“It looks bad out there, man.” Larry said staring out the rain slicked window of the second floor bedroom. It was the only level of the house that hadn’t been completely flooded yet, or soaked to shit. Looking at the rapidly rising flood waters that was likely to change soon. Larry doubted if the house would last through the night before being washed away like everything else. In his thirty-five years of life he had never seen anything like it. It was a storm of biblical proportions that made him think back to his grandma reading passages of the bible about God washing sin from the earth in a merciless tide of judgement. The city he had grown to love so much was being cleansed.

It was fitting that this particular hurricane had been named after a woman, Katrina, because she had come through and unleashed the wrath of a woman scorned on the city of New Orleans. Just about everyone who was able to had already fled the area, and those who couldn’t scrambled for higher ground and prayed for help that was in no rush to get there.

“This shit has got the white man’s stink all over it.” Big Aaron came into the bedroom. He had a ham sandwich in one hand and a can of beer in the other. He took a huge bite of the sandwich and continued his theory. “As strong as them levees was supposed to be, how the hell are damn near all of them gonna fail at one time? If you ask me, this shit was all a government plot to get all the niggers out of New Orleans so they can turn this into a tourist’s trap.”

“I don’t recall asking you about no damn conspiracy theories, but I do recall asking you to help them young boys finish loading my dope on that truck before the water gets too high to drive out. Most of the roads have already flooded so we only got a small window of time to get gone. Turn that sandwich loose and tend my business, hear?” Slim barked in a heavy southern drawl. He was sitting on the bed stuffing money into a duffle bag. It was one of several that now littered the bedroom floor. Having his money outside the safety of his vault rattled him, but there was no way they’d be able to move the massive thing.

He’d acquired the name Slim as a boy when playing the harmonica and picking the pockets of tourist in the Red Light District had been his means of living. As his reputation and wealth grew so did he, currently tipping the scales at just nearly four hundred pounds. Slim used memories of starvation to motivate him in his climb up the underworld ladder, devouring food and territory alike. It was whispered in some circles that Slim enjoyed the touch of a greasy cheeseburger and his money over that of a woman.

“Slim, them young boys got it under control.” Aaron said as if it was nothing. “What you need to be worried about is how the police is gonna be looking at your ass driving down the street in a big ass rig!”

Slim looked at Aaron as if he was crazy. “Nigga, what you talking? Brah, its people floating down the damn streets in bathtubs and nobody give em a second look. Police was amongst the first to get their families outta here when the water came. Between the storm and these larcenous muthafuckas out there tripping the city ain’t got time to stunt no truck. The government is gonna wait this shit out and come clean up whatever’s left. Hell they’ll probably be happy to see us going and out of their way.” “Don’t trip, Slim, I’ll make sure they’re finished. The sooner they get that dope stashed in them hidden panels the sooner we can get outta this damn soup bowl.” Larry said disgustedly. He loved his city more than any of them, but even he knew that New Orleans wouldn’t be the same after hurricane Katrina.

“You buy into that shit that everybody saying, Slim?” Aaron asked after Larry had left the room.

“And what shit would that be?” Slim had resumed his counting.

“About it being the end of New Orleans?”

“You can’t put an end to something that has always been here. New Orleans might be more notorious for shit like Marti Gras and the murder rate than anything else, but our city has a far richer history that it’s given credit for. It won’t be the end of New Orleans, but it’ll sure as hell be the end of an era when them army dogs finally come in to clean this shit up. The dope game down here is dead and they’ll build a newer, more tourist friendly New Orleans over its corpse.” “So you think we’ll have better luck in Texas?” Aaron asked.

“I sure hope so, because it’s the best chance we got at surviving this freakish shit. An old buddy of mine is gonna set us up in a spot we can operate out of until we’re strong enough to stand on our own again,” Slim said, zipping the last duffle bag.

“That shouldn’t be too hard since most of the people who bought drugs from us here are gonna be scattered around Texas in those fake ass concentration camps.” Aaron joked, referring to the temporary shelters that were being erected for the evacuees. Between the poor conditions and the mingling of all them rival gangs and crews, those camps ain’t shit but a powder keg waiting for somebody to the match that’s gonna blow it smooth to hell.”