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Chapter 1. In The Beginning
Gulfcoaston, TX, Just Before The Millennium
The Visit
The house was what they called a "Galveston Raised Cottage" whichwas a sort of big shotgun flat raised up on two-foot-square pillars six feetoff the ground. A long hall ran down one side of the house from front to backwith the rooms opening off the hall to the right. There was a living room,a dining room and a kitchen on the first floor and two bedrooms and a sittingroom on the second. It sat on a thirty foot wide lot that ran a hundred andtwenty feet from Avenue M to the alley. The house was gaily painted and thelot was a riot of flowers such as are only seen in the near tropics in earlyMay. There must have been nearly a thousand houses like this built on the Islandduring the boom times between 1914 and the end of the first World War as cattle,grain and lumber poured through the port on their way to war. Probably lessthan a hundred remained, generally lovingly restored, on the East End, in theSilk Stocking District, and a very small number here in Darktown.
A man in his early fifties, somewhat unusually dressed,stood on the front porch and knocked on the screen door gently. When therewas no answer, he rapped a bit more forcefully. Presently a elderly man shuffledslowly to the screen door and unlatched it, beckoning the visitor in. In Americawe currently call men of the householder's complexion "Black" but in the man'sdistant youth he would have been described as High Yellow, or Light, or byhis friends as "so high a creole youse a coon ass". The elderly black man wasdressed identically as his white visitor, a light brown short-shelved shirtand medium green slacks, it was a uniform. Closer examination revealed theywere dressed as Boy Scout leaders and the visitor had in his hand the sortof stiff, broad-brimmed hat formerly associated with Boy Scouts and MarineDrill Instructors but now favored by State Troopers. Beyond this similarity,the differences could not have been greater. The white man was tall, broad,late-middle-aged and beginning to run to fat as such men invariably do whenthoroughly ensconced in a sedentary job. His full brown hair showed streaksof grey but his full beard was mostly white. The black man was short, stoopedwith his extreme years but moved with a grace that suggested athleticism inhis youth and vigorous physical activity throughout his life. The black man,warmly greeted the white man "Come in, come in Doc. Let us sit on the backporch and visit for a while." The white man replied, "Thank you Mr. Smith,I am most grateful that you could see me." Despite their location on the upperGulf Coast of Texas, neither man spoke with a readily identifiable accent.The affect of the black man's voice was welcoming while that of the white manwas respectful and deferential. Although both men wore Scout uniforms, thedecorations were vastly different. The tall white visitor's khaki shirt wasa mass of campaign ribbons and embroidered patches that were it not for theman's reserved manner would have been ridiculous while the black man had twogolden medals hanging from around his neck, one on a black and white ribbonand one from a yellow and white ribbon. These were obviously men of gravitasand this was obviously about as formal a meeting as could be held in a home.
On their way though the house to the back porch, Mr. Smithstopped by the refrigerator and extracted a pitcher of iced tea, added a coupleof handfuls of ice cubes from the freezer section and grabbed a couple of glasses.He anticipated that the visit might go on for some time. Then he and the manhe identified as Doc settled themselves into chairs in the deep shade of thesouthern-facing porch and enjoyed the breeze blowing in from the sea. In earlyMay you could consider the Island almost idyllic. But then May could seem along way from June when the oppressive heat and humidity set in to last untilOctober. The two men sat and made the small take that exemplified civilitybetween the races in this part of the country.
Doc initiated the real conversation "Mr. Smith, I bringgreetings from Fr. LeBeaux. He says he misses you and doesn't get a chanceto see you much. We were talking down at the Council 707 hall the other nightand he alluded to a box. He said that he hoped that you had taken good careof the box. He said that the materials in the box could be dangerous if theyfell into the wrong hands. He implied, and I have to admit that I did not pushhim in the matter, that the things in the box not only involved the Churchbut the BSA as well." James Smith looked at him for the longest time and belched. "Itis a story from long ago that involved Fr. LeBeaux, Mr. Williams and I whenwe were just tiny little colored boys. It started the year we all joined theBoy Scouts, 1917. I guess that just about everybody that was involved in itis dead now except for us three. There aren't even very many people aroundthat have even heard about it. I had thought, actually I had hoped, that JeanLeBeaux had forgotten about it. But I guess that it was not the sort of thingyou ever forget." Then Mr. Smith returned to his silence.
Doc prompted again "What is it? Is it the box? I reallydon't know what this is all about?" Mr. Smith looked at him again, slowly andsolemnly, and burped again. "Son, I don't know if you really want to know.I don't know if you have a need to know. You have been on this Island for nearlytwenty years now and yet you have hardly touched the surface. I have to admitthat you have been better accepted by the Islanders than any other outsiderI have ever seen. In fact most of the outsiders, the doctors at the medicalschool, would prefer not to be accepted by the Islanders. But there is a lotthat you don't know. Do you really want to know?" Doc nodded his assent. Mr.Smith belched again, looked the tall man deeply in the eyes and said, "No itjust isn't the box. The box contains most of the evidence from something thathappened during Mardi Gras and Lent in 1918. It involved seven deaths, theChurch, the Boy Scouts, witchcraft and some very evil and twisted people. Wellultimately nine people really died because of it. People were beaten, almostto death, just for talking about it back in the old days in the twenties andthirties. You won't find anything about it in the newspaper files, or in thepolice records, or in the Church records. And yes, Jean LeBeaux, Cory Williamsand I were thick in the middle of it. What was in the box. A gun, some diaries,a bunch of pamphlets, bunch of letters, a whole bunch of pictures and someother things. Things people usually don't talk about much. I guess you couldsay that I stole everything that was kept in 'the box'. I couldn't really seethrowing it away, I felt that it should be saved. That someone should rememberwhat happened. But no matter how things changed it never seemed right to bringwhat was in the box into the public eye. But on the other hand, it really wouldn'tdo to dump these things. So I kept them. Then my wife took ill. I began torealize that despite all the advances in medical science and your claim thatI am going to live forever, I am not really immortal. And it would be bestif these things were not discovered in my effects. No one would, or could understandwhat they involved and people would get all the wrong kinds of ideas." Theancient mulatto burped and stared off into space.
The tall Scout leader fidgeted back and forth on his chairand took small sips of his ice tea. "So what did you do with the box. JamesSmith once again looked him in the eye. "So I sold the contents of the box.Now don't jump to conclusions, sonny boy. I had been contacted by a fundamentalistEvangelical minister, a Rev. E. E. Norcod who had caught wind of what mightjust be in the box. How, I have no idea how he ever got wind of it. But nowI do know something of this man and his penchant for secrecy. I don't see muchrisk of the cat getting out of the bag. Its not that he loves us Catholics.He probably hates us about as much as the rest of the Evangelicals do. TheWhore of Babylon and all that sort of stuff. But his sub-sect tries to verymuch stay out of the public eye. And they are particularly desirous to avoidthe scrutiny of the government and the new media. So I think our secrets aresafe. Besides, it all happened over eighty years ago, eighty one years, allthe principals are dead, all their children are dead, and soon enough thosethree little colored boys will be dead too."
At this point the negro nonagenarian looked off into space,burped, and muttered. "Pictures, eighty year old pictures. Pictures of whitewomen. Some naked, some mostly naked. And nuns. And teenage schoolgirls. Alot of them were beat pretty bad. We knew about it, the three of us. We knewabout the voodoo and the lady from New Orleans and her cook. And about thegoings on that now-a-days is called lesbianism. It involved some of the grandestIsland families. And the most ambitious priest in the Diocese. When it wasall over, I stole all of the stuff, kept it. Blood spatters and all. Reallystrange stuff some of it. But it was really about the women. They called themselvesthe 'Belles of St. Mary's' ".
Tribes
"Ok Mr. Smith" observed Doc, "Now you have piqued my interest.As you say I have gotten about as deep into this community as any academiccan and I have never heard of anything like this. Some sort of murder and sexscandal? In Gulfcoaston? About all I can remember specific to the history ofThe Island from that era is the hurricane of 1917 and then the political reformsof 1920. What are you talking about." James Smith went back into the kitchenand added some more iced tea and ice to his glass and came back out onto theporch and settled himself in. "Son, I have come to know and trust you theselast dozen years or so. But on this matter you have to keep your mouth shut.Remember all the noise you made about the George Wolfe mess, the guy you caughtstealing from those Cub Scouts. Yes, he had to be removed but you could haveaccomplished things in a much quieter fashion. In fact, you will recall thatyou did him in by a quiet piece of administrative trickery after all your screamingand shouting yielded nothing. You have a lot to learn about this place. Goin and refresh your iced tea and I will enlighten you about the workings ofthis place. And about the Tribes of the Island in those days."
The tall Scout leader did as he was told but stopped inthe bathroom to pass on some of the iced tea he had already had. After he wascomfortably seated the elderly black gentleman began to lay out the socialstructure of Gulfcoaston around the turn of the previous century. At the topof the heap were the robber barons of post civil war Texas, the Moodys, theKempners, the Sealys, the Greshams, the Smiths and the Rosenbergs. They werethe multinational conglomerates of the late 19 th centurywith one base in banking, another in shipping and railroads, a third in merchandizingand a fourth base in ranching. Six great mansions stood there along Broadwayfor the six great families. Their children were seen when young playing inthe front yard after tutoring at home. But as they grew older they disappeared,sent off to boarding schools in Virginia in the case of the Protestants whohad, afterall fled from the war-ravaged Old South or in the case of the Jews,to prep schools in the Northeast. Then the children reappeared as young adultsto find mates and participate in the family wars or to disappear once again,this time for good in the growing metropolises that beckoned the young andrich. The upper crust attended and ran First Baptist, First Presbyterian, FirstMethodist and above all Trinity Episcopalian. And there were two synagogues,one Orthodox and one Reformed. The time of the year for the ruling class was'The Holidays' which stretched from the beginning of December to a couple ofweeks after New Years. The mansions on Broadway gleamed in the evenings andfireplaces glowed in the cool weather. But mostly what they did was feud. Somewere minor fights like the Kempners with Henry Rosenberg. The granddaddy ofthem all was the battle between the Moodys and the Greshams over the SantaFe railroad. But that is another tale.
One tier below these magnates lay the Irish Catholics whohad also come to post war Texas seeking their fortunes in the 1870's. Theyby and large supplied the white collar staff to the Moodys and Greshams. Andin many cases these Irish rose to executive positions accumulating not insignificantwealth and power of their own. Not enough to challenge the ruling class butenough to justify large comfortable houses of their own on Broadway. Not mansionsmind you but large homes with wrought-iron fences in front, lace curtains hangingin massive double oak doors with leaded glass windows, and large garage apartmentsbacking on the alley to accommodate the numerous servants those large Catholicfamilies required. Between the robber barons and the lace curtain Irish, Broadwaywas solidly packed with substantial homes from the Gresham mansion at 14 th Streetto the Moody mansion at 26 th Street. The Irish weresolidly Catholic, of course and dominated the Catholic religious life of theIsland. And since Gulfcoaston was the see for all of Texas east of San Antone,they ruled all of the non-Hispanic part of Catholic Texas. For the tribe ofthe Irish, THE month of the year was March with glorious St. Patty's day. Eventhough Ash Wednesday very often fell before March 17 th ,the fact that Lent was on in no way inhibited the parties. And if a party grewtoo big to hold in your home, there was always the Knights of Columbus hall,downtown on Post Office Street with its fifty foot bar, large dance floor,and commodious kitchen. And you could be sure that the Irish controlled theofficers of Council 707, the oldest and largest in Texas.
Not that all of the Irish were rich. Most of the Irish werejust one step up from being 'Shanty' Irish and lived in cramped fashion inmodest rental homes. These were not by and large concentrated in any one areabut were scattered throughout the East End and the Silk Stocking neighborhoods.However, with the prosperity induced by supplying the needs of the war in Europe,these large Irish families began to move into more comfortable houses thatthey built in the fast developing West End, south of Broadway and west of 29 th Street.At this time the Irish considered every one of the Parishes their own, exceptof course, for the solidly German St. Joseph's and Holy Rosary, the missionof the Holy Spirit fathers to the negroes. Yes the Irish ruled the big parishes,Sacred Heart Cathedral Parish which was a minor basilica, St. Patrick's inthe West End and most of all, St. Mary's in the East End. Now-a-days, the Irishclaim only St. Patrick's and they are few and far between even there but backin the nineteen teens, St. Mary's was their pride and joy. St. Mary's withits college, high school and elementary school. Stucco St Mary's brand newbaroque portico and dome gleaming white in the subtropical sunshine with palmtrees planted all around. St. Mary's with its imposing rectory and large convent.Irish St. Mary's the proud. And that particular vicious Irish misogynist streakthat forms the basis for this tale.
The Germans comprised a third Tribe of craftsmen and builders,the skilled blue collar workers who all had as their goal a shop of their own.By and large they worshipped with their own, celebrated with their own andmarried within their own. St. Joseph's Parish had the only wooden Catholicchurch on the Island and one Mass each Sunday still had the sermon "Ins Deutsch".And First Lutheran Church had the 8:00 AM service in German and the 10:00 AMservice in English. The center of social life for them centered around a private,one block square park, The Garten Verein, which always had four types of "Bier" ontap. The Baptists and Methodists of Texas may have gotten the state legislatureto pass an Ordinance of Prohibition for the Lone Star State but it seems asif that law ceased to be in effect when one crossed the causeway over GulfcoastonBay. And there was a live band playing polkas and waltzes every night. Exceptduring Lent – which was observed ecumenically by both Lutherans and Catholics.But then there was October, glorious October. When finally the first 'Northern'blew through bringing welcome relief from The anti-German sentiment which rosesteadily between 1914 and 1917 served only to cause the German community tobind itself together more tightly.
Then came the Italians, very recent tribe of immigrantsmany of whom lacked basic skills in English but who dominated the grocery andcartage businesses. There were more of them than anyone realized. All of asudden very block in the East End had at least two or three families noisilysquabbling in Italian. First one and then another Sunday Mass at St. Mary'swas marred by large numbers of squat women wearing head scarves rather thanfashionable hats. And mumbling into their beads rather than holding their headsup high. And if you wanted a keg of decent beer or a case of good Irish whiskeyyou had to see the young Maceo brothers. Somebody even went and got them intothe K of C, several of them including the Maceo brothers. Well, I guess thatis the price you have to pay to keep beer in the cooler and whiskey on theshelves behind the bar. You couldn't make any sense out of their holidays either.The feast of the Assumption you could understand but they did it so strangely.Carrying the state of the Virgin Mary through the streets, lashed to a chaircarried on poles? Wasn't that bad taste? But what the hell is San Giovanniand San Guiseppi? And they were so noisy when they beat their wives and daughters.All that yelling and screaming and running around. The Irish did such thingsin a quiet and disciplined manner. No more than a little bit of whimpering.The Germans did it stolidly with solid thumps and the women took it like dumbbeasts of burden.
Lastly there was that great dark invisible tribe. Alwayspresent, always working, always ignored. Negroes come down from the cottonfields of Northeast Texas looking for steadier work. Creoles from SouthernLouisiana. Colored people from all over, who knows from where they came. Seekinga little more pay, certainly seeking escape from the Klan which was once morerising throughout the South. Mostly they lived north of Broadway and west of30 th Street. Right up against and intermingled amongstthe cotton compresses and break-bulk warehouses that lined the Strand alongthe piers and in between the sidings and switchyards of the five railroadsthat abutted the docks. Packed into ramshackle two story wooden tenements,often with less than three feet of space between houses. Wide-eyed kids peeringout from windows, women working as cooks and domestics, "Yaz Mam, No Mam, ThankyeMam". Tired, broken men shuffling home from twelve hour days on the docks.There but not really there. Heard only for mumbled courtesies. What they didat night nobody knew because nobody who was anybody ever visited those partsof town after dark. No streetlights, no street signs, no curbs, no sidewalks,no one home. Oh yes there was an enormous amount of life, of love, of death.But it all occurred out of sight and out of mind of the four tribes. Exceptwhen the tribes went to the brothels at the west edge of the colored 'ControlledDistrict' on 28 th and Post Office Street. Therewere places that the invisible tribe could call their own. There were the tiny,battered Baptist and AME churches in the middle of the blocks. There was asaloon on every corner. And there was light yellow brick Holy Rosary Parishrun by the Holy Spirit fathers.
Now this is not to say that there were not people outsidethe tribal system, for there were. People whose lives did not center aroundthe wharves and warehouses, cotton and grain, the great mercantile brokersand bankers on the Strand, the railroads and steamship lines. But most of thesewere associated with the Medical Branch of the State College and the greatbig hospital, the biggest in the state. They lived in a different world thanthe Moodys and Greshams and Sealys and Smiths and Rosenbergs and Kempners,than the Irish and Germans and Negroes and Italians, than us. But not all ofthe outsiders were doctors, nurses and professors. Gulfcoaston was becominga known place, an exotic place, a cosmopolitan place, a place to go to. Inthe Summer it was cooler than the rest of Texas. In the Winter it was warmerthan the rest of Texas. Recently, two other Bathing Palaces had opened up onthe beach, in addition to Murdock's making the Island a favorite Summer locationfor all of Texas. You could get just about anything you wanted in Gulfcoaston,beer, fine wine, good liquor, fresh seafood, high culture at the Opera Houseand low culture in the "Controlled District" and things that you just couldn'tget normally in the conservative, repressed South. And of course there wasalways the possibility of a friendly game of chance at one of the numeroussocial clubs that were popping up under the auspices of the Maceo brothersand their associates. This was beginning to attract people that were, welllet us just say they were a bit different. People that might have been thoughta bit odd in Brenhem Texas or Shreveport Louisiana. Or downright depraved inTupulo Mississippi. Nobody asked too many questions in Gulfcoaston.
For instance, there was that Canjun lady, the famous writer,Ann Rhyse. She wrote all those creepy novels that the ladies all loved, andbought by the millions. She loved New Orleans (pronounced Nawlins) but leftwhen her beloved husband died. Went and bought the oldest mansion on Broadway,the Ashton Villa when she moved into town. Right in the middle of MillionairesRow at 20 th Street. Bought it from the Masons whowere beginning to let it go to seed. Fixed it up. Particular lady that Mrs.Rhyse, right particular lady. No butler or chauffer, drove her car, a 1917Winton, herself. Had a couple of yard men, but they didn't live on site. Hada woman that lived with her and went everywhere with her. Another woman writer,Patrica Cornel, from Virginia, I think. Had three maids, three beautiful maids,all Nawlins Irish and a Creole Haitian cook, Tabita. All our mothers told usto keep well away from that bunch. Said that Tabita, that Haitian, smelledlike a witch to them. But we three boys were always fascinated by that household.And boy those Nawlins Irish maids were very easy on the eye. Every once ina while on a Monday we would peak though the alley fence and watch them giggleand stretch as they hung the laundry out in the yard. To an eleven year oldcolored boy they were like angels, just like angels.
In those days, so far away, there was one time of year whenall the tribes came together – Mardi Gras. That party that lasted twowhole weeks. The high society, the six families, had grand balls in the glowingmansions along Broadway. Every hall in the city was rented for the dances andthe parties for the Krews. The Krew of Momus, the Krew of Aquarius, the Krewof Gambrinus, the Krew of Hesperia, the Krew of Germania, the Krew of thisand the Krew of that. No one rested for a week. But above all were the parades.The parades were free to all and no one was excluded. On little Mardi Grasweekend there was a parade on Friday night, Saturday afternoon and Saturdaynight. On big Mardi Gras weekend there was a parade on Friday night, two onSaturday afternoon, the big parade on Saturday night, and a parade on Sunday.Then on Tuesday night there was the biggest parade of all and everyone partieduntil dawn crept into the sky on Wednesday morning. And no one was excludedfrom the parades.
Doc looked over to his right and noticed that the sun washeaded down to the horizon. He looked over to his left. Mr. Smith's chin hadsunk onto his chest. The elderly black man started. Then he belched, took asip of his iced tea and looked over at Doc blinking. "Well, I'm probably boringyou but you needed to know a little of the background. You had to understandthe Irish. They were the cause of it all. The proud, silently vicious Irish.Nasty. And at the center of it all was a proud prelate. Fr. Thomas Xavier Kelly,aiming to be the youngest Monsignor in Texas. He was the one that got all wrappedup with the women who called themselves the 'Belles of St. Mary's'. One ofthe diaries in the box was his. The photographs were of the 'Belles' and theirdaughters. And a couple of whips and some things made out of leather that theydon't talk about much even in the brothels. It was quite a collection and itwas quite a story those 'Belles of St. Mary's'."
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