Landscapes

Hurricane Remains, Inside and Out

Green shrubs and trees bow, a curious crowd of looky-loos over the low, slow-moving Swannanoa River. Two black granite boulders lean like vultures over the curve, marking the quarter mile point to the bridge that crosses the river to Hwy 70. They are simply watchers, guardians of Old Hwy 70. This was my drive before the flood. Now, the same dark rocks hulk above the broken road as I wonder how they could possibly be stable, so much soil has washed from beneath their bulk.

Whitson bridge is the route most people take to cross the river in order to shop at Ingles Grocery or CVS, mail a package at the post office, buy a can of paint or bag of birdseed at Ace Hardware, or meet a friend for a beer at Terra Nova’s long, golden oak bar. I celebrated my 70th birthday at Terra Nova. Friends and I ate wings and drank beer and wine on a Sunday afternoon in their garden room. All these places except for CVS have been closed for seven weeks. Most will not reopen.

Since Helene, I hate driving anywhere. I have to shop for groceries in Black Mountain or Asheville. The Swannanoa Ingles parking lot has morphed into a FEMA distribution center. Due to all the wreckage and/or repair, roads are closed everywhere in this area as reconstruction takes place. You still must drive halfway to Black Mountain before you can turn back and approach our old Ingles on the other side of the river. With every detour, there’s a new stretch of road, a neighborhood in ruins, and a river bank you cannot unsee.

Whitson bridge has required extensive rebuilding, digging out the river then redirecting its flow, while removing the giant beaver dam it became when the sheer force of all that water broke it into concrete puzzle pieces. Yellow backhoes dismantled the beaver dams slowly, opening and closing their jagged jaws around loads of debris as gently as a golden retriever mouths a hunter’s duck. Roads were blocked off in long stretches as recovery teams and cadaver dogs searched broken trees and rubble for bodies and parts and pets which got hung up like so many lures and bobbers in a hard-to-fish hole.

Past the bridge, you can see through the backsides of buildings swiped open by the river’s claws. Day by day new pieces—a wall here, a slab of ceiling there—drop from the chewed up buildings into the water below.

A tent and trailer city, one of many, has been erected along the near bank. Families live behind what remains of their houses. Single wide trailers, crushed like PBR tall boys, scatter the landscape. The homeowners’ property lies beneath toxic red clay, which will need to be dug out and the land leveled before they can rebuild. They all, to the last man, woman, and child, plan to rebuild or repair what’s left of their homes. These are Appalachian people. They would not think of leaving. “Besides,” they say, “where would we go? All we got left is this land.” This is a new hardship, yes, but hardship itself is nothing new to the folks of Appalachia. These mountains, whether lifting you up or letting you down, are home.

Since the recent presidential election, I dislike driving more than ever. The similarity between my inner landscape and the actual landscape along the Swannanoa River is a nightmare I cannot wake up from. The brain can handle only so much literal metaphor before it takes a holiday and quits working. The heart of me is littered with dead and broken trees waving tarps, signage, bits of clothing, and unidentifiable objects. White plastic bags flap like surrender flags in the wind, begging me to give up, to “abandon hope, all ye who enter here.”

Since the time changed, dusk arrives at 5:00 pm. It’s dark by 5:30. The long hours of darkness stretch out like black tar as we get stuck, unable to free ourselves from too much to think about, too much to worry about, too much to cry about. A lot of people are turning to their favorite intoxicant, never mind the torturous drive to Asheville to procure anything more than wine or beer.

Monday was Veterans Day. I received the usual “thank you for your service” messages and texts from well-meaning friends and other veterans. I remain ambivalent about my service, ambivalent about the country I served. I feel my country has an odd way of showing its appreciation for my service, my brother’s service, my father’s service. My dad served aboard an aircraft carrier in the Korean War. My mother worked on an ammunition’s line as a teen, then went to nursing school hoping she could serve in World War II.

Americans everywhere have sacrificed to preserve the very freedoms this ex-president would strip from his own countrymen and, more to the point, women. Women are already dying as they lose their right to determine the fates of their bodies, their health, their sense of belonging and well-being.

When we joined the Navy, or in my case the Air Force, each of us swore an oath to protect this country against enemies, both foreign and domestic. We were willing to fight and die for a United States of America, for EVERY American’s right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. That is the promise, people.

The question is, My Country, are the results of the recent election the thanks we get? The majority of people elected a misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, self-proclaimed dictator and convicted criminal to the highest office in the land? Really? You knew you were doing it, too, because he told you who he is, unashamed and certainly unapologetic. You have now elected this monster twice, despite the fact he has degenerated in every way. He wants nothing less than SS generals to order around at his whim, to rid the USA of immigrants and “dissidents,” like me, my brother, my father, my mother who loved their country enough to serve and sacrifice. Take a long look at his new cabinet–trash in the trees along the Swannanoa. My America, how could you? How dare you?

I stare at the plastic, steel, chemically-tainted reality wrapped around the trunks of trees, waving from the branches warning a nation in denial, “Wake up! Wake up! Wake the fuck up!” There is NO place safe from the decision to put material wealth, numbers on a page or in the ethernet, above the people’s right to drink and bathe in clean water, eat healthy food, fill their lungs with untainted air, and live freely.

Does anyone actually believe that a man who lives on a golf course maintained by Monsanto products gives a shit about your health, or your right to health care? He appears to care more about his next putt, his ability to bogey his hole. If a man cannot see beyond the next swing, he will never see the catastrophic changes occurring around the world. People of the working class world, of which I am a member, am proud to be a member—remember this. He loves you only when it’s time to vote. In a few months he will either despise you or use you to turn against the very neighbor who was your first responder in the last crisis.

I’m preaching to the choir, but preaching, service of every kind, runs deep in my blood. My immediate family, once my siblings and I were grown, was comprised of two nurses, a teacher, two preachers, and a police officer. We are not the “elite” simply because we read more than the president-elect. That’s a low bar. These are honest, hard, working-class jobs. I love my neighbor, not because the Bible tells me so, but because my heart in service demands it of me.

I want to believe it’s not too late to turn this ship around, to bank the plane and head in a different direction. I don’t know if this is fantasy or truth. I know I need some evidence beyond the first 3-5 days of a disaster. The care we took of one another, post-Helene, showed we have the capability and good hearts required to make a better world. Still, when the immediate need is met and a decision needs to be made for the future, it’s the choice of whether love or hate will rule the day that matters in the long run.

I suppose if you can’t read the signs in what is obviously blowing in the wind in Western North Carolina, you can’t read the writing on the wall either. Yes, we had plenty of help after the fact of the floods, but as my MaMaw and mom liked to remind us, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” And you can take THAT to the bank.