Sunk Deep in Baton Rouge

Sunk Deep in Baton Rouge

     “Hello Pops. Sorry to intrude on my wonderfully studious young man in the middle of deep tort contemplations, but I have a little problem. Our house has flooded. So here I am with no adult assistance with our three-year-old son and the water, water is everywhere to borrow a phrase from Coleridge’s ‘Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.’ Could you get in that wonderful jalopy your Mom bought for us and take us to dry ground?”
     “The car is flooded as well I am afraid. I am at the chapel on campus. Wait just a short while and I am sure the car will revive for me to come rescue you two.”
     Pat contemplates waiting knowing it is safe but needing to do something, anything, to escape the situation. So against orders from her very own husband, she puts her three-year-old son John on her shoulders and sets off wading through the water to the Episcopal chapel where her husband is deep in law school meditations. They cross the enchanted forest, past the Greek theater and the water is finally only ankle deep. With the determination of a mother to find high ground for her son she breathes the fresh air thankful for at least that petrichor scent of the ions after the deluge of rain. She climbs the slope leading to the terracotta roofs of the buildings of that university where her husband stays deep in the Napoleonic law code that still is the system for the former French colony of Louisiana.
     When she reaches the plateau of both the landscape and her emotions she breathes a sigh of relief from having ascended into unflooded territory with her firstborn. As her heartbeat slows to a calm pace she strolls under the old oak trees past the parade ground where just yesterday students sunbathed under blue skies. She wishes her husband could take just a few moments from his busy studies to walk around the beauty of the college they have come to call home. Finally, she arrives and opens the door to her hopes and dreams that her man will crack a smile of joy at her having made it to him while keeping their son, not to mention his wife, safe.
     And so she is rewarded by a slight grin from her beloved as she trails water into this place of worship leaving wet footprints of mud and leaves along the aisle. He emerges from the books that will ensure their future into the present and stands to lift John from Pat’s shoulders and puts him into his fatherly lap. “Pat you didn’t have to. I was just about to come get you. I finally got the car started.”
     “Oh, but the smells after the rain really were refreshing. It was no inconvenience, trust me. Besides I like walking and John seems to have settled down from his usual hyperactivity just by getting out of the house with me. Nothing like fresh air, better than Ritalin.”
     “Well, I am glad you are here. I feel for you darling. Here you are teaching school and taking care of John during the summer just to make our ends meet. Glad you have Mayola to help but you are quite a superheroine in your own right.”
     “Yes well, don’t worry, I may bring home the bread, but you wear the pants around our house. You are my man after all.”
     “Sweetheart, our little tike is growing like a watermelon.” Bob holds him up in his arms. “And boy he is getting heavy. Pretty soon it will take Atlas just to pick him up.”
     “Since the automobile is drivable again, could you take me to Mississippi, to my parents to get dried off? All the clothes at home are sopping wet.”
     “Let, me take you to a store to get new clothes. You are soaked. He is too. No need to go around like that.”
     “Honey, I know it may seem a simple matter of changing out of our duds. But I have just been through a situation that was a bit overwhelming. I need the comfort of my Mom right now. I know you do your best, but you keep your head in a book which I understand is for our future.”
     “Well, the weatherman on the radio said Highway 61 is clear of water. So of course we can spend the weekend in Natchez. I am sorry for my singular focus on studies. I will make it up to you once we move to New Orleans. College is an old bear for me too.”
     “I knew you’d understand. Call, Mayola and tell her she is getting a paid work week off.”
     “Your Mom can take care of John for a few hours while I take you to the movies.”
     “The perfect movie is playing for us at the theater. But look at John, he looks just like you.”
     “Maybe he’ll grow up to be a lawyer like I soon will be.”
     “Then again maybe he’ll be a poet.”
     “A noble craft that is, something I could never do.”
     “The quiet spaces between your words are poems. There is so much unsaid in those gaps.”
     “Just legal jargon I am afraid.”
     “Maybe one day you’ll recite one of those Shakespeare quotes you told me you memorized in high school. When John gets older you can teach them to him. Until then, let’s whisper so he can sleep.”
     “Right now I’m knee-deep in more Latin legalese than I learned as an undergraduate with Latin as my foreign language.”
     “Latin is a dead language mostly useful for legal matters. The patois of the heart is the French of Edith Piaf. I know you feel her esprit because I have heard her voice from the vinyl you play on that Telefunken you bought in Germany and there is no mistaking the true romantic of your heart when she sings ‘La Vie en Rose’ and you close your eyes to let her voice lead you to my heart.”