“…Mr. Amos!” the little boy shouted, so loudly that every fork in that fellowship hall stopped moving. His mother tried to shush him, but an old man behind her had already risen from his folding chair, his hand on her shoulder. He was tall and stooped, with a shrimp-boat captain’s cap pressed against his chest. “He’s right,” the man said. “I’ve been telling that story to my grandson for six years. I just never thought I’d see the bell man again.”
He walked slowly to our table. “My name is Louis Thibodeaux. The night Katrina came, my radio died and the lights along the shore went dark. I couldn’t see my own bow. Then I heard bells. Hour after hour. I steered toward the sound. Fourteen boats came into that bay following your bells, Mr. Amos. Fourteen. When I got ashore, the bells were still ringing. I never found out who was pulling that rope.”
My grandfather sat very still with a spoonful of greens halfway to his mouth. He set the spoon down. “I just kept thinking somebody might still be out there,” he said softly. “My hands bled by the morning. Pastor wrapped them for me.”
The whole hall was quiet now. Uncle Lyle cleared his throat, looked down at his plate, and seemed suddenly very interested in his cornbread. The little boy walked right up to my grandfather and said, very seriously, “Can I see your hands?” Grandpa turned them over. The palms were rough and scarred in long, straight lines.
“That’s from the rope,” the boy announced to everyone. “Grandpa said a monkey couldn’t do it.”
Several people laughed then, but it was a different kind of laughing. Lyle finally stood up, walked over, and shook Mr. Thibodeaux’s hand, then my grandfather’s. He didn’t correct anybody’s grammar for the rest of the afternoon. Before he drove back to Atlanta, he asked my grandfather if he could ring the bells once. Grandpa let him. Lyle lasted about forty seconds before his arms gave out, and he came down the tower stairs looking like a man who had just learned something.
