The Lone Star State

Just got back from Austin. I forgot how much I missed Texas. It gets in your blood, I think, and you just can’t get it out. It’s in me, underneath my skin, with the ink and the scar tissue. I’ve never seen a place at once so empty and so beautiful. There are no obstructions. Nothing for miles. The highway simply disappears into the sky. I pressed my check to the window of the car, and watch the long tangled barbwire fences, the scrub trees, the bare billboards, the long horns, the rusted pick-up trucks, and the 18 wheelers past by. At dusk we went out to the Congress Bridge to watch over a million bats take flight. The whole city came alive at night, like nothing I have ever seen before. All the clubs, and bars flung their doors open and the music just came streaming into the streets, which become like rivers over sound. It was really amazing.