ViewMaster.
Amy spent the remainder of the afternoon strolling around the clean and pretty city. She listened to the locals talk, working on her own accent. Despite a few letdowns, Amy felt sure she would still settle here. There must be a club scene through which she could meet like-minded fans and aspiring artists.
A brief nap back in her hotel room refreshed her for the Opry.
At the theater, Amy debated buying some snacks to serve in lieu of supper. But her money was rapidly dwindling, and she held out despite the grumblings of her stomach.
Inside, Amy settled into her seat, full of anticipation. Even the snickers of some nearby girls her own age— who apparently had nothing better to do than make fun of Amy’s outfit—failed to quash her fervor.
But with the very first act, her faith evaporated, and she knew she was in for heartache.
None of these performers were familiar to her. Favoring the old-time classic singers, Amy had not kept up with the latest voices and faces. Still, she could have become emotionally invested in their songs if they hadn’t been all tarted up with synthetic sounds and pop arrangements. Where was the soul and heart of a Willie Nelson or Hank Williams III? Nowhere, it was obvious by intermission.
Amy didn’t even stay for the rest of the show, but instead trudged downheartedly back to her hotel, where she deluged Mr. Taxes with a monsoon of tears.
In the morning, Amy realized she had one last place to go that would reaffirm her connection with this city, would justify her arduous trip here, would inspire her future course.
The Country Music Hall of Fame.
With a lighter step, Amy hurried down to the corner of Demonbreun and 5th, arriving just as the museum opened.
She went immediately to the Gretchen Wilson exhibit.
Gretchen, Amy knew, had retired five years ago, after a long and fruitful career. But perhaps the exhibit would contain updated information about her current whereabouts (surely Gretchen still called Nashville home). Or perhaps—hope sprang eternal—there would be notice of a comeback tour.
At the Gretchen Wilson display, Amy synced her ViewMaster with the kiosk there and brought up onto her screen all the information the Country Music Hall of Fame had to offer on her heroine. The digital guide’s voice came through her earbuds.
“Since retiring from the road, Gretchen Wilson has invested much of her wealth in Batchelder Bioengineering and now resides in New Austin where she can more closely monitor her business affairs….”
Amy found herself out on the sidewalk without any memory of having exited the museum. For a long time she just stood rooted to the spot as foot traffic surged around her. Then she turned toward her hotel to reclaim her pack and check out.
As she walked, she punched up some Johnny Cash.
“Lead me gently home, father, lead me gently home….”
FEMAVILLE 29
La Palma is a tiny mote in the Canary Islands, a mote that had certainly never intruded into my awareness before one fateful day. On La Palma, five hundred billion tons of rock in the form of an unstable coastal plateau awaited a nudge, which they received when the Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted. Into the sea a good portion of the plateau plunged, a frightful hammer of the gods.
The peeling off of the face of the island was a smaller magnitude event than had been feared; but it was a larger magnitude event than anyone was prepared for.
The resulting tsunami raced across the Atlantic.
My city had gotten just twelve hours warning. The surreal chaos of the partial evacuation was like living through the most vivid nightmare or disaster film imaginable. Still, the efforts of the authorities and volunteers and good Samaritans ensured that hundreds of thousands of people escaped with their lives.
Leaving other hundreds of thousands to face the wave.
Their only recourse was to find the tallest, strongest buildings and huddle.
I was on the seventh floor of an insurance company when the wave arrived. Posters in the reception area informed me that I was in good hands. I had a view of the harbor, half a mile away.
The tsunami looked like a liquid mountain mounted on a rocket sled.
When the wave hit, the building shuddered and bellowed like a steer in an abattoir euthanized with a nail- gun. Every window popped out of its frame, and spray lashed even my level.
But the real fight for survival had not yet begun.
The next several days were a sleepless blur of crawling from the wreckage and helping others do likewise.
But not everyone was on the same side. Looters arose like some old biological paradigm of spontaneous generation from the muck.
Their presence demanded mine on the front lines.
I was a cop.
I had arrested several bad guys without any need for excessive force. But then came a shootout at a jewelry store where the display cases were incongruously draped with drying kelp. I ended up taking the perps down okay. But the firefight left my weary brain and trembling gut hypersensitive to any threat.
Some indeterminate time afterwards—marked by a succession of candy-bar meals, digging under the floodlights powered by chuffing generators, and endless slogging through slimed streets—I was working my way through the upper floors of an apartment complex, looking for survivors. I shut off my flashlight when I saw a glow around a corner. Someone stepped between me and the light source, casting the shadow of a man with a gun. I yelled, “Police! Drop it!”, then crouched and dashed toward the gunman. The figure stepped forward, still holding the weapon, and I fired.
The boy was twelve, his weapon a water pistol.
His mother trailed him by a few feet—not far enough to escape getting splattered with her son’s blood.
Later I learned neither of them spoke a word of English.
One minute I was cradling the boy, and the next I was lying on a cot in a field hospital. Three days had gotten lost somewhere. Three days in which the whole world had learned of my mistake.
They let me get up the next day, ostensibly healthy and sane enough, even though my pistol hand, my left, still exhibited a bad tremor. I tried to report to the police command, but found that I had earned a temporary medical discharge. Any legal fallout from my actions awaited an end to the crisis.
I tried being a civilian volunteer for another day or two amidst the ruins, but my heart wasn’t in it. So I took the offer of evacuation to Femaville 29.
* * * *
The first week after the disaster actually manifested aspects of an odd, enforced vacation. Or rather, the atmosphere often felt more like an open-ended New Year’s Eve, the portal to some as-yet undefined millennium where all our good resolutions would come to pass. Once we victims emerged from the shock of losing everything we owned, including our shared identity as citizens of a large East Coast city, my fellow refugees and I began to exhibit a near-manic optimism in the face of the massive slate-cleaning.
The uplift was not to last. But while it prevailed, it was as if some secret imperative in the depths of our souls—a wish to be unburdened of all our draggy pasts—had been fulfilled by cosmic fiat, without our having to lift a finger.
We had been given a chance to start all over, remake our lives afresh, and we were, for the most part, eager to grasp the offered personal remodeling.
Everyone in the swiftly erected encampment of a thousand men, women and children was healthy. The truly injured had all been airlifted to hospitals around the state and nation. Families had been reunited, even down to pets. The tents we were inhabiting were spacious, weather-tight and wired for electricity and entertainment. Meals were plentiful, albeit uninspired, served promptly in three shifts, thrice daily, in a large communal pavilion.
True, the lavatories and showers were also communal, and the lack of privacy grated a bit right from the
