Bob at the Plaza (14 page)

“Start with these,” he said, handing them to me, “and if we need more, we can probably get them from the fire department. I could call them if you’d pick up the bags with your car.”

“Sure, no problem.” I said. “Just let me know when you want me to get them. And thanks so much for helping me with the shoveling tomorrow.” I added, “I bet you had no idea what you were getting into when I moved in next door, did you? You probably would have run me off with a shotgun if you’d had any idea how much work I’d cause you just by moving in,” I said with an apologetic note in my voice.

“Now you’re just being silly, Roz. We help each other out here. That’s how we all get by in the country. You being from the city, you probably just don’t understand that yet. But you will, if you live here long enough.” Stan held my damp raincoat while I shrugged into it, handing me my still-dripping umbrella. I didn’t have the heart to tell him about my future plans. I’d miss this old coot who, despite his slower ways, knew more about how to survive than I ever would. To both of our surprise, after he handed me my burlap bags and opened the door into the teeming rain, I leaned over and kissed his raspy, unshaven cheek. He ducked his head. “Oh, get along with you. I’ll be over tomorrow. Stay dry, sunshine.”

Since a couple of hours of murky daylight remained, I decided to fill a few sandbags to see how laborious this next project would be. I donned my lakefront-working daffodil outfit and topped it off with a bright-yellow rain slicker. Now I looked like a miniature mountain of butter with black-booted feet. Bob glanced up from his martini when I pounded through and just shook his head.

Downstairs and out onto my dwindling strip of lakefront. After a few minutes standing in the rain, trying to shovel wet shale into a collapsed burlap sack, I could understand why this would be a two-person job. Even if one person only held the mouth of the sandbag open, it would still move the process along. I started timing it. About fifteen minutes to shovel enough shale to fill a sack. It would take me about three hours to fill the bags I had, so I’d have to run down to the fire station tomorrow for more. Once I’d filled the sandbag, it was too heavy for me to lift, but I could push and roll it into place against the outside cellar wall. After an hour of shoveling and rolling, I had two sacks against the wall. The filling and tugging took a lot longer than I estimated.

I couldn’t tell if it was sweat or rain running down the back of my neck as I filled my third sandbag, when a loud voice yelled in my ear, “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing out here?” I jumped and turned, wiping water out of my eyes, to see David. He looked as red as I did, except his color came from anger, judging by the voice.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I yelled back. “I’m making sandbags to save my house.” David swiped for my shovel and I tried to stretch it out of his reach, but failed. “Give that back!”

“Like hell I will! Why on earth don’t you call me for this kind of thing!”

“Because we’re broken up, you jackass! I can’t keep calling you.”

“You make me crazy, woman, you know that? You shouldn’t be out here in the rain shoveling shale.”

The pent-up angers and silences of days crackled around us like lightning. I grabbed the shovel back and shouted above the crashing waves.

“Oh, yeah, why not? Who else is going to do it?”

David looked at me as if I were an idiot. “Volunteers at the fire department, you dope!”

I stopped yelling and repeated in a quieter voice. “Fire department?” I took off my useless rain-sheeted spectacles and wiped more water off my face. “Stan said I could get more sandbags there, but he didn’t say anything about volunteers. Why would they do that?”

David took a deep breath as if trying to stop himself from throttling me. “Look, let’s get out of this rain. I’ll call Frank―he’s the head of the fire department volunteers―and see if they can help. You don’t have to do this on your own, Roz, jeez. I honestly don’t understand why you just don’t ask for a help once in a while.” His voice faded as he turned, then he reached back quickly and snatched my shovel again and stomped toward the stairs.

I stood for a second, cold rain dripping down my back, and then followed.

Bright and warm, the kitchen felt like another planet. A quick glance showed no sign of Bob. David and I dumped our boots and raincoats right by the door. Without asking, David walked over to the stove and put on the kettle, then tossed me a dry dish cloth while he mopped his face with paper towels. I slumped, exhausted, into my chair at the table.

“What are you even doing here?” I asked.

“I stopped by because I realized I didn’t have my penknife and I need it at the winery. Since your car’s in the driveway I thought you’d be here, but you didn’t answer when I called so I started looking around. And I found you, standing out in a monsoon, like a drowned chicken.” He shook his head in exasperation.

“It’s not a monsoon, and I’m not a drowned chicken,” I protested, drying off my face and glasses. “Stan gave me a few sandbags and since I had some daylight left I thought I’d try filling a few so I’d know how hard a job it would be.” I paused for a minute, then admitted ruefully, “It was pretty difficult, actually.”

David continued to shake his head, incredulous. “I never saw anything like it―you standing out there, shoveling shale in a downpour. You really don’t have a clue how to survive in the country, do you?” Seeing the mutinous look on my now-dry face, he got off the topic. Pulling out mugs and tea bags, he said, “I’ll call Frank in a minute and see if there’s anything he can do. I volunteered at the fire department before I put in the vineyard, and I know we helped out a couple of times in situations like this.”

“Funny that Stan didn’t mention it.”

“He might not know. I don’t think he ever volunteered there and we don’t get high water like this very often. Besides, you keep forgetting that he’s a hale and hearty guy who can fill those sandbags in minutes and I wouldn’t be surprised if he could lift them up without too much difficulty. I’m amazed you could move yours. How’d you do it, by the way? They must weigh sixty, seventy pounds.”

I glared at him. “I pushed them. And rolled them. But I got them into place, didn’t I, smart guy?”

The head-shaking continued. “Here. Drink this. I’ll see if I can reach Frank.”

And then it was done. Just so happens that tomorrow night the volunteers would have their regular monthly meeting and Frank thought that filling and positioning a couple hundred sandbags would be a great emergency-preparedness drill for his lake team.
They must be awfully good sports to think spending three hours in the rain throwing sandbags around would be a good time,
I remember thinking to myself. Before David hung up with Frank, I took the phone and asked what I could do to help tomorrow night.

“Well, you’re not on the crew, so I can’t ask you to work with the sandbags themselves. Insurance issues. But getting us something to drink or eat would always be welcome,” he answered.

“Beer, maybe?”

“No, no, no, we can’t drink alcohol during our sessions. Coffee, sodas, some cookies, maybe. You know, snack stuff.”

“I’ll take care of it. And Frank, please tell everyone that I can’t thank them enough. I’m blown away at how kind everyone is to do this for me.”

“It’s not a problem. This provides a very good drill. The team meets at seven and we’ll spend some time filling sandbags at the county stockpile, so we’ll probably be at your place about eight, eight-thirty. See you then.” Frank clicked off.

I held the phone, staring at it for a moment.

“Everything okay, Roz?” David asked.

I turned to him, handing back his phone. “I’m having a hard time letting it all sink in. I’ve been nuts about this flooding situation for months and in a day or two it will probably be taken care of. By people I don’t even know, and the only payment they’ll get for all their hard work will be a cup of coffee and a few cookies.”

“You just don’t understand living in the country. We only survive if we help each other. I can’t imagine what your life in cities must have been like if you’re having such a hard time with this. One day, someone you don’t know will ask for help and you’ll do it. Besides, don’t forget they’re a volunteer organization―you could always make a donation to say thank you. Anyway”—David patted his pockets and glanced around the kitchen, then wandered into the living room, still searching—“I never did find my penknife. My dad gave me that knife and I use it all the time at the winery. It must have fallen out of my pocket and I don’t have a clue where it wound up.”

I ran my hand under the sofa cushions. No luck. Upstairs, David got on his knees and checked under the bed and, sure enough, he found the knife, and far too many dust bunnies. Must have fallen out of his pocket when he’d dropped his pants a few days ago.

“Okay, I’m all set, then. I’ll join the guys at the fire department tomorrow night and help fill the sandbags, so I’ll see you when we get here. Now, you should get out of those damp clothes and just take it easy tonight, Roz. Everything’s going to be fine.” With those final words, and another disbelieving shake of his head, David slipped into the raincoat he’d left by the door and stepped into the rain.

Too tired and numb to do much, I made a shopping list of all the snacks I planned to buy for tomorrow.

Stan loaned me his large cooler the following day when I brought him up to date on my news. “They’re good folk,” was his only matter-of-fact comment.

I spent the rest of the day buying ice and every kind of soda I could find, and baked three different kinds of cookies.

Bob shimmered in just as I pulled two fragrant cookie sheets from the oven. “Company coming?” he asked.

“You could say that,” I answered, working quickly to skim off the cookies before they hardened, and went on to explain the volunteer drill.

Bob responded with a little too much nonchalance for my tastes. “See? All your worrying for nothing. I knew everything would be okay. Something always turns up.”

“Yeah, sure it does,” I shot back testily, throwing the cookie dough onto the cooling sheets with more force than necessary. “All it takes is a bunch of people risking pneumonia and exhaustion, working their butts off to help a perfect stranger.”

“Well, I can see
you’re
in a mood today. Why don’t I just come back tomorrow after all the excitement has died down and you’re feeling better?” Bob offered in a blithe tone and popped out before I could tell him what I thought of his proposal.

The only description I can come up with for that night would be ‘surreal.’ About thirty volunteers, few of them young, lined up in the dark on the two flights of stairs that ran along my house from lakefront to street level. With rain pouring all around, lit only by the feeble spotlights on the corners of my house and the headlights from a couple of pickup trucks parked on street level, they passed heavy bags of wet sand from the backs of the trucks down forty-seven wooden stairs and over to the lakefront level where more volunteers stacked the bags outside the cellar walls. Two hundred sandbags started pushing back the waters that had come so close to swallowing my home.

High spirits prevailed. Soaking wet, grunting from the weight of the moving sandbags, the volunteers still had fun. 

“Hey, Frank,” a voice rang out of the dark, “so this is your idea of a good time, huh? Did I miss the monthly drill where we got to sit in the nice warm firehouse and review the emergency manual? Remind me to vote for a different president next election, okay?”

Frank yelled back cheerfully, “Ah, you know you love being out of the house and away from the wife, Gus! You’ll do anything if it’ll get you out for the night.”

“True, too true,” the man who must have been Gus admitted, sagging under the weight of the next sandbag thrust at him.

Occasionally a wet volunteer would take a break from the sandbag relay and come in the kitchen for a cup of coffee or a cookie, and we’d chat for a minute. Soon though, we’d hear voices calling, “Hey, Charlie, whatcha doin? Takin’ a nap in there? We need you, boy. Get your butt out here.”

Several times I went out to thank people and to look at the pile of sandbags that accumulated on the lakefront. If I’d worked full days for months, I doubt I could have accomplished as much as this rowdy group achieved in two hours. When the last sandbag had been shoved into place, the last soda drunk and snack eaten, they vanished into the dark, wet night as quickly as they’d come. Another bead of grace on the rosary of blessings that I’d accumulated in my life, a bead that I would count repeatedly over years to come when life became too tough.

David left last. He’d spent the evening working with the crew that positioned sandbags against the cellar wall so I, at my station in the kitchen, hadn’t seen him much. Wet through, he gulped scalding coffee and wrapped his hands around the mug to warm them.

“A good night’s work, I’d say,” he said, wriggling kinks out of his cramped shoulders. “Those sandbags should protect the house for a couple of days and by then the rain should be over. Then the lake administrators can reopen some of the sluices to drain water without flooding our neighbors. You’ll be fine, Roz.” He placed his mug on the counter, then grabbed me and pulled me in under his chin, wrapping his arms around me. “Promise me, sweetheart, no matter what, you’ll call me when you get so scared. I don’t care what things are like between us, I’ll always help you.”

I nodded mutely, afraid I’d start crying if I tried to talk. My heart was too full.

After pressing a kiss on my forehead, David turned abruptly, and left through the kitchen door. The wooden stairs outside echoed his footsteps up to his truck.

I cleaned the kitchen in slow motion, collecting soda cans for recycling and packing cookies in the freezer. I was numb. I couldn’t really absorb the fact that, after weeks of worry, my nightmare had been fixed. Maybe a temporary solution, but for one night, at least, fixed. I thought I’d be ecstatic when it happened but instead, I was just tired. Minutes later, drooping even more, I dragged myself to my bedroom and changed into my nightgown. The barest minimum sufficed for washing up and, like most of tonight’s volunteers, I bet, I practically fell into bed and into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Which ended all too soon.