The Storm Gods and I Are Very Old Friends

Above: When one participates in the miraculous seldom do they realize it till after the fact. I was on Woods Creek on the corner of Jefferson. There wasn't another human being within a mile north of me. No FOX or CNN camera crew would ever try that...

‘My parents lived in one of the biggest homes in the waterfront community of Amity Harbor, between Amityville and Copiague. It was a sprawling ranch, the last house on the right where Coolidge Ave ended at the canal. The house was situated on a raised mound of earth that was knit together by four great maples that ran in a row along Coolidge Avenue. The property was in the shape of an L joining a smaller section along; Jefferson Avenue, a small private road that ran parallel to the canal. Jefferson Avenue separated the house from its hundred and eighty feet of bulk headed canal. A half grown Lebanese cedar grew on the lawn between the house and Jefferson Avenue. The house itself was no more than sixty or seventy feet from the water.

Hurricane Gloria was billed as the biggest storm that would strike Long Island since ‘the big one’ came through in the thirty’s. It had reached category four status on the open Atlantic. Most of Amity Harbor was low lying beach so it was evacuated but my father had three boats valued at close to a half million dollars tied along his dock. All the boats on the canal, which anyone planed on keeping, were cross tied in preparation for the storm. Cross tying involves loosely tying them on one side then from across the canal pulling them to the center and tying them on that side too, leaving enough slack for the storm surge. This was a tricky proposition for my father since he had three boats all over thirty feet. If too much slack was left in the ropes the boats would slam into each other. So all the boats were secured towards my father’s side of the canal and somebody had to stay to let out slack during the surge. Somebody was me. At the time I had just turned twenty six. My idea of exercise was popping a Quaalude and swimming from field two at Robert Moses to Kismet, about five miles, in the breakers. I had my big flatbed parked at the highest point of land right by the house and my 08S Stihl chainsaw. That model is like a Harley engine driving a chainsaw blade. If I had to I could cut my way out. Coolidge Ave halfway to the Montauk Highway was canopied by sixty to seventy foot high maples. I also had an AR15, for looters, that I had recently purchased from Edelman’s gun shop on a trip there with John.

I had no apprehensions as I awaited the storm. I must have been the only human being within that mile distance from Montauk Highway to the bay. It’s funny. I had nightmares about floods and giant waves all through my childhood. Either I had watched too much Flipper or it was some racial memory left over from the last time God had arbitrarily drowned the human race. But by then I had outgrown fear, all fear. By the time Gloria hit Long Island it was recorded as a category two but Gloria shredded the instrumentation for Islip Macarthur Airport. Its known Gloria scored a direct hit on Amity Harbor then skirted the coast again making landfall sixty miles east at Quogue where it was recorded as a category two. Gloria ended up taking out practically every maple in the canopy over Coolidge Avenue, ripping them up in root balls as big as the houses.

I smoked a joint and stood on the dock as the wind built to a crescendo. I have heard many descriptions but I think the noise of a thousand trains rushing by is appropriate. When it reached its peak you could scream at the top of your lungs and not hear a thing but that angry wind. I watched the thirty foot Lebanese Cedar, legendary for its strength, strain horizontally as it battled for its life. I watched a sixty foot maple tear up a forty foot section of the front lawn as it collapsed in the street with a crackling thud that was swept away by the wind. Shingles were flying all over the place and the overhead wiring came down in mass as electricity danced up and down Jefferson Avenue. It was low tide so when the surge toped the dock it had already come up a good three feet in a few minutes. I began giving the boats slack at the far corner of Coolidge and Jefferson, the point furthest from the house. Frenzied sparks flew from downed wires on a transformer not forty feet away. The sound of it exploding punctuated the wind. By the time I reached the last cleat the water was between my navel and chest and I had to work submerged holding my breath. When my task was completed I turned to wade back across Jefferson Avenue to the house, now the only one in sight above the waterline. It was then I was startled. Two dark objects appeared at the limits of visibility, one in the east, one in the west. They seemed to be suspended motionless for a few seconds. Then with unbelievable speed they converged between me and the house. They hovered thirty feet in front of me and thirty feet above me. They were shaped like funnels not more than twenty feet long and ten feet wide at the top. They were pitch black, their darkness rotating like miniature tornados as they remained suspended above me side by side seemingly immune to the wind. I got the distinct impression that they had intelligence and they were looking at me. I stared back in amazement. They emitted a shrieking that could be heard even above the wind. After a few seconds they took off in the directions in which they had come at a speed that made them appear as blurs. Their screaming sound faded in the wind as they disappeared into sheets of driving rain.’ – Excerpt from Those Who Would Arouse Leviathan part 5

My old house with the tan roof as it appears now

Below are two links where you can purchase Those Who Would Arouse Leviathan. I would suggest you buy it in hardcopy, not because I make more, I actually make the most from Amazon E books, but because you will avoid giving Amazon any money. Frankly you should be shooting Amazon employees in the street, Google too.

Those Who Would Arouse Leviathan by Jack Heart, Hardcover | Barnes & Noble® (barnesandnoble.com)

Amazon.com: Those Who Would Arouse Leviathan: Memoir of an awakening god: 9781736288016: Heart, Jack: Books