One:
When you're not from here, not tangled in the webs of local interrelationships, people tell you things. Sometimes they tell you deeply personal things, about themselves or about other people.
Sometimes you wish they would not tell you some of these things.
Sometimes they tell you things you are not sure how to hold for them.
Sometimes they tell you things you want to act upon,
but to do so would shift you forever out of this strange anointed role and
tangle you hopelessly in the intricate network of webs they themselves are tangled in.
Two:
You talk with one person who was born and raised here, raised her children here, was educated and became a professional here - smart, capable, hard working. What is it you like here that made you stay? She answers with a plan to move to Dallas one of these days. There's nothing to do here, she says. Nothing.
We could go to work in the oil fields - the ones that have ruined the quality of the air, the look of the land, and the purity of the water under ground. The fields we who live here do not want or profit from.
We could huff spray paint; shoot, smoke, or snort meth; get blackout drunk and beat the living shit out of our wives who are too scared to leave and can't even imagine there is anywhere else to run to. We could blame the blackout for what we do when we sneak into our little baby daughter's room at night.
We could rendezvous with the handsome man across town who doesn't care that you're married and doesn't talk much, get our heads and necks tattooed, drive our muscle cars up and down the same mile of street for years and years. We could shoot ourselves when our girlfriend finds another.
We could smell all them snakes at the roundup. Yessir, bet you didn't ever imagine rattlesnakes stink. We could stay up nights trying to save our brother from his appetites, which we've been doing all our lives, as strong Christian men doing the best we know how and trying not to cry.
We could go to church and listen to Christian radio all goddamn day and night with at least four Christian stations on the dial to choose from. We could marry our high school sweetheart at about nineteen years old with no more plan than that.
We can live one moment at a time in this great big wide open - a vastness contained in a baby food jar - and do our best not to succumb to suffocation. We can talk to the stranger for a while. He's got therapeutic eyes.
Three:
I think I would like to live out there somewhere, alone, away from the oil fields and the gas smell where the air is dry and quiet, and winter mornings are cold on the cement walls and floors. Mesquite, cactus and sage. The wind will turn one of those old wooden windmills that power the cistern, and it's creaking will be like some kind of mantra to me. Gradually, living with the cycles of nature will make of me a holy man. When I come into town, and you should chance to speak with me, I will say something quietly to you while looking in your eyes, and you will never forget that moment as long as you live. Should I have occasion to lay beside you, I will leave every cell of your body feeling loved, and you will never be lonely another day in what remains of your hard life upon this earth.
I will not be that desiccated old man living in his own filth out there far from town in squalid quarters with no art or beauty or meaning, contemplating his pistol in a daily sunrise ritual, head spent mostly in a plastic bag sprayed with ether, girlfriend cut out of a magazine and pasted to the wall with something unseemly. I will not be thus.
When you're not from here, not tangled in the webs of local interrelationships, people tell you things. Sometimes they tell you deeply personal things, about themselves or about other people.
Sometimes you wish they would not tell you some of these things.
Sometimes they tell you things you are not sure how to hold for them.
Sometimes they tell you things you want to act upon,
but to do so would shift you forever out of this strange anointed role and
tangle you hopelessly in the intricate network of webs they themselves are tangled in.
Two:
You talk with one person who was born and raised here, raised her children here, was educated and became a professional here - smart, capable, hard working. What is it you like here that made you stay? She answers with a plan to move to Dallas one of these days. There's nothing to do here, she says. Nothing.
We could go to work in the oil fields - the ones that have ruined the quality of the air, the look of the land, and the purity of the water under ground. The fields we who live here do not want or profit from.
We could huff spray paint; shoot, smoke, or snort meth; get blackout drunk and beat the living shit out of our wives who are too scared to leave and can't even imagine there is anywhere else to run to. We could blame the blackout for what we do when we sneak into our little baby daughter's room at night.
We could rendezvous with the handsome man across town who doesn't care that you're married and doesn't talk much, get our heads and necks tattooed, drive our muscle cars up and down the same mile of street for years and years. We could shoot ourselves when our girlfriend finds another.
We could smell all them snakes at the roundup. Yessir, bet you didn't ever imagine rattlesnakes stink. We could stay up nights trying to save our brother from his appetites, which we've been doing all our lives, as strong Christian men doing the best we know how and trying not to cry.
We could go to church and listen to Christian radio all goddamn day and night with at least four Christian stations on the dial to choose from. We could marry our high school sweetheart at about nineteen years old with no more plan than that.
We can live one moment at a time in this great big wide open - a vastness contained in a baby food jar - and do our best not to succumb to suffocation. We can talk to the stranger for a while. He's got therapeutic eyes.
Three:
I think I would like to live out there somewhere, alone, away from the oil fields and the gas smell where the air is dry and quiet, and winter mornings are cold on the cement walls and floors. Mesquite, cactus and sage. The wind will turn one of those old wooden windmills that power the cistern, and it's creaking will be like some kind of mantra to me. Gradually, living with the cycles of nature will make of me a holy man. When I come into town, and you should chance to speak with me, I will say something quietly to you while looking in your eyes, and you will never forget that moment as long as you live. Should I have occasion to lay beside you, I will leave every cell of your body feeling loved, and you will never be lonely another day in what remains of your hard life upon this earth.
I will not be that desiccated old man living in his own filth out there far from town in squalid quarters with no art or beauty or meaning, contemplating his pistol in a daily sunrise ritual, head spent mostly in a plastic bag sprayed with ether, girlfriend cut out of a magazine and pasted to the wall with something unseemly. I will not be thus.
No comments:
Post a Comment