by Robert Hough
After another hour or so, we reached a rickety wooden suspension bridge, which we crossed so as to pass onto the island of Galveston. The road led through town. Though it was off-season, there was still the odd person about and the odd cafe open, so I told Art I wanted to stop and have a look about.
"All in due time," he said. "All in due time, Mabel. First, we have to keep an appointment."
Pretty soon the road banked to the right, and the next thing I knew we were driving along a breakwall, and beyond that the Gulf of Mexico stretched choppy and blue to infinity. I gazed out over the water and felt my body lose its tension, something that happened whenever I fell witness to a vanishing point. I asked Art why he thought this was so and of course he had an answer. "Fear of death," he said without blink ing. "It disappears. When you look out over water, and you feel like you can see forever, the mind starts thinking maybe some things really can last forever. That maybe some things really are eternal. Once the mind figures that out, it's only natural it starts suspecting maybe the thing that make us us is also a thing that has the potential for everlife. And once the mind figures that out, well. It's not long before it realizes it's been doing a whole lot of worrying for nothin'."
I looked at him, agog.
"The only trick," he added, "is holding on to that feeling when you're not looking out over an ocean or an undisturbed stretch of flatland. I'll tell you, it's a trick really separates the men from the boys, if you know what I mean."
A few seconds passed.
"Tell me," I finally said. "You make this stuff up on the spot, or do you actually spend time thinking about it?"
"Mabel. I lived in a four-by-eight-foot cell for fourteen years. I had time to think about pretty much anything I cared to and other things besides."
After a bit the seawall gave way, and instead of the waves crashing against piled stones they broke choppily over smooth, light brown sand. Though the weather was nice and sunny and verging on warm, there now wasn't a soul around. We started passing neat little clusters of houses on the beach side of the road, some of them no bigger than huts and all of them painted either pale blue or a sunny yellow. We also passed signs bearing the names of the resorts: "Seaside Cottages" and "Ocean View Suites" and "Sandy Shore Rentals." I started suspecting we were going to spend our honeymoon in a rented cabin on the water, a proposition that suited me fine, for as I've said I've always associated sun and waves with time off and the opportunity to recuperate. I had my suspicions confirmed when Art pulled into the very last set of resort huts on the spit, a tidy grouping of little houses called Sunny Side Cabins.
"Well," Art said, "what do you think, Mabel? We'll have sun, the ocean, all the seafood we care to eat. Most important, we'll have time alone to contemplate our navels, and according to some religions there isn't a thing in this world more important to contemplate."
Without waiting for an answer, he pulled up in front of the first cabin in the row, which looked better appointed than the others: lace curtains were hanging in the windows and the garden was tended and there were window boxes filled with late-season flowers struggling to bloom. A little sign reading "Office" was over the door.
Art tapped on the door. We could hear a radio playing inside. Art tapped more forcefully, until we heard the radio being turned down and steps shuffling toward the door. A lace curtain was pulled aside, and though we couldn't tell for the glare we both knew we were being looked at, so we smiled and generally tried to look honest. The door swung open, and we were said hello to by a dumpling of a woman wearing a knitted pink sweater. Her hair was a frizz of grey, and her cheeks were so rosy and round that when she smiled, as she was doing at that moment, her eyes narrowed into slits I was amazed she could see out of. She was so little she had to crane her neck upward to look into my face, which was a change of pace for in a typical crowd of adults I'm almost always the smallest.
"Well, hello!" she said in a croaky voice. "You must be the Rooneys. I'm Bertha Wain, the owner. Gosh, you two must be tired. I've just made tea. Would you like to have some?"
Art and I exhanged sure why not? glances and followed her shuffling steps into her little yellow kitchen. We sat at a wooden kitchen table and watched as she padded around the room, collecting spoons and milk and a sugar bowl, then pouring hot liquid into little cups bearing the words "Galveston Island, Vacationer's Paradise."
When we were all seated, she turned to me and said, "When your husband contacted me I was surely surprised, for as you can see it's offseason. Normally people aren't interested in coming this time of year-they complain about the wind and the salt spray it kicks up-but your husband said you two were looking for a place where you could be by yourselves seeing as this was your honeymoon and all. Well, I don't think you'll be disappointed. It'll just be you and me and the gulls for the next week, my Harold having passed away seven years ago now, all of which I explained to your husband here and he seemed to think it was just fine."
We talked a little bit more, mostly about our long train trip and the weather that time of year in Galveston, though when we told her we were troupers with the Ringling show her face lit up and she said she was a fan and sure enough she had a thousand questions, mostly about the secret lives of the bigger stars and how on earth we managed to up and move the whole thing every single day. After a bit, I started to get restless. Seeing this, Art waited for the next natural pause in the conversation, at which point he drained his tea cup and said, "I can't wait to see our cabin."
"My oh my of course" was Bertha's response. "And here I am, keeping you two lovebirds from yourselves. Where are my manners? They just flew out the window when you told me you were circus folk, I suppose. Gracious, what did I do with that key?"
She got up, a movement involving a lot of chair-leg scraping and the use of her forearms, and then rooted through a half-dozen kitchen drawers, pushing aside egg flippers and potato mashers and meat pounders, until she finally found a key on a looped piece of string. We followed her across the sand, which was slow going, Bertha taking the opportunity to inform us she was a sufferer of lumbago, and that if you happen to have lumbago there's not much worse you can do for yourself than walk along a sandy beach. True enough, her motion was mostly in the shoulders, her back ramrod stiff as she walked.
We reached the last cabin in the row. Just beyond was the end of the cove, the beach turning to light bramble and then a promontory covered in a sparse pine forest. "If you want to make a fire," Bertha said, pointing, "you'll find all the deadwood you can possibly use. Plus you'll find the spit offers a little protection from the wind, which we do sometimes get here in November. Other than that, I think you've got everything you need. I put in towels and bedding and there's a pump out back so you'll have no shortage of water. It's right next to the outhouse, so you can kill two birds with one stone, if you catch my meaning."
She jiggled the key, and we followed her into the cabin.
"This is it," she said. "Home for a week. You like it?"
She was breathing deeply, and while she rested I took a look around. The kitchen was small, holding nothing more than a stove, an icebox, a few cabinets and a table for two. On the table was a vase filled with cut flowers and a bowl of oranges. There was a counter separating the kitchen from the living room, the same counter our hostess was at that moment leaning on, huffing and holding the small of her back and saying how she really had to get over her mistrust of doctors and go see one. The living room was wood panelled, with an oval crocheted rug flanked on both sides by sofas that'd obviously seen better days but at the same time looked comfortable and plump. Behind one of them was a door, which, I presumed, led to the bedroom. Behind the other was a wall decorated with an old oil painting of two children walking in woods.
But the cabin's best feature was the picture window, taking up the better part of the wall facing the beach. Our view was sand and sun sparkling off water and beyond that a good long glimpse of nothingness. As I took in the view I'd have for the whole of the next
week, it occurred to me if this wasn't a place where I could relax then that place didn't exist, all of which should explain why I acted so out of character and went up to poor old huffing Mrs. Wain and hugged her while saying, "Oh, yes, Bertha. It's wonderful!"
Bertha left and we unpacked and when we were done we stood by the picture window and admired the view, Art saying he had a half a mind to go have a dunk in the surf. The next thing I knew, we were both splashing around like fools, the water cold but not nearly as cold as I would've thought. We got out and the breeze condensing all that saltwater on our skin was cold, so we ran shrieking to the cabin, where we towelled off and got dressed again. Then we went into town. While most of the stores along the Strand were closed, there were a few shops open that serviced the locals, including a place for groceries. We stocked up, throwing anything that caught our fancy into the grocery carts, as well as paraffin for cooking and a big bag of ice to keep our provisions from spoiling.
By then, it was starting to get dark, and as we drove out of Galveston the sun was settling low over the gulf. As Art drove I watched, for it was something to see, a fat burning ball fanning bands of orange over the water. Back at the cabin, Art ran around and collected driftwood in the dwindling light, and every time he found something big enough and dry enough to burn he'd give a little holler. He came back inside with an armload and built a fire while I made us a supper of corn, potatoes, salad and clams in butter. By the time I was done the cabin was warm as a bun. We ate by lamplight, the cabin having no electricity, Art giving a satisfied little grunt after every mouthful and at times saying, "My goodness, Mrs. Rooney. If I'd known you were such a culinary expert I would've asked for your hand in marriage earlier." Here I giggled and took a mouthful of clams and I tell you, I might as well have been tasting food for the first time, which is a strange experience for anyone but particularly for a woman with nearly forty years and five husbands under her belt. I took a sip of beer-Art was drinking iced tea-and practically grew maudlin at the thought that someone, at some time or another, had sat down and been smart enough to invent a drink as cool and delicious.
We were just polishing off a big slab of store-bought chocolate cake when Art announced there was something we just had to do. Before I had a chance to ask what that thing was, he was through the cabin door and running around giving excited little whoops for the second time that evening. I turned down the lamplight and tried watching Art through the picture window, his running figure crossing through bands of moonlight. Was then I saw the spark of a match, and before I knew it Art had a bonfire going on the beach. He came back inside the cabin and fetched blankets.
"Well come on, Mrs. Rooney," he said. A minute later we were both out on that beach, lying on blankets next to the heat of a fire, staring upward. There must've been a million stars out that night, of the twinkling, blinking and shooting varieties. Art pointed out Orion, the North Star and the Dippers. He pointed out some other constellations with long Latin names, and though I couldn't make them out I said I could just to be agreeable. Then we fell silent and held hands and generally felt good being alive, which is a wonderful and rare experience and really ought not to be disturbed by small talk. Only problem was, I didn't have Art's ability to let my mind go blank. What I'm saying is, a single thought popped into my head, refusing to leave or turn into something different, and it wasn't long before keeping it to myself started to feel like torture.
I took a deep breath, looked into the side of Art's face and asked him something I'd been wondering about for as long as I'd known him.
"Art," I asked softly. "Why is it you make yourself up like a woman?"
I looked for signs I'd offended him, seeing as it was a topic he'd never raised himself, another thing that'd always struck me as odd seeing as he was a man who, next to tending to animals, liked nothing more than talking. He looked out over the water. Seemed to me he was taking his time composing an answer.
"Well, Mrs. Rooney," he finally said, "that's the big question, and to answer it I'll have to ask you to remember I wasn't always the man you know now. No siree. For almost forty years I was driven by devils, which is one of the worst ways a person can be but unfortu nately one of the most natural. After a while, you get so you don't even notice how tired you are, fighting yourself all the time, and it's this sort of tiredness can cause a person to make mistakes he'll have to think about for the rest of his life. In my case I ended up in prison, and I'm here to tell you it was terrible. Three inmates per cell, guards as mean as mongrels, food so poor you could barely swallow it. One day I decided I'd had about enough, so I went up to this one guard I hated worse than the others and said something long and full of profanity. It got his attention, and when he turned around I hit him as hard as I could in the teeth, just to make no bones about who was crazy and liable to do anything. He and the other guards beat me so bad I pissed blood for weeks. Then they threw me in the hole, where you're supposed to get food and water but since I'd attacked a guard I got nothing. Soon I got so thirsty I even tried drinking my own orange water. Finally, I decided I'd been born rotten and nothing was ever going to change that, so I might as well lie down and die.
"Now this is the sort of decision that frees a man, and allows him to take a good hard look at himself. Or maybe it was the fact I was weak and delirious and still bleeding from the insides. To this day I'm not sure. I only know I put myself on that cell floor and I prayed to the Creator and I asked him to please take pity on me when I came up to meet him. A day went by. Another. I didn't die, or leastways was pretty sure I hadn't. On the fourth day it happened."
"What happened?"
"I got visited."
"Who visited you?"
Art shrugged.
"Hard to say. He was partly man, partly animal and partly neither, though I'd hate to call him a creature for it's a word that implies lowliness and there was nothing lowly about him. What he was isn't important. What is important is he had something he wanted to tell me."
"Which was?"
A smile crept over Art's face.
"He told me I am what I am and everything has a reason and the sooner I understood that the better. Then he was gone. I lay there, mulling, coming to conclusions, sizing up life, thinking maybe I'd have another go at it if I ever got out of this hole. I was there another three weeks. First thing I did when I got out was paint my toenails the way the squaws always used to. After that, the fights and the drinking tapered off, till the day I noticed I was no longer a man who fought and drank, you understand?"
I told him I did, though the truth is I was struggling. Like so many of the things Art said, it made sense only if you stopped trying to explain it to yourself with words. Course, this is easier said than done, so after a bit I asked, "You mean you wear makeup so's not to hit people?"
"That's a pretty simple way of saying it but seeing as the simple way's often the best way I'd have to say you're right."
I thought about this a bit longer, though eventually I gave up and asked Art if he felt inclined to get on with the honeymoon. He said he certainly did, so we got up and held hands as we walked away from the sparking fire. Inside we blew out the paraffin lamps and got undressed and crawled underneath an eiderdown comforter. For a time we lay listening to the sound of waves lapping at the beach, though it wasn't a long time for we were both feeling happy and warm and in love. We kissed and held each other and whispered words of adoration. I was about to take hold of Art's forearm when he guided my hand toward the part of a man's body more commonly put to use on the first night of a honeymoon. I whispered his name in a way that posed a question, for he was ready as ready gets and I thought maybe I was imagining things. He answered by slipping inside me, so easily it was as though we'd done it a thousand times previously, and for the first time I learned of a satisfaction that has nothing to do with ardour and has everything to do with a human being's desire for being pressed tight against another body.
Afterwards we snuggled and talked about how we were goi
ng to do some exploring the next day. Art fell asleep with a smile on his face. I tried to sleep too, but couldn't, for I was still thinking about what Art had told me. Course, the reason I couldn't stop thinking about that story was I'd seen myself in it; was little use denying I'd spent my whole life locking horns with others, and while I could find a reason for each specific battle, I couldn't find a reason why I'd had so many of them, the one possibility being it wasn't others I'd been fighting all along.
No sooner did this thought come than a floodgate opened in my head, and all the reasons why I deserved the way I'd been treating myself came rushing in-everything from the way I felt about my mother to my having cooched in a sideshow to some of the things I'd done to advance my career to the things Rajah and I had done together, in the dark, my mouth pressed into fur so I wouldn't be heard over the clacking of the train. Suddenly, I wished I was clothed. I put my hands over my eyes, the way a child will when trying to make herself disappear. I curled up, if only so there'd be less of me. There likely wasn't a woman on earth who'd sinned worse than me or more often, though it wasn't this fact that had me sobbing deeply and quietly so as not to waken Art. If I was feeling emotional, it was because I was lying next to a man who knew me and knew everything I'd done and still, still, had never once thought to hold it against me.
We spent the rest of that week playing like children, which was a way I'd never felt as a child so it was all new and exotic and glorious. Long walks were taken, cookouts were had, evenings were spent under the stars, next to a fire, watching constellations and feeling lucky to have found a place so private. The entire universe might as well have been up there for us and us only. Bertha let us use a pair of bicycles that were property of Sunny Side Cabins, and instead of taking the car we'd pedal into town to buy milk or bread. On the Tuesday morning, we found a drugstore tucked off the Strand, so we stopped and had a soda float each and bought paperbacks. That afternoon the wind kicked up, the sand swirling so fiercely it was unpleasant to be outside, so Art and I just lay around on the two sofas, reading our murder mysteries, listening to the cabin's loose shingles clatter in the wind. This all gave Art an idea, and the next day we cycled back into town where he bought the makings for a kite; that afternoon he tacked it together and it flew like a bird, though when it came time for my turn I got distracted and it slipped from my hands. For all I know, it's still out there somewhere, following the gulf stream to who knows where. We ate mostly seafood, though one night I roasted a chicken. One morning Art got up with the sun, and by the time I awoke he'd netted some mullets from the gulf, which he'd filleted and was frying in butter alongside eggs and potatoes. At night we made love under that eiderdown cozy, something Art was starting to get good at, his theory being the salty air was energizing him in a way he had no control over. I slept well, and if I had any bad dreams they were gone for me by morning.