Hurricanes, Paradise and Fairy Tales

One o’clock: the dogs looked as though they were saying, "what the hell is going on out there!" I looked like a deer with two headlights shining in its face. Shari was calm, cool and collected. She was looking at me like I was crazy for being nervous at that point. Oh, to be a child! Ronnie was constantly moving, keeping busy. What he was doing I truly didn’t have a clue, but it was working for him. The radio signal was still on and that succeeded in drowning out the litany of clashes somewhat.

We proceeded to play a card game of gin, starving for a distraction of any kind. My hands were shaking badly and the sensation in my stomach was like a tug of war was going on. I checked the time, it was moving more slowly than a snail in quicksand. I gave up looking at the clock, I took it down, it was too much torture.

Ronnie suggested that I go lie down in the bedroom and try to take a nap. I said, "No way am I going in that bedroom. I know that the air conditioner is coming out of the wall. The winds are worse and I don’t trust it, I’ll just stay here in the kitchen for now." Let me describe this air conditioning unit. It was a twenty four thousand BTU air conditioner, really a commercial sized unit, suitable for use in hotel rooms. It took two to three men just to install it in the wall. Sure enough, the guys heard a loud noise and rushed to the kitchen door to look for the origin. Invisible marionette strings pulled me to the bedroom door and I looked in. The air conditioner was not in the wall! There was just a gaping hole. I ventured in further and saw it on the floor on the opposite side of the room. "Ronnie. Ronnie, the air conditioner blew out of the wall," I screamed. He came running over and once he saw the hole he said "Holy s***," his face showed disbelief. "It looks like it blew in, bounced on the bed and continued across the room," he said. We gave each other a knowing look since no words were necessary. If I had been in that bed I would have been seriously injured or dead. The men scrambled for some of the wood they brought in earlier for just such an emergency. The wind continued to pound the cement wall surrounding the hole. It proceeded to buckle around the remaining window frame and cracked as easily as glass. I prayed that the entire wall did not follow.