Memoir: Ice Crescent Moons

My grandmother, Blanche, made the best iced tea. It was the ritual I loved. She’d boil water in a large pan and add a generous portion of loose tea leaves as the water continued to boil. She’d then let it steep for a few minutes as she got everything else ready. She added sugar to the tea pitcher and ice (the ice machine produced four connected crescent moons of ice in sequence) to the large Victorian (I really don’t think they were Art Deco, but maybe) goblets. 

Once the tea had steeped sufficiently, she strained the tea into the tea pitcher, creating a super-saturated solution of strong black tea and what most respectably regulated people would describe as too much sugar. While the tea was still warm, she’d pour it into the goblets, and those frozen crescent moons would scream in protest, cracking with a ferocity that made me fear the glass would come apart, but it never did. Brought to the lips, the tea was a sweet mixture of warm and cool replenishing dry throats. I don’t believe the world contains a more satisfying way to quench thirst. 

When I was young, she lived in Galena Park, Texas, and at the time the only way to cross the Houston Ship Channel from Galena Park to Pasadena was through the Washburn Tunnel. Large bridges now carry several lanes of traffic across the channel, but in those days only one lane of traffic at a time could pass through. Thanks to the paper factories, refineries, and grain elevators, Galena Park had a distinctive smell in those days, and the smell was concentrated inside the tunnel. I don’t think I will ever forget that smell.

And if you passed through with Blanche driving, you’d be in the tunnel for awhile. She was cautious and never bothered about the tailbacks she created as she made her way from one side to the other. I usually prefer a quicker pace in life, but I found great amusement in giving the drivers behind us a few moments to reflect on their life choices and contingent salvation. 

In the early days of my life, I would sometimes get frustrated when she would start a story and then say, “Well, I can’t tell that,” leaving me to wonder what adventure or scandal she was hiding from my innocence. When I was older, though, I liked to visit her to hear her spinning yarns with considerably less obfuscation. A few family secrets came out, but mostly they were tales of her time working in a hospital. She had been a teacher and later worked in hotels and hospitals. Anyway, the hospital tales weren’t really scandalous, but they sometimes included more detailed descriptions of medical waste than some people would prefer. I loved hearing them, though. 

She and my grandfather had a beach house in Bolivar, Texas, and they would sometimes fish from the jetties. I can’t remember all the details, but on one occasion I think she was wrestling a catch from the water when she slipped in and was forced to struggle back onto the jetty. I just remember her saying, “When I fell in, I had my keys in my bra. By the time I got out, they were in my panties!” She was a woman to be reckoned with. 

Flash Fiction: Foul Air and Revenge in Bolivar, Texas

Eddie had a beach house in Bolivar. Now, Bolivar, Texas wasn’t exactly a resort. It was mostly retired people and stragglers who like to fish and comb the beach for sand dollars and whatever. It’s not too far from Gulf Coast refineries, so things aren’t exactly pristine, and people don’t go on too much about the smell of the fresh air. It was just kind of a grimy place with gritty people wandering around.

The only place to drink was Bob’s Sports Bar, which was just a bar, really, with a TV, but people seemed to find their own places to drink, though you never saw scantily clad hotties strolling the beach with fancy cocktails. You’d more likely see grungy men and women pushing off in a fishing boat with a couple cases of beer.

You had a fair mix of retired people, refinery workers, laborers, and a few artists and musicians. From time to time, you could see music at Bob’s. If you wanted a nicer restaurant or bar, you’d have to take the ferry over to Galveston. I used to like walking out on the jetties and just taking in the sights, sounds, and smells. You’d hear the horns on the ships approaching the ship channel, the sound of rats scuttling across the rocks, and the bickering of older couples loading up their boats to try their luck at the trout, red fish, and flounder just beyond the breakers.

And you could smell, always, the remnants of dead fish, shrimp, crabs, and so on. When people would clean their catches, they’d put them in barrels at the marina, but of course various predators would also leave carcasses scattered about, which would add to the pungent aroma that is Bolivar. And, yeah, the refineries added their own sweetness to the miasma.

If you looked around, you’d see a bunch of clapboard houses on stilts, many a little worse for wear. You’d also see a shipwreck out in the water. Some of the locals could tell you how it got there and how long it had been there, but most people just thought about it the way you might think of a mountain in the background. It was just always there. Something you expect to see.

The beach was named Crystal Beach because it was crystal clear and clean in someone’s imagination. In reality, it wasn’t the worst beach. It was usually covered in driftwood and seaweed, but not as much litter as you’d find on a commercial beach. Most people on the beach lived nearby, so they weren’t interested in making a mess of it.

So Eddie loved Bolivar. It was a great getaway for him, and he spent as much time as possible there. He loved the fishing, walking out on the jetties, going to Bob’s from time to time, and just hanging out on the porch with a cold beer. He liked the sights, sounds, and even smells of Bolivar, but he didn’t like his next-door neighbors.

To be honest, I personally never even understood his grievance with them. His kids said they didn’t think he even remembered why he was mad at them, but he was mad at them all right, and he did everything he could to cause mischief. Understand that Eddie was a gruff and ruddy sort of guy, never really in a good mood, but I can’t remember ever seeing him do anything that actually hurt anyone in any way. Maybe when he was younger he did, but he was pretty harmless in his middle age.

So when he caused mischief, it didn’t amount to much. His neighbors had a big century plant on the border between their property and his. If you don’t know what a century plant is, it is a large agave plant. It’s a succulent, so it just looks like a big, blue cactus in the shape of a flower. They’re popular around the Gulf Coast because they grow well and impress the eye. They’re called century plants because folks say they only bloom after 100 years and then they die, so it’s a real treat to see one in bloom.

Well, that’s not how Eddie saw it. He hated the God damned neighbors, and he hated their God damned century plant. He’d sit out on his porch every night and drink a few beers and then go relieve himself on that plant. No one really understood why he thought the best way to kill a plant was by pissing on it. Sure, maybe it seemed disrespectful, but it wasn’t poison in any way.

At least, it didn’t seem to be poison for the plant. That thing grew up like Jack’s magic beanstalk, which delighted Eddie’s kids to no end. They teased him constantly about how he helped that plant grow. He had five daughters, and they really enjoyed annoying him, and annoying him was easy, but I guess it was all affectionate in the end.

Of course, other neighbors got wind of it and started asking Eddie to come pee on their tomatoes and everything like that. They would say that and just laugh in his face. He always acted like he was so mad he might blow up the world or something, but nobody ever believed he would do anything more harmful than fertilizing a despised neighbors plants.

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