Galveston Read online

  “A man named James Byron. I’ve no idea what he looks like or how old he is, only that he probably lived here sometime shortly before 1900. Have you been here that long?”

  “No, honey, not on this side of Galveston. Set down on that wicker chair, but mind your stockin’s. Nobody’s been on this block of L that long. I been here since ’13, and that’s the longest of anybody. Those who lived around here before 1900 were either killed or got away fast after the storm.

  “Avenue L was completely wiped off the map, I hear tell. Every house on here was built since then, and I know ever’body who lives here now, don’t’cha’see?”

  Yes, I thought, and everybody’s business too, no doubt.

  She smiled across at me, revealing a near toothless mouth. Then she paused, and wiped the saliva from around her wizened lips with a handkerchief. I was surprised to notice her nails were neatly polished and filed, and she wore a sizable diamond on her wedding ring finger.

  “Yes, I was afraid that might be true. But I had two addresses for Mr. Byron—one here and one in Grady—and since I live in Houston it seemed logical to check here first.”

  “How’d you come to git this man’s address?” she said, and narrowed her eyes. “He ain’t one of them mixed up in bootleggin’ is he?”

  “No, nothing like that. I believe he may have known my real mother. You see, I’m adopted and I’ve never known who she is. Look, here’s a picture of her and my father—at least I assume it’s them—do you recognize either of them?”

  She held the picture far away, then moved it closer. “I don’t see so good anymore … no, never seen ’em before. You’d better go to Grady, honey. Maybe your luck will be better there.”

  “You’re probably right. By the way, would you have a phone directory I could look at?”

  “I hadn’t got no phone, honey; had it taken out several years back ’cause it was too noisy, woke me up. I sleep late mornings.”

  “Well, thank you very much. You’ve been very kind.”

  “Oh, t’was nothing, honey. Maybe you’d stay for some coffee and cake?”

  “No, thank you. I’ve got to be going.”

  “You know, I lived other side of Broadway, near the wharves, when the storm hit. Anybody ever tell you about it?”

  “Oh yes, I’ve heard many stories. Must have been something,” I said, anxious to get free of her now I knew she’d be of no help.

  “Our house had water clean up to the second floor, but we wasn’t hurt. My two brothers and their families stayed upstairs all night and much of the follerin’ day. The rugs were ruined and some of the furniture, too, but thank you, Jesus, that was all happened to us. My oldest son worked down to Hafner’s Grocery Store, and we was scared to death he wasn’t gonna get home safe. But he made it, went upstairs with the rest of us.”

  “Yes, well I—”

  “Course I seen the one in 1915, too, but that wasn’t nearly so bad. Seawall’s built to withstand almost anythin’ nature can throw at us.”

  “Yes, I saw as I came across this morning they’re not done yet with the new causeway.”

  “You come by train, or ferry over?”

  “Train.”

  “Well, you be careful goin’ back, honey. That old railroad bridge they’re usin’ ain’t the best in the world. I’m not traveling off this island again till the causeway is finished. Got a sister in—”

  “Thanks again for the information,” I interrupted, and walked swiftly down the steps toward the bags. My head was beginning to ache.

  “Anytime, dear,” she called. “If you’re ever around here again, drop by for a spell. I just love visitors.”

  “Yes, I’ll certainly do that,” I said, wondering why anyone would want to take up with a total stranger so quickly, and whether loneliness could ever get so bad. Would it one day be thus for me, my punishment for the mess I left behind in Houston? Would I grope one day at strangers for company, chattering at people who had no interest in what I had to say?

  Here lies Willa Katherine Frazier, a cold bitch …

  It was getting near lunchtime, and my stomach was like an empty vacuum for I’d eaten little at the rehearsal dinner and had not had so much as a cup of tea this morning. I longed to put down the bags and relax somewhere with my feet propped up, have a sandwich and some hot coffee. If I walked from this point on L down to Seawall Boulevard, fronting the beach, I should be near the Hotel Galvez. They would have lunch and a place to relax for a little while, if the hotel was anything like I remembered it from when I stayed there in 1912. Maybe going there would be a waste of valuable time, but somehow I felt sure a short stay would be a welcome boost to my spirits.

  It was several blocks to the end of L, and I have no idea how many more once I was walking along the Boulevard, facing the wind, holding my hat to my head with one hand and both suitcase handles in the other. My feet were so tired that each boot felt like a vise, and I resolved to find a rest room or lounge at the Galvez where I could change into a less sensible but more airy pair of pumps.

  By the time I arrived at the hotel, I felt as though I’d successfully scaled a mountain. There were few people around the great lawns that day, and those who were held hats and clothing with the same stubborn tenacity that I held mine. A trolley trundled up along the left side just as I walked up the front walk, and I cursed myself silently for being too stuck-up to ride a streetcar. The people coming out of the car looked fresh and energetic, and were calling back and forth to one another as though they were all great friends.

  The Galvez is seven stories high, its long midsection flanked by a wing on each end jutting out toward the sea like welcoming arms. It was as grand as I remembered, with sweeping drives and huge palms batting in the wind, and I remembered how important I’d felt when we had stayed there in 1912, on the occasion of a business meeting held there by my father.

  I went directly to the first lounge in view, and changed shoes, then with feet feeling lighter and a new sense of calmness about the whole matter of looking up James Byron, I approached the dining hall. Almost no one sat at the snowy clothed tables, and a waiter, holding a stack of menus and stationed near the door with all the formality of one expecting a banquet crowd, offered to show me a table.

  I knew right off he was kind. He was a heavy man, balding, with the kind of poker face so necessary for people who must constantly put up with peevish customers. But he smiled at me, and offered to check my bags at the desk.

  “No, I’m not staying, thank you. Just lunch, please.”

  “Very good, madam. But let me take those cases—they do look heavy. I’ll keep them safely until your meal is finished.”

  “I’ll keep this one,” I said, handing him the alligator bag. I wasn’t about to let the carpetbag out of my sight.

  He nodded then and led me to a good table—far from the kitchen and silverware stand—in a quiet corner where one alone needn’t feel self-conscious for having no one to talk with while sitting there. As soon as he handed me the menu I remembered what I’d eaten there before, which all at once seemed like the prospect of a feast to a starving man.

  “Do you still have the tomato stuffed with crabmeat? It’s been some time …”

  “Indeed we do, with assorted olive and chicken finger sandwiches. May I suggest beginning with a cup of onion soup—”

  “No, just the sandwiches and coffee, please.”

  “Of course,” he said, having written nothing down as I expected he would not. He nodded politely and suggested I await my luncheon in the sun parlor, facing the Gulf. It had occurred to me while ordering lunch that I didn’t know how much money I’d brought with me. In the excitement of leaving, it hadn’t crossed my mind to switch handbags from the new one I’d carried to the rehearsal dinner. I sat down in a wicker wing chair in the sun parlor, facing the window, and opened my bag. There were four ones and a five-dollar bill wadded up, and less than a dollar in change. I crammed the money back inside and closed the bag. How far would I ge
t on ten dollars? How unutterably stupid not to have switched handbags.

  Then something else crossed my mind, an envelope slipped to me during the dinner by Maybelle. I’d figured it to be some sort of well-wisher card, and stuck it absently in my purse. Maybe, just maybe … I pulled out the card and opened it. A fifty-dollar bill was clipped to it, and a note penned in Maybelle’s roundish, uniform script followed the hackneyed “congratulations” verse:

  “To Willa and Rodney, to be put toward something you’d really like to have, from just Maybelle. Thank you for letting me be in your wedding.”

  “Just” Maybelle. Was this an illustration of a newfound sense of independence from her overbearing parents? Had she saved the money on the sly, determined to outdo the garish hall mirror given us by her family and chosen, of course, by Velma?

  Poor Maybelle. Was she even now washing her hair for tonight, or checking the seams in the wine velvet creation she’d made to wear?

  Maybelle would be staying home tonight, a vicarious bride-not-to-be … Suddenly sad for her, I carefully smoothed out all the bills, and replaced them neatly inside the bag, then leaned back. I took this finding of money as a sign, as though I were doing just what I ought to by running away. Of course the money was really only half mine—and now that I’d deserted Rodney at the altar, none of it was mine and would have to be returned. However, I could worry about that later, sometime when there was nothing else to worry about …

  The Galvez sun parlor is a bright, rectangular room. Most of the furniture, grouped around magazine tables and lined up along the deep windows for the view, is white wicker and very comfortable for enjoying the sea breeze.

  Across the room there are mahogany writing tables and chairs, and big pots of ferns between the supporting pillars reaching to the high ceiling. I was alone there that day except for one old man who’d fallen asleep reading the Galveston Daily News, a few chairs down. How delicious, I thought, to be able to fall asleep when one wanted to, with no worries, no cares.

  I crossed the room and picked up a telephone directory, almost sorry to do it for I expected disappointment even before I opened it to the beginning of the B’s. Byerly, Byers, Bylee, Byron. A. C., C. B., C. L., R. T. That was all. No James and no J. R. or J. Randolph. I closed it. It all seemed unreal I should be boarding a train today—if possible—for Grady, a place I’d never known of any ties with, had never seen or even passed through on other trips. What did they do in Grady? Lumbering? Mining? Was it a dead town after all this time, victimized by lack of industry coming into it, like so many others? Was it like Galveston—a little sleepy, slow-paced, easy?

  I closed my eyes and let the breeze cool my face. Across the street was the famed seawall, a seventeen-foot-high bulwark, curving down to the beach. While here in 1912, my mother and I had descended the stairs dissecting it, and tread the sandy beach below. She’d kept well covered, to protect her delicate skin. I had been less inhibited, and built sand castles that rarely stood beyond one day’s visit, and had to be rebuilt the following day.

  So much of those days on the beach with Mother came back now. We were here three full days and two nights while Dad stayed holed up in meeting rooms at the Galvez. And when dinner was held in the evening, Mother would attend with Dad and there would be a lady to sit with me, to take me to the dining hall to eat.

  Whenever we went on trips and stayed in hotels, I always wrote letters to my real mother, and mailed them at the hotel desk myself because I didn’t trust my adopted mother to mail them for me. I wonder where they all went? Had the hotel clerks smiled indulgently after I’d gone, later handing the letters to Mother on the sly, thinking they were intended for her because they were addressed simply, “To Mother”?

  It was at the Galvez, I believe, that I wrote my last letter. None had ever been answered, and I had attained the age of twelve: for me, the age of total cynicism.

  I’d questioned Mother more extensively than ever during our trips to the beach. I suppose I’d reached the point of desperation, when I felt I must demand answers to the questions which haunted me.

  Still, she was evasive, hiding her face behind the big sun hat. Yes, I came from Ohio. No, she didn’t know my real parents, only that she was assured they were both dead. No, she didn’t recall the name of the agency, and anyway, understood it had been burned to the ground some years later, all records housed there destroyed. No, there was no way of finding out anything. No. No. No. No …

  “And, Willa,” had said my adopted mother, “I’m tired of answering questions. Don’t ask me any more.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, luncheon is served.”

  It was the waiter, and I blinked at him, wondering for a moment where I was and what he was talking about.

  As I followed him into the dining room, now beginning to fill with other luncheon guests, I noticed the hands of the clock on the wall were pointed at twelve-fifteen and remembered I was to have had lunch with my father at twelve-thirty. He’d asked me about it earlier in the week, and I’d told him I’d go with him if there was time, but after all I was probably going to be busy the day of the wedding.

  “Please, Willa,” he’d said, “promise me?”

  “All right,” I’d told him then, figuring this little show of sentimentality was probably meant to be his way of smoothing over all the years when he had had no time for me. As the waiter set the plate before me in the Galvez dining room, I thought, Well, too bad, Pop, Willa couldn’t make it. You should have asked me long, long ago …

  The lunch, which tasted even better than I had remembered from 1912, gave me a false sense of well-being as I gathered my bags once again and started out; yet it took only a fruitless inquiry at the post office (suggested by the waiter, who’d sort of taken me under his wing) to dampen my spirits all over again and convince me I was wasting my time. James Byron might even have been killed, like so many others in the 1900 storm, as suggested by one postal clerk (why had I not thought of that?). It was logical enough, six thousand people gone, and those left busy shoveling bodies out to sea in an effort to rid themselves of the stench, the danger of disease. Oh, please, please, don’t let James Byron have been one of those banished from the island at the end of a shovel …

  I boarded the train fifteen minutes before departure time at two-thirty, and in the space of time it took to travel across the bay toward the mainland, I thought seriously about dropping the matter and going home. It would have been relatively easy at this point. Mother and Dad and Rodney and everybody else would have been wondering where the hell I’d been, but perhaps they hadn’t given up on me yet, canceled out all the wedding arrangements. Everyone would be so relieved I’d returned, all would be given in a matter of moments. I might still be sitting in the dressing room at the church tonight, the co-ordinator from The Fashion pulling on my gown, adjusting the veil, with Mother standing by in tears (Mother always cries at weddings) and wearing her rose-colored lace dress, her wide-brimmed hat and long beige gloves with rhinestone buttons.

  On the other hand, the wedding seemed less and less real as the train sped out of Galveston, and the task at hand took on more importance with each moment. If I gave up now, I might never have another chance.

  The last thing I remember seeing were the big supporting arches of the new causeway, just beginning to take shape, rather like the arches of a monastery of ancient times, seeming almost to sway with the motion of the water below. I fell asleep then, and slept until we pulled into Union Station, where I was already ticketed on the Sante Fe leaving at four-fifteen for Grady.

  The big deserted vault that had been Union Station the night before, now teemed with people pacing briskly about, each with a special purpose by the looks of them. I bought a copy of the Ladies’ Home Journal, a magazine I rarely read, and sat down with it, holding it close to my face lest anyone should come by who might recognize me. There was a small boy sitting next to me whose mother had given him a package of Adams California Fruit gum, no doubt to appease him into
shutting up. He was busy cramming every stick of it into his greedy mouth at once, and while his chewing and staring were no bother to me as I passed the few minutes between trains, I was irritated to feel the suction of one discarded stick of gum under my shoe when I got up to leave, and, already frustrated at the necessary time wasted between trains, the wondering if anyone might see and recognize me, I turned angrily on the little wretch and said, “You little pest, you’ll make me late for my train.”

  His mother, heretofore engrossed by some article in the Chronicle, slapped down her paper and gave me a stare that would cool a hot stone. I hurried to the lounge, cleaned my shoe, then literally ran to the train car, where the conductor was already seeing people up the stairs, my shoe sticking to the pavement slightly with every step. Oh hell, I thought, anyone with any sense would give it up and go home. Yet I knew, of course, that I would board the train, calmly walk to the dining car and request some ice for cleaning my shoe, and wait out the day and a half between here and Grady.

  In winter the sky darkens early. On that day it first turned pink and blue, before shading into one solid drape, void of all color, and I watched its process through the train window, oddly depressed.

  I had always been alone, yet never felt it quite so acutely until that moment. All ties had been severed. Should I ever want to return home and make peace with my parents, they might well choose instead to disown me. After all, they were to be credited for providing well for me, if nothing else, and this episode for them might have been the breaking point after all the years of misery they’d suffered. While I still felt I was not to be blamed for the way things happened—after all, I didn’t ask to be adopted, did I?—I was all too aware that as things now stood I had nothing—not love, not security, not even my own bed to sleep in.