Keeping Easy Promises
And then there were those years where I moved between this room and Austin. I never spent a full summer here after leaving that first time for college. I spent the first summer in school, hoping to graduate in three years, but I burnt out on all that and ended up dropping out two successive semesters. And after that I was mostly just here for short visits. Back in the late seventies you could fly here to Dallas on Southwest Airlines, roundtrip, for $48. That was only $12 more than the bus and I never really favored travel by bus anyway.
I also hitch hiked here and back quite a few times and eventually my parents got used to it, maybe even riding along vicariously for the thrill of it. I think they understood that there was no point in not being supportive. They did make it clear that financial support was only coming if I was in school and I thought that seemed fair. Besides, I was living pretty comfortably in Austin, living with other slacker friends, or in a truck I had, in a cave at the end of Rio Grande, in condos in mid-construction, in a large doghouse on Blanco with Blueberry the Weimaraner and her nine pups, or in a friend's vacant two-story Victorian that his father provided and in which he would not live because he hated his father. The house had a very nice pool table but I never really invited anyone over to play. And then suddenly I was adopted by a swell young lady who was attending the University and things evened out for awhile. For several years my parents thought I was going to be ok because I had someone looking after me. My mom especially doesn't like for me to be single; she looks at my bachelor uncles in their old age and feels sad for them. I think a person can find sadness wherever they look for it. Possibly the reverse of that is true too.
But I was standing on the side of the highway where the road from Killeen merges into I-35 in Temple and this GQ looking dude in a shiny new dark blue BMW screeches to a halt in front of me. He asked me where I was going and I told him I was going to Austin and as if sensing that sixty miles would not be enough time for small talk AND large talk, he delved right in. It was like he didn't mean WHERE was I going in the geograhic sense but, you know, in the larger sense. I gave him a little bullshit from the mind of a 20-year-old and he told me about being a 30-year-old lawyer on the fast track to unhappiness. Unless you just like to be difficult the guy could only be described as handsome, and while sitting in his cool leather passenger seat I could smell the residual, exotic perfume left behind by his (she could only be) beautiful wife.
He had wanted to be an artist, had studied in Paris, and then had given up childish ideas to become a successful lawyer. And it seemed to be killing him. He all but begged me to stay disaffected even though he and I knew it was not exactly a course and I told him for sure I would, because I really could not, cannot, see any alternative. I wonder if that guy ever thinks about me because I think about him a lot. I wonder if he ever figured out the best trick of all, how to be an artist and a successful member of the mainstream.
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And then there were those years where I moved between this room and Austin. I never spent a full summer here after leaving that first time for college. I spent the first summer in school, hoping to graduate in three years, but I burnt out on all that and ended up dropping out two successive semesters. And after that I was mostly just here for short visits. Back in the late seventies you could fly here to Dallas on Southwest Airlines, roundtrip, for $48. That was only $12 more than the bus and I never really favored travel by bus anyway.
I also hitch hiked here and back quite a few times and eventually my parents got used to it, maybe even riding along vicariously for the thrill of it. I think they understood that there was no point in not being supportive. They did make it clear that financial support was only coming if I was in school and I thought that seemed fair. Besides, I was living pretty comfortably in Austin, living with other slacker friends, or in a truck I had, in a cave at the end of Rio Grande, in condos in mid-construction, in a large doghouse on Blanco with Blueberry the Weimaraner and her nine pups, or in a friend's vacant two-story Victorian that his father provided and in which he would not live because he hated his father. The house had a very nice pool table but I never really invited anyone over to play. And then suddenly I was adopted by a swell young lady who was attending the University and things evened out for awhile. For several years my parents thought I was going to be ok because I had someone looking after me. My mom especially doesn't like for me to be single; she looks at my bachelor uncles in their old age and feels sad for them. I think a person can find sadness wherever they look for it. Possibly the reverse of that is true too.
But I was standing on the side of the highway where the road from Killeen merges into I-35 in Temple and this GQ looking dude in a shiny new dark blue BMW screeches to a halt in front of me. He asked me where I was going and I told him I was going to Austin and as if sensing that sixty miles would not be enough time for small talk AND large talk, he delved right in. It was like he didn't mean WHERE was I going in the geograhic sense but, you know, in the larger sense. I gave him a little bullshit from the mind of a 20-year-old and he told me about being a 30-year-old lawyer on the fast track to unhappiness. Unless you just like to be difficult the guy could only be described as handsome, and while sitting in his cool leather passenger seat I could smell the residual, exotic perfume left behind by his (she could only be) beautiful wife.
He had wanted to be an artist, had studied in Paris, and then had given up childish ideas to become a successful lawyer. And it seemed to be killing him. He all but begged me to stay disaffected even though he and I knew it was not exactly a course and I told him for sure I would, because I really could not, cannot, see any alternative. I wonder if that guy ever thinks about me because I think about him a lot. I wonder if he ever figured out the best trick of all, how to be an artist and a successful member of the mainstream.
- jimlouis 12-28-2003 6:25 pm