Wading Home: A Novel of New Orleans Read Online Free PDF

on the wall nearest him, where hung a framed oil painting of a tiny boat on a choppy sea of blues and greens, and wished he could be on that boat, sailing off into…anywhere but here.
    He’d have to tell the guys the worst possible news—the gig was over. On top of that, they’d have to take a whopping cut in pay for an incomplete date, and hope the club would let him reschedule when he’d fully recovered—if he ever did. The hottest jazz club in Japan would have to go dark for the rest of the week while he hunted down the nearest orthopedist.
    He reached around the sofa for his trumpet case, removed the mouthpiece and put the trumpet in. What would he say to Matsumoto? It was every club manager’s nightmare to have his star tank the first night of a weeklong run. A tall, slender, elegant Japanese around his own age, Matsumoto was an all-around good guy whose angular and slightly pockmarked face belied his gentle speech and natural kindness. The guy had played the trumpet himself for a time; maybe he would understand.
    “Hey, don’t sweat this man. You’ll be back.”
    Antoine, the short and athletically stocky pianist—a hell of a player at just twenty-five, and a loyal friend—stood over him, his large eyes calm, a sushi roll in one hand, the other extended out to him. The trumpeter grabbed it and clasped it. Then put his hand back on his jaw.
    “Feels like it’s on fire. Damn.”
    “That sucks, man.”
    Julian rolled his eyes, leaned against the sofa, stretching out his long legs. Then he raised himself forward and got up.
    “Guess I better talk to everybody. Tell ’em what’s going on.”
    He walked over to the refreshment table where the rest of the guys were still loading plates; he remembered from their earliest gigs here how some had balked at the unfamiliar Japanese fare—squid and octopus, soba noodles, the crisp, green vegetables no one seemed to be able to name doused in a fragrant light sauce of ginger—but in time they had all learned to love it.
    He rubbed his hands together, not sure what he would say, but began anyway.
    “OK, everybody, uh…listen up. I got something to….”
    But as he spoke, Jeffrey, the drummer, held up a quieting finger, his head angled up like the other men, their eyes locked on a flat-panel TV screen placed high on the wall in a corner near the door. Across the bottom of the screen broadcasting CNN live, the crawl read: LEVEES BREACHED. EIGHTY PERCENT OF NEW ORLEANS UNDERWATER.
    Julian felt a small gasp leave his body and something flip over in his stomach. The band of heat around his neck tightened even more, and crept up to the pained spot on his jaw.
    He and the men, each one except him born in the neighborhoods where he now lived in Brooklyn, watched in silence as footage of the flood flashed across the screen and captions told the story of the drowning city. Helicopters like giant steel dragonflies hovered over what looked more like rivers than streets, and boats and makeshift rafts cruised through neighborhoods he recognized as well as his own reflection. And as the camera panned back to a wide shot, all the men, as if on cue, either let out a rush of breath or shook their heads. Most of the city, even its freeways, appeared submerged in inky, shiny blackness.
    The thumping he’d felt in his chest as he left the stage now returned. Nothing else mattered now, not the horrible set he’d just played, the guys in the band, Matsumoto, the disappointed audience, or his aching jaw. All that mattered was what was happening to the place where he was born. The place where his father lived.
    The camera closed in to show a familiar site. C.W. Peters Elementary, where he’d had his first fight with a squinty-eyed, stuttering kid who had tried to take his turkey and cheese sandwich, and where he’d fallen in love with the sound of the trumpet, was standing in dull brown water up to its windows, the playground swings bobbing like beach toys in the surf.
    His mind could