He gave orders to ease the Pensacola into the Gulf.
1:06 P.M.
The pigeons fluttered through the opening in the Johnsons’ roof. Tar paper lifted, tore, blew away, tumbled through the sky as if they were little black pieces of the structure’s soul.
“It’s them birds again,” his mother said.
“Lil” Arthur stopped doing push-ups, looked to the ceiling. Pigeons were thick on the rafters. So was pigeon shit. The sky was very visible through the roof. And very black. It looked venomous.
“Shit,” “Lil” Arthur said.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Leave ‘em be. They scared. So am I.”
“Lil” Arthur stood up, said, “Ain’t nothin’ be scared of. We been through all kinda storms. We’re on a rise here. Water don’t never get this high.”
“I ain’t never liked no storm. I be glad when yo daddy and the young’uns gets home.”
“Papa’s got an old tarp I might can put over that hole. Keep out the rain.”
“You think you can, go on.”
“I already shoulda,” “Lil” Arthur said.
“Lil” Arthur went outside, crawled under the upraised porch, and got hold of the old tarp. It was pretty rotten, but it might serve his purpose, at least temporarily. He dragged it into the yard, crawled back under, tugged out the creaking ladder and a rusty hammer. He was about to go inside and get the nails when he heard a kind of odd roaring. He stopped, listened, recognized it.
It was the surf. He had certainly heard it before, but not this loud and this far from the beach. He got the nails and put the ladder against the side of the house and carried the tarp onto the roof. The tarp nearly took to the air when he spread it, almost carried him with it. With considerable effort he got it nailed over the hole, trapping what pigeons didn’t flee inside the house.
2:30 P.M.
Inside the whorehouse, the madam, a fat lip added to her black eyes, watched from the bed as McBride, naked, seated in a chair before the dresser mirror, carefully oiled and combed his hair over his bald spot. The windows were closed, and the wind rattled them like dice in a gambler’s fist. The air inside the whorehouse was as stuffy as a minister’s wife.
“What’s that smell?” she asked.
It was the tonic the Chinaman had given him. He said, “You don’t want your tits pinched, shut the fuck up.”
“All right,” she said.
The windows rattled again. Pops of rain flecked the glass.
McBride went to the window, his limp dick resting on the windowsill, almost touching the glass, like a large, wrinkled grub looking for a way out.
“Storm coming,” he said.
The madam thought: No shit.
McBride opened the window. The wind blew a comb and hairbrush off the dresser. A man, walking along the sandy street, one hand on his hat to save it from the wind, glanced up at McBride. McBride took hold of his dick and wagged it at him. The man turned his head and picked up his pace.
McBride said, “Spread those fat legs, honey-ass, ‘cause I’m sailing into port, and I’m ready to drop anchor.”
Sighing, the madam rolled onto her back, and McBride mounted her. “Don’t mess up my hair this time,” he said.
4:30 P.M.
The study smelled of stale cigar smoke and sweat, and faintly of baby oil. The grandfather clock chimed four-thirty. The air was humid and sticky as it shoved through the open windows and fluttered the dark curtains. The sunlight, which was tinted with a green cloud haze, flashed in and out, giving brightness to the false eyes and the yellowed teeth of a dozen mounted animal heads on the walls. Bears. Boar. Deer. Even a wolf.
Beems, the source of much of the sweat smell, thought: It’s at least another hour before my wife gets home. Good.
Forrest drove him so hard Beems’s forehead slammed into the wall, rocking the head of the wild boar that was mounted there, causing the boar to look as if it had turned its head in response to a distant sound, a peculiar sight.
“It’s not because I’m one of them kind I do this,” Beems said. “It’s just, oh yeah, honey…. The wife, you know, she don’t do nothing for me. I mean, you got to get a little pleasure where you can. A man’s got to get his pleasure, don’t you think…Oh, yes. That’s it…. A man, he’s got to get his pleasure, right? Even if there’s nothing funny about him?”
Forrest rested his hands on Beems’s naked shoulders, pushing him down until his head rested on top of the couch cushion. Forrest cocked his hips, drove forward with teeth clenched, penetrating deep into Beems’s ass. He said, “Yeah. Sure.”
“You mean that? This don’t make me queer?”
“No,” Forrest panted. “Never has. Never will. Don’t mean nothin’. Not a damn thing. It’s all right. You’re a man’s man. Let me concentrate.”
Forrest had to concentrate. He hated this business, but it was part of the job. And, of course, unknown to Beems, he was putting the meat to Beems’s wife. So, if he wanted to keep doing that, he had to stay in with the boss. And Mrs. Beems, of course, had no idea he was reaming her husband’s dirty ditch, or that her husband had about as much interest in women as a pig does a silver tea service.
What a joke. He was fucking Beems’s old lady, doing the dog work for Beems, for a good price, and was reaming Beems’s asshole and assuring Beems he wasn’t what he was, a fairy. And as an added benefit, he didn’t have to fight the nigger tomorrow night. That was a big plus. That sonofabitch hit like a mule kicked. He hoped this McBride would tap him good. The nigger died, he’d make a point of shitting on his grave. Right at the head of it.
Well, maybe, Forrest decided, as he drove his hips forward hard enough to make Beems scream a little, he didn’t hate this business after all. Not completely. He took so much crap from Beems, this was kinda nice, having the bastard bent over a couch, dicking him so hard his head slammed the wall. Goddamn, nutless queer, insulting him in public, trying to act tough.
Forrest took the bottle of baby oil off the end table and poured it onto Beems’s ass. He put the bottle back and realized he was going soft. He tried to imagine he was plunging into Mrs. Beems, who had the smoothest ass and the brightest blonde pubic hair he had ever seen. “I’m almost there,” Forrest said.
“Stroke, Forrest! Stroke, man. Stroke!”
In the moment of orgasm, Beems imagined that the dick plunging into his hairy ass belonged to the big nigger, “Lil” Arthur. He thought about “Lil” Arthur all the time. Ever since he had seen him fight naked in a Battle Royale while wearing a Sambo mask for the enjoyment of the crowd.
And the way “Lil” Arthur had whipped Forrest. Oh, God. So thoroughly. So expertly. Forrest had been the man until then, and that made him want Forrest, but now, he wanted the nigger.
Oh God, Beems thought, to have him in me, wearing that mask, that would do it for all time. Just once. Or twice. Jesus, I want it so bad I got to be sure the nigger gets killed. I got to be sure I don’t try to pay the nigger money to do this, because he lives after the fight with McBride, I know I’ll break down and try. And I break down and he doesn’t do it, and word gets around, or he does it, and word gets around, or I get caught… I couldn’t bear that. This is bad enough. But a nigger…?
Then there was McBride. He thought about him. He had touched McBride’s balls and feigned disgust, but he hadn’t washed that hand yet, just as McBride suggested.
McBride won the fight with the nigger, better yet, killed him, maybe McBride would do it with him. McBride was a gent that liked money, and he liked to hurt whoever he was fucking. Beems could tell that from the way the redhead was battered. That would be good. That would be all right. McBride was the type who’d fuck anyone or anything, Beems could tell.
He imagined it was McBride at work instead of Forrest. McBride, naked, except for the bowler.
Forrest, in his moment of orgasm, grunted, said, “Oh yeah,” and almost called Mrs. Beems’s name. He lifted his head as he finished, saw the hard, glass eyes of the s
tuffed wild boar. The eyes were full of sunlight. Then the curtains fluttered and the eyes were full of darkness.
4:45 P.M.
The steamship Pensacola, outbound from Galveston, reached the Gulf, and a wind reached the Pensacola. Captain Slater felt his heart clinch. The sea came high and savage from the east, and the ship rose up and dived back down, and the waves, dark green and shadowed by the thick clouds overhead, reared up on either side of the steamship, hissed, plunged back down, and the Pensacola rode up.
Jake Bernard, the pilot commissioner, came onto the bridge looking green as the waves. He was Slater’s guest on this voyage, and now he wished he were back home. He couldn’t believe how ill he felt. Never, in all his years, had he encountered seas like this, and he had thought himself immune to seasickness.
“I don’t know about you, Slater,” Bernard said, “but I ain’t had this much fun since a bulldog gutted my daddy.”
Slater tried to smile, but couldn’t make it. He saw that Bernard, in spite of his joshing, didn’t look particularly jovial. Slater said, “Look at the glass.”
Bernard checked the barometer. It was falling fast.
“Never seen it that low,” Bernard said.
“Me either,” Slater said. He ordered his crew then. Told them to take in the awning, to batten the hatches, and to prepare for water.
Bernard, who had not left the barometer, said, “God. Look at this, man!”
Slater looked. The barometer read 28.55.
Bernard said, “Way I heard it, ever gets that low, you’re supposed to bend forward, kiss your root, and tell it good-bye.”
6:30 P.M.
The Coopers, Bill and Angelique and their eighteen-month-old baby, Teddy, were on their way to dinner at a restaurant by buggy, when their horse, Bess, a beautiful, chocolate-colored mare, made a run at the crashing sea.
It was the sea that frightened the horse, but in its moment of fear, it had tried to plunge headlong toward the source of its fright, assuring Bill that horses were, in fact, the most stupid animals in God’s creation.
Bill jerked the reins and cussed the horse. Bess wheeled, lurched the buggy so hard Bill thought they might tip, but the buggy bounced on line, and he maneuvered Bess back on track.
Angelique, dark-haired and pretty, said, “I think I soiled my bloomers… I smell it… No, that’s Teddy. Thank goodness.”
Bill stopped the buggy outside the restaurant, which was situated on high posts near the beach, and Angelique changed the baby’s diaper, put the soiled cloth in the back of the buggy.
When she was finished, they tied up the reins and went in for a steak dinner. They sat by a window where they could see the buggy. The horse bucked and reared and tugged so much, Bill feared she might break the reins and bolt. Above them, they could hear the rocks that covered the flat roof rolling and tumbling about like mice battling over morsels. Teddy sat in a high chair provided by the restaurant; whammed a spoon in a plate of applesauce.
“Had I known the weather was this bad,” Angelique said, “we’d have stayed home. I’m sorry, Bill.”
“We stay home too much,” Bill said, realizing the crash of the surf was causing him to raise his voice. “Building that upper deck on the house isn’t doing much for my nerves either. I’m beginning to realize I’m not much of a carpenter.”
Angelique widened her dark brown eyes. “No? You, not a carpenter?”
Bill smiled at her.
“I could have told you that, just by listening to all the cussing you were doing. How many times did you hit your thumb, dear?”
“Too many to count.”
Angelique grew serious. “Bill. Look.”
Many of the restaurant’s patrons had abandoned their meals and were standing at the large windows, watching the sea. The tide was high and it was washing up to the restaurant’s pilings, splashing against them hard, throwing spray against the glass.
“Goodness,” Bill said. “It wasn’t this bad just minutes ago.”
“Hurricane?” Angelique asked.
“Yeah. It’s a hurricane all right. The flags are up. I saw them.”
“Why so nervous? We’ve had hurricanes before.”
“I don’t know. This feels different, I guess… It’s all right. I’m just jittery is all.”
They ate quickly and drove the buggy home, Bess pulling briskly all the way. The sea crashed behind them and the clouds raced above them like apparitions.
8:00 P.M.
Captain Slater figured the wind was easily eighty knots. A hurricane. The Pensacola was jumping like a frog. Crockery was crashing below. A medicine chest so heavy two men couldn’t move it leaped up and struck the window of the bridge, went through onto the deck, slid across it, hit the railing, bounced high, and dropped into the boiling sea.
Slater and Bernard bumped heads so hard they nearly knocked each other out. When Slater got off the floor, he got a thick rope out from under a shelf and tossed it around a support post, made a couple of wraps, then used the loose ends to tie bowlines around his and Bernard’s waists. That way, he and Bernard could move about the bridge if they had to, but they wouldn’t end up following the path of the medicine chest.
Slater tried to think of something to do, but all he knew to do he had done. He’d had the crew drop anchor in the open Gulf; down to a hundred fathoms, and he’d instructed them to find the best shelter possible close to their posts, and to pray.
The Pensacola swung to the anchor, struggled like a bull on a leash. Slater could hear the bolts and plates that held the ship together screaming in agony. Those bolts broke, the plates cracked, he didn’t need Captain Ahab to tell him they’d go down to Davy Jones’s locker so fast they wouldn’t have time to take in a lungful of air.
Using the wall for support, Slater edged along to where the bridge glass had been broken by the flying chest. Sea spray slammed against him like needles shot from a cannon. He was concentrating on the foredeck, watching it dip, when he heard Bernard make a noise that was not quite a word, yet more expressive than a grunt.
Slater turned, saw Bernard clutching the latch on one of the bridge windows so tightly he thought he would surely twist it off. Then he saw what Bernard saw.
The sea had turned black as a Dutch oven, the sky the color of gangrene, and between sea and sky there appeared to be something rising out of the water, something huge and oddly shaped, and then Slater realized what it was. It was a great wall of water, many times taller than the ship, and it was moving directly toward and over them.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 3:30 A.M.
Bill Cooper opened his eyes. He had been overwhelmed by a feeling of dread. He rose carefully, so as not to wake Angelique, went into the bedroom across the hall and checked on Teddy. The boy slept soundly, his thumb in his mouth.
Bill smiled at the child, reached down, and gently touched him. The boy was sweaty, and Bill noted that the air in the room smelled foul. He opened a window, stuck his head out, and looked up. The sky had cleared and the moon was bright. Suddenly, he felt silly. Perhaps this storm business, the deck he was building on the upper floor of the house, had made him restless and worried. Certainly, it looked as if the storm had passed them by.
Then his feeling of satisfaction passed. For when he examined the yard, he saw it had turned to molten silver. And then he realized it was moonlight on water. The Gulf had crept all the way up to the house. A small rowboat, loose from its moorings, floated by.
8:06 A.M.
Issac Cline had driven his buggy down the beach, warning residents near the water to evacuate. Some had. Some had not. Most had weathered many storms and felt they could weather another.
Still, many residents and tourists made for the long, wooden trestle bridge to mainland Texas. Already, the water was leaping to the bottom of the bridge, slapping at it, testing its strength.
Wagons, buggies, horses, pedestrians were as thick on the bridge as ants on gingerbread. The sky, which had been oddly clear and bright and full of moon
early that morning, had now grown gray and it was raining. Of the three railway bridges that led to the mainland, one was already underwater.
3:45 P.M.
Henry Johnson, aided by “Lil” Arthur, climbed up on the wagon beside his wife. Tina held an umbrella over their heads. In the back of the wagon was the rest of the family, protected by upright posts planted in the corners, covered with the tarp that had formerly been on the roof of the house.
All day Henry had debated whether they should leave. But by 2:00, he realized this wasn’t going to be just another storm. This was going to be a goddamn, wet-assed humdinger. He had organized his family, and now, by hook or crook, he was leaving. He glanced at his shack, the water pouring through the roof like the falls of Niagara. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had. He doubted it could stand much of this storm, but he tried not to think about that. He had greater concerns. He said to “Lil” Arthur, “You come on with us.”
“I got to fight,” “Lil” Arthur said.
“You got to do nothin’. This storm’ll wash your ass to sea.”
“I got to, Papa.”
Tina said, “Maybe yo papa’s right, baby. You ought to come.”
“You know I can’t. Soon as the fight’s over, I’ll head on out. I promise. In fact, weather’s so bad, I’ll knock this McBride out early.”
“You do that,” Tina said.
“Lil” Arthur climbed on the wagon and hugged his mama and shook his father’s hand. Henry spoke quickly without looking at “Lil” Arthur, said, “Good luck, son. Knock him out.”
“Lil” Arthur nodded. “Thanks, Papa.” He climbed down and went around to the back of the wagon and threw up the tarp and hugged his sisters one at a time and shook hands with his brother-in-law, Clement. He pulled Clement close to him, said, “You stay out of my sister, hear?”
“Yeah, Arthur. Sure. But I think maybe we done got a problem. She’s already swole up.”