In Honor of Port Arthur


Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas, have received the brunt of the force of Hurricane Rita. With the news I couldn't help but think about this story I wrote, based on a trip across the South I took back in 1967 with my best friend from high school. I realize now that Port Arthur and the Louisiana swamps blended in my memory. It rained then, too.

Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas, have received the brunt of the force of Hurricane Rita. With the news I couldn't help but think about this story I wrote, based on a trip across the South I took back in 1967 with my best friend from high school. I realize now that Port Arthur and the Louisiana swamps blended in my memory. Port Arthur is close to the Texas-Louisiana border. Here's the section of the story where I write about the area, and the rain...


Maggi drove the next day. It began to rain around Port Arthur, the heavy, gray sheets blending into the flat, gray Louisiana swamp. The windshield wipers could not clear the glass quickly enough. She gripped the steering wheel, her back in knots as she leaned forward, trying to see what lay ahead on the narrow two-lane road, a thin line of pavement separating two water-filled ditches. It was thirty miles to Port Arthur, and Maggi thought they might be running low on gas. It seemed as if she had been driving this horrid stretch of road all her life. She wondered how they would survive it. There seemed to be little sense to her being there anymore. Joan acted as if Maggi were a stranger she'd picked up on the way. They'd hardly spoken since Van Horn.


Joan was playing the portable tape recorder Maggi had brought. The radio didn't work, and Maggi couldn't imagine driving two thousand miles without some music. Joan hummed along, singing an occasional verse to the rain outside her window.


Maggi had made the tapes during the two hours she waited for Joan to pick her up, late as usual. It was hot that morning, hot enough for shorts and a halter. They drove across the desert in the afternoon, sticking to the vinyl seats and gulping ice water. Maggi was excited about her first trip beyond the Southwest. It was, she thought, a rite of passage, driving across a continent through places she'd never been, not even with her parents. For once in her life she had full responsibility for herself, forced to cope with difficulties that surprised them.


Water poured in through the hole where the driver's wind-wing was supposed to be. The hole was covered by an old dishrag. The rag kept the water off Maggi's face, but she was sopping wet below the waist and her feet had turned into blocks of ice. The heater didn't work, either. Ahead, the outline and headlights of a truck loomed like a monster rising out of the swamp. It created a wind as it passed, spraying sheets of water over the Falcon and through the broken window. Maggi barely missed diving into one of the ditches.


They filled the gas tank in Port Arthur, a raw, squared town with flat gray wood and fake storefronts, like some town out of an old western, but crisscrossed with telephone and power lines. The attendant, a beanpole with raw, red cheeks and a tuft of curly blond hair matted and wet with rain, gave them a sheet of plastic for the window. He was astonished that they had made it across the swamp in the pile of junk they drove. Maggi grinned proudly, a firm sense of accomplishment overtaking her like a wave.


More here.


Posted: Sat - September 24, 2005 at 11:42 PM          

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