It was well past dark when the man and the boy finally got the cattle unloaded. The road was empty and the man was tired. The boy had been driving farm trucks around the family ranch for several years. The boy was ready, the man figured. He handed over the keys and climbed into the passenger seat to catch some much-needed shuteye.
Three girls watch as the tall, well-dressed man strides down the cracked sidewalk, across the playground, through the weeds, past the swings, and toward a merry-go-round that might have once been blue but is now a tired gray. They seem wary here in the shadows of the housing projects and petrochemical plants that make up their world. Life on the west side of Port Arthur, Texas, is hard; street smarts come early by necessity.
The nation spent Wednesday riveted by a live video feed of BP’s latest attempt to stop the geyser of oil infiltrating the Gulf of Mexico, but in Louisiana, sights were set on the heavens as residents gathered at First Baptist Church of Chalmette to pray. One by one, they stood and asked God for protection, guidance, comfort, and mercy. At times, they clung together so closely that they evoked images of the delicate reeds that are now in danger – frail, but not weak; bent, but not broken. Never, ever broken.
