βA Christmas Storyβ December 2025
~ Fiction ~
Roman Γ clef, cher.
Created A. I. free
by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
www.LEJ.world β
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Copyright, 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved
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December 2025
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βA Christmas Storyβ
by Leonard Earl Johnson
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~ Fiction ~
Roman Γ clef, cher
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| Photo credit: Mark Konikoff |
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FROM LA PORTE, TEXAS
TO THE PROMISED LAND
by Leonard Earl Johnson
of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana
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The year of the last Cuban Boat Lift, 1980, I served aboard the diesel burning M/V Sealand Venture. She was a sturdy German-built, US-flagged container ship running intermittent ports between Houston, Texas and Rotterdam, Holland.
I sailed her as the officer's Bedroom Steward (B. R.) -- a kind of seagoing chambermaid. Not a high rank, but a joyful one owing to the large amount of shore leave it afforded.
A good B. R. arranges to be on such terms with his officers that all, but the Captain, whose stateroom doubles as the ship's office, lock their doors in port.
Ostensibly this keeps out
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| In Port at La Porte, Texas |
Effectively it ends the good B. R.'s duties by breakfast. Freeing him to leave the ship for the rest of the day.
This is a gratuity valued more by a good B. R. than money. I was a good B. R.
During that same year, the Venture quit the wharves along Houston's downtown Ship Channel and began calling at a newly constructed container terminal at Morgan's Point, near the little town of La Porte, Texas. A spot so far out-in-the-boonies it was barely in from the Gulf of Mexico.
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The Port Authority's decision to move their container terminal to Morgan's Point was ~ and is ~ a great thorny urchin in the belly of thirsty sailors from every corner of the Earth.
Now, mind you, near the new terminal there was a dirt-floored, tin-roofed watering hole known as The Little Goat Ranch. It sat invitingly in the turn at Barbours Cut, on a jutting beachhead walking distance from our berth.
The Little Goat Ranch's services were mercifully available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. A hand-painted sign proclaimed it from the mirror behind the bar in gold scrawling letters with random splats and dribbles,
"We No Close Never"
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The town of La Porte, a meager destination if ever there was one, lay two-miles straight inland. I took a bicycle with me aboard ship in those days, and it was a scenic two mile ride over newly rolled out asphalt roads separating pastures of long-horned cattle dotted around giant live oak trees laden with Spanish moss.
The town did offer the Space Shot Motel and Bar, for those who got lucky. A Spanish movie house, for those who did not. Rosetta's Cuban Fajita CafΓ©. And the Gulf Coast Railroad Emporium, with its back-lighted oval sign flashing, Lionel Trains for All The Ages -- Toot! Toot!
The lights of La Porte and The Little Goat Ranch were certainly appreciated, but they were dim lights next to Houston's.
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Our Savior is found
One gorgeous Fall day, at the Gulf Coast Railroad Emporium I made the acquaintance of Cowboy Castro ~ a fine looking blue-eyed, brown-skinned Cuban, with a not-so-fine looking, "purple pick'em up truck." Crowning the truck's left fender amid a lifetime's collection of dents and scratches stood a two foot tall plastic statue of Jesus holding a bleeding red heart in one hand and a chromium pigtail radio antenna in the other. Cowboy Castro was in the Emporium purchasing tiny red lights for the eyes of his rolling icon.
"To light the road to Jesus!" he said with a brilliant if likely duplicitous smile.
I hired him on the spot to drive me and my bicycle back to the ship.
We followed the red-eyed beacon of Jesus down the new black top road not all the way back to the ship. We stopped for, "Refreshing beer beverages!" on Cowboy's suggestion, at The Little Goat Ranch.
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Our favorite Houston destination was a long gray building along Westheimer Drive named The Green Door. Neon tubing atop its flat roof showed chicken heads kissing among flashing red hearts and green dollar signs.
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On a warm December night, back at the ship to make an early sailing board, Cowboy helped us up the ladder and joined me in my fo'c's'le for a parting drink. After several we passed out.
We followed the red-eyed beacon of Jesus down the new black top road not all the way back to the ship. We stopped for, "Refreshing beer beverages!" on Cowboy's suggestion, at The Little Goat Ranch.
Later that evening (still at The Goat Ranch), the ship's Mate, Bos'n, Chief Cook, and I secured Cowboy's commitment to meet our ship each voyage and drive one or all into Houston. Cowboy was then to wait as long as it took, round us up gurgling in the morning light, and return us shipside, and, need be, help us stumble up the accommodation ladder.
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Shore Leave and Liberty for all!
Houston was a shining alabaster city undulating under a polluted sky on a pool of booming oil prices. An anything-goes ~ who cares for the morrow ~ Babylon of the US Gulf Coast.
Cowboy's "purple pick'em up" became our winged angel flying us to Heaven on Earth.
Despite his loudly professed religiosity, and being on "extended break" from Texas A. and M., Cowboy performed his duties splendidly. Even, in time, joining our romps in port out of La Porte.
Our favorite Houston destination was a long gray building along Westheimer Drive named The Green Door. Neon tubing atop its flat roof showed chicken heads kissing among flashing red hearts and green dollar signs.
Along a low-slung front porch a row of green doors greeted the needy visitor. Beside each door hung a lantern similar to those used by old-time railroaders. If the lamp was lit green you could enter for a price and talk privately with a scantily clad man or woman behind a plate glass window. By the power vested in money pushed through a slot in the glass you could persuade your selection to converse and display their charms.
Praise the Lord, it was living porn! Shocking, I guess, but with the possible exception of Cowboy, we were depraved Salts and not missionaries.
Praise the Lord, it was living porn! Shocking, I guess, but with the possible exception of Cowboy, we were depraved Salts and not missionaries.
Truthfully Cowboy loved The Green Door as much as we did and always arrived screaming Biblical quotes like, "Better to spill your seed in the belly of the whore than upon a barren rock!"
He would then enter a door labeled "Girl" and, as he put it, "Wax philosophic with the Jezebel inside."
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One sacrament too many
As the moon rose mid sky we awakened on the deck by my bunk rocking against the bulkhead.
Our ship was gently slipping out to Sea.
"I've been shanghaied," Cowboy hollered. He cursed first in Spanish, then in English. Then he threw Lone Star Beer cans at the Gulf of Mexico on the other side of the porthole, and then at me.
I yelled back, "You Bible thumping Aggie, you think I want a stowaway in my cabin, for Christ's sake?!"
The word "stowaway" brought us both up short and sober. He ceased his fretting and we made an agreement to make the best of our situation till reaching Miami in two days. Miami was our last Stateside stop before heading out across the North Atlantic for Rotterdam. Cowboy could easily walk off the ship there and catch a plane back to Houston with no one the wiser.
We settled in and became comfortable traveling companions. He stayed in my cabin drinking beer, watching television, and feasting on food I spirited from the galley.
At night we talked of how lonely Christmas was at Sea, and how Norwegian sailors lashed evergreen trees to their ship's foremast at Christmas time.
At night we talked of how lonely Christmas was at Sea, and how Norwegian sailors lashed evergreen trees to their ship's foremast at Christmas time.
He told of his family's immigration from Cuba, "Before Fidel," and wondered if he might see the "Crimson Devil's Isle. Perhaps when we pass through the Straits of Florida?" he asked. I reckoned not.
South of the Mouth of the Mississippi, near New Orleans (which sits in a hole below Sea level), we picked up television from Baton Rouge and saw film of Cuba's huge Mariel Boatlift washing onto the beaches of south Florida.
South of the Mouth of the Mississippi, near New Orleans (which sits in a hole below Sea level), we picked up television from Baton Rouge and saw film of Cuba's huge Mariel Boatlift washing onto the beaches of south Florida.
Cowboy laughed at Florida's "gringo governor" greeting Cuban boat people while literally mopping his brow. Then Cowboy's eyes lit up like the red-eyed Jesus on his purple truck.
"Carumba!" he exclaimed. "If I passed myself off as a Cuban boat-person I could slap slogan those gringos all the way to easy street."
I was shocked and said so, "How could you say that after fleeing Castro?"
I was shocked and said so, "How could you say that after fleeing Castro?"
At that time, "Norte Americanos" saw Cuban border crashers as noble, sanctified, fused by the political trinity of Home, Rome and Havana; beckoned by the spirit of our Founding Fathers and funded by our Federal budgets. Hell, we were half John Wayne and half Thomas Jefferson, with an attitude rippling out across the waters calling Castro-fleeing freedom fighters towards Floridian sirens waving from welcome wagons groaning under the weight of capitalist prosperity.
"Fleeing Castro?" Cowboy Castro peered back through sun glasses with prove-it on his face, and asked, "Are you crazy? That Castro was still in the hills when I left Cuba. This Castro," he said, pointing thumbs at his chest, "was fleeing hunger! I still am!"
As Cowboy was saying this I felt the ship slow and go dead in the water. I left him plotting his economic salvation and went topside.
The Mate and Bos'n were walking back from a Jacob's ladder slung over the starboard gunnel. Six sunburned Cubans walked smartly behind. Off the stern, an unpainted rowboat with an upended oar sluiced in our wake. From the oar flapped a white cloth painted with black letters spelling, "S O S."
I followed behind, and waited along with the Cubans outside the Captain's door. The Mate and Bos'n went in. When they came out, I said, "Excuse me, could one of you come with me?" Both declined.
"Not with the fight I'm fixing to have with that drunken Steward over six supernumeries," the Bos'n said. He turned off towards the crew's quarters. The six Cubans trotted behind close on his heels.
The Mate shrugged, "Sorry, Leonard, I'm facing a long ton of Federal paper shuffling."
"You best come," I said, rubbing my beard and cherishing the fleeting powers of all pirates and rogues.
"We're in rough waters, Mate, rough enough to beach us."
My actual power was that any ship's irregularity meant Federal paper work for the Mate, and the Mate hated Federal paper work. He came along.
At my fo'c's'le I turned the latch, opened the door and stood back.
"Hi, Mate," Cowboy grinned, lifting his beer can.
"Jesus, Moses and Mohamad!" exclaimed the Mate, slamming the door tight. He looked at me and several words formed on his lips before, "Holy Mother of Lenin!" bloomed out his mouth.
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Cowboy's second coming
In Miami, officers of the United States Coastguard poured over our decks and collected the six Cubans, now grown to seven by the addition of blue-eyed, un-sunburned Cowboy Castro.
On our return voyage, a Norwegian Tree we'd dragged aboard in Europe was lashed to the foremast, and strung with yellow light bulbs plundered from the Bos'n's locker.
As we hove'round Barbours Cut and slipped up against the wharf all eyes searched the hill. There was no Cowboy Castro waiting for us.
We found his beat up purple truck and used a key from under the floor mat to drive ourselves into Houston for Christmas Day. Then, two days after, as we tumbled down the ladder headed for The Goat Ranch, Cowboy drove up in a brand new blue pick'em up truck.
Cowboy explained on the drive to Houston, "The V. F. W. couldn't find me a purple one." He laughed, slurped from a beer can and handed a fresh one to the Mate. He told us he was going back to school, "But not with those dumbass Aggies. You know why piss is yellow," he asked, "and come is white? So Aggies will know if they're coming or going!" He slapped his leg and laughed again.
He told us how the Miami Veterans of Foreign Wars had bought him the truck and the "gringo governor" got him an appointment to the National Maritime Academy at Kings Point, New York. He grinned and said, "I start next Fall. After that I'll be sailing with you legal like, Mate!"
The Mate popped open his beer, rolled down the window, and screamed a wild Texas "Wah-hoo!" at three steers nosing a discarded Christmas Tree. "God bless us all," he said, pulling his head back in the cab, "and welcome to The Promised Land!"
www.LEJ.world
Copyright, 2025 Leonard Earl Johnson, all rights reserved
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LEJ's Lagniappe
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| Heading Ho Ho Home / photo credit, Mark Konikoff |
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| Β© Leonard Earl Johnson Coming January 2026 THE FIRST CHRISTMAS AFTER KATRINA π |
If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.world anytime. They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years.~ ~ ~ LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.world, Hosted by GOOGLE BLOGGER, and historically at Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans publication of the It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana .JPG) Β© 2025, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved |
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