Say there is this storm, make it a hurricane, and say it comes hard on the heels of the last big storm. Make that a hurricane, too. And say last time that you pretty much won the image war.
Your art was better than their art. They slapped down a guitar and a cake and you raised them the Pieta of New Orleans.
They played St. Louis Cathedral as back drop, and Kos shot back with the poor dejected president card as an intermittent reminder of Bush's alienation and dejection.
Because you think
polls contain useful information, you guess you won that round even if you don't like sweaty shirts. And then, a few days later because the
polls suggest that maybe all the posturing in advance of Rita is shoring up his numbers, all the sudden you find yourself in the extraordinary position of rooting for Rita.
You crawl out of your mostly quiet shell in front of slightly cowed right leaning co-workers. You say mildly disparaging things about FEMA responses and crack entirely inappropriate if not particularly funny jokes about Mike Brown. You grab the low road while they sputter and lapse into unaccustomed silence.
Admit it. You like it.
And then all the adults in the administration finish shopping for shoes and getting married and vacationing and come back and pack the scarecrow full of fresh straw and prop it back up in the field and start to wave their arms to scare away the press. They are busy doing this while you spend odd moments at work checking up on Philippe and Ophelia.
"Just wait until the next one," you say, knowingly. Knowing that you don't know and can't know and are only hoping for a heapin' helping of schadenfreude. And you wonder if you are right and you both hope you are and expect the Avian flu epidemic to break out in the cubicle next to you. You think about ordering a new, more aerodynamic tin foil cap since the one you've been wearing is getting a little tattered around the edges. "Just wait," you say. And it is both a prayer and a curse.
And your co-workers blink several times in the silence that follows, and your spouse feeds you things you generally only get when you're feeling poorly.
Just wait.
So Rita blows up big and threatens the Keys and you've had enough of tiny little hurricanes that do hardly any damage. You're bored with the Invasion promos and you want a little blood.
That's a lie. You actually want a lot of blood and you want it to be on George's head. Your lizard brain knows that tornado season is over so it's all for a little predation. Your ape brain wants the Wild Rumpus to begin.
Cat 1 isn't enough as Rita passes the keys. You manage to keep those dark thoughts to yourself, and even partially from yourself. The sight of weather men in slickers in front of breakers ceases to be mildly amusing. You want the hand of god to reach down and smite them. The old god, the YAHWEH one from the old testament. The god of plagues and locusts. The god of Job.
The fact that Rita blows up quickly from Cat 1 to Cat 3 allows the embers of your unexpressed passion to flare up in a kind of shining simulacrum of concern. Pat Roberston has nothing on you. Your co-worker, who makes elevator conversation about knowing why Katrina hit and Rita is on the way, who believes that Jesus is coming soon and the devil is hard at work, who wishes you a blessed day about three times a week too often, can't see into your heart. Which is a good thing.
At Cat 4, you want Rita to round the bases. You secretly want the coast to be slammed into nothing and all of Houston to drown out of nothing more than the adult manifestation of the temper tantrum of a two-year-old. You've known for decades that the universe doesn't revolve around you. And you remember today that you don't like it. You live a small and circumscribed life with a job, a house, spouse and kids, a few dear and loving friends and a small and a widely and thankfully scattered family. You can't even remember your two-year old self. You only know that maybe if your rage was spent against the Texas coastline this unhappy itch of fear and anger might be assuaged. You hate George Bush.
Thoughts of the aunts and cousins and in-laws in the path of Rita are only a small diversion. You hear when, one by one, they reach safety in Austin and still hate George Bush. And when your hatred is cold and hard and compressed to diamond strength, when the scandals keep hitting page 15, and the Rove, Delay, Frist trifecta leads you to a short moment of irrational exuberence, you find yourself chanting under your breath "Cat 5, bitch."
When some Kossacks think DarkSyde is too quick to call the move from 4 to 5, as he drops exhausted into bed, you sneer into the monitor, thankful your office mate can't see your face.
And when the numbers drop and the winds subside slightly and the waters cool near the shore, you find yourself empty. Empty as the burned out bus on the side of the road. Empty of rage. Emply of disappointment. Empty of anger. Empty of hope. Empty even of contempt.
My daughter, as a little one, raged before bed. She would scream and cry and follow you around, throwing herself at your feet. I would pick her up over and over and put her back in bed, until mid-scream sleep would overtake her and silence would erupt from the night.
You recognise that silence. You long for it. Because when the news comes on this morning Houston is still standing. The apocolypse has not happened. Rita is not a metaphor for your anger. It is a hurricane. Your wrath, large enough to make your clenched fist the size of the Gulf of Mexico, has evaporated.
The trains are not running on time and gas prices are going up. So you know the world is back to its normal maddening self. Only some of us are getting ready to clean up from another devastating storm.
You realize that there is no one instant when the pendulum swings from one direction to another. You understand that a defining moment is only created in hindsight.
Say there's an image of Bush next week. Say it speaks volumes and his handlers don't have a perfectly choreographed answer. Please tell me when it happens. I want to be there.