Signs

The creepiest part of my trip to the gulf coast was the “X” marks left on two thirds of the houses that had been destroyed by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. I noticed them first in the areas where we did our construction. The house across the street had one. Our house had a new door, and while the interior was still stark and unfinished, it showed distinct signs of being made reinhabitable.

My first response to the marks was the sensation that the building had been shunned. I pictured a lone teen sitting off to the side at a football game, the “Xs” of society. Someone had come through saying “yes” to the yellow brick we sweated over and “no” to the white across the street, marking it instead with the sign of neglect. Its state was mocked by the new born home on either side. It’s wild lawn was magnified by the two inch blades of grass surrounding. Our first evening at the volunteer village, we were told not to make assumptions about why one house had curtains and its neighbor only a plywood view through the window. Racial statistics made no difference to me, I only knew that where I saw an ”X,” I saw homelessness and hard work.

On closer inspection, the “X” was a grid, splitting four pieces of information. The top quadrant told the date the house had been searched. The left was the name of the search and rescue crew. The right held miscellaneous information, such as ”Found: one cat alive.” The bottom had a number from zero to however many dead bodies were found. The “X” became a mark of death. One dead house could be easily overlooked if not for the dozens of like houses sharing its fate. This was not just one haunt but an entire ghost town, with a few brave souls rebuilding in the wreckage. As I wandered through the vacant streets, passing “X” after “X” that flashed bright against the stained wood, it was almost like a game. The counting and checking started, eyes flicked from door to dusty door, and the numbers blurred together until I saw it, a number greater than zero. I stared and images came to mind about the life that drowned or suffocated or gave up.

Then, without realizing it, I would avert my gaze to every patched roof, window, and lonely front step and away from the door. I almost smiled at the holes in roofs that had been someone’s escape and were now boarded up. Homeowners had left spray painted notes that read, “Do not demo. Will rebuild.” But always, at the last second, I would look back at that “X” that most likely read zero but sometimes not. I had to know, I couldn’t avoid them, and it was exhausting.

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