Wave (30 page)

“I hope to God she does. Like I’ve never hoped for anything before.”

He let her cry for another moment, then patted her back and said softly, “Okay, let me get the boys’ bags into the boat. And if you have something light you’d like to bring, we can work that in, too. Maybe that box of letters in your closet.”

Nancy brought her head up. Her eyes were red and puffy, her cheeks glossy and damp. But she wore a smile—a tiny one, but a smile nevertheless. She massaged her husband’s cheek and kissed him. “I love you, Bud.”

“I love you, too, sweetheart.”

He went into the living room, asked the boys what they were watching, then told them they were all going on a boat ride in a few minutes. They hooted and hollered like lunatics. Bud told them to stay put until he called to say the boat was ready, then took their backpacks.

As he headed back down to the slip again, his own fears finally began to penetrate. A litany of harrowing scenarios marched through his mind. As was his habit, he simply pushed them out of the way and focused on the task at hand: Get the boat ready to go, and get the hell out of here the moment Karen arrives. Nothing else matters right now—nothing.

He got in and lifted the seat of the bench, exposing the storage area underneath. Most of the items inside would have to go—a few containers of boatwash, the steel anchor, a spare battery. All extra weight that would slow them down. He threw them out quickly, straining his back as well as his knees. They went on shore and would stay on shore until the water came to claim them.

When he turned to get back out, he found two people standing there, watching him. His heart jumped.

“My God, you scared the hell out of me!”

He barely knew the names, only faintly recognized the faces. But when he saw what one of them was carrying, he knew why they were there.

Dr. Kimberly Benton
, associate professor of oceanography at Texas A&M, was on FOX News explaining to anchor Jackee Welcher the tsunami’s progress with the aid of a diagram showing the radiating waves as concentric circles. Benton pointed out that LBI and the surrounding communities would be struck by not one, not two, but at least four separate surges, each more destructive than the last. As she spoke, FOX created a slick computer-generated simulation of the strikes, replete with generic homes and commercial properties that were remarkably close in form and proportion to LBI’s actual municipal layout. It was evident to some viewers that there was no human element—the simulation lent a speculative vision as to what kind of material destruction would take place, but there was no mention of casualties. This was a conscious decision on the part of the network.

FOX then went back to its field journalist, Rob Little, who by this time had been asked to move farther inland by the gradually retreating National Guard. He stood at the edge of Home Depot’s parking lot, which was filled with thousands of displaced LBI residents. Some were crying and embracing, others seemed calm, even bored. A few were trying, in vain, to use their cell phones. A small police cadre attempted to create some semblance of order, but the general impression was that nobody was really in charge.

“What’s the latest word, Rob?”

Little, with one hand covering his ear, said, “It’s pretty chaotic right now, Jackee. I’ve tried to find out who’s running the show, but no one seems to know. I’ve counted roughly two thousand people so far, but that’s not an accurate representation of Long Beach Island because so many cars are not stopping here—they’re going further inland.”

A crying teenage girl with her hand over her mouth entered the screen and bumped into Little. Seemingly unaware of what she’d done, she disappeared from the frame. Her three seconds of fame were over.

“Do you know if the authorities managed to get everyone off?”

He looked away for a moment. “I’d say no, because I can see cars still coming over the bridge. They’re moving pretty smoothly, but they’re still coming with less than a half hour left. Right?”

The host checked the digital clock that viewers saw in the lower left-hand corner of the screen.

“Yes, about twenty minutes according to our experts.”

Little shook his head. “I don’t know what to say, Jackee, except pray.”

Jackee assured him that she would, then went on to tell the viewers that hundreds of thousands of people were now following the story—crowds huddled in offices and supermarkets, pausing in their daily lives to catch the details on whatever television set was nearby. Humanitarian aid programs had been arranged; a team from the Red Cross was on its way. Suddenly it seemed all of America cared deeply about the fate of tiny Long Beach Island, New Jersey. And in response to the belief that this disaster was the result of a new phase of terrorist attacks, the stock market, which had seen healthy gains in previous months, began once again losing altitude.

About fifty yards from the Causeway, in an ’89 Chevy pickup in the left lane on the westbound side, a heavyset man in a flannel jacket was running out of patience. Bobby Gorman wanted to kill the old bitch in front of him, wasn’t even sure what had kept him from doing it already. She was acting as if she was on a friggin’ Sunday drive. She had to be at least eighty-five, and her head barely rose above the steering wheel. He’d been stuck behind her for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. The cars ahead of her would go, and she wouldn’t. Half the time he’d have to honk to get her moving. Cars from the right lane would slip in and fill the space she left. It was driving Gorman mad.

Gorman’s girlfriend of six years, in the passenger seat, made sure to keep her mouth shut. Efforts to soothe him in the past had usually resulted in a violent physical response. When he started mumbling, “I’m gonna kill her, I’m gonna fucking kill her” she pressed herself into the corner of the cab to get as far out of his reach as possible. When the old lady hesitated again and someone in a minivan slipped into the spot ahead of her and then waved gratefully, she actually waved back. That was it for Gorman. He slammed the transmission into park so hard the truck rocked, and threw the door open. His girlfriend pleaded with him to come back, but he ignored her.

He reached the door of the elderly woman’s car and smacked the window with his open hand. The woman jumped and turned to look at him, eyes wide with horror. He began screaming at her, while drivers of vehicles stopped behind his truck started honking. Another man—about Gorman’s age and general size but without the beer belly and five o’clock shadow—appeared from out of nowhere and began cursing at him. In less than ten seconds the confrontation became an all-out fistfight.

One LBI resident who had decided not to leave was Marion Edward Hartley. A resident of High Bar Harbor, Hartley was thirty-seven, six-foot-four, overweight with narrow shoulders, and lived with his aging mother. He was also an active, although relatively monogamous homosexual. His mom was already off the island, having been picked up earlier in the day by some church friends bound for the Columbus flea market. She had called a number of times to make sure her only child was able to make his escape. He assured her that a friend—that was how he described his lovers to her—was coming to pick him up.

Hartley’s actual plan, however, was to record this amazing event for posterity via the digital video camera he’d bought a week earlier. He’d been fascinated with natural disasters since boyhood—earthquakes, hurricanes, and tornadoes. They had relatives in Kansas, and he’d visited them almost a dozen times in the hopes of seeing just one twister, though, unfortunately, none had ever materialized. There was no way he was going to miss what would probably be the only tsunami to strike this area in his lifetime. Aware that the best way to survive this phenomenon was to get to high ground, he decided to pack up his camera equipment and climb to the top of Old Barney, the famous lighthouse located on the island’s northern edge, not more than four hundred yards from their home. As Barney was made of reinforced concrete, Hartley felt sure it could withstand even the force of the driving Atlantic. When it was all over, he’d sell the footage to the highest bidder.

In North Beach, as the precious seconds ticked away, two men reached a backyard shed at exactly the same moment, both with the same intention—to get at the dirt bike inside. After a brief and uncomfortable pause, they began fighting to get the door open. When one of them finally did, and they saw the bike waiting for them with its gleaming chrome hardware and orange plastic mudguards, they went after each other like kids in a playground fighting over a baseball. Then, with remarkably good sense, one of them pointed out that they could ride it together, and suddenly they were best friends. A moment later they were zooming across the backyard of the bike’s anonymous owner, throwing up chunks of lawn in their wake.

At the base of the Causeway, on the island side, officer Nick Albano, standing by his squad car with the lights swirling, checked his watch one last time. Fifteen minutes left, and time to get the hell out of here. Climbing into the car, lights still swirling, he blended into the moving line. With his radio’s microphone in hand, he used the car’s external speaker to instruct the people in front of him to keep moving…keep moving…. As he began the ascent up the bridge, he realized he was going to make it. He closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer to the God he’d believed in his whole life. Then he offered another for all those behind him, hoping for the same good fortune.

In an empty parking lot in Haven Beach, an Army helicopter landed for the third time to pick up a load of passengers. The pilot, a Captain Holbrook, saw that the group had grown since the last time—there were fifteen then, and twenty-two now. Knowing his limit was twelve at a clip, pushing it at that, he stepped out and, waving, yelled, “Let’s go! Twelve more!” His voice was hoarse, almost gone, from screaming over the powerful din of the rotors for hours.

As he had feared, the entire group began to move forward. “I can’t take more than twelve!” he said, holding a hand up. He knew how much time was left, and he knew that they knew, too—and that they would understand this was likely to be his last trip. Now Holbrook would have to make the most difficult decision of his life. Starting with the women and children, by age, youngest to oldest, he made his instructions clear. An elderly woman who wanted to remain with her husband was the sole female not to board. After the lucky ones were all seated, he shouted to those still on the ground, “I’ll be right back!” and headed toward the cockpit.

As he was about to climb in he heard someone scream, “You’re not going to make it!” He turned to face a medium-built man in his late thirties or early forties, with short-cropped hair and glasses, dressed in jeans and a white golf shirt with a little blue Polo logo on the left breast. Probably an accountant, the pilot thought. “Yes I will!” he yelled back. The man in the Polo shirt grabbed his arm, hollering, “No, you won’t! I timed your last trip—almost twenty minutes! We’ve got less than fifteen minutes left before the wave hits!”

“The arrival time of the tsunami is only an estimate,” Holbrook said. “But the longer we stand here arguing about it, the more time we lose!” As he turned away and began to climb in his antagonist grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him back.

“You’re not leaving me here!”

Holbrook spun around with remarkable speed, jamming the heel of his hands into the man’s chin, the force of the blow knocking him off his feet. Holbrook climbed into the cockpit and, without closing the door or fastening his belt, lifted off. The man in the Polo shirt scrambled to his feet and, charged with rage, leaped up and wrapped his arms around the bird’s skids. It tilted crazily to one side, and Holbrook, caught off guard, very nearly spilled out.

“Let go, you crazy lunatic!” the pilot yelled as he stabilized the chopper, continuing to gain altitude. “Let go now!”

“No!” the man screamed as Holbrook reached for his sidearm, knowing he wouldn’t face disciplinary action for shooting the guy, though he would try to hit him in an arm or leg. In that instant, the hanger-on managed to get one leg over the skid. The chopper dipped sharply downward and, before the pilot could react, drove into the unyielding macadam. Those on the ground, who moments earlier had felt like losers in a very dark lottery, watched in stark terror as the chopper first crumpled like an aluminum can, then exploded into a ball of orange flame.

Bud Erickson knew their names—Walter and Violet Carson. He knew that they lived on nearby Magnolia Avenue. He was fairly certain the husband used to work in the garment district in New York City, back when they had a home somewhere in the northern part of the state. He knew less about her. He saw them on Sundays, walking to the bus stop in their dress clothes, though he didn’t know what church they were headed to. Occasionally he would see them at the Acme, an aging couple on a fixed income, forced to clip coupons and assess the relative value of every item they put in their cart. He’d never seen either of them driving a car. He’d never heard Violet speak. In fact, he could not remember a time when he’d thought of them as anything other than “one of the old couples who live nearby.”