« By Robert Scheer | Main | Flag Amendment »
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
The Story of Brian
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o there's this guy named Brian, who grew up in Oakland, California. Brian is what you would describe as an average guy, works construction, went to a tech/voc high school, a townie with oak leaf clusters. A solid citizen. A good man.
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little back story, to set the Brian stage, to tell you about the kind of man he is. Brian loved this woman once upon a time, and dropped somewhere in the neighborhood of two grand on an emerald ring for her. As it turns out, the woman in question was barking-mad insane, and wound up stabbing him in the back - literally. Brian got the ring back after the relationship finished its little Hindenburg routine, and took it to a bridge.
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e fully intended to toss the ring into the bay under the bridge. He stood there with the emerald band in hand, composing his thoughts. Across the bridge came a very young woman with a couple of babies in tow. Brian could tell right away that she was not anywhere near the well-to-do neighborhood. Instead of giving the ring its symbolic drowning, he gave it to the lady with the babies. He told her how much it was worth, and told her to pawn it, told her in the best Steve Miller fashion to take the money and run. She flipped out completely, weeping with gratitude.
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his is a Brian theme. Now you know what you need to know about the man.
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nyway, Brian fell in love with a woman from Nevada named Carol. Carol at some point last year got fed up with Nevada and checked out to New Orleans. New city, new culture, new climate, new everything. Everything was cool, until Katrina showed up. Brian lost track of Carol, as did her family, as did the country, once her city got wiped off the map.
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rian sat and watched CNN like the rest of us, and called Carol repeatedly to no avail. He called her parents and asked if they had heard from her, and they hadn't, and were flipping out. Finally, two Sundays ago, he said enough was enough. He told his boss that he was heading to New Orleans to find her, and his boss cut him two paychecks to help him. He called Carol's father and said he was going to find her and bring her back if it killed him. He hopped a plane to the closest available spot, and poured himself into the worst, most dangerous place in America, to find the woman he loved.
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napshots of Brian in the Big Easy:
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e banged from one shelter to another, to another, doing a loop through the five of the biggest shelters over several days looking for Carol.
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t some point, Brian got his hands on a flat-bottom boat and rowed around the city. He found dozens and dozens and dozens of people, and rowed them to shelters. He saved perhaps a couple hundred lives.
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ne day, he met Harry Connick Jr. at a shelter, and asked him if he had seen a pretty white girl named Carol.
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ne day, he met an Iraq veteran in a shelter who was just back, who was permanently in a wheelchair from shrapnel wounds, who was desperate to do what Brian was doing, who had lost his whole family to the storm.
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ne day, he pounded through a rooftop to pull people out of their attic.
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ne day, he heard a baby crying in a house, and went in to find the baby on the floor in between two dead bodies, and took the baby to a shelter.
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e turned almost yellow at one point from the foul water. He got a fungus on his feet from the water at one point. Doctors at the shelters he kept checking, and kept bringing people to, took care of him. He rowed, and searched, and saved, and looked for Carol. He didn't sleep.
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nd then, after days of searching, Brian found Carol. She was in a shelter, and was well enough given the circumstances. She lost her mind when she saw him, Brian from Oakland in the midst of the worst place in America. She didn't want to leave when he said they were going. "It's martial law," she said. "They're pointing guns at people." To hell with that, Brian told her, and took her out. They rowed, and walked, and got on a bus to Baton Rouge.
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e got her new clothes, got her a meal, and got her in touch with her parents. When Carol called her parents, her father asked to speak to Brian. "I don't know what to say," said Carol's dad. "I want you to come home. I want to shake your hand. I want to thank you." The next day, they got plane tickets home.
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hope Carol is smart enough to marry this man. I hope Brian didn't catch anything in that water. I hope everyone he helped rescue in his flat-bottom boat finds their own personal salvation as best they can. I hope the baby he rescued from between those bodies grows up to be a wise President of the United States.
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hanks to Brian, of Oakland, California, I hope.
Posted by fm on September 14, 2005 at 12:19 AM