BOOK
How ‘Galveston’ Helped Me Accept My Past
A book about a hitman and a teenage prostitute became my bible
“You’re born and forty years later you hobble out a bar, startled by your own aches. Nobody knows you. You steer down lightless highways, and you invent a destination because movement is key. So you head toward the last thing you have left to lose, with no real idea what you’re going to do with it.” — Nic Pizzolatto in Galveston
In the past few years, I’ve thought a lot about how I might remember my life when I get old. How significant my memories, relationships, and feelings will seem when I reflect on them. Each time I begin this thought process, my favorite book, Galveston, comes into mind: because each time I read it, I discover something new. Something of value.
The premise of Nic Pizzolatto’s first novel is simple. It’s about a middle-aged debt collector, Roy Cady, who learns he has terminal cancer. When a “routine” collection job turns into an ambush, Roy manages to kill his would-be assassins and saves a young prostitute’s (Rocky) life. Together they go on the run heading towards rural Texas.
Roy is forced to take a hard look at his life: forced to adjust to a path he didn’t choose. Underneath all the violence, we find Roy faced with some uncomfortable truths rooted in his past decisions.
Rocky represents something for Roy, he can feel it in his bones. By saving her something awakened in him, an emotion that was almost lost. Realizations are often painful for all of us, and in reflecting on his early years, Roy realizes that time inevitably became his nemesis: he’s running out of time to find salvation.
We end up where we are in life through the choices we’ve made. Destiny and luck might play a part, but we made our own decisions. Roy is desperate to find some significance in his life before he dies, and he can take no solace remembering his past now.
When we truthfully revise our past and eliminate romanticized nostalgia, we usually find rocks attached to our ankles. Those rocks dragging us underwater. We search for the light at the bottom of the sea, but the darkness can be heavy and absorbing. We must acknowledge the few diamonds that left around us.
Our crooked memories no longer deceive us the way we want them to. We dig desperately to find and add meaning to them, but sometimes remembrance doesn’t shine the way we imagine it.
“So I was wrong when I told Rocky you could choose what you feel. It’s not true. It’s not even true that you can choose when you’ll feel. All that happens is that the past clots like a cataract or scab, a scab of memory over your eyes. And one day the light breaks through.” — Nic Pizzolatto in Galveston
My gems are my high school years. I belonged to a community where I felt home, loved, and respected. I was surrounded by people who were wrongfully categorized by society. We were ‘scum’ that very few cared about.
Disadvantaged kids put in the worst class because of adversity, poverty, and upbringing. However, those circumstances brought us closer to each other. We stood up for one another when authority looked down on us, and loyalty and honor became our weapon.
We had no choice, bad behavior was our asset, it made us look cool. At least that’s how I remember it. Although, there is a possibility my memory is not as accurate as I think. Perhaps, our perceptions of others like teachers, parents, adults, and wealthy kids were different.
Regardless of how they perceived us, it was the strongest bond I’ve ever encountered. I believed for a very long time that nothing and nobody could break it. Time and life proved me wrong. Now we live thousands of miles away from each other, meet very occasionally, almost by accident, and when we do, we try to repair that broken bond. However, we know it can’t be fully rebuilt.
“I knew the past wasn’t real. It was only an idea, and the thing I’d wanted to touch, to brush against, the feeling I couldn’t name — it just didn’t exist. It was only an idea, too.” — Nic Pizzolatto in Galveston
The past sometimes seems like a fantasy, a longing desire, but those feelings we carry inside were real then, and they’re real now. Emotions buried under worn hearts, broken promises, and dead friendships. They are still there, and they only die with us.
I read Galveston every year to remember as sharply as I can to see the clearest vision of what we were and what we’ve become. Galveston is my bible, but it’s not something to live by, it’s something to help me accept my past.
If you liked what you’ve read and want more self-reflection, you should read this one, as well:
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