In disgust, Maggie had refused to attend any games, but one Saturday afternoon when Texas was playing SMU she chanced to see on the half-time television show a most remarkable young woman from the other university, a real genius at twirling. The SMU girl wore a skimpy costume that revealed her lovely grace and she threw the baton much higher than Maggie would have believed possible, catching it deftly, now in front, now behind.
‘Extraordinary,’ Maggie said. As a girl she had seen circus performers who were no better than this young artist, so she stayed by the television as her own daughter appeared for Texas, and what she saw made her catch her breath.
When the SMU band and performers left the field, the mighty Texas band swung into action, more than three hundred strong, dressed in burnt-orange. In front came the six-foot-seven drum master, followed by sixteen cheerleaders, men and women. After them came the three baton twirlers, with Beth Morrison in the middle. Behind her came the endless files of the musicians, all stepping alike, all inclining their cowboy hats in rhythm.
At the rear came a couple of dozen drummers, cymbalists, glockenspiel players and whatnots, followed by the sensation of the Texas campus: a drum so huge that three men were needed to keep it secured to its carriage and moving forward. It was taller than two men and was clubbed by a player whose arm muscles were huge; its deep, booming sound filled the stadium.
And then Beth stood forth alone, this poet manqué, and with a skill that staggered Maggie, she sent first one, then two batons into the air, catching them unfailingly and creating a kind of mystic spell for this important autumn afternoon.
‘Who in his right mind,’ Maggie asked aloud as she switched off the television, ‘would invent something like that spectacle and call it education?’ But later, when she was forced to reconsider all aspects of the situation, she conceded that Mr. Sutherland, principal at Deaf Smith High, had been right when he predicted that Beth would find her life within the Texas syndrome and be very happy in it. Beth had been pledged by one of the premier sororities, the Kappas, whose senior members arranged for her to meet one of the more attractive BMOCs. Wolfgang Macnab, descendant of two famous Texas Rangers, was indeed a Big Man on Campus, for he stood well over six feet, weighed about two hundred and twenty lean pounds, and played linebacker on the Longhorn football team.
He was five years older than Beth and should have graduated before she entered the university, but in the Texas tradition he had been red-shirted in both junior high school and college—that is, held back arbitrarily so that he would be bigger and stronger when he did play. He was a bright young fellow, conspicuous among the other football giants in that he took substantial classes in which he did well. After their meeting in the Kappa lounge, he and Beth studied together for an art-appreciation seminar, in which he excelled, and before long they were being referred to as ‘that ideal Texas couple.’ What happened next was explained by Beth’s mother in one of her periodic letters to Detroit:
What you Northerners never appreciate, Pearl, is that Texas is so big that you can live your life within its limits and never give a damn about what anybody in Boston or San Francisco thinks. A girl like our daughter Beth can enjoy a stunning life at the university here without giving a hoot what the social leaders at Vassar or Stanford think. Matrons here do not have to consider Philadelphia or Richmond. They’re their own bosses. All that matters is how they’re perceived in Dallas and Houston.
A writer can build a perfectly satisfactory reputation in Texas and he doesn’t give a damn what critics in Kalamazoo think. His universe is big enough to gratify any ambition. Same with businessmen. Same with newspapers. Same with everything.
I share these reflections because I’ve been thinking of Beth. She could have had a noble career at Michigan or Vassar, of that I’m sure. The kid’s a near-genius, and was a wonderful poet at fourteen, when the real poets start. But at her local high school she was brainwashed into becoming a baton twirler … pompons … the bit, and when I challenged this, she said: ‘Let’s face it, Mom, how could Texas produce a poet when its favorite food is chicken-fried steak smothered in white library paste?’ She went her way, and damned if she didn’t become the best baton twirler of the lot. Also a puffy-pretty sorority girl without a brain in her head, you know the type.
So what happens to my adorable little nitwit? She marries one of the handsomest football players God ever made, and at their wedding his brother Cletus appears, six feet six, a full-fledged Texas Ranger with big hat and hidden gun holster. When the three of them stood before the minister, Baptist naturally, with little Beth in the middle and those two gorgeous hunks on either side, all I could do was hide my tears and recall the Biblical quotation ‘Male and female created He them.’
And then I got two real surprises. What do you suppose they did with the wedding purse her sorority and his fraternity contributed? They bought a Picasso print. Yep, those redneck hillbillies bought a Picasso. And this evening’s news announces that Wolfgang has been drafted by the Dallas Cowboys, said to be the best football team in America. Surely it’s better than Detroit. So I’m not to be the mother of a poetess but the mother-in-law of a football hero, and I find myself shouting with the rest of Texas: ‘So who gives a damn about Vassar? The real world is down here.’
Of course, when the recession grew acute in 1982, and oil dropped to twenty-nine dollars a barrel, and the fall of the Mexican peso prostrated Houston real estate, threatening many of the big hotels with bankruptcy because those spectacular ten-room suites were no longer being rented to Mexican millionaires, even fortunately situated couples like the Morrisons began to feel pinches. Todd had only a vague awareness of the economic slump until he saw at the commuter airport the number of private planes that were suddenly for sale. This struck home, and he quickly convened a strategy session with his wife: ‘Now, now’s the time to make our big moves.’
‘You must be crazy! The bottom’s falling out.’
‘That’s exactly when opportunities appear. A good real estate agent, and you’re one of the best, Maggie, can make a bundle when the market is going up. But he can make even more when it’s going down. Because people have to sell, and there’s damned few buyers around.’
‘How can we buy?’
‘Credit. We hock everything we have. We look for distress bargains, and we buy it to the hilt.’
When they had done this, and exhausted their own funds, Todd said: ‘The luscious plums, the real big ones, are beginning to ripen. Go up to Dallas and line up some real money.’
It was in this manner that Maggie Morrison, a onetime schoolteacher in a suburb of Detroit, fired during retrenchment, walked into the office of Ransom Rusk in Dallas, trying to interest him in a Houston real estate speculation requiring $143,000,000. In the first eight minutes of their meeting she learned much about Texas financing: ‘I apologize, Mr. Rusk, for coming at you like this when the papers say you’ve suffered reverses,’ and he laughed: ‘My dear Mrs. Morrison, it’s precisely at such times that a man like me is looking for new ventures. Some of the old ones have worn thin.’
‘Then you’ll consider the deal?’ and he said: ‘I’ve always been willing to consider any deal … if there’s enough leverage. That’s how I landed with TexTek.’
She next asked: ‘How much would you expect my husband and me to throw in?’ and he said: ‘Every nickel you have. I want you to be as concerned about this as I would be.’
Finally he said: ‘You want a hundred and forty-three million dollars. I’ll put up twenty-five million if you put up four,’ and she said: ‘But that leaves us more than a hundred million short. Where do we get it?’ and he said: ‘The banks. You’ll be amazed at how eager they are to lend money to anyone with a hot idea, and yours is hot.’
She asked: ‘Why are you doing this?’ and he said: ‘Winning, losing, I care little about either. But I do like to be in the game.’
If one kept focusing attention on big ranchers like Lorenzo Quimper, or big oilmen like Ransom Rusk
, or big cotton growers like Sherwood Cobb, or real estate honchos like Todd Morrison, one might conclude that power in Texas was exerted only by those who controlled large sums of money, but this would be wrong. In many aspects of Texas life it was ‘the little folks from the fork in the creek’ who cast the deciding ballots. They kept race-track gambling out of Texas. They allowed no state lotteries. And with refreshing frequency they bullheadedly voted in a way that surprised the big cities. An excellent example of this strong-mindedness came in Larkin in 1980 when some misguided liberals reminded the town that one of its first occupants had been a respectable saloon keeper and that alcohol had been outlawed only by the ill-conceived Prohibition movement: ‘It’s high time our town had stores that sold liquor and saloons in which law-abiding citizens could enjoy a sociable drink.’ Eager to put their money where their mouth was, these energetic people collected a huge war chest, hired Kraft and Killeen, the public relations firm from Dallas, and petitioned for a referendum. The war was on.
Under Texas law a county had the right to vote itself dry if a majority so desired, and out of 254 counties, 74 did, but there were so many ramifications that newcomers rarely understood what was happening. One county would outlaw everything—wine, beer, whiskey—another would allow beer but not wine or whiskey; and a third, fourth and fifth would create their own mixes. As a result, only 36 counties were totally wet.
After the wild years of the oil boom, Larkin had voted itself dry, and in both the sixties and seventies, had repulsed efforts to rescind that law. ‘This town,’ boasted Reverend Craig, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Larkin, ‘is a haven of decency and sobriety in a state which has too many examples of the opposite character.’ Craig was a good clergyman, especially revered for his fatherly interest in orphans and his loving attention to elderly people without families. Much of the good that occurred in Larkin could be attributed to his acts, and wealthy oilmen like Ransom Rusk kept him in funds sufficient to cover the numerous little charities he performed. He preached well, did not rant, was ecumenical toward the lesser churches that had crowded into Larkin, and had goaded his congregation into welcoming even Mexicans and blacks into the church, if they were passing through.
‘Craig adds a touch of humanity and decency to our town,’ one of the oilmen said when making his annual contribution, and this was the general opinion. Young people appreciated him because in a willing effort to keep up with the times, he had encouraged his elders to allow dancing at church socials, a radical move when one recalled the old days.
Craig was not a fanatic where morals were concerned, and he had several times helped prostitutes stranded by their pimps, for he suspected that Jesus would have done the same, and he served as a surrogate father for children who fell into trouble; but he could be remarkably forceful when discharging two of his Baptist obligations: he believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible, and he abhorred demon rum: ‘I have been forced to witness so much human tragedy resulting from alcohol that I stand in wonderment that any man would willingly allow this evil substance to pass his lips, and as for women who do so, they are anathema.’
He was, in many respects, the most powerful force in Larkin, and when one particularly offensive oil tycoon flouted all the implicit laws of North Texas, Craig preached such a powerful pair of sermons against him that he was in effect excommunicated, not only from the Baptist church but from the community as well. The miscreant moved to Dallas, where he was quite happy.
It was largely due to Craig that Larkin remained dry, for it had been his vigorous leadership which had repelled the last two attempts to turn it wet, and he was now girding his loins to fight again. He chose to ignore the fact that a large majority of his flock enjoyed a short snifter now and then, but he did frequently praise his congregation for hiding no outright drunks in its membership. He was contemptuous of those Rio Grande counties which, because of their heavily Hispanic population, refused to outlaw alcohol, and in his more inflammatory prohibition sermons he sometimes referred to them as ‘our southern cousins to whom drunkenness is a way of life,’ refusing to acknowledge that their orderly use of beverages produced less actual drunkenness than did Larkin’s severe code.
Of course, under the complex Texas system anyone who wanted a drink could find one, and each dry county contained its quota of enthusiastic topers, because the law contained a built-in weakness which drinkers were quick to take advantage of. A respectable county like Larkin could vote itself dry while its more disreputable neighbor remained stubbornly wet, and since most counties, especially in the west, were small and square—something like thirty miles to a side, with the county seat dead center—it was possible for a town at the heart of a dry county to be only fifteen miles from a flowing source of liquor. In Larkin’s case, the distance from bone-dry to sopping-wet was twelve miles down Highway 23 to Bascomb County, ‘that notorious and nauseous sink of sin,’ as Reverend Craig liked to describe it in his sermons.
When officials at the Larkin County Courthouse announced that a referendum had been authorized for the spring of 1980, Craig looked with awe at the forces arrayed against him, and told his deacons: ‘Brethren, this is the fight that will determine the character of our county for the rest of this century. Look at those who assault us! All the distilleries of America. All the breweries of Texas. All the saloon keepers of those wet Red River counties. Kraft and Killeen of Dallas. Brother Carnwath, please tell the gentlemen the size of the war chest we face.’
A tall, thin man, with deep-set eyes and a lock of hair that fell across his brow, rose: ‘We have good reason to believe that they have amassed more than seven hundred thousand dollars to crush us, for they know that if they can bring their whiskey in here, they can lug their barrels into any county.’
‘Gentlemen,’ Craig said, ‘the battle lines are drawn. Once more it is David against Goliath, and once more God will favor the pure in heart, puny though we may seem at the start.’
It really was little David against the forces of darkness, but the shepherd boy was by no means powerless, for Craig organized groups on three levels: The Sages of the Community, Children for a Decent Texas, and in the middle, a large and forceful group, The Watchdogs of the Fort. With all the skills remembered from former battles he brought pressure to bear on the editor of the Larkin Defender, who if left alone might have sided with the liquor people on three solid grounds, which he espoused privately to his friends: ‘Orderly sale would be good for trade. Keeping our kids at home would stop those car crashes when they go seeking booze. And I hate the hypocrisy of drinking wet and voting dry.’ But when he found that his larger advertisers ardently supported Reverend Craig, even though they were themselves heavy drinkers, he found himself compelled to write a series of hard-hitting editorials favoring retention of the ban.
To one outsider, the situation in Larkin seemed paradoxical: ‘Everyone in this crazy town drinks but wants to stop anyone else from doing so.’ An explanation of this curious Texas trait was spelled out in a letter written by a Baptist woman to a friend in New Mexico:
It is true that Albert takes a small drink now and then, but only socially when we are in the homes of those who favor alcohol. Even I am not above a congenial nip om holidays, and I’m told that boys in school, and especially the older ones who work in town, drink somewhat. Yet all of us who have the vote prefer to keep alcohol out of the stores, and saloons off our quiet streets.
We do this, I think, because we know that to restrain evil in even the smallest degree is good, in that it sends a signal through the community that we shall not allow it to run rampant. On the three nights prior to the vote Reverend Craig will hold prayer meetings in which we will commit ourselves to fighting the devil, for we are convinced that unrestricted use of alcohol is a principal agency through which he attacks individuals and their communities.
The crusade against alcohol, which had to be fought repeatedly in what Reverend Craig called ‘our Christian counties of the north,’ produced one grave
weakness, which the people of Larkin did not like to discuss. Highway 23 leading to Bascomb became a well-traveled route, and when young men and women roared south to get liquored up, often drinking out of their bottles as they weaved their way back, there were apt to be accidents, more coming north than going south, and there were many involving some solitary drunk heading north who smashed head-on into some innocent car coming south with its four sober passengers, TRAGEDY IN SUICIDE GULCH became the headline, and often it was the four sober travelers who were killed, while the solitary drunk survived because he had sped into the accident completely relaxed.
Rarely did a year pass without some horrendous accident along Highway 23, and occasional protests appeared in the press about this nasty habit of young people driving down to Bascomb to buy their liquor and then guzzling it on their way home, but no one seemed to blame the carnage in Suicide Gulch on Larkin’s lack of orderly places in which to buy a drink.
So as the critical vote approached, the lines were drawn in typical North Texas fashion: outside forces pouring in huge sums in hopes of being allowed to peddle their product, the Baptists fighting valiantly to maintain the status quo they had inherited from their God-fearing parents. Partisans on each side were sensible, and patriotic, and driven by respectable motives, but there was such enmity between them that no meeting ground could ever be established.
Watchers of the campaign refused to predict how this one was going to result: ‘Can’t never tell the effect of all that money on their side or prayers on ours.’
A peculiarity of the Texas system was that any plebiscite on booze was effective for only a few years, after which the other side could try again; ordinarily, the losers licked their wounds for about six years before storming back, but regardless of the outcome, it was never final. As Reverend Craig said five days before the vote: ‘In this world of sin the forces of evil never rest.’
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