Hurricane Song Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  VIKING

  Published by Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in 2008 by Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Paul Volponi, 2008

  All rights reserved

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Volponi, Paul.

  Hurricane song : a novel of New Orleans / by Paul Volponi.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Miles Shaw goes to live with his father, a jazz musician, in New Orleans,

  and together they survive the horrors of Hurricane Katrina in the Superdome, learning about

  each other and growing closer through their painful experiences.

  [1. Fathers and sons-Fiction. 2. Hurricane Katrina, 2005-Fiction. 3. Jazz-Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.V8877Hu 2008

  [Fic] - dc22

  2007038215

  .S.A. Set in Chaparral MM

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic,

  mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the

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  this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and

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  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Special thanks to Joy Peskin, Regina Hayes,

  Rosemary Stimola, Jim Cocoros, Catherine Frank.

  Extra special thanks to my loving wife, April, who always

  had a ready ear during the writing of this story.

  —P.V.

  This text is dedicated to those who lost so much in this tragedy and who are bravely rebuilding their lives in the city of New Orleans.

  Somebody screamed and my eyes shot open. Only it was still pitch black, and I couldn’t see a thing. The air was so thick it almost smothered me, and my lungs had to fight extra hard for a breath that smelled worse than shit and feet mixed together. Then there were flashlights, and footsteps pounding the concrete stairs one section over, and voices of frightened people running to hide from another gang of thugs. I reached next to me to feel for Pop, and on the other side for my uncle. I stopped trying to figure out how scared I was, or if the empty feeling in my stomach would ever quit. The sweat came down my face, stinging the corners of my mouth. Maybe it was 110 degrees. And when those flashlights disappeared, and everything went dark again, it was like somebody shut the oven door on us. My back was stiff and straight in that fold-down seat, and my legs had gone numb hanging over the row in front of me. A plastic garbage bag with everything I had inside was stuffed under my neck for a pillow. I thought about what Pop said when we first got to the Superdome: “Don’t matter what you see or who needs what—they’re not family. It’s three of us and nobody else. And that’s all it can be.” The wind and rain had beat down on that dome like it was a giant drum. But now, people were pounding at each other. There was a buzzing, and I guess the generators tried to kick back in. The rings of lights circling the stadium started to glow a little. They reminded me of halos over the heads of angels. Then I heard a baby cry with a shriek that nearly stopped my heart cold. And for the life of me, I didn’t know if that baby was being born or dying.

  1

  Oh, when the saints go marching in

  Oh, when the saints go marching in

  Lord, how I want to be in that number

  When the saints go marching in

  Sunday August 28, 7:15 A.M.

  Late last night, after Pop finished his gig, he told me to collect up all the things I couldn’t live without. He said that we were driving to a motel in Baton Rouge the next morning with Uncle Roy in his old Chevy because of Katrina—a monster hurricane that was coming.

  “And Miles, call your mother. I want her to know you’re okay, case the phone lines get knocked out,” Pop said. “I’m not gettin’ cussed at ’cause she’s worried sick over where you are.”

  I’d been with Pop in New Orleans maybe two months, since just after school let out. I’d spent summers with Pop before, but this time it was different— I was staying for good. Mom had got remarried to a mailman with three kids of his own back in Chicago, and living in that two-bedroom apartment with them all was like being stuck on the Lake Street El train without a seat at rush hour.

  “It’s hard for everybody in this house. You think you’re the only one that’s got to change?” Mom would bust on me whenever I complained about it. “You’re still my baby, Miles, but I got four children to look after now.”

  My parents split up before I could remember them ever being together. So I really only knew Pop from the times he’d come around our way to play jazz festivals. But once I turned twelve, Mom said I was grown enough to ride the train to New Orleans myself and spend summer vacations with him. Pop played trumpet at the different clubs with my uncle on slide trombone. I didn’t give a shit about jazz. Neither did any kid I ever knew. But once I learned to stomach all that crap about what music meant to his soul, and got past the feeling that I didn’t exist to him when that damn horn was in his hands, every night around Pop was like New Year’s Eve.

  “You think it’s gonna be a party livin’ with your father year-round. It’s not,” Mom warned me. “Maybe it’s all good in summertime ’cause there’s no school. But you’re about to be a sophomore in high school and don’t put near enough into your grades now—everything’s football and horseplay. Somebody’s gotta see that you study and make something of yourself. He’s not gonna put you ahead of his music. You’ll be second-linin’ it with him, just like I did. That’s where you march behind the band in the parade. Only your father’s so into his playing, he won’t even notice when you’re not there anymore.”

  I love Mom, and knew she’d been through plenty of problems with Pop, like his drinking and staying out all night. But he’d always kept a tight lid on that when I was there. It was only his music I had to deal with. She didn’t thin
k he’d even want me, and I stressed over hearing that, too. So I was surprised when Pop didn’t argue to death against it. Only before I came to live with him for real, he explained to me how it was going to be.

  “This house ain’t some quiet library to study in. I practice my chops when I need to, and I play on the weekends. When Mardi Gras comes, it’s gigs every night, so you gotta look after yourself then,” said Pop. “I don’t care nothing ’bout Nintendo, basketball, or gangsta rap—even if you do. I live and breathe jazz. That’s it. When I’m blowing free, it’s like I’m talkin’ to God and he’s answerin’—‘Doc, you black and strong and beautiful. So play like my angel Gabriel.’ And, son, you don’t interrupt a man when he’s conversing with his maker.”

  Halfway through that speech, I could feel an earthquake starting in my toes and rumbling up my body inch by inch. I wanted to scream into the phone at Pop that if he ever put his trumpet down he’d know I played football, not basketball. And maybe he’d still have a family instead of a bunch of tourists who clapped when he was finished playing and then went home. But I needed him to come through for me bad. I couldn’t stomach Mom’s new husband screaming at his kids every two seconds, or never having any private space of my own. So I kept my mouth shut while Pop laid out his rules, and bit it all back.

  “Yeah, Pop,” I answered. “Any way you want it.”

  Before I left, Mom said, “Maybe the two of you can grow up and learn some responsibility together.”

  Pop rented a tiny apartment over Pharaohs, one of the clubs where he played regular, and got me a part-time job. His walls were painted pink and purple, and I’d rank on him, calling it “Skittle House.” He’d nailed up black-and-white pictures of famous jazz players with old-school nicknames like Satchmo, Dizzy, and Bird.

  “That’s the Holy Trinity right there, son,” Pop said. “All those MC thugs in bandanas screamin’ niggers, bitches, and hos put together couldn’t spit-shine their shoes.”

  There was a picture on a tabletop of Pop, too. He was blowing his trumpet with his eyes shut tight. If he ever opened his eyes and took a good look at me, maybe he’d see who I was. That I had my own mind about things and could think and feel for myself. And that what was important to him didn’t mean shit to me.

  The first week I was there, everything was good. Pop spent lots of time with me, getting me settled in and registered for high school. It was almost like having a full-time father, something I never knew before. But then Pop’s gigs started piling up fast, and he forgot all about me.

  Sometimes when Pop wasn’t around, I’d open the case and stare at his horn. It was all shiny and gold, but I could see the little dents in it. I’d even pick it up to try and feel why Pop loved it so much. But it was always just cold in my hands. I never once saw Pop try to hold a football like that. Then I’d think about chucking his horn down the garbage chute, and seeing Pop’s face when he opened the case and it was empty.

  Pop’s legal name was Terrance Shaw, but everybody called him “Doc” because they said his horn could blow life into anyone, no matter how stiff they were.

  “The city morgue called again, Doc,” Pop’s friends would joke. “They want to know if you could lighten their load by going down and playin’ a set.”

  I’d just pretend to laugh along.

  I had a couch in the corner of the front room for my bed. There was a curtain I could pull closed for privacy, and I learned to sleep with that damn jazz pumping up through the floor from Pharaohs. I’d made the fresh-man football squad at school back in Chicago last year, and was praying I’d make the varsity here.

  I love football because it gives you back everything you put in. It’s that simple. If you tackle somebody hard enough, they’ll never forget it, and they’ll always watch over their shoulder for you. And when you got the ball in your hands, nobody takes their eyes off you, not even the dudes playing in the marching band.

  I was expecting some new football gear for my birthday, back in the middle of July. Mom sent me a watch in the mail—one with a metal band that yanked the hairs on my wrist every time I put it on. But when she called, I made a fuss over it anyway.

  Pop even asked me what I wanted for a present. I told him cleats and a new football. Then I came home from football practice the morning of my b-day, and there was an African drum sitting on the couch with a card on top of it.

  “That for me?” I asked, ready to blow.

  “Read the card and find out,” answered Pop, with his arms folded in front of him.

  I skipped through the whole Hallmark message part and just saw the with love, your father at the bottom.

  “Thanks, Pop,” I said, super sarcastic. “No wonder you play music by ear—you’re such a good listener.”

  And Pop walked off without saying a word, steamed as anything.

  We hardly talked to each other for a week, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I got gypped out of a gift.

  Then one night, in between doing sets of sit-ups and push-ups, I was resting on the couch with my arm hanging over the drum. I wasn’t even thinking about it, when I started tapping on it to the music from downstairs.

  That’s when Pop poked his head out of the kitchen and said, “You was born in New Orleans and named after Miles Davis—the most kick-ass trumpet player ever. You ought to be able to beat something respectable on that skin. And I don’t wanna hear no scientific crap ’bout some genes skipping a generation.”

  I didn’t want to act like an ungrateful brat anymore, especially after Pop let me come live with him. So I eased up on him about the drum.

  “It’s an all right present, I guess,” I said, without any real feeling.

  Football tryouts began in early August, with the final cuts coming when school started up in September. Coach had us on the practice field in the mornings by eight A.M., before the sun got too strong. But I was still drenched in sweat after every scrimmage and needed to drink a gallon of Gatorade to put back what I’d lost. Most of the upperclassmen carried more weight than me, and I knew I had to work my ass off just to make second-string and stand on the sidelines. That’s what I was worried about most when we climbed into Uncle Roy’s Chevy that morning—missing practices, and losing a spot on the team.

  We got to the highway and it was bumper to bumper, with cars stretching as far as I could see. Only none of them were moving an inch.

  “This must be the highway to heaven, ’cause everybody’s trying to get on it at the last minute,” said Uncle Roy, shaking his head.

  The three lanes on the opposite side, coming into New Orleans, were totally empty.

  People had their car doors swung wide open, and were standing around on the divide. Plenty of them took their dogs along, too. They were barking and growling at each other, and the ones outside kept pissing to mark their territory.

  I’d never seen a hurricane before, but Pop and his brother had been through lots of them without a scratch. Then Uncle Roy told a story about how he blew his trombone right into the face of one, because it was named after some woman who did him dirty.

  “Florence, Florence, blowin’ all over town,” Uncle Roy sang, drumming on the steering wheel with Pop’s voice joining him in the middle. “You’re so damn mean, you want my soul to drown.”

  At first, I thought Pop was being paranoid about leaving. We lived on the second floor, maybe fifteen feet over the street. I didn’t know how the water could reach that high. The landlord had already boarded up all the windows, so unless the wind blew the roof off, I figured we’d be safe.

  I grew up with that cold winter hawk ripping down the streets in Chicago so hard you had to walk with your back to it. So I didn’t scare off easy.

  But the news reports said Katrina was the hurricane everybody always feared. That because she was so powerful, and since New Orleans was built below sea level, the whole city could get swallowed up in a flood if the levees on the river ever busted. And even the mayor said people had to evacuate.

  Pop packed
his horn—that was automatic. But when he grabbed his gig book that listed every place he’d played and was signed by everybody he’d ever jammed with, I knew he was worried about coming back.

  And that got me a little nervous.

  I stuffed the sixty-four dollars I’d saved from bussing tables at Pharaohs into my pocket. Then I took an old football with the laces ripped, a sheet of practice plays to study on the ride, and my double-sided practice jersey because I’d already seen Coach flip on some dunce who’d lost his.

  “Don’t tell me you’re thinking ’bout leaving that present I bought you behind,” Pop said.

  So I took the drum just to humor him, and put everything into a black plastic garbage bag with a couple changes of clothes.

  Uncle Roy didn’t have a wife and kids, or a place of his own. He was a playa to the max, and mostly lived with whatever woman he was fooling with. He brought his horn with him, a zippered clothes bag with his best suits, and enough candy in a big sack on his lap to answer the door with on Halloween. There were M&Ms, Snickers, Baby Ruth, and Three Musketeers bars all mixed together, and in between smoking cigarettes he’d gobble them down.

  I tried to snap on my uncle, calling him “Sweet Tooth Shaw.”

  But he rolled it right back on me.

  “My lady friends can call me ‘Sweet Tooth.’ That’s it,” Uncle Roy said. “Now if you ever get a girl to look at you twice, I’ll let you borrow that name. You don’t have to pay me rent for it or nothin’. Till then, I’ll call you Doc’s Son, and you call me Uncle—or just plain Roy.”

  Pop nearly split his sides laughing, and I wished I’d never opened my mouth.

  We sat in that traffic jam for three long hours and didn’t get ahead more than four or five light poles. I had to beg for them to change the radio from the jazz station, and even settled for the news. The weatherman said the real storm was still almost a day off. But the wind was already kicking up fierce, and I could smell the rain coming.