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We immediately took the Red Cross debit cards we received and drove to the Mall of America. My boyfriend bought a Slayer shirt. I bought size 00 pants. I was very proud, at the time, of being less than zero.We couldn't go home but it didn't matter. We spent the month we were adrift circling the country, alternating between fighting and fucking. The television would tell us how bleak things were back home. I'd occasionally cry, wondering if my cat had survived the storm—I had, both stupidly and selfishly, left him behind, thinking I'd be back soon and not wanting to deal with the inconvenience of a caged, howling feline in the interim. Meanwhile, the human death count mounted. My cat, for the record, survived.Related: A Decade After Horror of Katrina, New Orleans Police Brutality Still Remains
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We were homeless, sure, but not entirely. We knew that, when we returned, we'd have a home. And even if the goddamned thing had been pulled asunder from the sandy earth beneath it, it was insured, so fuck it, who cared? We slept fitfully, but comparatively blissfully, in motel rooms paid for by FEMA relief funds while we waited to reenter the city. While the agency's overall incompetence fucked over thousands and led to the deaths of God knows how many people, FEMA, frankly, never gave us even the slightest modicum of guff, ponying up four grand to cover travel expenses with little teeth-pulling.I didn't know what FEMA did, exactly, for the people who hadn't evacuated; the nightly news made it seem like little to nothing. I didn't know what was happening in New Orleans in general—the news was riddled with rumor and conjecture, making it impossible to get the straight story. Was our house destroyed? Were people really raping and robbing each other in the Superdome? When, if ever, would the National Guard rescue all those goddamned people off those goddamned roofs?After a month of getting free nachos from waitresses who saw our license plate and pitied us because of it, we were amongst the first group of people who returned to New Orleans when given the all clear. The all clear, of course, wasn't entirely clear, but this was, given the circumstances, to be expected. We were told not to drink the water. Hummers filled with men in uniform, holding enormous semi-automatics, slowly drove down our street at all hours of the day and night. Helicopters circled incessantly. We ate the MREs they gave us, more out of perverse fascination than necessity. We were in a police state, yes, but cognizant of the fact that said state was policing on our behalf. They were there to protect us, two temporarily inconvenienced white homeowners. They were protecting us against all those who had actually suffered and were sore about it.Instead of character, all I got out of Katrina was a party-friendly anecdote.
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The low-income housing complex immediately next door to us, however, had collapsed into a pile of rubbish, one was one of over 200,000 residences destroyed by the hurricane. Looking at it, and then at our white devil's paradise, I felt a tidal wave of nihilism. There was no such thing, I realized, as karma. If karma existed, we'd be out of house and home. We were the antithesis of church-going people. We did not volunteer. We did not give back to our community. The idea of "paying it forward" was the subject of derision. Half of our two-person household didn't even vote. There was no justice, I learned, in the world. Which is why, instead of character, all I got out of Katrina was a party-friendly anecdote.The weeks after we returned were apocalyptic, but tolerable. I remember the smell of mold enveloping me whenever I disaster-tourismed my way into abandoned houses that would never be rebuilt. I remember seeing overturned boats that had drifted into intersections and laid there, waiting to be removed. I remember driving through the Ninth Ward, and it feeling as though I were driving through a mass grave. I remember a lot. But memories are all I have. I moved shortly thereafter, not to Houston, where up to 100,000 former New Orleanians relocated, but to Los Angeles, and into a world where Obama, from what I'm told, cares about all people. Compared to the last administration's, his benevolence could be considered saintly.Follow Megan Koester on Twitter.Watch On Noisey: Fuck, That's Delicious: New Orleans