Hitchhiking From Squalor to Anywhere Else

Inside the Convention Center, Eddy slept on her chest because she didn't want him on the dirty floor.

Earlier in the night there had been a stampede in a darkened stairwell, set off by a rumor that the buses were here. Picou slipped and fell, losing one of her shoes. Before that, the parents of a little girl searched frantically for their daughter, who was missing in the crowds of thousands inside.

"Picture it," Picou said. "It's dark. The mother is running down the hall, calling 'Jada, Jada, where are you?' Then the father is calling out, 'Jada, come on baby.' I thought that father would go crazy and I can still hear his voice."

Now out in the bright sunshine, free from the Convention Center, Picou was already worried about nightfall. Two men were shouting at each other 100 yards away.

"Don't call me 'dog.' I don't know you," a man was screaming at the other. The helicopters cut through the sky. Someone in a nearby encampment said the choppers carried medical supplies.

A man in the Texas group was in a wheelchair, baking in the sun as the group debated returning to the Convention Center. Picou held her dead cell phone. Eddie used a pen to work a word puzzle on the back of his Scooby Doo box. Someone walked by and asked where they were headed.

"Me and my granny is trying to get to Whatchmacallit, Texas," Eddie said.

"I need to figure out what we are gonna do before dark," Picou said, taking a sip of water. Her hands were trembling. If she could have one wish, she said: "I would like to have all my people in a safe place. All the people in the Convention Center in a safe spot. All the people in New Orleans in a safe spot."

Her voice softened. "And I would like a cup of ice."