Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
By the time I returned to the convention center the following night, it had been transformed
into a fantasy of glitter and noise. Smiling men and women wearing tuxedos and evening
gowns flowed by in a cackling stream, bringing a palpable enthusiasm to the project of get-
ting drunk.
My friends Scott and Lorena had come out from Houston for the occasion, and although
we had tried to spruce ourselves up, we stuck out. It turns out there is no way
not
to stick
out in a convention center full of people dressed as harlequins and playing cards. This
year's theme was “The Games People Play.”
It was a party fueled by beer and oil. The projected logos of its sponsors bejeweled the
ballroom walls. Both Budweiser and Bud Light were represented, as well as the Valero Port
Arthur Refinery, Total Petrochemicals, BASF, Sabina Petrochemicals—all the major play-
ers. They were here to celebrate with the city's upper crust, the inheritors of the economy
created on Spindletop. People who I doubted lived in West Port Arthur. Dance music poun-
ded from speakers hanging overhead. Green lasers shot out over the crowd from the stage,
tracing twitching planes in the fog-machine atmosphere. It was hard not to think of the
“feverish and excited” scene described by Beaumont's
Daily Enterprise
in the first weeks
of 1901. I turned around to see a young woman in an elaborate Cinderella costume. The
Queen of Diamonds? Then Scott was there, holding three aluminum bottles of Bud Select.
“You must not miss the tableau,” Laura had told us. And now it had begun, an elaborate
ceremony that was most likely descended from pre-Columbian human sacrifice rituals, and
that had now been retasked for the apportionment of social standing among high-status
members of the Krewe. To validate this status, chosen individuals would appear in male-fe-
male pairs, draped in gaudy costumes conforming to the ball's theme—in this case, games.
Duly announced, the couple would then parade around the ballroom on small chariots
pulled by young men in maroon vests.
The first couple appeared. I don't recall whether they were dressed as Yahtzee or as
craps, only that the man was equipped with a large, feathery headdress and a suit of blaz-
ing sequins, and the woman with a massive corona of flowered ruffles. The couples kept
coming, each dressed as a board game or a card game or a game show. It took hours. The
crowd thronged around them, a riot in formal wear, waving madly to catch the plastic beads
and party favors being thrown by the couple of the moment, who would eventually ascend
to side stages where they would pose for the remaining duration of the tableau, feathery
demigods on display.
Motiva was in the house. Soon to be the largest refinery in North America, it had
sponsored a couple dressed as the board game Mousetrap. After seeing the snaking insanity
of the refinery itself, it seemed almost too good to be true that Motiva would come to a
party dressed as a Rube Goldberg machine. I got up from our table to get a closer look.
