Skyscraper Shadows

It was August 31, and I had just awoken after a fitful night of sleeping in a tent on Crystal Beach. I unzipped the tent, where Shawn was still sleeping peacefully, and stepped out onto the firm sand. The sun was rising beyond the steady waves, partially obscured by wispy cirrus clouds. These were the outflow of Hurricane Gustav, the chimney spewings of a storm hundreds of miles away. Helicopters, two, three, six at a time, buzzed overhead from the east. Evacuations, either from Southwest Louisiana or from oil rigs.

At breakfast in a hole-in-the-wall diner on Highway 87 the TVs were tuned to the Weather Channel, patrons glancing occasionally at the red swath painted over the Gulf of Mexico, foreheads furrowing with worry. Gustav was not to be their storm. Their little town, they reassured themselves, would live to fight another day. The pretty forecaster pointed out another disturbance, far out in the Atlantic, that was on its way to being named Ike. That messy patch of clouds had only the slightest chance of even entering the Gulf, much less coming our way.

Back on the beach, my family, Shawn and I passed the time swimming, climbing the dunes, riding around in his Jeep and my mother's Silverado, making this tucked-away corner of the Gulf Coast our temporary playground. The Bolivar Peninsula was never marketed as a "family beach" like the no-alcohol-allowed, umbrellas-for-rent spots on Galveston, on the other side of the bay. In fact, it was never marketed much at all, always being an unassuming place, a refuge for scruffy shirtless dudes with Rebel flags hoisted on their pickups, a place almost ridiculously earnest in its small-townness. Not even Wal-mart bothered with Bolivar; too inaccessible. But this isolation had its own appeal, which is why my folks and I made it down to the same spot on Crystal Beach at least once a year. Now, it's all gone.

Bolivar will come back, of course. Galveston came back after its annihilation in 1900, behind a mighty seawall every Texan learns about in elementary school, the same seawall that barely held back the merciless pounding of Ike's surge 108 years later, not enough to keep the island from being submerged, but enough to keep it from being obliterated once more. Homestead came back, so did Pensacola, so did New Orleans (New And Improved! Now With 50% Fewer Blacks!!). None of these places were ever the same, their former character forever washed away with the houses and bodies. Years from now the quiet little corner where I slept with Shawn will have gleaming condos, bridge access, the latest in defensive ramparts, and a shiny new Mickey D's, all paid for by out-of-state investors. But the Gulf will still be there, and in due time it will return for its remittance.

92% Barack Obama
90% John Edwards
88% Hillary Clinton
82% Mike Gravel
80% Dennis Kucinich
79% Bill Richardson
43% Rudy Giuliani
34% John McCain
27% Mike Huckabee
24% Mitt Romney
17% Ron Paul
15% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Full disclosure: Barack actually tied with Chris Dodd, but he's not running anymore so out he went.

I've taken up walking again.

The first walk was a simple escape, a desperate attempt to be anywhere besides the Chronicle, the Honda, and the garage apartment. I wandered the streets of what was once called the Sixth Ward in darkness, silently drifting past the beautiful 19th century houses, all invisibly marked with the lamb's blood of a preservation ordinance, all partially hidden behind massive oak trees that formed tunnels over the narrow streets.

Now these walks are a nightly ritual. I either drop off my bag in the parking garage and start from there, or drive a short distance to a pre-determined starting point, and I wander in the darkness. I walk in silence and solitude. No iPod, no phone, no internet, no television, no internal combustion engine. The darkness provides relief from the heat that has persisted unusually late this year, and it provides cover, anonymity, secrecy. As I walk no one knows who I am or where I am. I become non-corporeal, floating, observing. I observe house after house, car after car, asphalt, concrete, cobblestones, street signals, trees, glass towers, the inky bayou waters, the startled rabbits, sports bars and cantinas.

Occasionally a spontaneous turn leads me to a path from which I cannot diverge, like a precariously narrow sidewalk on a mile-long bridge, or an unfinished concrete trail clinging to the steep banks of Buffalo Bayou. At those moments I return to my body, the familiar tenseness of anxiety squeezing my every organ and muscle, my legs aflame, begging me to simply turn back to whence I started. I always go forward.

Afterward I come home, log on to Google Earth, and map and measure the route I took. Sometimes my journeys are a short 2.54 miles; other times they are treks of 5.78 miles. Each route is saved and added to the sinuous multicolored strings that mark an ever-increasing swath of the simulated city.

This is my home, the city in which I have dwelled for 21 of nearly 25 years. But it's the city I've seen mostly through the rectangular telescreens of car windows, always separated, always restrained. When I walk, I'm free.

"my granddad thought pavarotti was chasing princess diana on a motorcycle when she got in that car crash"