Short story: Moving Day

Moving Day

“Wrap those frames tight in plastic and tape ‘em shut before you pack them. I don’t want to lose the pictures of my great-grandmother! Melvin-John come here and get those boxes on the truck. We only got it for another two hours. We got to get moving! And label the boxes if you want to see your things again.”

            Big Granny is rushing around yelling and stomping and giving orders like an old time police officer, back when police officers were still human and not cop-drones. I know how real cops used to yell and kill because Big Granny told me how they used to just shoot people for no reason. Just shoot them dead.  When she was a little girl her father was shot and killed by a human cop. Big Granny said human cops used to scream and get all nervous. Pop, Big Granny’s father, was going out to his car one morning to go to work and a cop responding to a break-in saw Pop and thought he fit the description, even though the description was for a forty year old short black man wearing a white jacket and Pop was a young, tall black man wearing a dark blue electrician’s uniform. Pop had a screwdriver in his hand that he had found by the front stoop. Uncle Bobby must have left it there. Big Granny said when Uncle Bobby was a little boy he was always getting into Pop’s tools and forgetting to put them back. Pop was probably running late for work and didn’t want to go back inside, so he had the screwdriver in his hand. The cop saw the screwdriver and later swore he thought it was a gun. He shot Pop dead in the driveway. Big Granny said the cop-drones they use now are better because they can scan for a weapon and tell the difference between a harmless tool, phone, or other object from a gun. No one is ever cop-killed on accident anymore, but you also know you're always being watched. Some of my friends had gotten to where they’d build their own drones and battle the cop drones and knock them out of the sky. Then they’d run like hell. Marcus had fifty-one downs to his name. He was hot shit at school. But I suspect he’s going to end up in a youth work camp if he ever gets caught and then he won’t be hot shit no more. 

            But I won’t be seeing Marcus or anyone else in school for that matter for maybe forever. The entire town is packing up and moving inland to camps in the Mid-West and Texas. We applied for residence in three of the towns and now we just have to wait to be approved.  Some people in the camps have been waiting for a couple of years. But we have to leave. There’s no choice anymore. The waters are already lapping over the sea wall and have eroded most of land down by the river. At least they’re letting families stay together. I heard that when Miami was drowned out that they just shoved people in trucks and lots of families got separated. But that was twenty-five years ago and the government has gotten better at relocation. It’s just the poor being relocated now though. The rich left long time ago. Government bought their land out and they had the money to leave and start over. Us poor people who rent houses or live in government houses don’t have nothing to sell to get a stake to start over. 

            Granny comes over and pops me on the head with her finger. “Girl, what are you doing? Get a move on. That truck ain’t gonna wait forever. Remember to pack a backpack to take with you and one big suitcase. Only one, but pack well. We won’t be seeing that stuff in the truck for a long damn time.” 

             An hour later everything is packed. The truck with our furniture leaves with all the other moving trucks and we wait in the front yard for the relocation buses. Uncle Bobby’s grandson, Kendall, plays in the dirt with his plastic toy drones. I sit on my government issue suitcase and read the e-reader the school gave us last week. They loaded all kinds of books on the readers for us and it’s solar powered so I won’t have to recharge it. Uncle Bobby is in his wheelchair under the front porch awning. He has to be kept in the shade because the hot sun makes him sicker. Uncle Bobby is always talking about how cold it used to get in winter. I’ve read about how cold it used to get in north Florida, sometimes in the 40s, but I don’t believe it. I don’t think I’d like it anyway, if it were true. I wonder if it’ll be cold where were going. It’s a long, long way. Might take us days to get to where we’re going, wherever that is. That’s why Big Granny packed a lot of sandwiches, apples, cornbread, crackers, and water. All they serve on the buses are those gooey energy packs that taste like dog shit, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. 

            When we were told we had to leave three months ago, the government man gave Big Granny a pamphlet with a listing of the relocation camps. There’s two in Iowa, three in Montana, two in South Dakota, three in Wyoming, and one in East Texas. We don’t know which one we’re going to. I hope it’s not the East Texas one. I heard water is hard to get there.  But Iowa gets so cold in winter that you can’t go outside for two months out of the year or you’ll freeze like a popsicle within minutes.

            The camps are big. The pamphlet said that at least 200,000 people live in every one. There’s barracks to live in and schools and parks and jobs. The jobs are ones like keeping the camp clean, cooking food, painting, fixing stuff, but it pays script money. Real script money that we can use in the camp stores. They don’t let the residents leave camp. I don’t know why. I heard it might because the people who live in the towns close by don’t really like Flooding refugees. They call us Flooders. That’s okay, though. I don’t think I’d feel safe in a town full of rich strangers anyways.

            I look up from my e-reader and see that Big Granny is holding onto one of the pillars of the porch. Her hand is caressing the paint flaked pillar like it’s a soft kitten,. She’s lived here for fifty years.  The roof is sagging in places and the bathtub needs replacing. There are only three bedrooms for the six of us and the back door stoop is about ready to cave in, but this is Big Granny’s home. Mine too, I guess. The only one I’ve ever known anyway, but I’m glad to be leaving. Big Granny ain’t so happy. There’s fat tears falling off her face into the dirt.  I close my e-reader and put it in my backpack. I go over to Big Granny and lean into her soft body. Her hand snakes into my braids and pulls me close.

            “It’ll be an adventure Big Granny. A really big adventure,” I say, trying to comfort her.

            “I’m too old for big adventures, Girl, but I reckon I’m too old to swim too. That water will be up in the yard in just a year or so. I got to get y’all to safety. I told your Mama I would.  I sure am going to miss this old place though, and I never thought I’d say that.”

            Kendall sees us and stands up. His mama, Trayler, brushes the dirt from the seat of his pants and says something to him. Kendall walks over all solemn, the way only a four year old can. He goes right up to Big Granny and stares at her, his brow all wrinkled like a little old man. “You okay?” he asks.

            “Oh, yes. Lil one. Big Granny is okay,” she says, “Why don’t you go see if your Granddaddy Bobby needs a drink of water? Go along.”

            Kendall stares up at Big Granny for another second or two like he’s trying to figure out if she’s lying to him, before walking away.

            Big Granny pulls a piece of cloth out of her pocket and wipes her eyes. “No more crying, Girl.”

            Trayler is on her cell phone using up all her minutes talking to that Odum man that she’s been seeing. Since they aren’t family, they can’t go in the same bus or even the same place, and Trayler has been moping around for weeks. If he’d marry her it’d be okay, but he won’t. I heard her talking to Big Granny one night about running away, but Big Granny set her straight real quick. Big Granny told her that she had a child and where in the hell was she going to run with a child? How was she going to live and feed Kendell? After that night all the light went out in Trayler’s eyes.

            I hear a rumbling and look up to see a caravan of dark blue government buses round the corner kicking up dust in their wake. They split off and a few go off towards Burgundy Street and Law Street, while four screech to a halt in front of our complex. People start picking up suitcases and the bus doors open. A line of semi-trucks pull up behind the bus and seventy-two military men and women with guns get out of one. I know there’s seventy-two because I count each and every one of then as they climb down from the truck. Another semi-truck pulls up and out spills more uniformed men and women, but they don’t have guns. I don’t bother to try and count them. A booming voice comes over a loudspeaker that’s perched on one of the trucks. The voice tells us to get our suitcases to the curb. The men come and tag out suitcases with our wristband I.D numbers and then stack the suitcases by the buses. They let us keep our backpacks for the bus trip. I get scared thinking I might never see my suitcase again and I pull my backpack tighter over my shoulder and pat my pocket to make sure I have my cell phone. There’s only 120 minutes loaded on it so I can’t watch Youtube anymore. Big Granny told me I had to save the minutes in case of an emergency.

            Suddenly I’m scared. I look around and see my friends getting onto buses with their families. I rotate and try to take it all in. The housing complex looks like a ghost town. Someone’s dog is howling. I hear what sounds like firecrackers and then the dog is silent. We were told that animals wouldn’t be allowed in the camps. Trayler took Big Granny’s yappy Chihuahua to the animal control last month and Big Granny cried for days.  Mr. Nelson two streets over drowned all his cats in a big metal barrel full of water rather than take them to animal control. He said he did that because that’s the way nature would have killed them with the rising water anyway.

            I look for Big Granny. She has her arm around Kendall. Trayler is pushing Uncle Bobby’s wheelchair to the handicapped bus behind us. Uncle Bobby will have to ride without his family.  We’ve been told that they will be sure he goes to the same camp as the rest of his family, but now I’m not so sure any of this is right or that anyone is telling us the truth. But I can’t do much about it. There’s too many trucks and men with guns. And, where would I go if I ran? I’d be alone. There are uniformed people holding tablets running through lists and lining us up beside the buses. I make sure to stay with my family. Trayler takes my hand. Melvin-John has his arm around Big Granny. Kendall leaves Big Granny and slides up and pushes his face into my leg.

            I climb into the bus clutching Kendell’s hand and for a minute I can’t see anything but shadows while my eyes adjust to the dimness. We stand in line while a green uniformed lady asks my name and I give it. She checks my name off on her tablet then hands me a small plastic pouch and instructs me to move back, keep moving back. I slide into a dark blue upholstered seat and Kendall slips into the seat beside me. Big Granny and Melvin-John are seated in front of me, and across the aisle Trayler is seated with an old fat lady in a red dress. The blue fabric covered armrests are dark with grime and oil. Stale air is circulating in the bus, and the smell of bodies and fear and uncertainty perfume the bus. Everyone is dead silent. Not a whimper. Not a sound, except for shuffling feet as people find their seat.

            The bus doors close and the grind of gears lurch the bus forward. I open the plastic pack that the uniformed lady pushed into my hand. I find a small bag of Kleenex, three silvery drink pouches with straws attached by a thin piece of clear tape, three energy bars, a bag of chips, a Hershey candy bar, a miniature plastic bottle of hand lotion, a pad of yellow Post It Notes, and an ink pen with the words U.S Government embossed deep into the black plastic.

            Unexpected tears slide down my face as the bus passes by my old school. Kendall reaches up and brushes his fingers across my cheeks to dry them, and then he pushes his plastic toy drones across the back of the seat in front of us as the miles start to slip away.