The bedroom held a lingering bouquet of Don Julio Añejo, crawfish, rémoulade sauce, and the morning breath of someone who had consumed all three in excess the night before. Mack Barton rubbed his eyes, managed to pry one open, then looked at his watch. It was 4:47 AM and dark. Too early to get up and brush the rancid taste out of his mouth. The patter of raindrops did little to soothe the pounding in his head. A steady pit-a- pat of rain on metal…. constant, thrumming… rain on metal… water on metal.
Then suddenly metal on metal, and a subtle vibration came up through his mattress. Some honeymooners’ car outside pulling tin cans? No, the room was moving. In a flash, he was airborne–legs slamming into the headboard in a sort of crawdadding end-over end. Earthquake? In the Big Easy? Or was it just the tequila talking? Metal sounds again—a rattling of chains and the whine of hydraulics, as he struggled to his feet and braced his body in the doorway.
Down the hallway, he could just make out the leaden sky through the front window, then, rising into view, he saw the back of the black truck cab pulling the flatbed that his twenty-nine-foot Winnebago was being hoisted onto. As the front-end whomped down on the flatbed, a tequila bottle smashed on the floor. Stepping over the glass shards, Mack held a small hand towel in front of his
swaying privates and lurched to the side door to escape. He tried the handle, but the door opened only half an inch. Chained. He tried both front doors with the same result. The tequila now permeated the warm air and stung his nose. “Hey! What the hell?” He yelled. But realizing that his shout could not be heard, he rolled down the passenger-side window and looked out as his home began moving down the street.
“There’s no fire hydrant!” he barked out the window. “No yellow curb, no nothin’! What the f… ?”
He didn’t bother to finish the thought. The motor home was going at least thirty miles an hour, but the speedometer read zero. The rain, heavier now, was pouring in the window, so he closed it. They were headed toward the French Quarter, still on Magazine Street. Someone was impounding his vehicle—his home, for Chrissakes! He was not illegally parked—in fact, he’d parked on that same side street, fifty feet from Magazine, a dozen times without incident. No flashing blue light—so this wasn’t police business. Who then? It couldn’t be, he thought.