The end of the earth

So my friend, Lexie, and I drove over to Mississippi on Monday so that I could sign up to have our lot in Clermont Harbor cleared of storm debris. It's what -- 4 months since Katrina? I'm still dumb struck and wobbly when I see it.

I grew up in Bay St. Louis and as a teenager couldn't wait to leave. After all, there had to be something else out there besides sailboats and beaches and small minded people. It was the 60's. I was a flower child (or something).

Two of my sisters have (had) homes over there. One on the beach in Waveland and one 3 blocks off the beach in Bay St. Louis (the house where I grew up). We had just purchased a "fixer upper" on August 6th. I was so excited when we'd finally found a little place near the beach -- excited at the prospect of getting out of the city. On weekends at first -- and then I thought, who knows?? There are worse places to grow old.

Lexie and I grew silent as we drove along the water past the destroyed beach towns...Lakeshore, Clermont Harbor, Waveland and the western end of Bay St. Louis. We had to turn down a street just before St. Stanslaus because the road dropped off. Since none of the buildings are there, it's hard to tell what street we were on! Everything once so familiar is now alien.

We had lunch near the train depot at Benigno's grateful for a spot that seemed untouched and normal except for the way people were hugging each other like attendees at an AA meeting. Or maybe a reunion of survivors of the Titanic. We downed the last of our root beers, got in the car again and headed down Main Street toward the water.

I'd done this before, but this time we climbed down the rocks and rubble to walk the sandy beach parallel to what had been Beach Blvd. There is something about seeing your town's infrastructure exposed like a patient abandoned mid abdominal surgery -- pipes and water lines exposed -- that makes you experience intense embarrassment (like walking in on your parents having sex or something) and then utter despair.

I put my sun glasses on so it wouldn't be obvious that I was crying but when I came to the beginning of DeMontluzin Ave. (my old street) I was sobbing and didn't care who saw me. It is just too sad. Lexie reached down into the sand and pulled up a pristine little blue and white china plate and silently handed it to me.

We climbed the pile of asphalt -- huge chunks still showing the now useless broken yellow line that had marked the center of the road -- and peered into the shell of the old A&G Theater, now almost beautiful in a Roman ruins kind of way. The ceiling had collapsed and the only recognizable portion was a bit of the framing for the stage/screen area and dangling from an overhead beam the rusty remains of the chandelier. My mind latched on to that one little piece and began filling in the interior; the glittering bulbs, the red velvet drapes, the smooth leather seats.

I recalled the time when I was 9 years old and stepped barefoot on a yellow-jacket while riding my bike at a playmate's house; running home crying so my mother could remove the stinger and apply baking soda. That night she took me to the A&G to see "Imitation of Life", a real tear jerker. For that hour and half or so my foot had stopped throbbing and I lost myself in the plight of Lana Turner, Sandra Dee and the rest of the movie's characters. By the time Mahalia Jackson did her singing bit at the end I was sitting in a puddle of tears. But my foot didn't hurt any more.

I had ridden on the back of my brother's bike to the A&G to see "The Tingler" and "Creature From the Black Lagooon"; had donated cans of vegetables with the other kids in my 6th grade class for admission to "The Ten Commandments". I tore myself away and stumbled over debris to the rear of the building where portions of rusted movie seats and springs from the cushions were tossed in a pile along with the building's bricks stamped "Laurel, MS". This is just one place.

The old Ramsey's building lay exposed like a doll house that a demented child had trashed. The front of the building gone. Visible the upstairs bedroom of the last unlucky occupant. Bed askew, but the night stand keeping it's post at the headboard...a chair teetering dangerously close to the edge.

I remember my friend Georgie in New York telling me about his childhood home. "It was truly paradise," he'd said. Beirut before the bombs. I feel that way now and cry for my home, for Georgie's home; for all the places lost to us and, it would seem, to God.