NEEDLING

It’s the great big exodus. It’s fucking biblical. A million or so people are evacuating and driving through town. Glenn was getting off of work in Giddings – 100 miles from Houston approximately – and there was no taking 290 East – the principal highway to get back into Austin. The cops have turned all the red lights off all the way down from Houston, and the cars are driving out bumper to bumper. I don’t know where they’re going. There’s a major international music festival in town this weekend and every rentable room in town has been rented for weeks. The Governor told everybody to go to Dallas, San Antonio and For Worth. All day today I had customers coming into the store telling me relatives where coming over for the weekend. The H.E.B. next to my work ran out of water in the early afternoon. After class tonight, I stopped by my local H.E.B. and the parking lot was fuller than I ever seen it. I decided that I’ll go in early tomorrow morning. The storm should hit and totally destroy the coast-line, and it might still be a hurricane when it gets to us, they say. In any case, we should expect extreme winds and extreme down pour. We should expect massive amounts of trees breaking and flying. We should expect electricity to go out for a long time. We should hope real loud that no tornado will form out of this storm. Glenn, Kari, and I haven’t prepared at all yet. Tomorrow, we’re buying lots of water, some food, and loads of booze.

One of my beer delivery guys is in the National Guard. He told me today he’d been called in, and tomorrow he’s on the way to Houston for several days. In two months, he’s on the way to Iraq.

“I got a guy to cover for me for the next couple of days, this way it’ll all be cool.”
“But... they can’t fire you right? How does that work anyway?”
“Naw, dude, that’s part of the deal, whatever they call me to do, I can’t loose my job over it. Matter fact, it looks like I’ll be making less money in the next few days by going to Houston, so they’ll cover the difference.”
“Shit, man... and they can call you to go to Iraq too, right?”
“Yeah, matter fact, we’re supposed to go in two months.”
“I’m sorry, dude, I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”
“You know, man, when I joined I figured something like that might happened, and at first, when it all started to go down, I was like, shit, dude, it’s an experience...”
“Yeah, but, dude, that’s not no experience you want...”
“Yeah... I don’t, man... ever since I saw that movie 9-11 or whatever, I’m like, fuck this shit, what the hell... I want to defend my country and all, but not this shit...”
“I’m sorry, dude,”
“You know, if they call me, I’ll go, because I signed up, but man I don’t want to... I’m not scared or nothing, I just don’t want to go over there and fight for their lies and... shit...”
“Dude, good luck tomorrow...”
“All right, man, I’ll see you later.”

It’s a weird feeling. People are freaking out. Nobody knows what’s going to hit them. It’s a massive exodus coming from the coast. This man walked into my store, and I’d just been checking out a man who was saying that everybody was all freaking out, going all out of proportion, that we’re in Austin, and nothing’s gonna hit us except some hard rain and some strong winds, why buy all that water? What’s those people thinking? And he walked out.

The next guy in line was a small guy in shorts and a wife-beater. He had lots of tattoos, a dark working man’s tan, and a rough edge like he’d worked ever since he could walk on his own.

“I don’t know nothing about no water shortage or nothing, but I live down there on a boat, or should I say, I lived on a boat, and that boat’s my living.”
“I’m sorry, man.”

He wasn’t melodramatic, he wasn’t mad, he wasn’t upset, he was just like: I live on boat which in two days will no longer be, I’m buying some booze to help me ride this shit out, other than that, I’m fine, dude.