To Whisper Against This: Alive inside the Astrodome
By Jamie Tworkowski
For www.lowercasepeople.com
To answer an ache. To be some small solution. A piece of change in this new poverty. These reasons place me on a plane, headed for Houston. That I will travel alone from Florida is nothing heroic, only more alive than another three days with those awful images. Something in me says, go.
My name is traded for a proud peach wristband, and with ten minutes of orientation, I am officially an Astrodome volunteer. I join a group of 70 to assist in clothing distribution but quit quietly when I realize this job is not what I came for. I am not above organizing clothes, only aware that the thing in my chest came for conversation.
At the entrance to the dome, I stop a woman leaving and confess my intentions. It is a strange attempt at legitimacy but she seems to understand. She is a social worker and with a smile, says it should be no problem for me to join the many inside. Another woman from the Red Cross agrees, and I am invited in.
The ocean of cots that fit inside my television is around me now and I know instantly that this day will stay with me. I am given no agenda but my own; to connect and be alive in this place. To listen and lean against the darkness. And to reach in if possible.
The pain of our poor is being exposed. They have lived long in silence, as microphones keep close to money. We are seeing our humanity now, something insane arriving in this unbelievable circumstance. Dark wind and poison water, hunger and guns; chaos captured by rolling cameras. And we are forced to face it, to see ourselves.
It is hard to believe that all of this began with a hurricane, a storm given life by a warm gulf sea. The fingerprints of men are everywhere, in solutions and problems and politics, in anarchy and accusations. The response that I will witness today is massive and compassionate. People here and everywhere are moving to meet needs, preparing and serving meals, organizing clothes, offering airplanes and homes and medicine. It is beautiful but cannot contain the tragedy. It is hard to understand that my September Saturday inside this Astrodome holds only a fraction of the truth. A similar structure three hundred miles east is filled with nightmares that I cannot imagine. There are only signs for the missing here. I cant see their faces and the fires of Louisiana are far from me.
The first man I meet is old and warm and quickly kind. He introduces himself; David. Like David and Goliath and calls me Jamie, like Jamie Foxx. This makes me laugh and I realize that I will listen more than I will speak and Ill be given more than I can give. It is a privilege to be here.
Young men from New Orleans are doing calculus on cots, finding inspiration in strange new skies. Boys are being boys, moving perfectly from tackle football to toy soldiers on a small strip of turf. Old men laugh at this display of youth, while mothers braid hair and keep children close. One boy smiles bright and points to Payton Mannings autograph on his Jimi Hendrix t-shirt. The quarterback was here yesterday. Dr. Phil is here today. Bill Clinton and George Bush, Sr. will be here tomorrow. There are reporters and men with cameras, soldiers and police, doctors and nurses. Men in suits move through, pitching religion while hundreds more live theirs quietly.
It is some stange slice of life, so many characters moving through, me among them. I am seeing so many things; poverty and laughter, rescue and pain. Hope is here too. They are a beautiful broken people. I forget that I am in Houston, as every conversation is New Orleans. I am tasting that famous blend of history and fantasy, music and mayhem, bright lights and darker things. Beneath banners of business and victory, inside a dome built for pleasure, I sit among ten thousand stories.
Its a curious sight when I meet Walter, built like a linebacker, leaned over a book and some papers. Stepping closer, I am surprised to find algebra. That doesnt look like much fun, I say, hoping to connect. With a smile, he tells me that he loves it. Its what he wants to do. The books cover corrects me and Im seeing Calculus for the first time. My fear of the great math was enough to move my major a few years back. Walter laughs at this and laughs harder when I tell him that the stuff doesnt exist outside of college classes. He smiles and points upwards, to the huge domed ceiling above us. It is impressive, like something for space, even after 40 years. Thats calculus, he says, still smiling. Calculus built that.
If I listen, there is so much here to learn. Invitations are extended and I join board games and card tricks. Conversations come from men with diseases, mothers with babies, children with smiles. I am introduced as some new friend to so many of them. Today seems a day with no strangers and it is refreshing. There is value in all people, in life, in today and I say it because theyre reminding me. So often I have aimed for privacy and comfort, freedom in finance, but I am seeing something better here today.
Preston is here from St. Bernard Parrish. He offers a fast handshake and a sincere slow smile. We talk for a minute before a neighbor comes to wish him goodbye. It is an honor and I am moved by their final moment together. Weve been at this a long time, he tells his friend. Were gonna keep on going. Ill see you down the road. These two friends have shared a neighborhood for years, but this day will move them apart.
In the afternoon, I go upstairs for a soda, and I take a seat in an empty section on the second level. It is my first time away from the floor and the more-macro view puts tears in my eyes. It is difficult to consider that what I am seeing is a situation improved. For so many here, this is rest after rescue but the image remains unsettling.
Back downstairs, I meet the Pittman family. Like nearly everyone Ill meet today, they are black and poor and very kind. I notice no adult men among them but one girl stands out. Crystal shares her familys features but her skin is lighter than mine. She is a black girl in bright white skin. Her nephew notices this out loud and it is an awkward, painful moment. She has light eyes, blonde hair and tattoos on her arms and unshaved legs. I notice the names of men on both arms and the word yellow large across her lower back. She sits coloring quietly, shy and seeming younger than her 17 years. She has my attention and I wonder silently what pain shes lived and been given to. She is innocent.
On the opposite end of the floor, a gospel choir of 60 begins to sing. They are without microphones, forced to compete with all the sounds of the space. Instantly, I am up and drawn to the music. Their songs are desperation and hope and when they sing that Hallelujah chorus, my eyes fill fast with tears. That beautiful word has always been mystery and movement to me, and Im feeling it now more than ever.
There is so much that I cant explain on this day and in this moment. I will be peeling back the layers, trying to understand, for years to come. We are a people in great need. The dark wind that moved in New Orleans is here too. It blows against this building and inside my heart. Its in the cancer that takes the fathers of my friends. The only hope I can think to whisper against it is love; love revealing itself in sacrifice and shelter, finance and food, compassion and community.
This dome built for pleasure has found its greatest game. Love battles loss under championship banners. The seats are mostly empty but the stakes have never been so high: stories by the thousands, all in need of better endings. Victory has always lived on the field, far from sideline seats and comfortable couches. If tragedy is bigger than a giant building, it will not fit inside a television. Let the seats stay empty. We should take the field. Love does win and were invited, to build a better ending, alive in all the wonder of a Hallelujah chorus.