Dark Journey

Research involves more than archives, internet searches, books, and interviews. If possible, going to the real locations is important to get feel for a story. In the Summer 1973 series, I wanted to know what it was like living in the Heights that summer. Houston is notorious for not preserving history, but sixteen years ago there were pieces of the past here and there to be found.

The iconic Heights Theater on 19th Street was my starting point as the center of the neighborhood. The strip of old fashioned stores had the vibe of a small town, even though it is just a couple of miles from downtown Houston. Riding on Shepherd Drive felt nothing like I imagined it used to be during the muscle car culture of the early ‘70s. However, the working-class neighborhood, with its numbered streets, defied time amid modern gentrification.

I discovered the home of Elmer Wayne Henley, rundown apartments, diners, burger joints, old bungalow houses, mansions, and streets of the time throughout the Heights. More than reading true crime books and newspaper microfiche, I felt a connection by walking in the real places.

I drove out to Pasadena by the chemical plants to see the house on 2020 Lamar Drive where the final murders occurred. Someone was living in the house on 2020 Lamar Drive, where the real tragedy ended in gunshots in August of 1973. I wonder if they knew. The most frightening thing to me was the boatshed that looked eerily the same from the crime scene photos when bodies were excavated form unit #11. All of these journeys influenced the background of the story.

Not long after, I had begun creating fictional characters, and I wanted them to live in a real time and place in the epicenter of the crimes yet be unaware of the horror of the working-class neighborhood. So I decided that my blue-collar, dropout protagonist Lane Bowden would live in the Ben Hur Apartments on 23rd Street, while James Daly, who would turn Lane’s life upside-down, would live on Rutland. Lane’s life would be centered in the Heights, form his gas jockey job to Heights Hospital, where he visited his mom, with the car culture of the time being the only temporary escape.

All the places he goes to once existed. Many have gone out of business, like Mobil Station, Bohemian Pool Hall, Shepherd Drive-in, and Rice Food Market, while others still exist. Since the formative stage of the research, progress has sped up gentrification, but a few have stayed open, including Yale Street Grill (without the drug store), Heights Hospital, and Someburger (at a different location). Even the cabin-like building of the old Long John Silver’s serves food as a Chinese restaurant today. In Houston, the Pizza Hut off Clearwood is still open but not as cool as it used to be. The spot behind Hobby Airport to watch planes at night has changed, and the Galveston beaches and High Island have altered coastlines from storm surges. The house on 2020 Lamar drive has been demolished, but the boatshed lies untouched…so far.

Summer 1973 is hybrid story in that it has a true crime background and fictional protagonists. The world of the Heights, Houston, and Galveston in the summer of 1973 and the crimes of the Houston Mass Murders are based on facts, as is a side story. The character of Lane Bowden has a mother, Ellen, who has been stricken with cancer, and he cares for her the best he can while living on his own. While these characters are fictional, Lane’s mother is loosely based on my own. I tapped into the hardship and feeling of loss I experienced during my mother’s terrible bout with cancer over a decade ago. In fiction, I was able to write about her in a way that was therapeutic, expressing the helplessness and horror of losing a loved one, the contrast of the lioness of my youth, soft-spoken and loving, versus a fictional mother dying in 1973. I never would want to write the exact true story of the devastation of cancer, for it’s too painful. Yet in this horror story, I was able to tell a personal tragedy in a way that is respectful. All of this research and experience is the foundation of my gay coming-of-age true crime horror series, Summer 1973 (Cruising, Lost Boys, and Shallow Graves).

After the research and the funeral of the as yet unidentified victim, ML73-3356, I wondered what if Lane lived in the Heights in the summer of 1973, lacking money while dealing with his mother’s cancer and being secretly gay in a time when it’s not cool—a time when teenage boys disappear from the streets, never to be seen again. With that, I knew I had my story and began writing Lane’s journey.

Dean Cade