THE MERMAID AND TOMBSTONE BY THE STATUE OF SRV

We were headed up the stairs when we saw her. From the top of the stairway she announced, “We’re evacuating the building.”

“What?” I grumbled.  

The security guard froze, spoke into her walkie-talkie, and rushed off. The walls flickered with tiny lights and the alarm whimpered like a plastic toy with a battery going out. l felt like I was seeing stars after getting punched out. Vanessa and I were trying to make our way into the Austin Public Library, with our two guests.

My wife’s sister and her boyfriend were in town, stopping on their way home to San Angelo. They’d been in Bryan, helping her boyfriend’s sister move in at A&M–all the way up to the fourth floor of her dorm. They were going to visit us for a few hours and head back home. 

“Where should we take them to eat and see Austin?” Vanessa asked…I wasn’t sure, but I was going to make it my aim to keep us out of the heat. 

That didn’t happen. 

I picked El Chilito for lunch—not for the tacos or the charra hot sauce that looks like black mud (it is my favorite)—it was for the AC. This taco joint has the coldest AC in town. Open the door, no matter how hot it is outside, and it feels like you’re walking into a meat locker. It doesn’t make sense–it’s an open kitchen–but this place is cold. We gobbled up many tacos that afternoon. They threw in the chips and salsa for free, too. Very satisfied, we left.

“We’re going to take you to a place with a view, so you can see Austin,” I told Vanessa’s sister as we got into our cars. She smiled and I could tell she was excited. We drove carefully so we wouldn’t lose them in traffic and parked across the street from the library. We walked in. 

I wasn’t sure what to do after the evacuation, so we walked outside to the other side of the library. Fifty people stood in the courtyard waiting impatiently. Looking through the tall windows, I saw hundreds of people walking down the stairs. I scrolled my phone–a nervous thing I do when I’m thinking of how to adjust an itinerary–because on every trip there’s disrupted plans. 

We decided to walk under Cesar Chavez avenue to show them Town Lake. A red fire engine with a skyscraper ladder drove right over us. We walked up to the cement dock. Two paddle boarders in Hawaiian shirts were sippin’ White Claws getting ready to get in. I knew the water was hot. There were plants underwater that looked like the drowned branches of Christmas trees—cabomba, maybe. Vanessa’s sister was following the minnows.

“Hey, I can take you to the Steve Ray Vaughn statue,” I said. “How does that sound?” I pointed across the lake. They agreed. “It’s going to be hot, though,” I laughed. “We are going to pay.” 

It was already 103. But before we left for the S. 1st pedestrian bridge, we walked back to double-check on admission to the library. They were letting people back in.

We climbed the stairs, all four floors, to the mezzanine. We walked across the reading room and opened the doors. Hot air washed over us. Our guests stepped up to the balcony slowly and came to a stop. It got quiet. I could tell they were taking it all in. This is my favorite thing to see. Young people taking in something new–something beautiful–for the first time.

It was time to go see SRV. We took the same way back, under Cesar Chavez, and braced ourselves for the heat. Their faces were getting red and I was short of breath, not from walking, but from the rising air. Vanessa and I were wearing all black. 

“Should I tell them the story?” I thought. It was weird. 

We crossed the S. 1st pedestrian bridge–and suffered. It has lanterns and great views, but no shade. This is no Bobbie Crenshaw walkway. As she walked, Vanessa’s sister noticed crushed, melted Skittles on the sidewalk. Each skittle had broken apart into a dozen pieces and looked like little mosaic tiles. I jumped over them with a hop.

We made it to Auditorium Shores and took a break in the shade. “Man, I play Stevie Ray on my playlist all day long at work,” the boyfriend said. He walked up to the statue. He got quiet again, lost in his thoughts. The bronze of the statue had turned blue and was caked white in places from the heat. I couldn’t stand the sun and walked into the shade of the Cypress tree behind the statue. 

There was a footpath.   

I stood on the Cypress tree’s roots, called ‘knees,’ and looked upon the lake as it changed colors with the ripples from green to blue. When I looked down, I saw something strange: a tablet. A tablet made of sandstone or dark granite, very much the same color as the roots—very hard to see. I hunched over and saw some markings. On the other side of it was an engraving. It was a tombstone! 

My age. Died six years ago. The epitaph read:

LOVE FOR ALL HATRED FOR NONE. 

I showed everyone where it was.

I don’t know why it was there. Did he die there? Was it his favorite spot? How on earth did it stay lodged? It didn’t budge—like a sword in the stone. We were about to leave when I decided to tell them the story. “Wanna hear a weird story?” I said. “Happened to me here in 2016.” We were all sweating profusely. 

“It was the day after Mother’s Day. I was walking the trail right here in the morning, about to cross in front of Stevie’s statue. That’s when I saw…ahem…a topless woman, a…buxom, topless woman walk right in front of me, and step on the ledge right where we were by the Cypress tree–and disappear. She looked disoriented. It didn’t make sense. But here’s the thing—it looked like someone who was jumping off something high. She dropped. She didn’t land. She kept dropping. Which didn’t make sense. The ground is just two-feet below on the other side. But it was like she was falling—a great distance down—just like a magic trick.”

“Must have been going back to Mermaid-Land,” the boyfriend said. 

“I don’t know, man. But it was weird. There wasn’t a trace of her. I didn’t walk over there. I didn’t want to find out. But I shit you not–she disappeared.”

The End.