Boys Life

Parrish said to Mom, “I heard from Chief Marchette a little while ago that they’ve opened up the school gym. They’re puttin’ in oil lamps and bringin’ in some cots and blankets. Most of the women and children are goin’ over there to stay, since the water’s gettin’ so high.”
    “Is that where we ought to go, then?”
    “I think it’d be the wise thing. There’s no use you and Cory standin’ out here in this mess.” He pointed with the flashlight again, this time away from the river and toward the swampy basketball court where we’d parked. “They’re pickin’ up whoever wants to go to the shelter over that way. Probably be another truck along in a few minutes.”
    “Dad won’t know where we are!” I protested, still thinking of the green feather and the knife.
    “I’ll let him know. Tom would want you both in a safe place, and I’ll tell you the truth, Rebecca: the way this is goin’, we’ll be catchin’ catfish in attics before mornin’.”
    We didn’t need much prodding. “Brightie’s already over there,” Dr. Parrish said. “You ought to go catch the next truck. Here, take this.” He gave Mom the flashlight, and we turned away from the swollen Tecumseh and started toward the basketball court. “Keep hold of my hand!” Mom cautioned as the floodwaters swept around us. I looked back, could see only the lights moving in the darkness and glittering off the roiling water. “Watch your step!” Mom said. Farther along the riverbank, past where my father was working, voices rose in a chorus of shouts. I did not know it then, but a frothy wave had just swamped over the highest part of the earthen dam and the water churned and foamed and men suddenly found themselves up to their elbows in trouble as the river burst through. A flashlight’s beam caught a glimpse of brown-mottled scales in the muddied foam, and somebody hollered, “Snakes!” In the next second, the men were bowled over by the twisting currents, and Mr. Stellko, the Lyric’s manager, aged by ten years when he put his hand out to seize a grip and felt a log-sized, scaly shape moving past him in the turbulence. Mr. Stellko was struck dumb and peed in his pants at the same time, and when he could find his voice to scream, the monstrous reptile was gone, following the flood into the streets of Bruton.
    “Help me! Somebody help me!”
    We heard the voice of a woman from nearby, and Mom said, “Wait.”
    Someone carrying an oil lamp was splashing toward us. Rain hissed on the lamp’s hot glass and steamed away. “Please help me!” the woman cried.
    “What is it?” Mom turned the light onto the panic-stricken face of a young black woman. I didn’t know her, but Mom said, “Nila Castile? Is that you?”
    “Yes ma’am, it’s Nila! Who’s that?”
    “Rebecca Mackenson. I used to read books to your mother.”
    This was before I was born, I presumed.
    “It’s my daddy, Miz Rebecca!” Nila Castile said. “I think his heart’s give out!”
    “Where is he?”
    “At the house! Over there!” She pointed into the darkness, water swirling around her waist. I was about chest-deep by now. “He can’t stand up!”
    “All right, Nila. Settle down.” My mother, a framework of little terrors with skin stretched over it, was amazingly calm when someone else needed calming. This, as I understood it, was part of being a grown-up. When it was truly needed, my mother could reveal something that was sorely lacking in Granddaddy Jaybird: courage. “You lead the way,” she said.
    Water was rushing into the houses of Bruton. Nila Castile ’s house, like so many others, was a narrow gray shotgun shack. She led us in, the river surging around us, and she shouted in the first room, “Gavin! I’m back!”
    Her light, and Mom’s light, too, fell on an old black man sitting in a chair, the water up around his knees and newspapers and magazines swirling in the current. He was clutching his hand to his wet shirt over his heart, his ebony face seamed with pain and his eyes squeezed shut. Standing next to him, holding his other hand, was a little boy maybe seven or eight years old.
    “Grandpap’s cryin’, Momma,” the little boy said.
    “I know he is, Gavin. Daddy, I’ve brought some help.” Nila Castile set the lamp down on a tabletop. “Can you hear me, Daddy?”
    “Ohhhhh,” the old man groaned. “Hurtin’ mighty bad this time.”
    “We’re gonna help you stand up. Gonna get you out of here.”
    “No,