I’M NOT LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE

From what I can figure out, the deal with West Texas is that you could die at any time. If you had the misfortune of blowing out a tire, running out of potable water, and mistaking the shimmer on the horizon for anything other than a mirage, you would be fucked. They would find your truck days later parked on the shoulder of I-10 and mutter something about how Cormac McCarthy was right.

And don’t get me wrong, Cormac McCarthy is kind of right. Yesterday driving through Big Bend National Park after a hike through the Santa Elena canyon, we noticed how much the cottonwoods in the Rio Grande’s floodplain resembled a certain gory chapter of Blood Meridian (tree full of babies, anyone? I realize this referent may seem obscure to some, but those who have read Blood Meridian know what I’m saying about). I mean, that and all the white pickups abandoned next to I-10. I think I saw five today on the drive back, not kidding.

But my point is that West Texas is supposed to scare you a little. You’re supposed to go into survival mode. The fact that your cell phone doesn’t work out there is supposed to be terrifying. But as much as there is some scary, I didn’t feel the full measure of it, maybe because my cell phone doesn’t work at my parents’ house, and they don’t live in some kind of rural gothic wasteland. Was it a coincidence that they chose to film the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” in Greene and Fayette Counties, where I grew up? Okay, maybe it is a rural gothic wasteland. But like, that’s not so bad. 

I’m not saying this to be all IM TOO COOL FOR WEST TEXAS because it’s obviously a whole different matrix of rustic out there, and they got scorpions and different snakes and shit. I only make the comparison because during the trip out to Terlingua all of my friends and travel companions wondered, “Wow, what would it be like to grow up here? How would you turn out if you grew up here?” and I was all UM I DONT KNOW. MAYBE YOUD JUST BE LIKE A REGULAR PERSON? EVENTUALLY? I didn’t talk a whole lot about it because 1) I’m afraid I talk too much about my ambivalent relationship to the Appalachian foothills as it is and 2) I get the sense that I’ve done too good a job seeming un-country, and so now it’s hard to believe that, growing up in a place like that, you could turn out to be a ceviche-making bangs-having sasspants. Or, you know, not.

I’m non-legit sleepy in that way you get after being in a car for too long, so I’m going to have to save everything else about West Texas for tomorrow, including getting ferrets and freestyle hiking. I hope you can wait. Because you know, you could die out there.