With a frown and a grunt, she padded into the kitchen that was directly across from her bedroom. Already an enormous feast was on the table. Her grandmother, Ethel Mae, was used to cooking for a large group of people and had yet to adjust to the fact it was just the two of them now. After the hurricane had come on shore, flattened Sabine Pass, and torn apart the towns in Jefferson County, Lenore’s grandmother had decided she was done and moved them out West. That meant leaving most of their huge family behind. Lenore’s aunts, uncles and cousins had always been at her grandmother’s huge Victorian even though they technically didn’t live there. It was a big adjustment for both of them now that they lived far away from the rest of the family.
Staring at the massive display of food, Lenore wondered if her grandmother expected her to eat it all. She stood in the kitchen’s small dining area and peeked through the archway into the living room located in the front of the house. Her grandmother was watching the morning news. As usual, she was dressed in a flowered dress, fluffy slippers, and had her white hair in a neat bun.
“You better get to eating. You’re up late again,” her grandmother called out.
Lenore scowled and slid into a chair. Her grandmother considered anytime after 5:30 AM to be getting up late. Serving herself some grits, bacon and fried eggs, she yawned loudly. She grabbed a fresh biscuit from the pile in an old basket on the table and bit into it. The wonderful taste and warmth made her feel a little more awake.
“Got a bunch of people doing some really crazy stuff down Houston way. Hope your Uncle Bo is on the road and not around there. I hate it when Negroes all go crazy. Makes the rest of us look bad.”
“Grandma, we’re black or African-American. Stop calling us Negroes,” Lenore corrected her grumpily. It was an old argument and it made her surly.
“I’m a Negro. I’m not no African-American. I am not from Africa. I was born and raised in Port Arthur, Texas and I am an American citizen of these United States. I am no black person neither. I have brown skin...”
Her grandmother continued on and Lenore shoved a huge mouthful of grits in her mouth to keep from sassing back. She tapped her fork lightly against the edge of the plate and waited for her grandmother to be done.
“Oh, Lord Jesus, they’re eating each other!”
Lenore frowned. “Who is?”
“Them crazy Negroes in Houston!”
“Black people-”
“Stop correcting me!”
Lenore heaved herself up out of the chair, pulled her Tweety Bird T-shirt down over her stomach, and plodded over into the living room. “Nobody is out eating nobody.”
Her grandmother twisted around in her lazy boy and glared at her. “Do not tell me I’m lying, young woman. I’ll slap you good.”
Lenore almost rolled her eyes then saw the footage being fed live from Houston. At first it looked like a riot or a bunch of black people on a looting spree (which always made her cringe), but then she realized most of the people rampaging were covered in blood and had terrible wounds. The news camera was aiming down the street as the rioters surged toward them. Innocent bystanders were being dragged down onto the street and it sure did look like the crazy looters were biting them.
“Gotta be gangbangers on some bad crack or something,” Lenore said.
“Bunch of crazy sons of bitches,” her grandmother decided and thumped her armrest. “Now they’re gonna get all shot up and it’s gonna look bad. We’ll end up with that crazy Al Shaprton pretending he’s Martin Luther King. I could slap that boy.”
Lenore sighed softly and shook her head. “You know how it is, Grandma.”
Her grandmother scowled deeply and glared at the TV. “Their mamas should go down there and whoop on them for doing such crazy stuff on the TV. Not right. Not right.”
Lenore didn’t want to see anymore of the mayhem from Houston. She was angry enough with the media for their complete dismissal of Hurricane Rita’s devastation in East Texas. When it had not hit Houston and Galveston, the media acted like it was a close call and moved on to the next news story. It was not another Katrina, so why should they care? Of course, to the people living in the small cities and towns of Jefferson County, it had been just as bad as Hurricane Katrina. In one fell swoop, the storm not only destroyed homes, but also lives and businesses. Lenore’s family was still trying to recover and find new jobs. A lot of employers had just packed up and moved to other areas in Texas.
Lenore did not trust the news media and never would. If you paid attention to the news you’d believe every Hispanic in America was an illegal immigrant, every black man was in a gang, and all white men were serial killers or pedophiles. How women were portrayed wasn’t much better. It was just better to live her life and not bother with the stupidity of people.
After a hot shower, Lenore dressed in her usual outfit of jeans, a white button down oxford blouse, her favorite leopard print jacket and her battered loafers. She tried to fuss with her hair, but it just annoyed her. It had to be changed and soon or she was going to go crazy. Kissing her fingertips, she pressed them to the photo of Common she had taped to her mirror and headed out the door.
“...telling you, Olympia, they are all crazy. On crack!” Her grandmother was on the phone with her best friend, Olympia Hernandez. Even though the old ladies lived within walking distance of each other, they preferred to sit in their La-z-Boys, watching the same shows, and discussing them on the phone. It was impossible to get through on the phone to either one of them during the soaps and talk shows.
Lenore leaned over and pressed a kiss to her grandmother’s cheek. She got a pat on the cheek and a kiss, then her grandmother kept on complaining about the whacked out people eating each other in Houston.
“Maybe the government put something in the water,” Lenore offered.
Her grandmother eyed her and then immediately repeated this to Olympia. “It’s like the old crazy man on the public access is always talking about!”
Rolling her eyes, Lenore trudged to the front door, grabbed her huge leather bag, and headed out for another day of work at Ken’s Diva Beauty Shop. As usual, she rode her bike and she rather enjoyed the briskness of the morning now that she was awake and fully clothed. The sun was just making an appearance over the hills, but her quaint little neighborhood was wide-awake and in full swing.
Already, old Mr. Thames was out in his yard working on his spring garden. She waved to him then swung around the corner to head into the downtown of Stross, Texas. It was not much of a town. The population consisted of old people or families with hardly any young people about. Most were smart and got out of town after high school. Her dream was to save up enough money to make it back to East Texas. Back to the bayou and the good old soul of the area. She missed the ocean. She missed the crawfish. She missed her house full of relatives. But her grandmother had raised her since her mama died and her daddy went out onto the oilrigs and she had felt obliged to come with her to this tiny forsaken town.
She was just parking her bike when Mr. Cloy, the man who ran the hardware store next to Ken’s shop, arrived to unlock his door.
“Hey, Lenore. Howya doing?”
“Doing good, Mr. Cloy.”
The skinny guy with too much black hair and the bushiest mustache in the world looked grim. “See the news?”
“‘bout Houston?”
“That and all that rioting in Chicago. You know how that plane crashed yesterday?”
“News thought it was 9-11 all over again? Yep.”
“Well, rumor is that there was something bad on that plane that is making people go crazy and kill each other. Chicago is bad. Wonder if it’s Al Qaeda?”
“How does that explain Houston?” Lenore raised an eyebrow at him.
“Maybe they put something in the water,” Mr. Cloy offered. “I dunno. It’s got me on edge. Got me thinking that the world is going to hell fast. Damn Arabs with their Mohammad.”
Lenore blinked at him, but didn’t bother to argue. “Well, we’re all the way out here away from everything and everybody. I don’t see any of that crazy shit happening here,” Lenore assured him.
“I hope so, Lenore.” Mr. Cloy shook his head. “Crazy times, Lenore. It’s the End Times.”
“Well, if Jesus is coming back today I better do something with my hair,” she said very deadpan.
Mr. Cloy was probably not really listening to her. “Yeah, End Times. We’re seeing the last days.” He shoved the door open and entered his store.
Lenore peered through the glass in the old wood door of the beauty shop and saw Ken busy on an early appointment’s hair. He saw her and waved her in, smiling brightly. He was attractive with the tan skin of his Mexican mother and freckles of his Scot-Irish father. His eyes were a very pretty shade of brown with glints of gold and Lenore envied his tall, slim, fit physique. She felt short and squat next to him.
“Good morning, girlfriend!”
“Hey, Ken,” she muttered as she walked past him.
“How are you?” He winked at her and she detected a tiny bit of makeup on his lids. Ken had trouble holding back at times and she could understand how hard it was for him to be a very out, very gay man in a small Texas town. The original owner of the shop had fooled the townspeople for years into thinking he was straight until he brought his very cute, very flamboyant boyfriend, Ken, to town. A year later, Ken’s ex had abandoned him and the town for another man and left Ken with the shop. Lenore didn’t know the entire story, but she knew that according to Ken, the former owner was a “cheating ass bitch of a boyfriend who deserved to die.”