KeithP.Graham

Grow Fins

It was well past midnight and the lights were out. Lamont searched the kitchen by feel. He knew that his aunt had left matches near the stove, but in the dark, he couldn't find them. His fingers touched the rough side of a cardboard box and he remembered that the kitchen matches weren't in a folded matchbook. He took out a match and struck it, showing the kitchen in the yellow light. The windows were black and the wind driven rain rattled the panes. Hurricane Katrina had arrived.

He found the candles before the match went out, but he had to strike another one to get the candles going.

Lamont carried two candles into the hall and he stepped in two inches of water. The water level in the lowest section of St. Bernard Parish was up to their doorstep already.

“Hey Gramps,” Lamont called as he ran up the stairs; “The water's rising. It's coming in under the door real fast.”

From the top of the stairs, Lamont heard the old bedsprings squeal. Gramps was sitting up as Lamont entered the bedroom. The old man's eyes, milky with cataracts, reflected the candlelight.

“So it's raining a little is it?”

“This is a real hurricane Gramps, category 5 they say. A real doozy.”

“Don't you worry, child. I've been flooded out before.”

“They are scared that the levee will break.”

Gramps grunted trying to get comfortable. His left leg was cut off above the knee and still hadn't healed right. The diabetes had pretty much beaten him.

“Gramps, Jonas said he was coming back with the van, but he ain't here, yet. The road's flooded and I don't think he's coming.”

Gramps laughed. “Jonas isn't coming back. Boy, if the levee breaks and the waters rise, I'll just have to grow fins and swim out the window.”

“Fins, you can't grow fins.”

“Well, child, you must have heard me tell the story about the mermaid lady that I caught.”

Lamont knew the story well. He grew up on the story of Grandpa Meraux and the Mermaid.

Lamont shook his head. “Mermaid?” he said, prompting his Grandfather for a telling.

“Let me just refresh you memory a little, then. I can't believe I've never told you.

***

It was back in 69, hurricane Camille came up out of nowhere. I was fishing down at the Johnson Pass when all hell broke loose. I got thrown up into the swamps and my boat was holed. I spent the night holding onto a tree root with the water rolling over me. When the sun came out, my wrist was broken and my ankle had a terrible pain. I grabbed my kit bag and started up towards Pass a Loutre, hoping I could pick up a boat back to the Big Easy.

That's when I found her.

She looked like a white woman, only whiter. Her hair was white and her skin was like the belly of a fish. Up top she didn't have no clothes, but down below she had silver scales and fins instead of legs. She was just barely alive. Her skin was so cold to touch I thought she was dead, but she was breathing. She had these bluish gills on her neck, but I figured she had lungs, too, because her chest was moving and she whimpered like a small dog when I touched her.

I put my coat around her. It was damp, but warm. There wasn't any dry wood to start a fire and my matches were all mashed anyway. I had a ham sandwich that I was going to have for lunch, and I tried to get her to eat half of it. She choked a little, but she swallowed. My thermos of coffee was mostly empty, but I got her to drink some. It was still warm.

I sat with her all morning and she slowly came around. Her skin warmed up and she drank more coffee. She talked in a low down whisper, like she had no real voice. She told me her name was Thessa, and she came from the deep ocean in the gulf. She had been watching the moon when the Hurricane caught her and threw her into the delta.

About noon, she asked me to carry her and I brought her to a channel, limping through the roots the whole way. The current was heavy and the brown water was almost a thick as Aunt Harriet's soup. I set her down on the edge and she smiled at me.

“Pierre Meraux, I owe you my life.” She said, “If you need me. If there is anything that I can do, call for Thessa and I will come to you.”

She slipped into the water and as the current took her out to the sea, she waved at me and smiled.

I made it home three days later after your uncle Raymond found me sitting on the banks of Pass a Loutre, waiting for a ride.

With the exception of your grandmother, she was the most beautiful woman I've ever met - even with the fins and gills.

***

“Wow!” said Lamont. He loved hearing that story.

There was a crash downstairs and the sound of water. The howling of the wind grew louder and louder and the glass in the window finally shattered. The curtains blew into the dark room and the candle went out.

Lamont ran to the stairs.

“Gramps, the water's coming up the stairs!” he yelled.

“The Levee must have broke, child. You have to get to the roof.”

“But Gramps, you'll drown.”

“I'm 83 years old, darling. I can't see. I can't feel anything in my one leg or my hands. There's a sore on my back that is turning the skin black. The diabetes will have me dead and a few weeks. The only way that I'm getting out of here is grow fins and live with my friend Thessa.”

“I can't leave you, Gramps.” Lamont was crying.

“Go to the roof and call for Thessa. She's nearly as old as me by now, but maybe she'll remember her promise.”

The bedroom door swung in and water rose in a wave that covered Lamont's feet.

“I'll get her, Gramps, don't worry.”

Lamont waded out into the hall and Grandpa listened to him climbing the stairs. When Lamont reached the attic, he climbed the ladder up to the hatch and crawled out on the widow's walk. He held onto the ornate fence and tried to look out towards the ocean. The wind and rain blinded him.

“Thessa!” he yelled as loud as his young voice could muster. “Thessa, Pierre Meraux has need of you. Pierre Meraux asks you to save his life.”

Lamont yelled until he was hoarse, but nobody came.

He looked down and noticed that the water was now lapping over the eaves. It covered part of the old slate roof.

“Gramps!” he yelled in panic and climbed through the hatch and slipped down the ladder. The water in the attic was up to his knees. The second floor was completely under water. He ran to the stairwell, hoping that gramps had made it out of the bedroom, somehow. “Gramps” he yelled again, but he knew it was too late. Gramps was gone.

Lamont sat in the rain up on the widow's walk and cried. The rain suddenly stopped and the sun, behind the heavy clouds, lit St. Bernard Parish with a soft light. The dirty water turned a dark steel gray and Lamont could see other rooftops, some with people.

He sat there most of the morning. He was tired and hungry. There were boats going from house to house, but nobody came near him.

“There he is!” a voice called and Lamont, recognizing the voice, raised his head. “There's the boy.”

“Gramps!” called Lamont. He looked around be didn't see any boat. Then he saw a brown shape in the water. It looked like a big brown dolphin or maybe a killer whale. A face came out of the water and his grandfather looked at him with clear eyes. The eyes no longer were cloudy from the diabetes.

“Well, boy, I told you I'd grow fins!” Grandpa rolled over and splashed the water with his foot, but it wasn't a foot. It was a long golden fishy fin with one side a little stumpy, but still a good fin.

A white woman came out of the water next to him. She had long gray hair in braids and her face was the face of an old woman, but it still had a beauty that glowed through the wrinkles.

“Hello Lamont,” she said, “I heard you calling. I had to come and do what I could.”

Gramps dove into the water and shot out again into the air and yelled “She taught me how to grow fins!”

“Gramps!” called Lamont, crying in joy that his Grandfather was still alive.

“Lamont!” Gramps called back. They looked each other through the tears. There was the sound of motorboat. A rescue party was making its way towards the old house.

“They're coming Grandpa. They are coming to save us.”

“Not me child. I am going out to sea for a spell.”

“Don't leave me Gramps. You're all I've got.”

“You've got your Aunt Harriet and your cousins. You'll be ok.”

“Gramps, please.”

Grandpa looked at Thessa, who nodded her head and smiled.

“Oh alright, boy, come along.”

“Yippee!” Yelled Lamont as he dove into the water. Thessa lifted him up to the surface and kept his head up while she whispered secrets in his ear.

By the time the rescue boat made it around the house, Thessa, Gramps and Lamont were swimming out towards clean water. Lamont's fine new fins propelled him towards the deep gulf and a new life in the kingdoms of the People of the Sea.

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