3 The start of a fateful day
Dawn, Wednesday, April 16th,
(5:45 AM, 3 hours, 27 minutes before the first explosion)

Sitting at her dresser Carol combed her silky brown hair and critically examined her
freshly applied makeup. She was looking for any blemishes or faults that could possibly detract
from her soft, symmetrical features. As she performed her careful inspection, she wondered
about why she went to such great effort to be attractive. She’s been comely all of her life and
look at where that had gotten her. She was a single, twenty-three year old woman, living with her
parents. Admittedly, her family home was one of the nicer houses in Texas City, and there was a
housing shortage here, so unless she was willing to live in another city, there weren’t really any
other options.
Her job at Monsanto was about as good as anything a woman could expect. It bothered
her though, to have her skills so under utilized. She had a boyfriend that her friends thought was
the most handsome guy in the world, but that wasn’t what had attracted her to him. He had a
sensitivity and intelligence that seemed lacking in other men, but he was so tongue tied when he
was around her that sometimes she wondered if she was only imagining those qualities. Carol
had difficulty engaging him in deep, meaningful conversations, like last night.
Carol wondered if perhaps she should leave Texas City. Maybe she could go back to
Austin, where she had gone to college. As she dressed, she realized that the root cause of her
unhappiness in Texas City would follow her wherever she went, unless she could find a place
where women were considered equals.
With a white sweater, brown high heeled pumps, and a matching handbag, she was ready
to go to her job. One last look in the full length mirror validated the fact that, once again, she was
worthy of the admiring glances she got so often from the men in Texas City.
Bounding quickly down the stairs to the kitchen, she found her father sitting at the
breakfast table reading the Texas City Sun. Her mother was busy at the stove, doing what men
thought a woman should be doing, stirring some greasy mess that Carol feared might be
breakfast.
“Daddy,” Carol asked the page of the newspaper that had her father’s face hiding behind
it, “Do you make the stuff for synthetic stockings at U.A.?”
Her father was a vice-president at the Union American Chemical Company, located just a
mile or so down Port Boulevard from Monsanto Chemical, where Carol worked. As such, he had
often asked his daughter to go to work for his company. Her fierce independent streak would
never allow her to go to work for her Daddy. Besides, any job she could get there would still be
something like her clerk position at Monsanto.
“No baby,” her father replied, without putting down the paper, “We just make chemicals.”
“You know Daddy,” Carol responded sweetly, but with annoyance in her dark eyes,
“There are times when you remind me of Will.”
“Why do you say that?” he replied, turning the page of the newspaper. “Have I been
dragging my knuckles when I walk?”
Carol giggled as she bent over to kiss her father on the cheek. “Bye-bye Daddy, I’m off to
work.”
“Aren’t you going to have any breakfast?” her mother queried with concern, as their only
child walked from the table over to the stove.
“By-by Mommy,” Carol chirped, kissing her mother on her cheek. “I’m late, and I’m
already too fat.”
Stepping through the back door, Carol paused on the landing to admire the red blush of
the sunrise. “It’s going to be a beautiful day,” she remarked to nobody, deciding to put her
unhappiness aside and enjoy the day.
* * * * * *
Bones Jones and his buddy Rufus Honeycutt trudged west on Dock Road toward the
Wilson B. Keene, another of the rust-streaked vessels that loaded and unloaded its cargo in this
busy commercial port. It was docked one slip down from the Grandcamp, with another freighter
and a row of warehouses separating them.
Today, with the crane on the dock lowering the pallets of bags through an open hatch, the
two of them would spend their day loading sacks of flour into the decrepit freighter’s dark holds.
Both men had strong backs, but to big Rufus, picking up a 100 pound bag of flour took about as
much effort as it took for Bones to lift a beer.
The oyster shells, dredged from the bay to pave this road, crunched under their feet as
they walked in silence. Behind Bones was the shack in The Bottom they called home. He didn’t
know why the part of Texas City where all the black folk lived was called The Bottom, but he
sure knew the name fit well. Many of the ramshackle homes didn’t even have running water or
indoor toilets. He shared the shack with Rufus and two other Black stevedores. Because of that,
his home was one of the few that didn’t have at least half a dozen kids running in and out of the
front door.
Often Bones daydreamed about marrying and raising children, but first he’d have to
move away from here. He dreamt of having a small farm of his own, and raising chickens and
corn. To get that he’d need to quit partying with the floozies he spent his money on, and find
himself a good, strong woman. A woman who would not only give him a half dozen healthy
children, but could also help him with the farm. Smiling inwardly, he glanced over at his giant
friend and mused that if he could find a woman who looked like he imagined Rufus’ sister
looked, he could save some money on a mule.
It was at that exact moment that Rufus reached up and gave the sleeve of Bone’s denim
shirt a tug. He asked “Ain’t that Marc?” He pointed to the shadowy form of the Grandcamp and
what appeared to be a tall man leaning on the front railing of the prow, smoking a cigarette.
“Sure enough.” Bones replied as he snapped out of his reverie. He waved to the dark
figure twenty feet above them, that was outlined against the dark blues of the predawn sky. “Hey
there Frenchie!” he shouted.
Because Marc was deep into his own thoughts, he didn’t see the two men in the waning
shadows. He’d heard Bones’ shout, but paid no attention to it, as he thought it was another dock
worker trying to get the attention of one of the numerous Frenchmen who could be found
dawdling around the Grandcamp.
“Yeah,” Rufus said to Bones with a chuckle. “When he looks at us, all he sees is a man
with dark skin. Course, when he’s around other white men, he’s just like them and don’t see us at
all.”
Bones didn’t bother to reply to Rufus’s jab. He chose instead to walk the rest of his
journey to the main slip in silence rather than say anything and possibly reveal his hurt feelings.
* * * * * *
Marc marveled at the beauty of the orange and red sky as the sun rose over Galveston
Bay. The oily water slapped gently against the barnacle encrusted sides of the rusty freighter.
Seagulls swooped overhead in circus acrobatics, cawing to each other in their constant search for
food. Out in the open water clouds of these birds followed the shrimp boats as they chugged their
way out of Galveston Bay. They were heading into the Gulf of Mexico, where the healthy fishing
areas lay out of the grasp of the land’s toxic fingers of pollution.
The docks and warehouses slowly came to life as workers rolled open the bulky doors to
the buildings. The motors of the cranes that lifted the heavy loads onto the ships started with
wisps of smoke and knocking and ticking noises rattling out from underneath their metal hoods.
Cars rolled down Dock Road with their tires crunching on the oyster shells. The parking lots of
Monsanto Chemical Company and the Texas City Terminal Railway Company began to fill up.
Laborers and office workers alike trudged to their stations, with their lunch pails in hand, their
hats pulled down low on their brows.
Marc looked at his watch and saw that it was five minutes past the time the stevedores
were supposed to begin the final loading of the Grandcamp. Of course he’d learned last night not
to completely trust this watch. He got up from where he was resting and wandered over to
Jacque Klement, a ship’s officer who was leaning on the dew dampened railing on the port side,
smoking a cigarette. He looked to be studying the littered waters of Galveston Bay as though
within their murky depths lay some amazing secret of life.
Marc asked him in French, “I thought we were supposed to be loading the rest of the
fertilizer now?”
Jacque looked at Marc, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and flipping it into the
oleaginous water. He raised an eyebrow and replied in a condescending fashion, “If you want to
start loading it yourself, you can be my guest.”
“No thank you,” Marc groused, frowning at the smart-assed rejoinder. “I think I will
wait.” He slowly walked back over to the hatch and made himself as comfortable as he could
under the circumstances.
As he settled back he caught a whiff of something burning. He’d smelled this acrid scent
three or four times in just the past dozen or so minutes. It reminded him of the cheap candles the
Monks used to burn at the old monastery not far from his home in the Alps. Of course, Marc
thought, as he settled back to wait for the longshoremen, it’s a wonder that he could pick out one
particular stink over another from the malodorous bouquet offered by all of the refineries.
* * * * * *
Carol sat at her desk on the third floor of the Monsanto Chemical Company office
building, studying the large stack of orders and bills of lading she would be reconciling and
filing today. With a university degree in business, she resented the clerical work she had to do. If
she were a man they would have offered her a job in management or marketing, but she wasn’t,
and a clerk’s position or a secretarial job was the best she could hope for.
Her heavy wooden desk was one in a row of desks that stretched the width of the floor.
Large windows let the early morning sunlight shine in, casting dusty rays onto the piles of papers
her co-workers would be busy sorting through.
Carol was by nature an over-achiever, and because of that she always showed up for work
early. This allowed her time to clear her mind of any distractions that might hinder her
performance later in the day. Soon she would be joined on the third floor by dozens of her
fellow workers. They would all sort and stack and file like worker ants in a large colony. At the
moment though, she was the only soul on the floor.
Her reverie was interrupted by the jingling of the telephone on her desk. “I thought the
phone operators were on strike,” she muttered to herself, picking up the handset on the second
ring. “This is Carol,” she said into the receiver.
“Did you drive your car to work today?” asked the deep voice on the other end. She
recognized it as belonging to her boss, Mr. Johnson, another early riser.
“Yes Sir,” she replied, wondering why he cared and how was it that the telephones were
working.
“Good, I need to ask you to do me a favor and run some errands.”
Carol was smart enough to know that if she did him a favor by running errands, he would
do her a favor by not replacing her with someone else who didn’t mind doing favors. At least the
favors he asked of her didn’t involve staying in the plant after hours, or meeting him in a dark
night club. “Yes sir, what can I do for you?”
“I’ve got some correspondence I need for you to deliver to various people around town.
With these damned communist union organizers calling strikes all the time, I can’t just pick up
the phone and call them.”
“Uh, yes sir, I’d be glad to do that for you. If I may ask, how are you able to call me with
the operators on strike?”
“The switchboard operator here at Monsanto works for us. If she were to go on strike
she’d find her working environment very much changed. Any other questions?” he asked.
“No sir, I mean uh, yes sir. When do you want me to deliver your correspondence?”
“I’ll ring you.” he barked before hanging up.
Carol carefully placed the handset back on the phone and then looked around to make
certain nobody was in earshot. Seeing that she was indeed all by herself, she looked at the phone
and whispered “Asshole!”
* * * * * *
Across the bay at the Galveston Docks, the tugboats and fishing boats that crowded the
shoreline had come to life with the dawning of the new day. Many of the shrimpers had already
left with the rising of the sun. Most of the other boats were either leaving, or preparing to do so.
The silence that cloaked the docks throughout the night was now pierced by the whistles of
departing ships and the chugging of their engines, as they propelled the heavy boats out into the
smooth waters of the bay. The boats’ wake caused the iridescent green water to slap gently
against the piers of the dock. Gulls clustered overhead, cawing at each other like nagging
spouses. The air was cool and brisk, but the sun rising in the clear sky held the promise of warm
temperatures.
Tied to one of the docks was a squat tugboat, its decks scrubbed clean, and the windows
of the tiny bridge clear and without any water spots. The rising sun glinted off of the shiny red
and black funnel behind the bridge. On a plaque below the funnel was the careful script that
spelled out the boat’s name, “Exeter.”
Tugboat Captain Alton Bule stepped out onto the teak deck and looked for Earl Simmons,
a cousin by marriage and his first mate by choice. The heavyset man stood with his legs spread
apart and his hands on his hips. He spotted the reedy deckhand at the back of the boat.
Earl was sitting on a coil of rope on the aft deck, smoking a cigarette. With his hat pushed
back, he had a look on his face that made it obvious that his mind was somewhere other than
here at the docks.
“GOD-DAMMIT EARL!” Bule shouted, causing the first mate to jump up suddenly and
then trip backwards over the coil of rope he had just been sitting on. As he fell with his arms pinwheeling,
the lit cigarette dropped from his mouth and landed inside the front of his flannel shirt.
Hitting the deck with a thump, the hapless mate seemed to bounce back up like a rubber
ball.Then he began to dance around and beat at the front of his shirt in an effort to extinguish the
tobacco coal that was burning off the hairs on his chest.
“WHERE THE HELL ARE THOSE TWO MEXICANS THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO
BE HERE?” Bule continued shouting, even though he thought he was witnessing one of the
funniest things he’d ever seen.
“Jeez Alton,” Earl replied, as he finally quit jumping around and slapping his chest and
stomach. “How the Hell am I supposed to know.” A peeved look slowly grew on Earl’s face
when he noticed Bule was laughing at him. “That’s what you get for firing those two fellers we
had. Serves you right if we miss out on getting to tow that French ship out to sea.”
“Well, let’s give them another twenty minutes or so,” the Captain rejoined, “If they don’t
show up by then, I suppose you’ll need to go find us another couple of deck hands.” Bule was
still chuckling. “See if you can’t find someone a little more reliable this time. Hear?” The rotund
Captain turned and went back to the cabin at the front of the tug to resume studying the charts
that he had scattered everywhere.
Earl settled back on the coil of rope and lit another cigarette. His mind quickly drifted off
to the big plans he had for his wife and their two boys. They had tickets to the game in Houston,
scheduled for Sunday afternoon. He was looking forward to watching baseball again. Everything
good in America can be found in a baseball park. Earl took one last draw from off his cigarette
before he flipped it onto the bay. Closing his eyes he heard the crack of a baseball bat playing
through his mind, as he drifted off into a gentle snooze.