Okay, I'm back from my hot pocket.
So, I'm sitting around the house, windows boarded up, kitchen clean, will made out, waiting for the devastation to overcome me, when the house phone rang.
"Hello," I said.
"Ring!"
"Argh! I hate these stupid little buttons," I said as I clicked the "answer" button.
"Hello," I said once more.
"Hey, uh, Ryan?" came the female voice.
"No, Ryan left town with my parents. This is his roommate Josh."
"Hey Josh, this is Kelly, Ryan's sister. He left town with your parents? Is he drunk?"
"No, I think there may be a girl involved."
"She Japanese?"
"No, one of your cousins."
"Figures. He's such a retard. Always goes after them crazy women."
"That's what I'm screaming."
"He was supposed to come up to Baton Rouge and help me find a hand gun. This makes me so mad. I'm going to burn his house down."
Typical Hutchinson's, I thought. "Well, eh, uh . . . I know a bit about hand guns. I can go up and help."
"Yeah, you better. I'm getting upset at the boy. I'll cut him I swear."
"I'll be there as soon as I can."
I hung up the phone and the closet door opened.
"You don't know anything about hand guns."
"Shut up, Antione."
"But you don't."
"You are right, but I have to figure out some way to get away from this place for the storm. I need to head north. This place is a sitting tombstone."
"So you lie?"
"I'm not lying. Just . . . surviving!"
"She'll kill you when she finds out you lied."
"Naw, she'll think it's funny."
The door closed.
I went outside and changed the flat. I was on my way to Baton Rouge.
Several hours later, I arrived at Kelly's apartment. I-10 was at a complete stand-still, so I took River Road instead. It was a bit out of the way, but I avoided tons of traffic.
I got out of my truck and walked up to her apartment door. On the way into the complex, I had driven down a lighted driveway with rows of flags on either side. I felt like I was driving up to a palace.
I knocked on the door. A muffled cry came from inside. It sounded as if someone was in trouble. I knew that I was in the middle of Baton Rouge's big crime district and, not wanting to take any chances, decided to kick down the door. I did only to my horror.
There was a 350-pound Hispanic man sitting on the sofa. Actually, I should say, he was duct taped to the sofa. As my eyes inspected the room, I saw the hole busted in the glass door to the porch and a brick sitting in the living room. Kelly was leaning over him, holding a butcher knife to the man's ear. She looked up at me.
"He tried breaking into the apartment."
"I was only cutting grass! I swear!"
I heard another noise from the back of the apartment. A door attached to the living room opened and another girl walked in. This one had a white face but black arms.
"You got another tattoo?" asked Kelly.
"Yeah. I see you met Rodrigue," said the other girl. "I hired him to cut the grass."
Kelly pulled the knife away from the man's ear. "Yeah, I met him."
The girl walked back into the other room.
"So, eh, you wanted to get a gun, right?" I said, trying to break the ice.
"Why did my brother go with your parents?"
"I'm not sure. My dad said something about alligator."
"Is he ashamed of me or something? For the next hurricane, I'm going to duct tape him outside to a glass window, then place a pile of bricks next to him."
"Are you sure you want to buy a hand gun?"
"With all these Mexicans running around trying to 'cut my grass' you better believe it," she said as she pressed the knife to the man's ear again.
"Let me tell you about my Uncle Horace," she said as she looked into the man's eyes. "He survived World War II. You want to know how? By burying himself under the bodies of his dead companions. If I see you around here again, I will bite your ear off, you hear me?"
"I cut grass!"
"We don't have any grass! We have an apartment! You threw a brick through the window!"
She grabbed some duct tape and wrapped him up some more.
"Come on, lady, she paid me!"
"Okay, Josh, let's go to the gun store."
Kelly's green SAAB pulled up to Big Jim's Gun Shop twenty minutes later. I got out and we walked inside. Kelly had told me on the way there that she didn't know much about handguns. Her specialty was more in the rifle and shotgun area, but that Ryan knew tons about handguns. I told her that Ryan taught me everything he knew about handguns.
We walked in the store. There was an old guy sitting behind a counter cradling a 20-gauge shotgun in his arms.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"Yeah, uh, we want to buy a handgun. Well, she does. I already own one. I own four of them. I go shooting all the time."
He pulled out a semi-automatic. "So you are familiar with these, then?"
"Yeah, I use them all the time!" I grabbed it from him and began to pretend like I was shooting it around the room.
"Pow! Pow!" I shouted.
The man looked at me with a raised eyebrow.
"What are you doing?" asked Kelly.
"Oh, uh, just getting a feel for it. I have to simulate myself to really see how it will operate under threatening circumstances. See, this here, I can tell it will jam up on you fairly regularly."
The old man narrowed his eyebrows.
"See, this here is the safety," I said as I pressed a button. The magazine fell out of the handle and hit the ground.
"What the heck kind of piece of trash is this?" I shouted. "This gun is falling apart! I'm reporting you to the Better Business Bureau! Let's go Kelly!"
"You don't know anything about handguns, do you?"
"Ryan taught me everything he knows!"
"Liar!"
"No, I swear he did!"
"No. I believe you. The dog lied to me. That's why he didn't come here but skipped town. I'll kill him. I swear I'll break his arm off and beat the Mexican with it."
"I think you two should leave now," the old guy said.
"I think I'll beat you with my brother's arm after I finish killing the Mexican!"
I began slowly backing out of the store.
"I'm sorry. I'm not being hospitable am I?" Kelly said. "Let's go get some Chinese food and watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force."
"Um, actually I was thinking about heading back."
"No! You are going to eat Chinese food and then watch the Meat-wad with me!"
So, yeah, that's what I did. The Chinese food turned out to be great. We went to the Great Wall buffet. The tattooed girl and Rodrigue came along with us. We then watched some cartoon about a talking milk shake, a wad of meat, a pack of floating French fries that shot lasers out of his eyes, and a fat guy named Carl.
Honestly, I couldn't have made up a more enjoyable way to spend the hurricane.
Josh