9.

Dawn caught us somewhere outside Houston. It had been an easy run across a familiar landscape of cities burning in the velvet blackness. Now we were alive and breathing in the Texas morning. We rode under the glorious skies of our 20’s, still unripe, still full of adventures, still sure that we had plenty of time to change our wicked ways. The land unfolded in slopes and gullies, dotted with cows. Abandoned shacks and barns stood out against the golden fields like rotten teeth. The large new homes that had replaced them were all of a piece, chunks of ugly crafted out of bricks and aluminum siding. The road was fast and well-maintained and the cops weren’t copping and we weren’t stopping, not for gas anymore though we’d had to fill up the s.o.b. three times already, not for food because we loathed and despised sustenance, not for anything at all except to walk my dog. He was a rare and gifted beast and exactly the opposite of what I had asked for. The previous Christmas, Crazy A. and I gave each other dogs. I wanted a shorthaired mutt that would get really big. Instead, I received a purebred long hair that topped out at 35 pounds. But Pineapple was the greatest gift a man could get besides the first one, the gift of life. He was young then, not even two, but already he was attached to me like sonar. I need barely speak and he knew my mood. He went everywhere without a leash and if his eyesight had been better I could have taught him how to drive. As it was, Crazy A.’s wonderful Xmas present was part of what was keeping me alive.

So we stopped at a Scenic View and let him urinate on the bushes and chase an armadillo. The view was scenic indeed, miles of land spread out in waves. Standing in the foreground was the largest power plant I had ever sees, an aberrant fortress of petrochemicals pumping clouds of white vapor into the atmosphere, mimicking the cumulonimbus piling up like nuclear explosions. Then we were back on the road and moving fast, that Wildcat engine purring, taking us over the hills and past the Texans in their Texas Ways, in their trucks and hats and boots. We scooted through that clean and law abiding country and I thought of Crazy A. sleeping it off, another night of work probably and she was up until the wee hours but I’d wake her up, see how she was doing, take her out for coffee, show her how much I’d changed in the last few months. Yes, I would surprise her with my presence and then I’d know that I had made the right decision to walk away from her forever love.

And here came Austin, past titty bars and football fields and car dealerships and car hops and everyone was going to work except us, we were going to drop in on all our old friends and prove to them that we were worthy of their respect, their kindness, their welcome mat and toilet seat. We jumped off the freeway and navigated through the streets until we reached my old neighborhood and at last my old house. It had been too big for Crazy A and me and only got more so after our roommate fled. But it was a homey joint with a blasted little yard and a front porch smooth as glass. We got out of the car and walked up to the door. Pineapple recognized his old digs and baptized the corners with his piss. I peered in the windows at the empty rooms. Nada, not even a piece of mail in the mailbox. The neighbor came out on her porch and waved. She remembered me from last year. Chris and I walked over to say hello.

“Are you looking for A?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“Gabe, she got married and moved to Chicago.”