PART THREE
“Hey, boss, it’s me. I’m not gonna be in tomorrow.”
“Everything okay, Clyde?”
“Naw, there’s a flood so I’m going to Houston to help people who might die.”
Pause. Then: “Well, do you think you’ll be in by Monday?”
“No idea.”
“You’re not just off fishing, right? It’s that Cajun Navy thing again?”
“Yep.” His boss was a good enough guy, but he didn’t know shit about fishing (born and raised in North Dakota, poor brilliant dope, and wore shorts in fifty-degree weather!). Clyde rarely fished in August—it was the hottest month of the year, the bugs were a pain in the ass, and by then he was heartily sick of striped bass and catfish. “Boss, we’ve been over this.”
“The bugs are always a pain in the ass, so I don’t get your logic on that, and who gets sick of—okay, we’re getting off track. I’ll put Paul on your building analysis—they put the construction start date out ‘til spring anyway, so we’ve got some time. We’ll figure out if it’s sick time or vacay when you get back.”
“Thanks, man. I’ll take it unpaid, if—“
“We’ll figure something out. Go get ‘em.”
And that, Clyde Joyner thought as he tucked his cell away somewhere dry, is the least stressful conversation I’m gonna have today.
*****
It all came down to math. There weren’t enough responders, ergo people did without, or people stepped up. Easy. But then, he’d always liked math.
“But there’s so many.” This was a couple years back, just after Katrina. The new boss at the engineering firm was hanging out in the break room, getting to know everybody, and wanted to know more about the Cajun Navy. “Don’t get me wrong, because God bless you for doing the work, but there’s so many. No matter what you do, you can’t help them all. It’s gotta be exhausting.”
“Well. Yeah. But it’s like the starfish story.” At the man’s blank look, Clyde elaborated. “The one where a bad storm washed up thousands of starfish on the beach. And this little kid goes around throwing some of them back into the water. So then this old man comes out and points out that there’s no way the kid can help all the starfish, so what difference does it make, and the kid tosses one into the waves and says ‘well, it made a difference to that one’. Starfish story.”
So the boss got it, which was great, but for a year afterward he kept finding starfish stickers all over everything, and starfish mugs in the breakroom, and actual dried starfish in the conference rooms, because engineers were pathologically weird, but it was a small price to pay. Hell, he had one of the dried starfish dangling from his rear view mirror. It was cute!
*****
He’d met up with the gang at the RV/Command Center/Place With Coffee, recognizing some faces from Katrina, others new to him. Redneck Central, some of the locals called it, and with great affection, which always cracked him up. Show me another group that embraced their derogatory nickname so cheerfully. Pretty much every redneck I know is 100 percent fine with being a redneck. Present company included.
They all made sure everyone had the Zello app (or was partnered with someone who did) and the calls from dispatch—which had started days ago and wouldn’t taper off for the better part of the week—were immediately divvied up. Twenty minutes after that, he was piloting his aluminum skiff down the street.
Yeah.
The street. The water was so high, he had a wake going. You could waterski right there on goddamned Interstate 45 if the urge hit. It was hard to believe even when it was right in front of him; he used the push pole and confirmed: yep. Three feet and rising. Cripes.
Two hours later and multiple trips later, he was cold and wet and bone-tired, but he’d helped evacuate thirty-four people stranded in a small apartment complex, four cats (who were not happy with the state of affairs at all), and three dogs. All the cats and two of the dogs were claimed right away; the third wouldn’t get out of the boat.
What the hell, Clyde let him stay. “Don’t get too comfy,” he told it, a nice-looking mutt that looked like a cross between a German Shepherd and a yellow Lab: tan fur all over except for a splotch of white on its chest, with a shepherd head and the short coat of a lab. “I get it—you wanna stick with the devil you know. But you’re gonna have to get out sooner or later. You’ll—“ He spotted the marooned family Dispatch had told him about, huddled on their garage roof, watching the water rising past their second story windows with dull amazement. He waved, but didn’t bother hollering. Impossible to be heard over the wind and rain until he was much closer.
The dog, who had been sitting in the bow, hunkered down. “You’re a good fella,” Clyde told him. “You know the drill, doncha? You—shit.”
He heard a peculiar low grinding, felt the skiff jerk and shudder, heard the engine groan. (Anyone with a boat dreaded those sounds.) He was hung up on something. If this was an ordinary day he’d assume he’d run into a sunken brush pile. Since it was today, it could be anything—a shopping cart. A bedspread. A newspaper machine, if they still had those.
He cut the motor at once—if the thing died on him, everyone on the roof was screwed—and reached for the depth pole. Be quick and efficient and calm most of all. No wasted motions. Don’t screw this up.
Just as he was about to lean over, the boat shuddered again and then—just like that!—he was free of whatever-it-was. He cautiously tried the engine—yes! No sweeter sound than an engine coming to life when you thought it might be dead. He got ready to pull in closer to the garage when someone popped out of the water on his starboard side. “Do you require further assistance?”
“Wouldn’t say no,” he replied, all cool and calm because even though this was his first merman sighting (and second flood), Clyde didn’t want the guy with the tail to know that. Knew it wasn’t a hoax! The dog, he was pleased to see, was also playing it cool. “Thanks for getting me unsnarled.”
“This one s—ah—I saw your difficulty.” Though Clyde was running the skiff through the chop (the street chop, God help them), the merman was keeping pace, no problem, now swimming just off his port side. “Shall I assist with your people?” he added, pointing to the small huddled mass on the garage.
“They’re not my—“ Wait. That wasn’t quite right. They weren’t blood relatives or anything, but they were his people, just like the Cajun Navy was his, and the first responders, and people trapped in bakeries making bread, and the ones rescued who turned around and donated blood the next day, and blankets, and food. “Yeah, that’d be great.”
Really great, because the wind was kicking up worse (which he hadn’t thought possible) and he was having trouble keeping the skiff close to the garage. There was no way he could keep it steady and help them all down and/or get them to jump and help them in. Normally he’d have a partner for this, but they were too stretched.
The family—a middle-aged couple, an elderly fellow, and two kids who looked about middle school age—were now crowded to the far edge of the garage looking down at them. Clyde kicked the engine higher and swung back in, and was almost immediately pushed out by the wind. He pointed to the water and they stared at him. Naw, wait...they were staring at the merman, who was waving them down.
The elderly man didn’t hesitate: he gave the youngest one a helpful shove. She came down like a bullet and in half a tic the merman had her out and was heaving her into the boat. The other kid turned to argue with the older guy (his grandpa?) and then: plop! He was in the drink, too. The parents took one look and didn’t wait to be shoved. It took about forty seconds for his new partner to grab them and get ‘em all in the boat, and Clyde was having a hell of a time holding it steady while grinning like an idiot.
Only when the others were in the boat did the old man leap, and he did it like a boss, and dropped in like a cannonball.
I wonder if he’ll adopt me? “All set?” he asked. The family was huddled in the skiff, the youngest girl petting the dog, who’d admirably kept out of the way. They answered him with chorus of thank yous (and one, “Grandpa, you didn’t have to push”), and he turned the boat to head back to semi-dry land.
“Where’s the other guy?” the boy asked, which was a fair question since the merman was nowhere to be seen. Probably off wrestling sharks or whatever he did when he wasn’t helping flood victims.
“Him?” Clyde replied, kicking the engine in higher gear. “You don’t have to worry about him.”
*****
An hour later, he’d delivered his shivering cargo and rescued another marooned family, and then Dispatch was on the horn telling him the dog’s family was looking for their pet. Clyde acknowledged and headed for the drop-off point five blocks north. The rain had started to let up, and he was taking in a sight that was comforting and sad at the same time: no stranded families (on this stretch, at least), but plenty of flooded houses. He thought about what they’d come home to and shook his head. We get it, Mother Nature. You’re in charge.
“Hail!”
He looked, and there was the merman from earlier, waving from the end of the block. Clyde waved, too, and in the time it took him to do that, then reach down to throttle back, the guy had swum the distance. God damn.
“Hey, glad you’re safe,” he said, putting the engine in neutral. “My name’s Clyde Joyner.”
“I am Palben.”
He stuck his hand out, and Clyde leaned over and shook it. “Man, it’s really good of you guys to come help out.”
“Yes.”
“Are there a lot of you?”
“Yes.” Chatty fella, he thought, amused. But then he realized Palben was hanging onto the side of the skiff, clearly glad of the rest. Well, let the guy grab a fiver, he’d earned it.
Clyde could see his coloring a bit better at that angle, and tried not to be obvious about staring. Dark hair and deep-set dark eyes were a sharp contrast to his pale skin, and his tail was broad at the hips, tapering to a wide caudal fin. Clyde couldn’t see a dorsal fin, either because of the angle or because the guy didn’t have one. What he could see was long and looked powerful, the scales shading from silver to gray, with yellowish mottling on the sides, like a southern kingfish.
“Listen, you want to get warm and dry—uh, if that’s something you even do—or you want some coffee and a meal, you come on down to the cross streets by the sheriff’s office, we’ll get you squared away.”
“Thank you for the kindness.”
Clyde realized Palben wasn’t even looking at him; he was staring at the dog, who was still playing it cool, though his tail was wagging. “You okay?”
“I have never been this close to one of your tame land seals,” Palben admitted.
“What? You’ve never seen a dog? Where the hell are you fro—oh. Right. Dumb question. So, you guys have, what? Seahorses or whatever?”
“Why would I have a seahorse?”
“Hell, I don’t know.”
“Does the creature bite?” The guy who’d braved multiple dangers in a flood zone sounded equal parts intrigued and apprehensive as he stared at the mild-mannered tan dog, which weighed no more than a case of Coke.
“Naw, he’s friendly. Go on, reach up.”
Carefully, the merman did so. The dog, still wagging his tail, stuck his head over the edge of the skiff and stood still to be petted while Palban did it like a weirdo, with just one finger. (Must be a merman thing.)
“He is nice!” Palban laughed, then immediately covered his mouth and shot Clyde a guilty look.
Clyde shrugged. “Your chompers don’t bother me.” Much. At a rough guess, he figured Palban had about a thousand teeth. “Well, if you don’t need a ride or a meal, I’d better get back to it.”
“I as well. Though I do not know how much...” He trailed off and a resigned expression came over his face, then he turned his head and threw up what looked like a gallon of mud.
“Whoa.”
“Pardon. The water,” he said, wiping his mouth and sounding apologetic. “Foul.”
“Yeah.” Sewage, E. coli, runoff, chemical waste...God, he couldn’t imagine. Well, he could—he was in a boat in the middle of it. But to be in it 24/7 and breathing the stuff (kinda)? Christ. No way these merpeople didn’t know what they’d be swimming in, either. And they came anyway. “C’mon aboard, get out of it for a bit. You’re no good to us sick,” he joked, except it wasn’t a joke at all.
“Correct. You—you do not mind?”
“Hell, no! C’mon.” He braced his feet, grabbed the man’s arm, and heaved just as Palban gave a mighty push from somewhere and surged into the skiff. Which the dog loved, for some reason, because he pounced and started licking the merman’s face.
“This is not—ah!—attack behavior, correct?”
“Not hardly.” The man’s tail had vanished faster than Clyde would have believed if he hadn’t seen it, leaving sprawled wet legs. He moved over to get access to the bench, rummaged, and came up with a bright yellow poncho. “Here ya go.”
“Ah, your nudity taboo.”
“Well, not mine personally. I mean, I don’t care. But if you decide to walk around on land it’ll come in handy.”
“I was intrigued by your mention of coffee.”
“You have that where you—where you are?”
The dark-haired merman shook his head. He’d wrapped the poncho around his shoulders like a cape
(“That’s not how you—never mind.”)
and was now sitting across from Clyde as they cruised up the street. “No, but I understand landers are obsessed with it. I was curious to try.”
“Obsessed is—“ Dead on, he realized once he thought about it. “Yeah, well, we gotta drop the dog off and then we’ll go get some. Get something in your system besides flood water.”
“I would like that, Clyde.”
“Say, when this is over, you should come by for supper.”
“You are kind.” The reply was noncommittal, but Clyde had the sense the merman was pleased.
“Naw, not really. I might have made a bet on whether or not you guys exist. Maybe. You could help me win big bucks. Then we could have more coffee.”
Palban laughed. “This is something we could negotiate. Much depends on what I think of your coffee drink.”
“Fair’s fair,” he agreed, and off they went.
THE END