City of Refuge by Piazza Tom

Author:Piazza, Tom [Piazza, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Published: 2008-08-18T16:00:00+00:00

Lucy noticed the two men unloading boxes of clothes from a van. A tarpaulin sheltered the racks and tables on which all the clothes were going to be set out. Some evacuees had brought suitcases with them; these were usually the ones who had left their houses for shelter at the Superdome on Sunday, when there was still time to pack a bag. Others had stayed in their houses and been plucked off of porches, or roofs, and had nothing but what was on their back.

She tried to size up the situation as she walked over. Looked like the two men pulling boxes and an overwhelmed-looking white lady trying to figure out what to do. Lucy could tell from her distracted manner that she had little or no experience doing what she was doing. This was a good thing.

“You need help setting up the clothes?” Lucy asked, approaching her, smiling, and stealing covert glances at the boxes.

Startled, the lady looked at Lucy as if she were a dog that had just spoken a sentence in English. “I suppose…” she said, looking back, vaguely alarmed at the boxes as they came off the vans and were set down unceremoniously on the ground. “None of these is sorted; I don’t know how they expect us to put them in order here.”

“That’s easy,” Lucy said, reassuringly. “Just start on ’em one at a time. I can sort them as they come out.” The woman looked at her uncertainly. “I got nothing else to do,” Lucy said, with a disarming smile.

The woman could locate no immediate reason to refuse, and so they set to work pulling the boxes toward one of the tables for sorting.

“Put all the children’s to one side, let people sort through them themselves,” Lucy said, scooping armfuls of clothes out and dumping them on the table. The woman hovered by her side for some moments, until one of the men from the vans called to her and she disappeared.

Lucy worked quickly. Emptying one box, she used it for the children’s clothes, throwing them in as quickly as she could separate them. The others she separated roughly at first into men’s and women’s. She kept one empty box under the table right in front of her for especially nice items, which she would toss in for further inspection later. Eventually she was joined by a thin, anemic woman who was a community volunteer, and who had been told by the harried woman to help Lucy. Several evacuees began drifting over, and since Lucy was the one apparently in charge, asked her when the clothes were going to be out.

“Come back in about an hour,” Lucy would say. If it was someone who looked slightly prosperous, she would add, “What your size?” The woman would tell her and Lucy would say, “I’m making a special box. I’m-a keep a eye out for you.” The word got around quickly that if you wanted to have your pick of the better clothes, Lucy was the one to talk to.

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