Small Damages

Saturday, Sept. 20, 2003 -
Ap�sl�min ida corbalanyrtne 'ls�o rohl'daathi�m v� nen�a iroyss�rd.

Jer is more than a hundred miles away, Irving F. Brefeldia Maxima is back, and right now I'm feeling precarious.

And deeply frustrated, because I can't find a way to write about it.

Some days, it's all shit.

~

This morning I was wakened by the Fiend chattering happily on the phone. It took me a minute, but eventually my sleep-fogged mind realized he was talking to Blaine. Lifting my weary head from the pillow, I called out to my sweetheart.

"Erik, darling." (Erik is the Fiend's real pseudonym.)

"Yes, dear?"

"Would you please ask Blaine where the fuck he has been?"

Blaine was supposed to be in Baltimore, Maryland, withstanding the onslaught of Hurricane Isabel. We received an e-mail from him on Thursday morning, after which there was nothing but silence. We phoned him Thursday night and several times on Friday, but no-one answered, not even his machine.

The Fiend began to recite. "He was at Johns Hopkins�"

University in Columbia, Maryland.

"�all day yesterday. Tonio�

Blaine's new beau.

"�is a student there, you know."

I know.

"Tonio asked Blaine to stay Thursday night with him�"

A fact not mentioned in Blaine's e-mail.

"�and Blaine forgot to bring his cell phone with him."

What, Tonio doesn't have a phone?

I didn't sleep well last night. This past week I've been living on the verge of insomnia, a situation that is beginning to erode my customary serenity. I wasn't worried about Blaine, I was just pissed at him.

"Why the hell was he hanging out at Johns Hopkins?" I barked at the Fiend. "Wasn't he supposed to be protecting Mr. Schwaan's house from Wind, Water and Other Vile Vicissitudes of Nature?" (Blaine is house-sitting while he looks for a new home, preferably in Philadelphia or Boston. He moved from Savannah, Georgia to Mr. Schwaan's house last May.*)

The Fiend continued the narrative: "His neighbor�"

Mr. Haggerty or Mr. Weedon?

"�kept an eye on the house. Blaine stayed in Columbia because Mr. Weedon told him�"

Well, someone obviously had a phone.

"�the electricity was out. Blaine needed to finish that short story�"

Which I was supposed to edit and proof.

"�and fax it to the magazine by 4pm on Friday�"

The original deadline was last Wednesday.

"�so he went to the library at Johns Hopkins and did everything from there."

"Erik, darling..."

"Yes, dear?"

"Would you please tell Blaine he's an asshole?"

"You're an asshole," the Fiend cheerily told his friend and former lover.

Satisfied, I flopped back into my pillow and promptly fell back asleep.

Blaine was the last of our storm-babies to check in. Four people of mine were in the path of Hurricane Isabel:

(1) My sister Lolly, who lives in Annapolis (when she isn't living in Vancouver or New York.)

(2) Her fourth and current husband, Guy, who houses Lolly in Annapolis, Vancouver and New York.

(3) Lolly's brother and mine, who has been rooming with Lolly and Guy in the Annapolis house since he broke up with his girlfriend.

And (4) Blaine, the aforementioned asshole.

They're all fine. Alive and well. Guy sent Lolly to New York on Tuesday, despite her protests. When I called him on Wednesday, Guy said he thought they weren't in any great danger, but...

"You know your sister," he said to me.

"Yeah, I know," said I. And knowing my eldest sister, I would not have been surprised to hear she had made the pilgrimage south to any beach between Nags Head and Cape Henry, and was waiting for the hurricane to come ashore, readying herself to channel the spirits of the storm. She's a wee bit psychotic, is our Lolly. All her braveries are as impractical as they are passionate, and like the young Siegfried, she knows no fear, which does not help to endear herself to other mortals. You tend to live on bated breath in her presence, and the lack of oxygen leaves you light-headed and panicky. Three husbands couldn't take the strain. After almost four years of marriage to my sister, Guy is holding steady, stalwart and true. Very impressive. I attribute his success to his childhood in the mountains above Denver, where he developed a super-efficient cardiovascular system accustomed to functioning in the thin air of high altitudes.

Guy and my brother stayed in Annapolis for Isabel's visit. I phoned three times yesterday, but didn't get ahold of Guy until late afternoon. The damage to Guy's house was minor, a couple of broken windows, some scarified paint, a lost mailbox, a ruined lawn, shrubbery packed with garbage, for which the storm compensated with a tricycle and a sodden quilt deposited on the front steps. A sudden lake arrived in the night and threatened the southeast corner of the house, but it had shrunk into a muddy pond by noon Friday. A couple of Guy's commercial properties (he collects teapots, old coffee grinders, and small businesses) that had been flooded Friday morning were merely damp by evening. He was cheerful about his losses, feeling luckier than than most.

I didn't talk to my brother, who I imagine has been very busy. His unacknowledged profession has trained him to be quite useful in any kind of disaster.

~

* Mr. Schwaan's house isn't exactly in Baltimore, and Blaine didn't exactly live in Savannah, but the geography is approximate enough to impart a certain measure of verisimilitude.

<~>
Ap�sl�min ida corbalan� 'lse nesgla ugar�-cham sa cru ogrulho bat�oltha al�mv�sde.

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