Brann’s Revenge Read online

  These are Red’s words and his story.

  Chapter 2

  INTRODUCTIONS

  My name is Patrick O’Neal Delaney, but everyone around here just calls me Red. I’m of Irish decent and had a full set of red hair, before the years drained the color from it. I have several thousand freckles that seem to meld into one big freckle in the hot Texas summer heat. My hair has always been a magnet for people, as they love to run their hands through it, like they are testing to see whether it’s hot or not. My mother’s hair was a dark auburn red, but mine was bright fire red, like God had attached a bright spotlight or torch to my head. I have lived in Waco since I was born, which was a really long time ago. I’m old now and my health is slowly starting to fail, so I wanted to tell my tale about what happened so very long ago and to appeal to folks for help in trying to solve this mystery that I have been struggling with most of my life.

  I don’t have any family left and live alone in the southeast side tollbooth of the Suspension Bridge. Years ago, after they first built the bridge in 1878, they charged people a toll per carriage or per head of cattle to cross. After a while the bridge was paid for and they abandoned the toll booths by just boarding up the windows. People used to frequently vandalize the place, but not since I started looking out for it. The bridge caretakers all know me and they gave me a key to get inside so that I could come and go as I pleased. In turn, I watch out for the place and shoo anyone away that might try to deface it.

  I don’t drive or have a steady job anymore but I get along on people’s kindness and pop bottles, which I collect and return for the deposit. I also make use of the YMCA in town, where I bathe, particularly on Saturday and Tuesday nights before Church. My primary possessions are an old bike that I push around town and my mother’s Bible. But what sustains me now is my Waco Public Library card. I practically live at the library and have seen the entire world, even though I’ve never left Waco even once in my life.

  Starting in my late teens and through my twenties, I used to be a courier for local businesses. I bought an old bike and fixed it up and carried packages to and from the different businesses in the area. I’d haul packages from the Courthouse to the Katy Depot station. I ran mail to and from the Baylor Administration building and the post office. I carried letters from the First City Bank to Elm street, and occasionally all the way out to Bellmead. In the process I came to know just about everyone in town. If I didn’t know you, then you were either new to town or just passing through. The motto that I’d tell my customers is that I was the fastest peddler this side of the Mississippi, bicycle peddler that is. The folks around town seemed to like the way I delivered, and over time I was running a significant one-man business.

  But the automobile killed off my business. The car, or the horseless carriage as they used to be called, soon became the delivery vehicle of choice and replaced me as a reliable courier. Although I still had a few loyal customers all the way up to the 1920s. But I just didn’t want nor could I afford to buy a car. From my perspective, they were noisy, smelly, always breaking down, and I believe will be the eventual downfall of society, that and the radio and TV. Even, to this day, I don’t own any of these contraptions.

  Now I just push my bike from place to place. I suppose I could ride the bike if it had a seat, but I’m much too old for that now. Instead I just push it around and collect discarded pop bottles. They used to be just two cents a bottle, but recently have gone up to three cents a bottle, which is a huge windfall for me. I suppose that I could get on welfare, but I don’t want nothing to do with the government if I can help it. I don’t even have a social security number, nor do I want one, as I believe it could be the sign of the Beast. If Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Teddy Roosevelt didn’t have Social Security numbers, then I certainly don’t need one!

  My mother, God rest her soul, was not married when she bore me. I have no idea who my father was except that he was one of the men who visited my mother at different times. My mother was a lady of the Reservation and worked in a bawdy house on 2 Street, where prostitution was legal and sanctioned by the city. After she became pregnant with me, she stopped her professional work, but still lived on 2 Street, since that was the only place that would take her in. She became a manager of the girls, or a madam as they are sometimes called. Although I grew up with no father, I had at least 20 mothers who looked out for and cared for me. Some folks may think that this was a terrible and despicable life, but I had no complaints. I had plenty to eat, a decent place to sleep, and plenty of entertainment and excitement, as there was always something going on. And lots of love and care from all of my mothers.

  My mother was an amazing person. She was a strong, stoic woman and she always made it a point to emphasize the positive side of a situation. She was the consummate optimist, even when things looked really bleak. She had a saying, “Always look for the flowers in the cow turd as they smell the sweetest.” I used to think to myself, why would anyone want to find and smell flowers in cow turds as they’re probably smelly and disgusting? But eventually I understood what she meant, and it became one of the guidelines that I tried to live by, particularly when the situation seemed hopeless and ugly.

  My birth mother’s one rule for me was that I was to get “some learning” as she called it, so that I could get out of the Reservation. Although she was an integral part of the Reservation, she despised it, especially the abuse that the women took. She wanted to get out of there as quickly as she possibly could, but she didn’t have a way to escape. She was single, a mother with a child, with no education and no skills to speak of. She had nowhere to turn except the Reservation. She was stuck!

  My mother found a local church school that I could attend that took in poor kids. It was there that I learned to read and write. And read and write I did, as it became my hobby and escape. If I didn’t have my nose in a good book, I was scrounging up a tattered notebook and writing down ideas and thoughts so that I could one day write a book myself. And here I am at a very senior age writing my first book. I guess better late than never, as the saying goes.

  The subjects of my earlier thoughts were the characters in town. There was no want of good material as Waco, Texas or Six Shooter Junction as she was called back then, was a bustling place. Even today, my thoughts revolve around the same cast of characters and this town on a briny river called the Brazos. Of course, now I have a mission, a mission to solve a terrible crime and to vindicate my love. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Unfortunately, as most bawd ladies go, my mother did not live long. When I was fourteen years old, my mother was called into a room by one of the girls because a john would not pay up. My mother, never one to mince words, gave him an ear full and threatened to call the sheriff. As she was walking out of the room, the man pulled a gun and shot her square in the back. He quickly bolted out of the room and out of Waco – never to be seen again. I heard some time later that he was caught stealing someone’s cattle and was promptly hanged out at the Hanging Tree in Turnersville for his dishonest deeds. Now I’m usually a “turn the other cheek” kind of person, but seeing as how I only had one birth mother and didn’t have another cheek to give, the news didn’t sadden me too much.

  As it turned out, my mother being shot in the back seemed to be a sign of some of the terrible events to come. I’m a firm believer in signs as clues to other events that happen in the future. Over my life, I’ve received a number of these signs. I just wasn’t wise enough to recognize them and act on them when they initially occurred to try to avoid the disaster later. This was the first sign that I had ever experienced

  I was devastated by the loss of my mother, but my other mothers took care of me and helped me recover from my grief. About a year after my mother was murdered, I was told I could no longer live at the Bawdy house. I was getting too big and occupied a revenue generating-entity, a room. I moved into the bridge toll booth and have been living there ever since.

  Then I did what I promised my
mother I would do. I finished my education at the church school and moved out of the Reservation, two blocks away. Her death was the biggest cow turd of my life up to that point and I didn’t think that anything beneficial could come of it. Eventually I did find the flowers that my mother spoke about, and what beautiful flowers they turned out to be.

  I knew Mr. Brann and his daughter, Inez. He was a funny man with a witty personality. Did he ever cause a big commotion in town. He always called me by my formal name, Patrick, which I didn’t mind as he was about the only person to call me that. But his daughter, Inez was the most beautiful angel I’ve ever met. She was the love of my life and I miss her still. She was the brightest ray of sunshine I ever had in my life, but God wanted her home much sooner than I wanted to let her go. I suppose I should be angry with him for taking her away so soon, but I’m not in the least, because I know in just a little while we’ll soon be sharing sunshine again.

  Waco, Texas was a roaring place back around the turn of the 20thcentury. It had all the modern conveniences that a Texas town might need back then. There was good water, plenty of land for farming and ranching, higher education, lots of places of entertainment, and a bridge where everything seemed to converge for crossing the Brazos. It was the county seat of McLennan County and a hub for the MKT railroad or, the Katy as it was affectionately called.

  Almost immediately after Mr. Brann arrived into town, he started his rants against the city. One day I heard him slap the mayor, Mr. Riggins, on the back and say, “Waco can’t even have a good train wreck!” The sad part was that he was right! He was referring to a particular publicity stunt that happened in 1895 called the Crush. I remember it like it was yesterday. In order to drum up business, the Katy did a publicity stunt where they ran two locomotive engines into each other at full speed. They advertised this for months and months beforehand, and on the big day of the event a huge crowd gathered at the site, just north of Waco. Careful planning was taken in an effort to ensure the safety of the onlookers as the engines slowly gained energy, momentum, and speed.

  In preparation for the crash, they’d slowly roll the engines up to each other where the engines were almost touching nose to nose as they would “hand shake” with each other. Then they’d take picture after picture. But the crowd started getting restless and some of the spectators started jumping out of the roped off area to get a closer look. Finally, the engineers backed the trains up and put them into gear at full speed and then hopped off while the trains were still slowly gathering speed. Everyone waited as we heard the roar of the trains and could see the smoke in the distance coming out of their smokestacks. When the engines finally came into full view, it was like a dream as they got closer and closer. Then all of a sudden the loudest sound that I’ve ever heard occurred and debris started flying. Afterward it was bloody bedlam like after a long fought Civil War battle. Hot metal was strewn about everywhere. There were injured people lying on the ground crying out in pain. Three people died from this horrific publicity stunt. It certainly didn’t give Katy or Waco a very good name.

  As a reporter, Mr. Brann wrote about the wreck in explicit detail. This early criticism of Waco’s tragic train wreck didn’t win him a lot of friends within its social class, but Mr. Brann didn’t seem to care. He was a critic. He had a job to do and he was going to do his job regardless of who it offended.

  Mr. Brann came to town in 1894. The city was a bustling place with people coming and going from businesses, churches, bars, schools and its legal brothel district. This was my early home called the Reservation or just 2 Street for short, since it was located on North 2nd street. Local businessmen could walk or take their buggies to any of the local establishments to get the resources they needed to do their business. After a long day of work they could make use of all the bars and the brothel. On Sundays they could go to church, beg for forgiveness, pay their tithes, and then start all over again on Monday morning. I never partook in the Reservation services. These ladies were like kinfolk to me. As I grew into an adult they became close friends, and I would always try to look out for them as they did for me when I was younger. They were not evil or despicable at all, they were mostly just desperate women that had no other means of supporting themselves and their families. Occasionally a different type of girl would show up who had a wild look in her eyes and act like she owned the entire Reservation, but usually she wouldn’t last long. First Street cemetery is full of these ladies as they typically wouldn’t make it beyond their early twenties.

  As what usually happens, the government ruined things. Washington, D.C. got involved, and the Reservation was shut down around the start of WWI since they wouldn’t allow Camp MacArthur to exist in Waco with a legal brothel in town. I’m sure the city planners studied the options to see which one would bring in the maximum tax revenue for the city, a military facility or a red-light district. Consequently, they shut the Reservation down. Most of the ladies continued to practice their art illegally for several years but they were either thrown into jail or moved to greener pastures, except for Molly Adams.

  Molly lived at 2 Street and Jefferson for another 30 years and took up legitimate work at Clifton Manufacturing in East Waco as a seamstress. She was one of my closest friends. I still miss her and her easy smile. She was quite the business woman in her heyday, with a house of seven rooms that were rarely empty. She once built a mansion on 2 street, but had to give it up when she ran out of money. She had a bad habit of saving a huge amount of money and then going on spending binges that would leave her flat broke. She died a pauper. Her shanty house at 2 Street and Jefferson burned in 1964 and I kept several pieces of it as a reminder of her. I made a small box out of the wooden planks and still have it as a memento of her. I regularly go out to Oakwood Cemetery and place wild flowers on her grave. I smile as I think of her. Her gentle and warm smile, her round, almost rotund, sweet face, and her prolific vocabulary of swear words. I don’t think I ever heard her complete one sentence without a profanity or two or three. She didn’t even think about what she was saying, she’d just cuss like a sailor.

  There were two cemeteries in Waco, one for the haves and one for the have nots, but perhaps a more accurate statement would be for the hads and the had nots. The one for the hads was Oakwood cemetery, just south of Baylor. It was an old horse race track that was converted to a cemetery in 1878. Mr. Brann and many of the leadership folks of Waco, Baylor, and the Baptists are buried in this cemetery. The other cemetery, First Street Cemetery, is where the had nots were typically buried. Although Molly was flat broke when she died, someone funded a nice burial plot and stone for her in Oakwood, no doubt one of her faithful customers. She was well connected even up to her death.

  And of course, Waco had its flagship feature, the first bridge that spanned the Brazos River, the Suspension Bridge, which is now my home. This bridge carried cattle, pedestrian traffic, and buggies between the downtown area on the west side to the residential neighborhood towards the east side of Waco. When it was built in 1870, it had the longest span of any suspension bridge west of the Mississippi River and was built by the same company that built the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. I like to believe that the Brooklyn Bridge was just a bigger copy of the original Waco Suspension Bridge. I’ve never been to the Brooklyn Bridge, but I’ve often wondered what its toll booths must be like and if they are any bigger or any more comfortable than my humble abode.

  On just about any given day, the streets around Waco would be bustling with people selling their goods, talking, fighting, spitting, drinking, etc. It was an exciting place to be. On Sunday mornings things went strangely quiet. You could sit on a curb off of Austin Avenue and hear nothing but the wind, an occasional clanking of some of the signs hanging from the buildings, dogs barking, and hymnal music coming from the local churches. Back then, I didn’t attend church services and wondered what these folks were doing in their fancy garb and shiny shoes, and why were they singing up such a storm. But come about noon, the churches w
ould let out and the crowds would start collecting around the square and people would start trading, talking, fighting, spitting, and drinking again. It was a magical place.

  There were laws on the books about spittin’ on the sidewalks. Anyone was allowed to spit in the dusty brick covered or gravel streets where the horses and mules left their daily deposits. But you didn’t dare spit on the sidewalks, or else you might end up being hauled into court or worse yet, end up in jail. I’ve known more than one person who ended up spending a night or two in the city jail for spitting. No siree, Waco wanted her sidewalks clean!

  There was one deputy sheriff who seemed to have a high level of intolerance for people spitting on the sidewalk, especially if you were spitting tobacco. We called him Deputy Spit. He was a tall lanky kind of guy who dressed the part of the deputy to a tee. His hat was always clean and shaped perfectly, his uniform was spotless, and his boots were always shined. You could tell that he took great pride in his appearance. But he also took great pride in Waco’s appearance. If he ever saw you spitting on the sidewalk, he’d immediately jump down your business, hand you an old rag and tell you to “Clean it up damnit.” Because of his angst about cleanliness, he wasn’t a popular fella in the dusty city.

  One day a green-horn from Mexia came into town and wasn’t aware of Deputy Spit’s obsession with clean sidewalks. By the way, in Texas, Mexia isn’t pronounced like the MEX in Mexico. It’s kind of odd how some words end up sounding completely different than their original pronunciation, especially in Texas! The way that we say it, Mexia sounds like “My Hair,” if you give the word hair two syllables, which is what we usually do. So one can clearly deduce about one’s area of origin just by listening to how they say “Mexia.” If you hear one say Mexia like Mexico, you know they ain’t from Texas. And if you hear one with a full set of hair say, “I really miss my hair,” you know that they are from Texas and understand that what they are really saying is that they miss the city of Mexia. However, if you hear a bald person say, “I really miss my hair,” tell them the meaning of the statement is ambiguous and needs further clarification, unless of course they are in the city of Mexia, in which case the definition is perfectly clear – they really do miss their hair.