A Very Hot Summer

            by Adrian Roland-Holst

 

A wave of sticky heat hit me as I dragged my large suitcase out of the airport and into the rental van. This was the last place I had pictured myself as I flipped through brochures of swamp tours and hotels for those drunken college students who would be attending the famous New Orleans Mardi Gras. However, I would take part in none of this tourism or revelry.

I joined the Church Youth Group at All Souls Episcopal Church in Berkeley during my junior year. Its advertisement of free food and a chance to escape from what would almost certainly be a boring Sunday, was good enough for me. I went a few times to get a feel for it, feeling ambivalent about the religious context and uncertain about the intentions of the organizers. Soon, however, I found myself attending not only the evening Youth Group but the morning services as well. Coming from a non-religious background, this was a very extraordinary experience at times. The hymnal is what confused me the most; never being much of a singer myself, I spent the majority of the time searching for the song and lip-syncing the last few lines.

 “Adrian!” I suppressed a yelp as my head slammed against the side of the van window. From the look of things, heat had mixed with exhaustion had put the rest of the group to sleep as well. Unfortunately, I had volunteered to help navigate, and my short lapse of consciousness had resulted in a series of abrupt turns and jerky stops. At this point the rest of the group was beginning to open their eyes, looking to see what all the reckless driving was about.

“If you had told me where the turn off was, we might not be lost,” Spat Mary, one of the chaperones on the trip. I had disliked her from the moment I met her. Those small beady eyes glared down at me as if waiting for any answer she could just stuff right back into my mouth. “I was tired.” It was a feeble response but unlike her I was not searching for confrontation. I only thought to myself, “Rhymes with witch.”

“Tired? We’re all tired here; I was up at four in the morning making the last arrangements for this trip. Now this is about helping other people in need so I suggest you leave the ego behind and start thinking more about others.” I threw her the directions and turned in my seat. I hated her; the stupid woman had known me for less than a day and had already categorized me as some selfish and egotistical teenager.

The next 20 minutes passed in complete silence as I stared out the window, watching weather rapidly change before me. A heavy warm rain hit us as we sprinted with our luggage into the church that would serve as our shelter for the next week. It was far smaller than our Berkeley church and damage from the flood was still very apparent. Nevertheless it was comforting in a funny kind of way. As we unpacked the head priests came in, officially welcomed us, and gave us a brief tour. One of the women, Cindy, whom I soon became very fond of, prepared a small snack for us and gave us directions to all the nearest restaurants. I was extremely tired at this point, but the mention of food resulted in a sudden burst of energy. I hadn’t eaten anything but the stale McDonalds French fries I was still carrying from the Dallas airport.

As I stepped through the door of the old rustic diner, a sour smell of dead flies and spilt milk reached my nostrils. The smell unfortunately reminded me of my grandmother’s house. To my dismay the food was very similar to that of my grandmother’s as well. That night I slept on a very upset stomach, I would soon learn that this would be the case for most of my stay in New Orleans. I awoke the next morning to the sound of my deflating air mattress. As half my body slumped to one side, I opened my eyes to see the culprit. I didn’t need to look to know that Charlie, my devious counselor, would be standing right above me. What I did not expect however was the air horn, now clenched tightly in his hand as if it were a grenade about to explode.

Breakfast was quiet this morning, partly because it was 6:30 but mostly because our ears were all still ringing. In preparation for the long day ahead I packed as many water bottles as my backpack could hold and plastered myself from head to toe in 50spf sunscreen. I felt like an astronaut leaving his ship without a helmet as I carried lunches to the vans. No longer was I protected by the blasting air conditioning that had become our life support in the past 12 hours. With the heat already overpowering me I could not imagine what work would be like in mid day.

We arrived at the job site after several wrong turns and some very poor directions. As I looked up and down the street I noticed the waterlines on some of the houses were far above my head. The others were in such bad shape you couldn’t really make out much of the house at all. Today we would be working on two houses located in the lower 9^th ward. The 9^th ward was and is a very impoverished part of New Orleans that was devastated by Katrina. As we stepped out of the vans to greet the other volunteers I noticed some weird kind of graffiti on many of the houses. These weren’t colorful tags or murals like you see in California, but ominous messages in hasty block letters and flat black or gray. As we approached, we could make out numbers and shorthand notes, still mysterious but ever more ominous. Finally, a bystander who saw us fixed on these dark glyphs explained their morbid significance. The spray paint markings on many of the houses along the street were left by search and rescue teams, indicating the teams the number found dead in each house! On many of the houses there were notes of a dead dog or cat left underneath the house.

After a brief introduction to the program we go right to work. A nail gun was thrust into my hand and I was ordered to grab a ladder from the truck. Within the next few minutes I began to feel the drops of sweat form under my eyes and after a while I gave up trying to wipe it off. The ringing in my ears had started up again; this time however was not due to an obnoxious air horn but, from the loud bang of the nail gun. I soon found myself mentally separated from the others. I had become a nailing machine; my only sense was my sight which was now intensely focused on one thing. With each thud of the nail gun to the wood roofing I became numbed to the outside world. A sharp twang from the gun rippled through my ears and a few more of these unknown sounds slowly brought me back to earth. I hopped off the ladder looking from wall to nail gun very confused.

“Out of nails, or did you pass out up there?” said a gruff voice coming from somewhere in the attic.

I stepped through the door and looked up to see one of the volunteers, Lance, dripping from head to foot in sweat. “Yeah I think so, I’m not really sure it just started making this weird noise.” I pulled the trigger once more to show him my problem.

  “Whoa there, yeah looks like a nail jammed, why don’t you hand that to me and I’ll take over.

I reluctantly handed the machine up to Lance, who took no time in fixing it and starting off where I left off. I was once again bombarded by heat as I stepped outside. Realizing how parched my throat was, I made my way over to the cooler, and that’s when I saw her. As I reached to open the cooler I watched Mary sitting by the vans, listening to her ipod. I could have ripped the headphones right out of her ears. What a hypocrite, after the long speech she gave me the other day about helping others look at her now.

The loud smacking of our PB and J sandwiches was the only sound made at lunch. Fatigue and pain were the only things on our mind and making conversation seemed nearly impossible. I watched Mary in disgust as she devoured her two sandwiches and went to snatch another. What a pig, I thought to myself. How did she ever become a head priest? I shared my thoughts with some of the others in the group who seemed to be feeling the same about our unfortunate advisor.

The sheetrock trucks arrived after lunch driven by two men who could have easily passed as WWF wrestlers. Two trucks, each carrying 250 slabs of sheetrock, and each individual slab weighing a little over 100 pounds. Luckily, I had no knowledge of this statistic at the time. After many tricky maneuvers and several injured toes we had a stack of 100 slabs in each house, which seemed like a near miracle at the time. I don’t think I have ever been more grateful to see rain in my life. We hauled one more slab in and quickly covered the rest to protect them from the peanut sized rain drops that were now pounding down. Seeing no break in the weather, we decided to call it a day and began cleaning and packing up. I was not at all upset by the early end to the day.

That night we decided to check out a different aspect of New Orleans. Bourbon St. was exactly what we were looking for. A street very similar to our own Telegraph Ave. but in replacement for the music and clothing stores there were bars and strip clubs. As the youth leaders went off to listen to a Jazz performance we wandered down Bourbon St. People from balconies threw us beads as older women around us lifted up their shirts; I was surprised at how lively it was for a Sunday night. In the midst of it all were three men holding large anti-abortion and anti-gay signs. Being the Berkeley Christians that we are we had to confront them. The confrontation resulted in a large amount of name calling coming from both sides and finally seeing the hopelessness of the situation we decided to leave.

As the days progressed the heat became almost unbearable. Unfortunately for us, air conditioning had not yet been installed in the house therefore there was no escape from the 100 degree humidity that was now choking us by the throats. Although none of us said it we were all dreading the last day in which we would cover the entire house with insulation. From experience with the stuff I knew two things, one being that you need to wear long sleeves and pants, two, if you don’t wear the proper attire the insulation will dig into your skin and itch for days. Mary wasn’t pleased to hear about the insulation either. No more than an hour after we heard the news she managed to cut her hand and was now unable to do any manual labor.

I awoke the next morning both mentally and physically unprepared for the task that lay ahead. “Everyone ready for an exciting day?” Charlie yelled as he grinned at us from the doorway. For the most part Charlie had done a great job of cheering us up or lightening the mood when we were tired, but today was different. One step outside sealed the fact that this was going to be one of the hottest most uncomfortable days of my life. As I got dressed I pulled out my jacket which I had brought for the flights. The sight of it made me sweat and for a moment I considered pulling the “sick” act and staying at church. The idea was abandoned as quickly as it had come and I began arming myself with as many water bottles I could hold.

When we arrived at the site we were once again greeted by the two Hulk Hogan sized men who where now unpacking two trucks piled high with what looked like large pillows. Once the insulation was unloaded we were equipped with staple guns and face masks and we paired off. We started off on the walls. Protruding nails and wood poked me as I attempted to staple the fiberglass insulation into the wall. After the first 20 minutes of work sweat was dripping down my face and now every area we insulated was marked with a small puddle of sweat. After a few hours the lower half of the house was finally finished. We stopped for a brief lunch which many of us spent in the vans blasting the AC.

Next I was assigned to the attic which could very easily have been 15 degrees hotter than the rest of the house. We worked in shifts - Will would cut the insulation below while I stapled it in until I could no longer stand the heat, then we switched. Up there the atmosphere was totally disorienting, like some kind of science fiction nightmare. Imagine floating inside a demolished spaceship, surrounded by hot dust and fiberglass chards. I am wrapped up in a suffocating suit, mask, and gloves; fighting to hold down the insulation, shooting staples up, sideways, down … I can’t even remember which way … my arms turning to jelly while perspiration wells up inside the suit and my breathing sounds more and more like Darth Vader.

Sitting on the plane looking at the milky white clouds I realized how fortunate I was. The seat did not feel as cramped as I remembered, the food and even the atmosphere on the plane was better. And as I stepped off the plane I knew that I was looking at the world through new eyes.