On History

1In December 1961, George Trabingshot Winifred Jean Whittaker

and left her body beside the Trinity Riverin one of the long twin shadowsof the I-10 overpass.

In August 1988, George Trabingtook me out on Trinity Bayin his twenty-five-foot sloopand taught me how to sail.

Past the bridge he cut the engineand I felt us lock suddenly into the winddragging overhead—invisible,unrelenting machine.

2Trabing was in a "narcotics-fueled frenzy"when he murdered Whitaker

while searching for more drugs"on the Negro side of town"; when he

attempted to assault a fourteen-year-old girl,then returned her home;

when he burglarized a house in wealthyRiver Oaks for $7. In the subsequent trial,

which lasted three months,the prosecutor sought the death penalty

but did not succeed.

3The Trinity River enters Trinity Bayby way of the Anahuac Channel,

which was cut through the marsh-pocked deltaby the Army Corps of Engineers

and on the map looks like a strawthrust into the bay's broad bladder.

Those afternoons George took me sailing,I don't think we ever went over

to the northeast side of the bay.

4He drank cans of beer from a plastic cooler;I drank 7-Up. He taught me to tie knotsand watch the mainsail for luffing.Those afternoons

were a favor to my father, who still had to workwhile I was visiting from Ohio.

George—who'd become a professorafter fifteen years in prison—had his summers off.

5Trabing was finally arrestedin the lobby of the Auditorium Hotel,which, I'm shocked to discover,

became the Lancaster—and where,on September 10, 2001, I had drinksafter seeing Salman Rushdie read.

The event was picketedby Muslim fundamentalists; police barricadesmaintained a channel through the crowd.

I don't remember what Rushdie reador anything he said. I rememberpassing through that compacted organ of anger

and into the vastness of the theater,bright red and lit with sophistication.The protesters remained outside,

and Rushdie was the only personfacing their direction as he spoke—and, of course,

it was September 10, 2001.

6The family of Winifred Jean Whittakermust despise George Trabing—who is surely both abstract

and the very most powerful expressionof real. They would be right to sayit was a racist travesty of justice

he became a professorand remained for the rest of his lifein Houston—their town—walking free

with his title and the prestige it carried.They must find it horrifiche could spend twenty years running

a master's program for prisoners,that he had the means and timeto own a boat and teach a boy to sail.

7My god, why did my fatherlet George Trabing take me outalone on his boat?

To show friendship, to offer trust?As a teenager, my father

had wanted to be a priest,though by 1988 he'd long since becomean unshakable atheist. I know George

was his good friend, and no doubtmy dad thought I would enjoy sailing.

Beyond that, it was a religious decision—an atavism, a proof of faith—I'm pretty sure.

8Dare I say?—

Of the men I spent time with as a child,George was among the very kindestand most generous—and he offered mea respectfulness I didn't, at twelve, deserve.

I sometimes flip through the Royce'sSailing Illustrated he gave me,and I recall his insistencethat a sloop rolled by the wind

would quickly right itself. Surelyhe told me that only to allay my fear

when the boat heeled hard and I yelped,thinking we were going over.He is to me both an abstraction

and a very powerful expressionof real. Which is why I'm still here

in the library this late in the afternoon,retrieving articles from 1961-2on "George Trabing."