The Hurricane (11 page)

“Can you hold something for me?”

Daniel shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”

He bent down and studied what she was doing. She immediately
went back to work, not bothering to introduce herself. Daniel found the
behavior odd and somehow intriguing.

“There’s not enough wire to twist together, so I need you to
hold it while I solder them.” She pointed to the two pieces of wire, one of
them sticking out of the base of the solar panel, the other coming from a
stripped wire that led to a small black box.

“Okay,” Daniel said. “I’m Daniel, by the way.”

“That’s awesome,” she said. “Just hold that one right there
so it overlaps with the bit of wire coming out of the red part.”

“What’re you fixing?” Daniel grabbed the one wire and held
it close to the small piece of wire coming out of the solar panel. Tracing the
severed cord leading away from the panel, he saw that it headed out toward a
row of landscaping lights scattered among the bushes and aimed back at the
house. He wondered why it would be urgent to get the mood lighting going in the
middle of the morning, right after a major storm.

“I’m not fixing anything,” the girl said. “I’m
making
something.” She held up a small wand-like device that had a butane cartridge
shoved in one end. The thing hissed, and smoke curled from the tip. With her
other hand, she held a coil of silver wire, one end of it straightened and
sticking out like an index finger from a fist. She dabbed the smoking tip of
the wand against the coil of wire and some of it melted and coated the end of
the device. She then bent close to the solar panel and touched the wand and the
wire to the connection Daniel was making. With a few deft touches—her hands
were much more still and confident than Daniel’s—the joint was made solid, a
bright touch of solder reflecting the morning light before it cooled and lost
its sheen.

“See if that’s gonna hold.”

Daniel tugged the wires, and they held fast.

“One more,” she said, pointing to another pair that had been
stripped back. Daniel was sad there was only one more to do.

“What exactly are you making?” he asked.

“A very weak power station. I think.” She smiled up at him
before leaning close and coating the wires with another neat connection. Daniel
waited for the solder to dull as before, then tested it.

“You’re good with that.”

“My dad’s into radios,” she said, as if that explained how
she had become proficient as well. She twisted a knob on the soldering iron and
set it on a stand propped up in the grass. She pulled out a roll of black
electrical tape and began covering the new connections with tight coils. “My
name’s Anna, by the way.” She smirked up at him. “I’m thinking of changing it.”

Daniel laughed. “Yeah, that’s not gonna be the most popular
of names for a while.” He rested back on his heels and watched her work.
“What’s your middle name?”

“Florence.”

She laughed, and Daniel joined in.

“That’s no good either,” he said.

“I know, right? That’s a name I’m keeping in the wings until
I’m seventy or something.”

“Definitely a name to grow into.”

She put the tape away and moved to the small black box.
After adjusting a knob on it, she flicked a switch and a dim red light glowed.
She pulled a multimeter from the toolbox and unwrapped the pair of red and
black wires from around it.

“What’s this gonna do?” Daniel asked. He couldn’t see the
solar panel running anything huge, like a fridge or a coffee maker.

“The panel puts out twelve volts for the lights,” the girl
said. “There’s a voltage regulator and a battery in that box mounted below—the
one with the wires.” She pointed with one of the leads from the multimeter to
the new connections they’d made. “This is an inverter my dad uses in his car.
It plugs into a cigarette adapter and puts out one hundred twenty volts like a
normal outlet, just not as much juice.” She bent over one of the small outlets
in the black box and inserted the two long, needle-like leads from the
multimeter, each one into either of the two slots. “This thing is used to
getting nine volts, and now it’s getting twelve. Now I need to see exactly how
much we’re getting out of it in AC.”

Daniel smiled. He looked across the street as a couple
started dragging limbs from one unnatural pile and placed them in one they had
decided made more sense.

“One hundred twelve,” Anna said. She sniffed. “That’s
plenty.” She turned a knob on the multimeter with several loud clicks. “Now to
see how many amps.” She frowned at the LCD readout as it flicked with numbers.
“Not bad,” she said. “Enough to charge a cellphone or a laptop.”

Daniel beamed. “That’s brilliant,” he said. “What’re you
hoping to charge with it?”

Anna looked up at him, a lopsided frown of confusion on her
face. “Whatever needs charging,” she said.

“I know, but what did you have in mind to wanna get up and
do this first thing in the morning? A radio?”

She laughed. “No. Actually, we have one of those
hand-cranked kinds. No, I didn’t make this for anything I’ve got. They’re
saying we could be at least a week, maybe more, without power. This’ll be for
whoever needs it.” She pointed toward the end of the driveway. “I’ll put up a
sign in a little bit to let people know it’s ready.”

“How much?” Daniel asked.

She tucked a loose wisp of hair, so fine Daniel couldn’t
tell what color it was, behind her ear. “What do you mean? You mean
money
?”
She frowned. “I can’t charge for this.”

Daniel felt like an ass. He rubbed his hand over his camera,
which was low on juice. He’d been asking in order to offer something in
exchange for the charge. It had come out like he was accusing, or even
encouraging her for gouging people in a time of need, rather than offering them
a service.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said feebly.

“Yeah,” she said, sounding unconvinced. “Anyway, thanks for your
help. Hope I didn’t use up
too
much of your time.” She rubbed her hands
on the seat of her pants. “In exchange for your services, I can let you use
this anytime you like.” She smirked at him.

“Thanks,” Daniel said. He looked up as a man exited the front
door with a folded blue tarp in his hands. “I guess I’ll go.”

“Anna?” The man peered down the driveway.

“Over here, Dad.” She waved at him, but looked over her
shoulder to smile at Daniel.

“There you are. Whatcha working on?”

Daniel walked down the driveway as she repeated her
explanation of the gizmo. Somehow, the fact that she’d done the project without
telling her father added to the allure. As Daniel walked slowly toward the next
house, he glanced continuously over his shoulder at the two of them, bent down
over the solar panel sticking out from the bushes. Instead of continuing his
planned walk to the end of the neighborhood and out to the main road, he
circled around Anna’s house, noting the damage to the shingles, the fruit tree
toppled in the back yard, the tall radio tower tangled with limbs. As he
wandered back toward his own house, walking slowly by hers, he saw a ladder up
against the gutters, Anna and her father scrambling up the roof on a different
ladder hooked over the peak, a blue tarp unfolding between them.

Who in the world was this Anna girl that lived four houses
down from him?

Daniel returned home to find the cleanup around his house
already underway. His mom and Carlton were dragging a massive limb down the
driveway as he rounded the mailbox. There was already a small pile along their
edge of the cul-de-sac.

“There’s some oatmeal left,” his mom said. “Probably still
warm.”

Daniel nodded. “I’ll be right out to help.”

He waved to his sister, who waved back, a too-large leather
glove flopping on her hand. She bit her lip and went back to wrestling a small
limb, trying to extricate it from a labyrinthine tangle of a dozen mangled
trees.

“I’ll be right back,” he called to her. As he considered the
amount of work ahead of him, he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of anger toward
Hunter. His older brother always seemed to weasel out of laborious tasks.
Daniel imagined him sleeping late with his girlfriend, her parents actually out
of town, their power miraculously working, a hot tub bubbling under its
insulated cover as it waited patiently for long days of lounging, soaking, and
doing nothing.

Daniel glanced up at the enormous tree that had stove in the
roof. As he bounded up the front steps, he marveled at how normal and everyday
that tree and its destruction were becoming. He pictured them getting
completely used to it, leaving it where it was, his sister’s bedroom becoming a
modified treehouse that she shared with the squirrels. He laughed to himself as
he raced up the stairs and to his bedroom.

When he opened the door, he found piles of his sister’s
stuff arranged along one wall in his bedroom. Daniel groaned. He went to his
closet and dug around in a drawer of electronics and miscellaneous wires until
he found his camera charger. He pocketed that, went to his bedside table, and
unplugged his cell phone and Zune chargers from the wall outlet behind it.

Daniel wrapped the thin cords around each of the chargers
and hurried downstairs. He retrieved his book bag from his mom’s room and
stuffed the chargers inside, along with his camera and his Zune. The cell phone
he kept in his pocket. Satisfied, he went to the kitchen, hung his backpack
from the back of a stool, and helped himself to cold and congealed oatmeal. He
gave the microwave wistful glances as he ate for pure sustenance.

Back outside—his stomach growling from the tease of a
minimal breakfast—he joined the others in doing what little they could to undo
the damage from the storm. Carlton had found some tools in the shed that might
help: limb clippers, a wood saw, a hacksaw. Daniel looked at the larger trees
lying like a lost game of Jenga all across the yard and realized how arbitrary
and useless their efforts were going to be. Chainsaws buzzed in the distance
like insects. Daniel knew they’d have to lure one or two of them over to get
anything done on their yard.

“How’s the rest of the neighborhood?” Carlton asked as the
two of them worked to pull a limb from the tangle.

“Lots of trees down,” he said. “One against the house next
door, but not as bad as ours. Shingles off everywhere.” He started to say
something about the girl and the charger, but refrained for some reason. He
didn’t want to mention her even though he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“Did you see any cars moving about? Any work trucks or
utility trucks?”

“No. There were people out surveying the damage, though. And
I did see one of the power lines down. A tree came down right across it.”

“When’s Hunter coming home?” Zola asked, voicing what Daniel
had been thinking.

“I’m sure he’ll get here as soon as he can. They’re probably
working to clear the roads as we speak.” Carlton glanced over at their mom, who
had turned away and removed her gloves to get something out of her eye. “We
might want to prepare ourselves that it’ll be tomorrow before he gets home.”

“Maybe Zola can stay in his room until he does?”

Carlton frowned and gave Daniel a look. Daniel bit his lip
and dropped the discussion.

They worked and chatted until noon, the late summer sun
creeping overhead and drawing the sweat out of them. They drank nothing but
water, leaving their supply of canned sodas and cartons of juices for later.
The Tupperware containers and pitchers Daniel had helped fill were emptied
first, poured into glasses with the last bit of ice from the freezer. They
enjoyed the clinking luxury and refreshing coldness before the lack of power
melted such things away.

Midway through the afternoon, as the pile of debris along
the cul-de-sac grew wider and taller, Daniel started thinking about all the
things he took for granted and would have to go without, possibly for days. The
internet and cell phones were the most obvious. He was dying to get in touch
with Roby, to call or e-mail him about the girl with the soldering iron and
unfortunate name. As used as he was to not hearing from his friend over the
summers, being suddenly cut off from him right as school resumed felt
unnatural. It was also crazy that they couldn’t get in touch with Hunter. The
entire concept was bizarre. His brother was probably no more than fifteen or
twenty miles away, but it might as well have been thousands. Daniel knew, in
the back of his mind where logic slumbered, that twenty miles wasn’t too far to
walk and that some people even chose to run or bike such distances for
pleasure, but it felt like an endless, impossible trek to him. He would drive
around a parking lot looking for the closest spot, investing more time in the
irrational pursuit than the time it would take to cover the extra distance by
foot. He never pointed out this inherent silliness when his family left one
shop in a strip mall, got in the car, then drove through the parking lot to
visit a store just seven or eight doors down. All that seemed normal and
natural. Walking fifteen or twenty miles as a means of locomotion seemed
absurd. The prior hundred million years of four-legged scampering and eventual
bipedalism couldn’t compete with the last hundred of flexing an ankle and
steering. Not yet, anyway.

“That was the corner with the DirecTV dish on it.”

Daniel snapped out of his ponderings and looked to Carlton.
He was peering up at the tree resting snugly against the house. “I think it got
crushed,” he said. He wiped his brow and went back to work sawing a too-big
branch in half with a handsaw.

“How are we gonna take showers tonight?” Daniel asked.

Carlton stopped sawing. “Hadn’t thought about that.” He
pinched the hem of his shirt and used it to wipe the sweat dripping from his
chin. “I reckon we’ll be sponging off from buckets out here.”