- jimlouis 6-13-2007 4:02 am [link]
...more recent posts
In A Whiz Bang Blur
In North Carolina at an antique store I bought a branding iron with the two initials that are most often associated with Bernadette when she exists outside the role of my fictive travel partner through hellfire and damnation. The Jeep aged three thousand miles in these last ten days. Bernadette joined me for the last 1700 and now we are leaving each other alone for a brief period of time here at this imaginary world known as Mt. Pleasant. To Texas and back and beyond in a whiz bang blur, only stopping briefly for a wedding and then after, still suited up, the U-Haul in Garland for a 5X8 enclosed trailer which we drove through a Dallas rush hour into the heart of Lake Highlands, where we loaded up the last of the personal belongings attached to my Texas upbringing. A good friend was storing these things for the last year, in his house. I don't truly love stuff and have mixed feelings about stuff. As words go, stuff is a great word for stuff. Stuff almost exactly describes how I feel about my stuff. In a moment of pique at the wedding reception I had told a brother that I might not even rent a trailer and would just set my stuff on fire, after of course first removing it from my friend's house. There is no reason my friend should suffer the incineration of all his lovely possessions just because I suffer from stuff ambiguity anxiety.
We stayed the final night at a somewhat worn out Hampton Inn in Addison, Tx. and headed out in the morning. Two nights before, Bernadette had gotten to see a trio of quintessential Texas Barbie's working the hostess station at a nearby trendy Mexican joint a block up the road from the motel. Different people say different things about what triggers memory. Some say it is smell, some say taste, but for me there is nothing like the visage of a Texas Barbie to trigger those emotions that remind me of being uneasy in Texas.
We stopped in Hope and started to look for Bill Clinton's house. I had not looked for it three days previous but then at the same time we came to the same conclusion and just said "I think we get the idea," and went to the barbecue place for lunch. And drove. On the road I loaded up a plastic spoon full of pecan cobbler and handed it to Bernadette, the driver of record for this stretch. Hmm (not mmm), that is sweet, said Bernadette.
Took a quick look at Little Rock but nobody was home.
Zipped through Memphis and sometime later stopped in Jackson, Tennessee and stayed at a place that had a pool and wifi but only a partial bottom sheet on the bed, and a certifiably suspect bathroom with a tub faucet that dripped heavily into a stained tub and had only two small towels, haphazardly stacked on a metal wall rack.
We went to a sports bar near the motel for ice cold beers and a burger on Texas Toast. We could not say for sure but there was just the faintest hint that the establishment was a gay bar. A sign out front said biker's welcome which for all I know is a well known euphemism for gay is okay. I was wearing a Paul Smith fitted shirt and was perhaps the gayest looking person in the place (if you kicked out the "biker," the "musician," and the country gentleman sitting to my right) and therefore possibly the inspiration for some other tourist's "I think we walked into a gay bar" speculation. The man to my right was a cotton gin repairman from Seymour, Texas and I had a teenage memory from Seymour which involved cases of beer the night before a high school junior varsity basketball tournament and this memory I shared with the man. Bernadette quizzed him about cotton gins. All the while the Yankees prepared to beat the Red Sox in extra innings, on three large screens. Bernadette thinks the male bartender called me ''hon" but I am not sure that that is what he said. Still, to play it safe and maintain that essential balance of correctness I deem essential to my concept of correctness, I contributed to an upper end tip pool just like I would if it had been a female waitress or bartender calling me "hon.," which I am on record as saying is a thing I like.
Arrived at Arnold's in Nashville around 10 the next morning and walked around the mostly industrial neighborhood while waiting for it to open at 10:30. That was some good food. We had liver and onions and fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy and collard greens and corn off the cob and chocolate cream pie and lemon cream pie and sweet and unsweet iced tea. You could probably get by with splitting one of those desserts though.
We stopped and bought 230 dollars worth of fireworks before leaving Tennessee and just before that I bought a brittle 1872 collection of Robert Browning poems with an upside down fly page at an antique store in Kingston, for nine dollars. Bernadette bought two more rug beaters. Much later that night and almost close enough to make it home to Mt. Pleasant I got grumpy enough to want to strangle Bernadette, for no reason really, so we got a room and food and a martini in southern Virginia and she did not suffocate me with pillows in my sleep, which I think would have been justifiable.
Arriving back to Mt. Pleasant on Tuesday afternoon and maintenence work to last year's ambitious landscaping project was occurring. It became quickly obvious that this current project was becoming a bit more ambitious than just maintenence, my Latino brothers from last year were all back, and staying in the cottage, so Bernadette and I bunked up in the Tower Room at the bighouse. Guests were reportedly coming the next day or the day after and I was feeling a little cramped so after doing a few chores we jumped back into the Jeep and headed to North Carolina.
On the way we tooled around Charlottesville for awhile.
Right after parking on the street a man walked up to me and said we should go to the Sally Mann exhibit, which happened to be a block away. But we did not do that. I could not remember who she was but Bernadette reminded me (that she is--the provocative photographer), and as I am barely able to handle the provocation of everyday life I chose to be disinterested and Bernadette, pretty well smothered by art in NYC, also chose, at this specific point in time, to be disinterested. We mingled with the hordes on the historic old town pedestrian mall and then made a couple more required stops before heading off to a farmhouse outside of Lynchburg, where we had dinner with two cats, several beagles, and a couple of New York ex-pats, one of whom had beaten the major league baseball pitcher, Roger Clemens, three times, at pool, in a bar. I had to admit that that was a pretty cool accomplishment but could not resist telling the young woman, I bet you could not hit his fastball.
We were on our way to visit a former NBA basketball player and his wife and two kids residing outside of Burlington, NC.
I own, with a friend, a small house off a gravel road on two acres about forty-five minutes northeast of there, which I have not visited, or maybe have visited once, since leaving it in 1994. We rent it to a former house painting buddy of mine. We have settled on it being okay that they make only about nine of the twelve monthly rent payments each year. By doing this we are buying them the majority of their Christmas presents every year, a thing we do despite never receiving a thank you card.
So that's where Bernadette and I stopped first, the old forgotten rental property, on our way to visit the former NBA basketball player, after of course stopping at the tank museum in Danville, VA. If you only go to one tank museum in your life, go to the one in Danville.
My rental house is in a rural area in northern North Carolina not exactly in the middle of nowhere but close to exactly in the middle of nowhere. The house is off of highway 49 and I wasn't sure I would be able to find it but after zigging down back roads from Danville and finally intersecting 49, I immediately recognized the area and as it turned out we were, thanks to the navigation of Bernadette, only about 400 yards from the gravel road leading to the house at its end.
The house on the left looked the same and the vacant wooded lot on the right was just as I remembered it. All of the several properties on each side of the road were neat and tidy and well cared for, with the neat and tidy of the year award going to the house across from mine, at the end of the road on the right, formerly owned by the neighborhood busy body and possibly now owned by her heirs. It looked like it had been completely done over and was a shining jewel in this modest rural one street neighborhood, a neighborhood by itself butting up to thousands of undeveloped acres of hardwood forest and farmland and the occasional tobacco field.
Behind the large pontoon boat in my front yard and across the beaten down dead lawn, came running four barking boxer dogs and an albino boxer puppy. There was stretched low to the ground what appeared to be a hot-wire and the dogs would not cross it. I could not tell for sure if they were angry dogs. They appeared to be uncertain about me as well. There were no cars in the driveway but there was one or two rusty ones on the edge of the woods. A vintage swing set occupied the space in the front lawn not occupied by the pontoon boat. An extra boat was over by the woods by the abandoned cars. It did not look like it had seen anything but rainwater in a long time. I cannot describe everything else that was in the front yard and side yard because I am now a few days later moving slowly towards denial. I did not take pictures because I knew instinctively that I would soon be needing to move toward denial and the pictures would be a hindrance to that trip.
The slumlord merit badge was mine. And every neglectful act of my entire life was now compressed and formed into a totally hokey, not altogether believable white trash movie set. I could not though take my eyes off of the scenery, if for no other reason than that there was so much of it, so much detail. Then, like a low budget commercial break to an even lower budget made for TV movie, up the road came a slightly overweight teenage boy driving a golf cart. And he pulled into the driveway.
It was my old painting buddy's son. He was still in his mamma's belly when I had left, 13 years previous. He was a reticent boy, polite, but of few words. And scared of me it seemed. I tried to comfort him by saying I was an old friend of his father's but that, if anything, only seemed to make him feel worse. Then I dropped the bombshell--actually, I own this property, I said, and that seemed to also bring no level of comfort to the boy. I asked him if I could look around a little and he mumbled something which I took to be assent even if it wasn't. As it turned out the barking dogs were bootlickers and they followed us around as I headed to the backyard, and beyond that to the ten thousand square foot garden, which was nicely maintained. Bernadette was waiting in the car and the boy had that attitude like he was in the principals office so I made this first time in thirteen year visit a short one. I left him a piece a paper with my name and phone number on it and said goodbye.
On the way to visit the former Olympian and NBA player I worked out in my head the required first steps towards kicking my old friend and his family out on their asses. So I have that to look forward to.
In North Carolina at an antique store I bought a branding iron with the two initials that are most often associated with Bernadette when she exists outside the role of my fictive travel partner through hellfire and damnation. The Jeep aged three thousand miles in these last ten days. Bernadette joined me for the last 1700 and now we are leaving each other alone for a brief period of time here at this imaginary world known as Mt. Pleasant. To Texas and back and beyond in a whiz bang blur, only stopping briefly for a wedding and then after, still suited up, the U-Haul in Garland for a 5X8 enclosed trailer which we drove through a Dallas rush hour into the heart of Lake Highlands, where we loaded up the last of the personal belongings attached to my Texas upbringing. A good friend was storing these things for the last year, in his house. I don't truly love stuff and have mixed feelings about stuff. As words go, stuff is a great word for stuff. Stuff almost exactly describes how I feel about my stuff. In a moment of pique at the wedding reception I had told a brother that I might not even rent a trailer and would just set my stuff on fire, after of course first removing it from my friend's house. There is no reason my friend should suffer the incineration of all his lovely possessions just because I suffer from stuff ambiguity anxiety.
We stayed the final night at a somewhat worn out Hampton Inn in Addison, Tx. and headed out in the morning. Two nights before, Bernadette had gotten to see a trio of quintessential Texas Barbie's working the hostess station at a nearby trendy Mexican joint a block up the road from the motel. Different people say different things about what triggers memory. Some say it is smell, some say taste, but for me there is nothing like the visage of a Texas Barbie to trigger those emotions that remind me of being uneasy in Texas.
We stopped in Hope and started to look for Bill Clinton's house. I had not looked for it three days previous but then at the same time we came to the same conclusion and just said "I think we get the idea," and went to the barbecue place for lunch. And drove. On the road I loaded up a plastic spoon full of pecan cobbler and handed it to Bernadette, the driver of record for this stretch. Hmm (not mmm), that is sweet, said Bernadette.
Took a quick look at Little Rock but nobody was home.
Zipped through Memphis and sometime later stopped in Jackson, Tennessee and stayed at a place that had a pool and wifi but only a partial bottom sheet on the bed, and a certifiably suspect bathroom with a tub faucet that dripped heavily into a stained tub and had only two small towels, haphazardly stacked on a metal wall rack.
We went to a sports bar near the motel for ice cold beers and a burger on Texas Toast. We could not say for sure but there was just the faintest hint that the establishment was a gay bar. A sign out front said biker's welcome which for all I know is a well known euphemism for gay is okay. I was wearing a Paul Smith fitted shirt and was perhaps the gayest looking person in the place (if you kicked out the "biker," the "musician," and the country gentleman sitting to my right) and therefore possibly the inspiration for some other tourist's "I think we walked into a gay bar" speculation. The man to my right was a cotton gin repairman from Seymour, Texas and I had a teenage memory from Seymour which involved cases of beer the night before a high school junior varsity basketball tournament and this memory I shared with the man. Bernadette quizzed him about cotton gins. All the while the Yankees prepared to beat the Red Sox in extra innings, on three large screens. Bernadette thinks the male bartender called me ''hon" but I am not sure that that is what he said. Still, to play it safe and maintain that essential balance of correctness I deem essential to my concept of correctness, I contributed to an upper end tip pool just like I would if it had been a female waitress or bartender calling me "hon.," which I am on record as saying is a thing I like.
Arrived at Arnold's in Nashville around 10 the next morning and walked around the mostly industrial neighborhood while waiting for it to open at 10:30. That was some good food. We had liver and onions and fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy and collard greens and corn off the cob and chocolate cream pie and lemon cream pie and sweet and unsweet iced tea. You could probably get by with splitting one of those desserts though.
We stopped and bought 230 dollars worth of fireworks before leaving Tennessee and just before that I bought a brittle 1872 collection of Robert Browning poems with an upside down fly page at an antique store in Kingston, for nine dollars. Bernadette bought two more rug beaters. Much later that night and almost close enough to make it home to Mt. Pleasant I got grumpy enough to want to strangle Bernadette, for no reason really, so we got a room and food and a martini in southern Virginia and she did not suffocate me with pillows in my sleep, which I think would have been justifiable.
Arriving back to Mt. Pleasant on Tuesday afternoon and maintenence work to last year's ambitious landscaping project was occurring. It became quickly obvious that this current project was becoming a bit more ambitious than just maintenence, my Latino brothers from last year were all back, and staying in the cottage, so Bernadette and I bunked up in the Tower Room at the bighouse. Guests were reportedly coming the next day or the day after and I was feeling a little cramped so after doing a few chores we jumped back into the Jeep and headed to North Carolina.
On the way we tooled around Charlottesville for awhile.
Right after parking on the street a man walked up to me and said we should go to the Sally Mann exhibit, which happened to be a block away. But we did not do that. I could not remember who she was but Bernadette reminded me (that she is--the provocative photographer), and as I am barely able to handle the provocation of everyday life I chose to be disinterested and Bernadette, pretty well smothered by art in NYC, also chose, at this specific point in time, to be disinterested. We mingled with the hordes on the historic old town pedestrian mall and then made a couple more required stops before heading off to a farmhouse outside of Lynchburg, where we had dinner with two cats, several beagles, and a couple of New York ex-pats, one of whom had beaten the major league baseball pitcher, Roger Clemens, three times, at pool, in a bar. I had to admit that that was a pretty cool accomplishment but could not resist telling the young woman, I bet you could not hit his fastball.
We were on our way to visit a former NBA basketball player and his wife and two kids residing outside of Burlington, NC.
I own, with a friend, a small house off a gravel road on two acres about forty-five minutes northeast of there, which I have not visited, or maybe have visited once, since leaving it in 1994. We rent it to a former house painting buddy of mine. We have settled on it being okay that they make only about nine of the twelve monthly rent payments each year. By doing this we are buying them the majority of their Christmas presents every year, a thing we do despite never receiving a thank you card.
So that's where Bernadette and I stopped first, the old forgotten rental property, on our way to visit the former NBA basketball player, after of course stopping at the tank museum in Danville, VA. If you only go to one tank museum in your life, go to the one in Danville.
My rental house is in a rural area in northern North Carolina not exactly in the middle of nowhere but close to exactly in the middle of nowhere. The house is off of highway 49 and I wasn't sure I would be able to find it but after zigging down back roads from Danville and finally intersecting 49, I immediately recognized the area and as it turned out we were, thanks to the navigation of Bernadette, only about 400 yards from the gravel road leading to the house at its end.
The house on the left looked the same and the vacant wooded lot on the right was just as I remembered it. All of the several properties on each side of the road were neat and tidy and well cared for, with the neat and tidy of the year award going to the house across from mine, at the end of the road on the right, formerly owned by the neighborhood busy body and possibly now owned by her heirs. It looked like it had been completely done over and was a shining jewel in this modest rural one street neighborhood, a neighborhood by itself butting up to thousands of undeveloped acres of hardwood forest and farmland and the occasional tobacco field.
Behind the large pontoon boat in my front yard and across the beaten down dead lawn, came running four barking boxer dogs and an albino boxer puppy. There was stretched low to the ground what appeared to be a hot-wire and the dogs would not cross it. I could not tell for sure if they were angry dogs. They appeared to be uncertain about me as well. There were no cars in the driveway but there was one or two rusty ones on the edge of the woods. A vintage swing set occupied the space in the front lawn not occupied by the pontoon boat. An extra boat was over by the woods by the abandoned cars. It did not look like it had seen anything but rainwater in a long time. I cannot describe everything else that was in the front yard and side yard because I am now a few days later moving slowly towards denial. I did not take pictures because I knew instinctively that I would soon be needing to move toward denial and the pictures would be a hindrance to that trip.
The slumlord merit badge was mine. And every neglectful act of my entire life was now compressed and formed into a totally hokey, not altogether believable white trash movie set. I could not though take my eyes off of the scenery, if for no other reason than that there was so much of it, so much detail. Then, like a low budget commercial break to an even lower budget made for TV movie, up the road came a slightly overweight teenage boy driving a golf cart. And he pulled into the driveway.
It was my old painting buddy's son. He was still in his mamma's belly when I had left, 13 years previous. He was a reticent boy, polite, but of few words. And scared of me it seemed. I tried to comfort him by saying I was an old friend of his father's but that, if anything, only seemed to make him feel worse. Then I dropped the bombshell--actually, I own this property, I said, and that seemed to also bring no level of comfort to the boy. I asked him if I could look around a little and he mumbled something which I took to be assent even if it wasn't. As it turned out the barking dogs were bootlickers and they followed us around as I headed to the backyard, and beyond that to the ten thousand square foot garden, which was nicely maintained. Bernadette was waiting in the car and the boy had that attitude like he was in the principals office so I made this first time in thirteen year visit a short one. I left him a piece a paper with my name and phone number on it and said goodbye.
On the way to visit the former Olympian and NBA player I worked out in my head the required first steps towards kicking my old friend and his family out on their asses. So I have that to look forward to.
A Coma In Hope
The Indian man was going to show me the room before I agreed to stay because he said there wasn't a non-smoking room and I was about to leave because of it. When I asked for a non-smoking room he hesitated long enough to make it seem like there might be one but it was becoming pretty obvious that non-smokers probably stayed elsewhere in Hope, Arkasas. I followed him around the counter and out the glass door and did not once stare at his wife sleeping on the couch. I was giving her that much privacy. The sound of the baby crying in the room behind the counter followed us out the door.
He opened the room wide and it stank a little and then he opened the one next to it and it stank a little too, but sweetly. I said probably this one and he giggled nervously and said he had sprayed some smoke spray. I asked him how much and when he said 29 dollars I just nodded like, oh, what the hell can you expect for that price? Ok, I'll take this one I said.
Driving earlier in the day and I had become tense so I pulled off the highway and did a little shopping at Walmart. I don't know where. If I say Tennessee does that help? I bought a 10 dollar pair of black jeans. And some fishing lures, about 20 dollars worth. And one lightweight green rain pancho. And a vegetable cup with ranch sauce. And a fruit cup with unrealistic tasting cantaloupe and honeydew, two pieces of seemingly authentic pineapple and three grapes which I thought might have come from a laboratory but I wasn't complaining because they were delicious and crisp.
I asked the motel owner where I could find a Laundromat there in Hope, Arkansas because I wanted to wash my new jeans He asked me what time I wanted to do my laundry and I had to admit that I wasn't sure. That's what he was hoping for because he wanted me to know that there was a 24 hour Laundromat in Hope, near the Taco Bell. I said that sounded great.
That's not where I went though. I headed off in that direction but then did a sudden U-turn--there is after all no law against it, unless there is a law against it--and took a right on N. Hazel and wandered aimlessly through what appeared to be a section of town specifically reserved for black people, which as luck would have it, also had a Laundromat, at the corner of D, across from the church. I went in there and asked the first woman I saw if there was soap for sale and she grunted and pointed to the far corner. I got a box of Cheer for 50 cents and picked a washer that I could only hope wasn't a loser but how are you going to know until you know. I think I had already stretched to the limit any good will I was going to receive at this Laundromat and besides, how would you phrase that without sounding like a complete idiot? Um, excuse me again ma'am, but is the a good one? Or perhaps, Uh Yes, Could You Tell Me If This Machine Is In Good Working Order? Or maybe, Hi, I'm new here, what's your favorite machine? I decided to just mind my own business, the business of washing a single pair of jeans, and picked up a local advertising tabloid. I was struck firstly by an ad placed by a man looking for swarming bees. He wanted to give them a home.
I got tired of waiting and reading advertisements so after checking that my machine was in fact working well enough, I took a drive up Hazel and very soon came up on The Bank of Hope, which is out of proportion to its surroundings or to the point is the biggest fucking bank I have ever seen in a town so small.
I quickly finished my sightseeing and went back to wait on my jeans. The dryer was stingy with heat so I was there awhile. A toddler kept passing in front of me, back and forth, and I would have engaged her but I didn't want to get yelled at by the mother, or have the toddler get yelled at because of me. I continued to mind my own business. On one pass the toddler did a little pose and to no one in particular practiced her "whatchu lookin' at" delivery. Staring off into that distance beyond the glass front door where maybe there existed a young man acting fresh, she said, with considerable spunk and attitude--"whatchu lookin' at." And smirked. I think she was happy with the delivery. I know I was.
Later she came back and picked up the newspaper I had put in the seat next to me and I whispered, yeah, go ahead and take it. She carried it over to the floor in front of her mother and began taking it apart and spreading the sections out all around her. When their laundry was done the mama yelled, pick up that paper! and she began picking it up and wadding it such as her tiny hands were capable of doing. The baby girl got all the pieces gathered up and she was almost invisible behind the now hovering mass of crumpled paper. Put in the trash! her mother barked. She was standing at the midpoint between two trash cans and she started off for the one nearest me. But her mother barked again, and she paused, and then started back my way. I was hoping to get a good look at the earnest expression on her face as she performed this task but her mother barked one last time and pointed to the can closer to her. They left shortly after that and so did I.
I got a rib plate at Uncle Henry's Smokehouse, near the motel, and took it back to the room. Rated best barbecue in Arkansas according to the sign on the door and I don't know how much competition they are working with there but it was some good, and inexpensive. The ribs were fat with meat and the potato salad was right on and there was nothing wrong with those beans. I could only finish three ribs before my belly puffed out and then I was on the bed watching the women's softball World Series. In a matter of minutes I descended into a rib plate induced coma and was not seen or heard from again for the next 10 hours. The next morning I awoke and noticed there was no soap in the room but I took a shower anyway. I had breakfast at Sheba's before hitting the road for Dallas.
The Indian man was going to show me the room before I agreed to stay because he said there wasn't a non-smoking room and I was about to leave because of it. When I asked for a non-smoking room he hesitated long enough to make it seem like there might be one but it was becoming pretty obvious that non-smokers probably stayed elsewhere in Hope, Arkasas. I followed him around the counter and out the glass door and did not once stare at his wife sleeping on the couch. I was giving her that much privacy. The sound of the baby crying in the room behind the counter followed us out the door.
He opened the room wide and it stank a little and then he opened the one next to it and it stank a little too, but sweetly. I said probably this one and he giggled nervously and said he had sprayed some smoke spray. I asked him how much and when he said 29 dollars I just nodded like, oh, what the hell can you expect for that price? Ok, I'll take this one I said.
Driving earlier in the day and I had become tense so I pulled off the highway and did a little shopping at Walmart. I don't know where. If I say Tennessee does that help? I bought a 10 dollar pair of black jeans. And some fishing lures, about 20 dollars worth. And one lightweight green rain pancho. And a vegetable cup with ranch sauce. And a fruit cup with unrealistic tasting cantaloupe and honeydew, two pieces of seemingly authentic pineapple and three grapes which I thought might have come from a laboratory but I wasn't complaining because they were delicious and crisp.
I asked the motel owner where I could find a Laundromat there in Hope, Arkansas because I wanted to wash my new jeans He asked me what time I wanted to do my laundry and I had to admit that I wasn't sure. That's what he was hoping for because he wanted me to know that there was a 24 hour Laundromat in Hope, near the Taco Bell. I said that sounded great.
That's not where I went though. I headed off in that direction but then did a sudden U-turn--there is after all no law against it, unless there is a law against it--and took a right on N. Hazel and wandered aimlessly through what appeared to be a section of town specifically reserved for black people, which as luck would have it, also had a Laundromat, at the corner of D, across from the church. I went in there and asked the first woman I saw if there was soap for sale and she grunted and pointed to the far corner. I got a box of Cheer for 50 cents and picked a washer that I could only hope wasn't a loser but how are you going to know until you know. I think I had already stretched to the limit any good will I was going to receive at this Laundromat and besides, how would you phrase that without sounding like a complete idiot? Um, excuse me again ma'am, but is the a good one? Or perhaps, Uh Yes, Could You Tell Me If This Machine Is In Good Working Order? Or maybe, Hi, I'm new here, what's your favorite machine? I decided to just mind my own business, the business of washing a single pair of jeans, and picked up a local advertising tabloid. I was struck firstly by an ad placed by a man looking for swarming bees. He wanted to give them a home.
I got tired of waiting and reading advertisements so after checking that my machine was in fact working well enough, I took a drive up Hazel and very soon came up on The Bank of Hope, which is out of proportion to its surroundings or to the point is the biggest fucking bank I have ever seen in a town so small.
I quickly finished my sightseeing and went back to wait on my jeans. The dryer was stingy with heat so I was there awhile. A toddler kept passing in front of me, back and forth, and I would have engaged her but I didn't want to get yelled at by the mother, or have the toddler get yelled at because of me. I continued to mind my own business. On one pass the toddler did a little pose and to no one in particular practiced her "whatchu lookin' at" delivery. Staring off into that distance beyond the glass front door where maybe there existed a young man acting fresh, she said, with considerable spunk and attitude--"whatchu lookin' at." And smirked. I think she was happy with the delivery. I know I was.
Later she came back and picked up the newspaper I had put in the seat next to me and I whispered, yeah, go ahead and take it. She carried it over to the floor in front of her mother and began taking it apart and spreading the sections out all around her. When their laundry was done the mama yelled, pick up that paper! and she began picking it up and wadding it such as her tiny hands were capable of doing. The baby girl got all the pieces gathered up and she was almost invisible behind the now hovering mass of crumpled paper. Put in the trash! her mother barked. She was standing at the midpoint between two trash cans and she started off for the one nearest me. But her mother barked again, and she paused, and then started back my way. I was hoping to get a good look at the earnest expression on her face as she performed this task but her mother barked one last time and pointed to the can closer to her. They left shortly after that and so did I.
I got a rib plate at Uncle Henry's Smokehouse, near the motel, and took it back to the room. Rated best barbecue in Arkansas according to the sign on the door and I don't know how much competition they are working with there but it was some good, and inexpensive. The ribs were fat with meat and the potato salad was right on and there was nothing wrong with those beans. I could only finish three ribs before my belly puffed out and then I was on the bed watching the women's softball World Series. In a matter of minutes I descended into a rib plate induced coma and was not seen or heard from again for the next 10 hours. The next morning I awoke and noticed there was no soap in the room but I took a shower anyway. I had breakfast at Sheba's before hitting the road for Dallas.
Until I Came To Hope
As if you didn't already know this, there was no bacon at the Deluxe Continental Breakfast at the luxury business suites motel somewhere near Nashville. There was however a covered tureen full of sausage gravy that had its own silver ladle and a stand for it and looked pretty alright, pristine even, at 5:30 a.m. with only me and that other grumpy malcontented Boomhauer mumbling early rising guy slopping gravy over our dry biscuits, but I would not want to be at the later end of that breakfast because oh Lord the disgusting things that would run through my mind just looking at that sausage gravy-caked ladle after 5 hours of use, and the gravy would be splattered all over everything because people staying here are taking a vacation from raising their children. Also I had a sweet roll and some apple juice. No coffee. I already had coffee in the room. I was going to leave but instead got up the nerve to try the do-it-yourself Belgian Waffle maker. I read the directions while pouring the Styrofoam cup of mix over the hot griddle. It sizzled. Close the griddle, check. Spin the griddle upside down and wait two minutes, check. An imbecile could make these waffles. I tore off and folded large pieces of the butter and syrup soaked grilled dough and poked them into my wide open mouth with a white plastic fork. I had another apple juice, picked up an orange for the road, and beat it for the already packed Jeep out front.
I took the loop around Nashville and about midway to Memphis stopped for gas. While standing there I could see off in the distance a billboard that said I Love You and it was signed by Jesus Christ. I contemplated briefly the legal ramifications of signing somebody's name without their permission. Under I Love You it said Come To Know Me. I thought that was a little provocative but good advice just the same. I took a picture of the sign. There was a MacDonalds attached to this gas station and a sign in the window that said free wifi. I pulled around back and posted the picture. Then I drove towards Memphis with its ill-conceived and notably bad interruption of Interstate 40. The Peabody Hotel was visible in the distance, from the elevated interstate. I saw the ducks on TV once. A glass pyramid on the river is also visible. Half way over the Mississippi River bridge leaving Memphis you enter Arkansas.
In Little Rock there is a very big Pentecostal church.
I ate the last of my toasted peanut butter crackers from the Lance Corp. And a slice of orange. A chunk of beef jerky. A sip of water. And a Dentyne Ice. I stopped being on mountain roads somewhere after Nashville, I noticed somewhere near the exit for Hot Springs, Arkansas.
I headed off for Hot Springs but then turned around and got back on Interstate 30, frightened by the audacity of my decision making.
On the XM radio I moved between Bluesville and Fred. Fred was for a while featuring the year 1978, which was the last year before I took to dropping out earnestly. I remember a lot of buzz about the Talking Heads back then. When not listening to those two I was at 164 listening to old time radio. The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Dr. Kildaire, Sam Spade, a Ray Bradbury story, stuff like that.
I thought I might just make it to Dallas and be there a day early and I would eat Mexican food but then I decided on Texarkana which was a solid goal until I came to Hope and that is where I stopped.
As if you didn't already know this, there was no bacon at the Deluxe Continental Breakfast at the luxury business suites motel somewhere near Nashville. There was however a covered tureen full of sausage gravy that had its own silver ladle and a stand for it and looked pretty alright, pristine even, at 5:30 a.m. with only me and that other grumpy malcontented Boomhauer mumbling early rising guy slopping gravy over our dry biscuits, but I would not want to be at the later end of that breakfast because oh Lord the disgusting things that would run through my mind just looking at that sausage gravy-caked ladle after 5 hours of use, and the gravy would be splattered all over everything because people staying here are taking a vacation from raising their children. Also I had a sweet roll and some apple juice. No coffee. I already had coffee in the room. I was going to leave but instead got up the nerve to try the do-it-yourself Belgian Waffle maker. I read the directions while pouring the Styrofoam cup of mix over the hot griddle. It sizzled. Close the griddle, check. Spin the griddle upside down and wait two minutes, check. An imbecile could make these waffles. I tore off and folded large pieces of the butter and syrup soaked grilled dough and poked them into my wide open mouth with a white plastic fork. I had another apple juice, picked up an orange for the road, and beat it for the already packed Jeep out front.
I took the loop around Nashville and about midway to Memphis stopped for gas. While standing there I could see off in the distance a billboard that said I Love You and it was signed by Jesus Christ. I contemplated briefly the legal ramifications of signing somebody's name without their permission. Under I Love You it said Come To Know Me. I thought that was a little provocative but good advice just the same. I took a picture of the sign. There was a MacDonalds attached to this gas station and a sign in the window that said free wifi. I pulled around back and posted the picture. Then I drove towards Memphis with its ill-conceived and notably bad interruption of Interstate 40. The Peabody Hotel was visible in the distance, from the elevated interstate. I saw the ducks on TV once. A glass pyramid on the river is also visible. Half way over the Mississippi River bridge leaving Memphis you enter Arkansas.
In Little Rock there is a very big Pentecostal church.
I ate the last of my toasted peanut butter crackers from the Lance Corp. And a slice of orange. A chunk of beef jerky. A sip of water. And a Dentyne Ice. I stopped being on mountain roads somewhere after Nashville, I noticed somewhere near the exit for Hot Springs, Arkansas.
I headed off for Hot Springs but then turned around and got back on Interstate 30, frightened by the audacity of my decision making.
On the XM radio I moved between Bluesville and Fred. Fred was for a while featuring the year 1978, which was the last year before I took to dropping out earnestly. I remember a lot of buzz about the Talking Heads back then. When not listening to those two I was at 164 listening to old time radio. The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Dr. Kildaire, Sam Spade, a Ray Bradbury story, stuff like that.
I thought I might just make it to Dallas and be there a day early and I would eat Mexican food but then I decided on Texarkana which was a solid goal until I came to Hope and that is where I stopped.
Keyword Is Almost
I stopped somewhere in Tennessee not quite Nashville and am now waiting for it to be 5:30 a.m., which is when the Deluxe Continental Breakfast will begin. I can almost smell the bacon frying from here up on the third floor of the Comfort Inn. In the past and possibly the future I would forgo this renting of a room and just sleep in the vehicle parked somewhere less than ideal. There is something approximately tasting like coffee sitting next to me. My own personal 4 cup coffee maker is in the bathroom. I'm not sure this is coffee.
There are pamphlets over there on the desk telling me what goes on around here but I'm not going to check them out. I'm passing through. The last time I traveled this way but in the opposite direction I did it high on Red Bull in 22 hours straight driving. This time I'm breaking it into three days. Ten or 12 hours from now I will be close enough to Texas but such a long ways from meeting Bernadette at the Dallas airport that I will have to come up with some plan of action to fill my time. I think I will be in Arkansas when I am making that decision. I wonder what it will be, my decision. I bet I won't be thinking very clearly at the time.
I'm ready to go now but it is still only 5:08. I did some editing, 5:12 now.
There is an indoor pool here and a Fitness Room but they are closed.
I did not use the mini-fridge or the microwave.
This room has two phones, twice as many as I need.
Guess I'll get my motor running.
I'm almost going to miss this place.
I stopped somewhere in Tennessee not quite Nashville and am now waiting for it to be 5:30 a.m., which is when the Deluxe Continental Breakfast will begin. I can almost smell the bacon frying from here up on the third floor of the Comfort Inn. In the past and possibly the future I would forgo this renting of a room and just sleep in the vehicle parked somewhere less than ideal. There is something approximately tasting like coffee sitting next to me. My own personal 4 cup coffee maker is in the bathroom. I'm not sure this is coffee.
There are pamphlets over there on the desk telling me what goes on around here but I'm not going to check them out. I'm passing through. The last time I traveled this way but in the opposite direction I did it high on Red Bull in 22 hours straight driving. This time I'm breaking it into three days. Ten or 12 hours from now I will be close enough to Texas but such a long ways from meeting Bernadette at the Dallas airport that I will have to come up with some plan of action to fill my time. I think I will be in Arkansas when I am making that decision. I wonder what it will be, my decision. I bet I won't be thinking very clearly at the time.
I'm ready to go now but it is still only 5:08. I did some editing, 5:12 now.
There is an indoor pool here and a Fitness Room but they are closed.
I did not use the mini-fridge or the microwave.
This room has two phones, twice as many as I need.
Guess I'll get my motor running.
I'm almost going to miss this place.
Country Time
A woman was pushing a stroller across the pasture so she could show the baby the horses up close. A man across the road was walking down to the pond carrying two fishing poles in his right hand. A neighbor to the left was having a party and the overflow parking was up to the fence. Soft jazz music and polite laughter could be heard. Down the hill some, next to the partying neighbor another group played horseshoes and the fisherman heard someone say in a congratulatory tone something about a "leaner."
A red winged blackbird did battle with a crow and then hovered awkwardly over the fisherman's head.
The woman with the baby said, "see the horsey?"
A small mouth bass felt the vibration of a splash and then saw a pink swirling motion, which it mistook for food and sucked into its mouth. Above the gills and right below his left eye the bass became aware of a hard tugging motion and he swam in the direction of the tug.
There was laughter over the jazz music and laughter over the clanging of horseshoes and the baby across the road in the horse pasture said "hama's." The mother said, "horsey."
Somewhere, a dog barked. Somewhere else a gun was fired. The fish leapt from the pond and did a swiveling somersault in the air. When it landed back in the water there was no more tugging from the left side. The fisherman said, "shit."
Next to the horseshoe match people in chairs facing west were waiting for a majestic sunset that never did quite happen.
A light breeze blew and floating algae along the banks of the pond moved out into the center to form small islands.
People on a porch moved inside.
A truck came down the road and hesitated briefly, before moving on.
The fisherman casted out and landed the pink and brown plastic worm on top of a floating wad of algae. Reeling in he discovered not just the tug of algae but that of a fish. It seemed to be swimming toward him as he reeled it in. At the last minute it made a sudden desperate fighting maneuver but not enough of one before the fisherman had it flapping its gills on the grassy bank. The fish was hooked clean on the bottom lip. Before releasing it the fisherman noticed that the fish had a hole in it just below the left eye.
At the afternoon jazz party the first guest had to leave.
Glancing across the road the fisherman saw no sign of the woman with the stroller.
A cat hunted mice in the tall grass.
A woman was pushing a stroller across the pasture so she could show the baby the horses up close. A man across the road was walking down to the pond carrying two fishing poles in his right hand. A neighbor to the left was having a party and the overflow parking was up to the fence. Soft jazz music and polite laughter could be heard. Down the hill some, next to the partying neighbor another group played horseshoes and the fisherman heard someone say in a congratulatory tone something about a "leaner."
A red winged blackbird did battle with a crow and then hovered awkwardly over the fisherman's head.
The woman with the baby said, "see the horsey?"
A small mouth bass felt the vibration of a splash and then saw a pink swirling motion, which it mistook for food and sucked into its mouth. Above the gills and right below his left eye the bass became aware of a hard tugging motion and he swam in the direction of the tug.
There was laughter over the jazz music and laughter over the clanging of horseshoes and the baby across the road in the horse pasture said "hama's." The mother said, "horsey."
Somewhere, a dog barked. Somewhere else a gun was fired. The fish leapt from the pond and did a swiveling somersault in the air. When it landed back in the water there was no more tugging from the left side. The fisherman said, "shit."
Next to the horseshoe match people in chairs facing west were waiting for a majestic sunset that never did quite happen.
A light breeze blew and floating algae along the banks of the pond moved out into the center to form small islands.
People on a porch moved inside.
A truck came down the road and hesitated briefly, before moving on.
The fisherman casted out and landed the pink and brown plastic worm on top of a floating wad of algae. Reeling in he discovered not just the tug of algae but that of a fish. It seemed to be swimming toward him as he reeled it in. At the last minute it made a sudden desperate fighting maneuver but not enough of one before the fisherman had it flapping its gills on the grassy bank. The fish was hooked clean on the bottom lip. Before releasing it the fisherman noticed that the fish had a hole in it just below the left eye.
At the afternoon jazz party the first guest had to leave.
Glancing across the road the fisherman saw no sign of the woman with the stroller.
A cat hunted mice in the tall grass.
A Short History Of The 14th Century
I had an itch in the center of my back. Couldn't reach it. Am not that flexible. Should have used the wooden fork over on the counter but the steak knife was right in front of me so I used it as a back scratcher instead and I think you can see where this is going. No you can't. Nothing happened and I won't require stitches. Actually, with a Zen-like surgical precision I believe I dislodged something. Later in bed I felt that something crawling on my chest and I looked down my shirt and saw a blood-engorged tick lolly-gagging along one of my rib bones. Grabbing it with thumb and forefinger I placed it gently on the bedside table and set it on fire. Although clearly not impervious to intense heat they are not really that flammable, blood-engorged ticks, and it now sits still, still on my bedside table, dead as a doornail, which is an expression without certifiable meaning, dating back to the 14th century.
I had an itch in the center of my back. Couldn't reach it. Am not that flexible. Should have used the wooden fork over on the counter but the steak knife was right in front of me so I used it as a back scratcher instead and I think you can see where this is going. No you can't. Nothing happened and I won't require stitches. Actually, with a Zen-like surgical precision I believe I dislodged something. Later in bed I felt that something crawling on my chest and I looked down my shirt and saw a blood-engorged tick lolly-gagging along one of my rib bones. Grabbing it with thumb and forefinger I placed it gently on the bedside table and set it on fire. Although clearly not impervious to intense heat they are not really that flammable, blood-engorged ticks, and it now sits still, still on my bedside table, dead as a doornail, which is an expression without certifiable meaning, dating back to the 14th century.