If I do not accomplish a single great thing in this life, it will be because I have lacked discipline. If, on the other hand, I accomplish many pretty-good things, it will be for the same reason.
Sandy and I lived in Pacifica, CA, for many years. I spent many happy hours poking around in Mary Florey's wonderful bookstore, especially the huge and chaotic back room. There I found a new friend, though he had been dead since 1945: William Buehler Seabrook. He was both an adventurer and a writer, and his pattern was to seek out incredible adventures and then write about them. But the greatest adventure of all was his own personal life. That is why, although I used to have all eleven of his books, the only one I brought back in our few huge suitcases from South America was his autobiography, NO HIDING PLACE (1942).
In the appendix to another of Seabrook's books, WITCHCRAFT (1940), he relates a very seductive bondage scene, in which his submissive partner, whom he called "Deborah Luris," essentially proved the non-linear nature of time and the accessibility, under certain conditions, of the future. I should say, " . . . if true, essentially proved . . ." Seabrook was not a liar, but his relationship to truth was extremely complex.
Anyway, Willie (so I shall call him, because in the course of my research he became like family to me) was obsessed with the above-mentioned event for the rest of his life. In fact, it seems to me that the strange phenomenon, in combination with his alcoholism, impaired his later ability to write, and thereby hastened his end.
I researched Willie and his wives (who also became like family, and whose books I also had) for several years. An aid in this research was another biography, THE STRANGE WORLD OF WILLIE SEABROOK (1966), by his second wife, Marjorie Worthington. I have her personal copy of the book, containing a telegram to her from the publisher, announcing that they would be publishing it. Needless to say, this also went into the suitcases from Uruguay
A focus of my research was an effort to discover the true identity of the mysterious "Deborah Luris."
In 2006, while I sat in the waiting room of a hospital in Portland, Oregon (Sandy was getting a knee replacement), reading a music magazine I subscribed to but seldom read, several facts, including a clue left by Willie, came together in my mind, and I suddenly knew who "Deborah Luris" was. I spent the next several years trying to prove it. For a while I even hired a researcher in another country.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I had come into contact with a small Internet group of other people who were also researching Seabrook. I shared my new knowledge with only one of them, whom I most trusted, my friend (now sadly departed) Mike. I gave Mike periodic progress reports by e-mail. Another member of the group tried to use his girlfriend to get the information out of me; it didn't work.
While Sandy and I were still living in that floating home in Portland, we had a short-notice visit from Mike and his lovely wife, Monica. It was a relatively short visit, but we "talked shop" about Willie quite a lot. Mike had found Seabrook's son (by his third wife, Constance) and had brought a cassette tape (made from an old disc recording done by a radio station a year or so before Willie's death), so I was able to hear Willie's voice (he spoke with a tidewater accent). Mike also gave me a memento that I won't reveal, because some secrets should be kept.
During the course of that visit I mentioned that my research had revealed the state that Constance and Willie's son had moved to after Willie's death. Mike hastily said that it was wrong, and Monica looked at him questioningly. I knew that Mike was lying, and so did Monica. I'm sure that his intention was to protect the privacy of Seabrook's son. Some privacy must be protected.
A few years later, when I was up to my ears in the project to translate the works of Maria de Naglowska (which also grew out of the Seabrook research), Mike asked me to give him the names of my informants in "Deborah Luris'" country, and I told him I couldn't do that. Some privacy must be protected. Besides, I knew that any further information had been intentionally burned, and I knew who had done it.
My friend Mike passed away in 2010. A couple of other people involved in Seabrook research, one of whom wanted to make a movie about Willie's life, have also died. William Seabrook does not want his story to be told. Neither does "Deborah Luris." I, for my part, have other, safer projects to work on.
The world is dangerous enough, as it is.
Text © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.
