Wisecracking Across America - 48. Chapter 48

Tuesday, June 29, 1999

And sometimes communication fails. Cathy had mentioned a plantation town at dinner, kind of in the direction we were headed, and Tom had seemed interested. I said it sounded like a good idea, but the next morning, when humidity hit, the thought of walking around for two hours in moist mist made it less interesting. Besides, after Williamsburg, Charleston, and Savannah, this would be more of the same.

So I made other plans, told Tom, and he said fine. Still, I didn't realize how unhappy he was till we were zipping along the bayou.

"I really wanted to see a plantation," he said quietly.

I thought for a moment, then offered to go back.

"No," he decided. "It's too late."

"Oh, come on," I pointed out. "We have no schedule."

He was silent another minute, I guessed thinking. "No, it's out of the way."

It was way out of the way, and I didn't feel like going back. But I didn't want him pissed off, either.

"I just figured this drive would be terrific," I apologized.

And it was. It was beautiful. We were driving along the edge of the Gulf, even closer to the water than we'd been at Big Sur. The day had that same surrealistic feeling: That the world ended here. That nothing else was explorable. Had Isabella seen this, she never would have hocked her jewels for Columbus.

Cathy had warned us not to go. When I'd asked what was on this unmarked portion of the map, she'd said, "Swamp." But there was so much more than you could see from a tree-lined interstate. Still, if what you wanted was a plantation...

We reached a small, unexpected ferry, which distracted Tom a bit. He'd almost even relaxed, when we hit a detour in Port Arthur.

"Which way?" he asked.

I studied the map. "Left."

"The detour points right."

"But I can guess where they're taking us. This'll be shorter."

Though not pretty. Still, I knew there was a beautiful stretch of beach ahead, after another ferry ride into Galveston. We just had to get there before Tom killed me.

It took a while. The detour was slow, and even when we rode the ferry, with gulls flying wildly, silhouetted against the dark sky, Tom remained quiet.

Galveston Strip didn't help: Unbroken motels on one side. Grey surf on the other.

"We could find a place to stay," I suggested.

He didn't want to, and I couldn't deny the place was grim: Six lanes of busy traffic clutching a concrete shore. Two nights earlier, when Tom and I stopped by the police booth on the Gulf Shores boardwalk, we'd asked what their red flag meant. "Severe undertow," came the reply, the red flag whip-cracking as reinforcement. Galveston Bay had the same look.

Maybe if the sun had been out, maybe if it had been a bright, warm day, Tom might have enjoyed the drive. At least, the breeze had temporarily dropped the humidity. But the night wind that replaced it was as uninviting.

To give me a safety net, we pulled over, and I called ahead for motel reservations---choosing the best place possible, an hour out of the city. And that amazing stretch of beach still lay before us.

It was even eerier than I remembered. The sky was purple and blue and pink above the inland sandbars. On the ocean side, the horizon broke only for dark vacation homes on stilts.

"Amazing, no?" I asked.

Tom answered, "How much further?"

A toll booth sign gave us the distance: Twenty-one miles. And though I was stunned by the view, I knew we were losing light, and Tom had been driving since noon. Also, the tiniest tug on my memory told me something was off about Freeport.

Then we saw lights and I remembered: It was a city of gas refineries, all lit up by industrial glare. At least, gas was odorless. If this stank, like turnpike New Jersey, Tom would have staked me on the dunes.

"We should have stayed in Galveston," I gulped.

The only thing that helped was Tom hated that even more.

"It's all right," he insisted, probably not meaning a word of it. But it was the friendliest he'd been all day.

Then things got worse.

"Turn here?" Tom asked.

A long bridge had appeared from nowhere.

I didn't know. A scary 7-11 lay across the road. Guys like gorillas, boozing and sporting cigars. I got out, then wimped, and asked a man sitting in his car.

"Just across the water," he advised.

Well, not "just."

Seven winding, X-Files miles later, we parked at our motel. Which, fortunately, was perfect. But every restaurant was closed.

"Almost," the girl behind the counter smiled. "There's the chicken place. And the burger place."

The burger place killed its lights as we drove up, and the chicken place was out of chicken. "If you wait twenty minutes, we'll make more, hon," the cook offered.

Tom didn't want to wait. He was tired, and hungry, and I'd made him drive too far.

"There's a supermarket," I said. We'd just passed it. "I'll make sandwiches. They can't be worse than some dinners we've had."

"I can get beer," Tom replied.

Which he did, practically chugging it in the aisle. I grabbed bread, and meat, and anything I could think of quickly, then made sandwiches, which we ate in our cool motel room.

"Not bad," Tom had to admit. Alcohol helped.

"We won't drive this far again," I swore. We'd gone almost four-hundred miles.

"If I'd known in advance..."

"I didn't know myself... About the detour..."

That seemed no excuse. In the silence, the dog gnawed our leftovers.

"At least, you got two ferry rides," I told Tom. "And the Galveston sky was great. The gulls. The sunset."

He nodded, then slugged his beer.

Close, but no plantation.

394 miles