DISASTER BOY AND THE NIGHTMARE FIGHTER

Andy walked in the sun along the shops of Frenchmen Street in the Faubourg Marigny. Most of them had no activity. Some were still boarded up.

Nick was sitting in the shade of a balcony at a table with coffee in one hand, cell phone in the other. Black sunglasses. His pony tail, gone.

“Where’s Jesus? You look like a Hollywood producer.” Andy said. Andy sat down.

“Left him on the west side, Chelsea, baby. Raphael said he could make a new me, bigger and better.” Nick said.

“Not bad. I want to star in The Katrina Story.”

Nick pulled a small chrome camera out of a leather bag on his hip.

“I am a producer. Mind if I take your picture for my web site.” He aimed and shot before Andy replied.

“You got a web site?”

“Yeah, baby. I’m doing a little chronicling. I’m going to have one with just my stuff and another with anyone else who wants. You can put anything you want on it. You must have shit loads since you stayed.”

“I took a lot of shots. But I fried the power source to my laptop charging on a generator. It was done half way through the whole thing. Couldn’t download anymore, empty the memory. I tried to get this photographer chick from Dallas to trade a memory card for my name. She was around shooting the holdouts off and on for weeks. She wouldn’t do it, though.” Andy said. “Hell, I got sick of shooting, anyway.”

“Did you give her your name?” asked Nick.

“Fuck no.” Andy said. “She was hot as hell, too. Asian.” He thumbed towards the intersection of Chartres and Frenchmen streets. Clubs, bars and restaurants. “Nothing but a bunch of dogs drooling at that one. Kenny and Javier had a little war over that shit.”

“What kind of war?”

“Not sharing supplies with the other. Talking about each other wanting to fuck her as if they themselves didn’t or there was something wrong with anyone but themselves wanting to and trying to.”

“They cracked!” said Nick.

“Yeup.” said Andy. “Tell me about New York. Did you see many other evacuees?”

“All over. Everywhere you went. Especially the East Village. Williamsburg. Greenpoint. Those are my main hangs. I’ve got a place to stay in each. Me, Paul Grass, Lisa, your ex, Donna. We had a whole crew of us stomping around at times looking for that New Orleans priced beer. We found this one joint on Ninth and Ave. A, walked in and bartenders from the Abbey working behind the bar. $2.00 draughts. We drank all night. The tab wasn’t more than $10. The New Yorkers are in coddle mode.”

“You saw Donna?” said Andy.

“I saw her a couple of times. All kinds of people stomping around up there, baby. When you gonna come up there?”

“I wish I would’ve gone up there but if I had I’ld wind up like the rest of you mother fuckers, broker than before all this happened. I’m making money on this deal.”

“I’m not spending as much as you might think. New Yorkers are in coddle mode. Besides staying with my cousin the other flops are with chicks I met. I tell them I’m from New Orleans and I become Disaster Boy. And that happens everywhere besides what the different agencies provide. Not just me, I don’t know anybody really paying for their own housing. I take that back, not at that market rate.”

Nick started clicking buttons on his camera. He watched the rear view screen.

“Here, take a look at this.” And he handed the camera to Andy. Andy saw an attractive girl with long blonde hair.

“That’s Greenpoint.” Nick said.

Andy scrolled through. Different shots of N.Y. by day and N.Y. by night. City scapes from the street, from the Brooklyn Bridge. Dark shots in bars of people he knew and didn’t know. Lots of girls. Several shots contained Donna, all from the same bar, the same night. Shots of her in groups. A couple of her alone. She was obviously drunk. She stood with her shoulders back and hips thrust to one side. Her large breasts were striking.

Andy continued to scroll but now at a much faster pace but there were no more photos of Donna. After about twenty shots or so the subject changed from New York to a brick house on a slab with mud where the grass should have been and a large hole in the roof. Several sediment lines started just below the gutter and traveled incrementally down, the darkest about chest high. Wider angled shots revealed surrounding houses and fallen trees all on the same mud brown landscape, some houses leaning off their foundations, others moved into their yards. The brick house had an orange X with a 0 underneath.

Andy slowed and dwelled on these photos. The tension that had built over the last few moments had now relaxed. It was now actually being replaced with a sense of pleasure.

Andy noticed this shift and worked on squelching it. He knew Nick was strong but still sad.

“One block from the breach.” Nick said.

“I’ve got plenty shots of mine.” Andy said.

Suddenly Nick got up. “Got to go pick up little Nick. It’s time.”

“So, what about that?” Andy said.

“I told her I couldn’t stop her from moving to Georgia. They’re just back to see what they can salvage from her house. She wasn’t hit nearly as bad as us. She didn’t even get wet. Just rain from Rita because her roof was damaged.”

“Well, maybe coffee tomorrow.” said Andy.

“O.K. See you then.”

Andy watched Nick walk down Frenchmen street towards the park. Nick had lost weight. Black t-shirt, blue jeans, black shoes, black sunglasses. New haircut. He looked good. Healthier than before. Looked like a New Yorker.

The park was empty. No children. The trees were trimmed and fallen limbs and debris were all cleaned by relief crews. But there were no children. It had been a favorite play spot for Donna’s five year old son Sebastian. Andy often took him to play with the other children. Sebastian was a lot of fun to talk with. Now he was with his father in Florida.

“What do you want to be when you grow up, Sebastian?”

“I want to be a nightmare fighter!” Sebastian would say and he would jump into a kung fu like pose and throw a few punches and an occasional kick. “I defeat the nightmare with weapons.”

“What kind of weapons do you have?”

“A whapper. It always comes back to me.”

“What do the nightmares look like?”

“Well, they’re bigger than people, but not as big as a house. And their legs are short and their arms are short.”

“What do they do to you when you fight them?”

“They stomp on my head.”

“What happens when they defeat you?”

“You stay there where you are defeated.”

“You just stay there? For how long?”

“You just stay there. Until you get up.”

“You mean you lay there, where you were defeated?”

“Yeah, you lay there, until you get up.”