Galveston

by Paul Quarrington

  He dragged the hand holding the hammer across his belly, the sharp corner of the nail remover scraping skin, drawing blood. That hand managed to get close to the one gripping the nail. Lester barked out some of the psalm, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and managed to exchange the contents of each hand, and the moment after he did that, he flipped around so that he was backed up against the plywood and Hurricane Claire was slapping him across the face.

  “Come on, motherfucker,” muttered Lester. “Let’s see the best you got.” He was, at that moment, angry enough to deliver a few blows, swinging the hammer across his chest and banging at the plywood, at his hand, once or twice actually upon the nailhead. But the storm got its fingers underneath the wood, plucked out the nails, first at the bottom, then at the top. The wind slipped underneath and raced to the other end, and Lester could feel the loosening behind his back. The other end popped free and there were no longer any nails holding the protective sheet in place.

  Lester dropped the hammer and spread his arms, pushing back as hard as he could. At some moments, moments so small that Lester could not conceive of them in terms of clock-governed time, the wind helped Lester stay in place. There were other moments when the wind tried to push him forward, moments when he was dragged upwards or driven down. Lester survived these, somehow, because Lester was angry and the storm could go fuck itself.

  “But You have given us eyes,” Lester shouted, “and we can behold Your bounty! In the smallest flower and in the tallest tree! In a drop of water and in the ocean swell! In the sweetest breeze and also in the Hurricane …”

  And that’s when Lester saw it, the stranger, something new in the dark hurly-burly. It appeared on the cliffside, some fifty feet away. The stranger, Lester sensed, had always been in the storm, waiting to be born, and when it met the rocks, it lashed out and grabbed hold. It materialized magically, spinning upwards and weaving seductively, like a snake responding to a flute played by a turbaned fakir. It was a black genie, Lester thought—although Jimmy Newton would identify the stranger as a spawner and even Caldwell could account for it in terms of book-learned science, a small tornado created by the hurricane.

  That’s what was coming at the building, and although it hardly came straight—it darted to and from, sometimes appeared even to back up—its intention was clear. The stranger was coming for Lester. “‘Oh, Lord,’” he screamed, starting the one-hundred-and-fifty-second psalm from the top, “‘sometimes it seems as though You are very far away from us …’”

  “THE PEOPLE GATHERED ON THE BEACH, IN GALVESTON.” Beverly bit down on her lower lip. She made fists and rammed them onto the mattress, raising herself up, lifting her pelvis toward Caldwell. “There was a festive atmosphere. Families came, as though to a great reunion, a celebration. There were hot dog vendors and silhouette artists.” Beverly, gasping as Caldwell drove his tongue in deeper, fell backwards on the bed. She reached out, one hand finding the coarse blanket and twisting. “Even though that morning … what morning was it, Caldwell?”

  Caldwell stopped for a moment. “September the eighth,” he said. “Nineteen hundred.”

  “That is correct.” The instant Caldwell reapplied his tongue, Beverly shuddered. She raised her head so that she could look at his face. “I want you inside me,” she said.

  Caldwell stood up and walked to the foot of the bed. He spent a long moment looking at her. There was no light in the cottage, only a dull crepuscular glow. Caldwell was a darker shape in the darkness.

  He put his hands on the little bed and crawled forward. He held himself over her; she threw her legs up and wrapped them around the small of his back. She pulled him down, and his cock slid gently into her.

  “Even though the water already stood two feet deep in some sections of the city, the townspeople were not concerned,” whispered Beverly. “They gathered at the beach and watched the water rise. Some children flew kites. Other children splashed about in the swells.” Caldwell moved with a steady grace. She kept her feet locked across his back, and as he moved he lifted her effortlessly, as though she were weightless, no longer affected by gravity. “Hmmm,” she moaned, “that’s good.”

  Caldwell brought his mouth down upon Beverly’s, and their tongues touched gently and then roughly, but Beverly shook her head, breaking the kiss. She touched his face and gently outlined the uneven shape of his nose, which had been broken repeatedly upon the fields of battle. “The man from the Weather Bureau drove his sulky up and down the beach, telling the people to go home, to seek shelter,” she said. “He told the people who lived closest to the beach to get to higher ground.”

  She slipped an arm between herself and Caldwell, pushed at his chest and moved away from him. She raised herself up on her elbows, blew hair from her face. “Let me get on top,” she said, and they changed positions on the tiny bed. Caldwell lay down and stared upwards. Beverly took hold of his dick and held it gently as she straddled him. She touched the end to the wet lips of her pussy and made tiny opposing circles with her hand and her hips. Caldwell groaned. He could see dark scratches on the ceiling overhead, and understood that the shingles had been torn away, that the wind was now working at the wood.

  “Did you go down to the beach?” asked Beverly.

  Caldwell was now a giant ache. He shook his head.

  “Yes, you did,” she told him. “You went down with your family.”

  Caldwell closed his eyes. “That’s right,” he said, and then he was released, then he was sucked up inside as though Beverly were a cyclone. “I went down to the beach with Jaime and Andy. To watch. Andy took his fishing pole, because he thought maybe the redfish might have been drawn in with the water. Jaime had her swimming costume with her. She was going to change in the bathhouses there …”

  “Uh-uh, sorry,” said Beverly. “They were all destroyed.”

  “That’s right.” Caldwell reached up and brushed his fingertips across Beverly’s breasts, across her hard nipples. “Jaime didn’t care. She just stripped off and changed into her suit right there.”

  “People must have thought she was insane,” Beverly said. She grabbed Caldwell’s hand with both of hers, pressed herself against it. “I went down with Margaret,” she told Caldwell. “I didn’t think it was a good idea, but Margaret was adamant. You know, if that’s what everybody was doing, well then, that’s what Margaret had to do.” Beverly began to lift and lower herself steadily. “She, too, wanted to splash about in the waves, but I told her, ‘No. Your swimming isn’t strong enough. You need more classes.’”

  “Andy had some worms in his pocket,” said Caldwell. A roof board flew away, then another, then another, the lumber leaving with exuberant shrieks, eager to join the flock of dead things that circled in the sky. “He threaded one on, cast as well as he could.”

  “Yes,” said Beverly. She fell forward, her hands landing well beyond Caldwell’s head, her left nipple falling softly upon his lips. He kissed it, his tongue tracing its shape. “Go on,” said Beverly.

  “I didn’t think he’d catch anything, and I was worried that he’d be disappointed, but I saw the fishing line go tight, and damned if he didn’t have a decent-size red on, maybe four pounds.” Beverly twisted now so that her right breast swung across. Caldwell caught it with his mouth, sucked it in, bit down on the nipple.

  “All right, all right,” said Beverly. “Ummmm …” She spread out the fingers of one hand, seeking all the purchase she could. She guided the other between their bodies, her fingers coming to cup Caldwell’s balls. “The man from the Weather Bureau advised everyone to go home.” Beverly moved her hand so that her fingertips could reach her clitoris, she began to strum and thrum as though she were playing a musical instrument. “So I said, ‘Margaret, let’s go home …’” Beverly stopped speaking for a long moment, her fingers working frantically. Caldwell was pushing up with his hips, lifting her body toward the holes in the ceiling. The rain now poured through, the sheets were soaking wet, both Beverly and Caldwell gliste
ned. She was coming close to that place, she was nearing the edge of the cliff, but she did not want to go over, because something wasn’t working. Actually, something was working all too well, better than Beverly could remember this sort of thing working.

  “Jaime went for a swim.” Caldwell pictured Jaime in her bathing costume. She splashed into the swells, her short hair standing on end and dancing madly. She lowered herself once, twice, three times; each time she rose from the surf, more and more of her bathing costume clung to her body. The first time she stood up, Caldwell could see the shape of her bush, then her rounded belly and finally her breasts. Jaime lifted her hands above her head and placed her palms against each other.

  He reached forward and felt Beverly’s ass, the muscles there. Her flesh was cooled by the wind and the rain inside the room. The wind was doing some damage. The mirror had been ripped from its place, the little table shattered against the wall.

  “Jaime went for a swim, the crazy woman,” said Caldwell. He imagined, maybe remembered, Jaime diving into the water. She began to swim toward the horizon. Jaime’s specialty was the breaststroke, and one would have thought it useless against the unearthly tide, but Jaime swam away until Caldwell couldn’t see her any more.

  “And Andy was playing with all the other children.” Caldwell didn’t know where all the other children were, but he knew they were happy. “Margaret was playing with all the other children too,” he said.

  “Just be quiet and fuck me,” said Beverly, though she herself was surprised to hear the words coming out of her mouth, “until I come.”

  THE CYCLONE picked up Lester and carried him away. He flipped and thrashed like a fish in a pelican’s beak, and then he was spat out, thrown toward the rocks by the sea. This surprised him somewhat, to find himself so far away from the building. He was not frightened, simply surprised, even vaguely impressed. He prepared himself for a painful drop onto the boulders, drawing his elbows into his sides, balling his fists across his cheeks, protecting his eyes. But instead he landed in water, water that was warm and foamy. Lester was slammed up against the cliffside, although since there was only a drop of a few feet from rock to water, it could no longer be considered a cliffside. His fellow islanders could no longer consider the east side of Dampier Cay as any sort of protection because there was no longer a natural breakwall. This was information that Lester thought he should share with Maywell Hope. That notion, more than any sort of instinct for self-preservation, motivated Lester to attempt to extricate himself from the situation.

  He reached up and tried to take hold of the rocks there, but they were rounded and slick, and his hands kept slipping away. They slipped away, and Lester would have to deal with the churning water, which treated him like a washing machine treats an old sock. He appraised the relationship of his frail body to the rock face by judging which part of him stung at any particular moment. Every time his face smarted, he calculated that it was time to act. Finally his left hand fumbled its way into a crevice. With his other hand he took hold of a small outcropping, the point digging into his palm. Now it was time to pull himself up and over.

  “Oh, Lord,” Lester bellowed toward heaven, but suddenly he could no longer remember the words to the one-hundred-and-fifty-second psalm. “Oh, Lord,” he began again, but it was no use. “Oh, Lord,” he said, “are You going to help out or what?”

  When the storm took Lester away and threw him into the angry ocean, the sheet of plywood he had been securing disappeared. It was gone in a trice, a vanishing as instant and magical as anything ever accomplished by a tuxedoed illusionist. That particular sheet of wood ended up in Burt Gilchrist’s backyard, where it sawed off a tall birdhouse near the base, toppling it over. That birdhouse was fairly useless anyway. Burt and his wife had purchased it in Vermont, where they lived, and it was designed to serve songbirds. The huge waterfowl on Dampier Cay ignored it, for the most part, although once a cormorant had lighted on its roof, remaining there for a few hours, drying himself, standing first on one leg, its wings spread wide, then the other.

  The Gilchrists’ property was only a couple of miles away from the Water’s Edge, but the storm was altogether different there—belligerent and bullying, but not deranged. Burt and his wife stood on their porch and watched the storm as night fell. Their clothes fluttered and the wind was too loud to speak above—which Burt considered something of a blessing—but they could hold on to the wooden pillars and see what the hurricane was up to. They watched as a sheet of plywood came flying through the air. It rippled a little, like a flying carpet. The board smacked their little birdhouse and the thing went down.

  That was the worst that happened. The storm shutters were never really tested. Some water got into the laundry room, but the laundry room was designed to get wet now and then.

  Still, their lives were ruined. Burt’s wife—her name was Vera, née Dawson—was able to forgive Burt his dalliances with Doris Blembecker, but Burt couldn’t get his head around the fact that Vera had slept with Pete Carney, his best fucking friend. Burt couldn’t believe that Carney was capable of this act, and his anger with Vera had mostly to do with her having allowed the heartbreaking betrayal to take place.

  Maywell Hope herded everyone down to one end of the Pirate’s Lair, as far away from the bar, the windows, the passageway as they could get. The wind tore off more plywood sheets from the windows in the dining area, the panes of glass rattled and rippled.

  It was deep night now, and they had given their hearts over to despair. Sorvig made deals with God, although she suspected He would never honour them. Gail went over a mental list of regrets, and what stung her most was how paltry these regrets were: breaking up with Josh over a misunderstanding, being too proud to take him back, that sort of thing. Gail had wasted her fucking life, which was bad enough, but this seemed such an awful way to die, destroyed by brutal bad luck.

  Jimmy Newton lowered his head and listened to the storm, like a music lover might listen to a symphony, searching for nuances, variations on themes. He kept his thoughts to himself, but Maywell, studying Jimmy’s face closely, seemed to read them. “What is it they say, Newton?” he demanded. “Mind what you wish for, you may get it.”

  “They say that,” Jimmy agreed, trying to placate the pirate. But Newton had wished his whole life for this storm, and he had no problems with its arrival. He had no problems at all, no little human problems. He was not a pudgy little man who lacked social skills, he was Mr. Weather and he was in the middle of a beautiful storm, and that was all he’d ever wanted. So Jimmy listened as though the storm were a symphony, and in his heart he sang along.

  Polly held Maywell’s hand and remained calm, perfectly still. This was a monumental act of will, however, because it was not in her nature to remain still. She’d done what she could in terms of preparation—including ordering a radio tube from a supplier in Florida, paying for a plane ticket, dispatching Lester to fetch the thing—but now she could do no more. This desire to do, to fix, to be busy, bubbled away inside her, starting in her belly, rising to her chest, catching in her throat. And as it boiled away, this desire changed and became panic. Polly knew she would not be able to be still much longer.

  The storm seemed to be following the builder’s progress in reverse on cottages “J” and “K,” removing the extra-structure first, tearing away the flimsy wallboards, making doors and windows disappear. Then it got to work on the wooden skeleton. The joists were bound by tornado ties, and the storm had to work at these. Not for long, of course; Claire knew a little trick, which was to twist the four-by-fours in opposite directions until the metal connectors buckled and popped away.

  “We went home late in the afternoon,” said Caldwell, his words coming in short, airy bursts. “We lived on C Street.” Galveston, Texas, was laid out in a very orderly manner, the avenues named alphabetically, proceeding from the beach. “You must have lived around there.”

  Beverly made no answer. Caldwell took hold of her thin waist and slowed t
he motion of his hips. “I used to see you sometimes, you and your daughter, walking along the streets. She had such beautiful hair. Long, golden hair.”

  The world around her was being destroyed by cyclonic action. Beverly had awaited this moment, spent money she didn’t really have in order to find it. But now, when escape to Galveston was possible, she found herself tethered to the world by physical things: Caldwell’s large hands, his muscled thighs, his thickly veined cock. Not that he was doing anything that hadn’t been done before, or doing it with especial tenderness or ferocity. But he was doing it with uncommon need, a need that was almost infinite and served them both.

  Maywell knew that something was up with Polly. He decided to distract her, although it was hard to arrive at a method. Polly and he didn’t have a lot to say to each other, not that Maywell considered that a fault in their relationship. They both worked hard all day, made love quite a bit, and otherwise were silent and content in each other’s company. So if Maywell were to pipe up now—ask a question about the running of the Edge, say—Polly would prickle up suspiciously and maybe lose what hold she had.

  He considered telling Polly he loved her, which needed to be done sometime, and this seemed like the time, being as there might not be much left of it. He licked his lips, which were dry, made papery by the sun.

  But before he could speak, Polly suddenly bolted down the passageway and into the dining area. Maywell was two steps behind her—two steps too many, he knew, he’d been caught napping, he’d been rendered insensible by his imperfect, pirate’s love—and he put his hand on her shoulder, began to turn her around.