems. In the lower ninth ward, we’ve had one of our pumping stations stop operating, so we will have significant flooding, it is just a matter of how much.”

11:13 AM CDT – White House circulates an internal memo about the levee breach: “Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city.”

“The radio says that there is significant flooding but not here in the Garden District. I think that we are going to be OK.” Lisa Marie said with the first shred of hopefulness in her voice since last night.

“We lost a big section of the roof and I think that some of the gutters have come loose. I can hear then hitting the wall outside the bedroom. We’ve got rain running down the walls in the master bedroom and it looks like there’s going to be some significant damage to the closet. Probably have to gut it and start over.” Donald said as he joined Lisa Marie in the Library.

“Here look at this, it’s Breen’s desk and typewriter.” She said as he came over to be with her.

“Wow! It’s a beauty.” He said as he ran his hand over some of the carved wood flourishes.

“And this is the last thing that he wrote on it.” She said as she handed him the poem.

Donald took a few seconds to read it and then laughed out loud. He laughed hard until he couldn’t catch his breath and then he coughed and laughed some more. Lisa Marie knew that people handled stress differently and that this was just Donald releasing some anxiety, but come on, it wasn’t that funny. Was it?