No. 2: To Live or Die in Dixie

Charleston Naval Base, South Carolina, September 19, 1989: Fourty-eight hours after I returned from a three month deployment, NOAA forecast a growing hurricane would collide somewhere along the Carolina coast.

Group Six Commander ordered all sub squadrons and tenders back to sea and advised off-crew personnel to evacuate the base. Once crew turn-over was complete I booked a commercial flight and got the hell out of town. Hugo was a category 4 when it devoured Charleston the next day.

The city I left was not the same one I returned to. From the plane, sunset reflected off brown lakes where once there were none.

My cabbie, an older gentleman named Vernon, had been up 36 hours shuttling families to and from temporary shelters, most no charge. He lifted my bags defiantly and declared I was his last money fare.

A Winnie the Pooh flip flop sat missing on the back seat. We passed storefronts that withstood the ocean surge only to be ransacked. Vernon shook his gray head.

 “Lord, I lived here all my life” his voice rising toward the evident chaos. “Never mind this.”

He cleared a National Guard check point then wound through miles of muddy ruins until the sign for Sweet Grass Apartments appeared in the headlights.

“Governor Campbell ordered Martial Law in Berkeley County. Guard shoot anyone out after curfew.” Vernon’s brown eyes peered through the rear view mirror verifying my green eyes read and understood. I handed him all the cash I had on me and we parted ways.

“God bless you” Vernon smiled kindly and steered toward home.

.  .  .

In the enormity of the destruction I expected to find nothing recognizable yet the apartment was spared the worst. Neighbors below weren’t as lucky. They returned to pluck a few scattered belongings off the ground then turned around and headed back to Columbia. 

Everything inside their apartment was gone. A retired Navy couple that managed the apartments waited out the storm. They reported that looters even ripped phones from the walls. They suspected other tenants.

Power and water was another week away. Swarms of chainsaws buzzed in the distance as pitch darkness settled in. In the swampy night air sleep did not come easily but at some point I startled awake to the sound of my bed lamp bouncing onto the floor.

Some deviant kicked in the screen and was half way through my bedroom window before I noticed this wasn’t a dream. I stumbled to the kitchen and grabbed a cast-iron frying pan.

Naked and shaking with adrenaline I yelled that any fucker who came near me would be shot. After a silent eternity I trusted the intruder backed off.

At sunrise I drove to Rivers Avenue to report it to the first North Charleston cop I saw.  

“Sorry” he shrugged behind aviator shades. He pointed at a long line of frustrated citizens outside a strip mall waiting for the bottled water trucks.  His hands were full.

That afternoon I visited a small pawn shop in Summerville and replaced the frying pan with a cheap pistol and box of cartridges. It was one of a few the owner had left. 

“Things are just flyin off the shelves” he confided.  Days passed before I slept the night again.