I spent a year (actually 210 dreadful days) in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, teaching bonehead English to homophobes at a horrible college about 15 miles north of Houston (which means an hour's drive on the parking lot they call a highway). I don't remember a moment of joy, happiness, or contentment during that entire year, just anger, frustration, anger, embarrassment, loneliness, and anger.The most minor task -- going out to eat, getting gas --was a nightmare, with problem piling onto problem, complication onto complication.
Even hookups.
"Why do you want to know my name? Are you a cop?"
"There was a car in the driveway of a house three doors down, so I got scared and bailed."
"Meet me at the public restroom somewhere far away, and we'll do it there."
The quickest route home would take me north, but that would mean five more hours in Texas, so instead I drove south on the I-45 toward Houston.
12 miles. Fortunately I turned onto the I-610 before it became a parking lot, so the traffic was just horrible.
10 miles around the eastern edge of Houston in traffic that was just horrible, mostly surrounded by roaring trucks, nothing to see but nondescript Brutoian warehouses
I hooked up with a guy in Jacinto City once. I felt like the town's first mayor, a guy named Inch Handler.
The suburbs went on endlessly. Nothing to see but billboards, car dealerships, nondescript Brutopian warehouses, and the occasional fast-food restaurant.
Past Burnett Bay, the traffic thinned out, and the highway narrowed. I was out of Houston's clutches, but still in Texas, in a swampy no man's land,without even a billboard.
Or a rest stop. I didn't care. I wasn't stopping until Texas is a distant memory.
East Chambers High School in Winnie promises "photo galleries," but all they have are three photos from 2015, all of cheerleaders.
When I searched for "Winnie Texas wrestling" online, this photo popped up. Apparently his video of "wrestling with a dead Christmas tree" made it to the tv show America's Funniest Home Videos.
Another few miles of scrub grass, and I was in Beaumont, Texas, a sizeable town of 100,000, all oil refineries blinking like cyclopses and giving off an unpleasant smell.
Today Beaumont has some interesting sights:the Art Museum of Southeastern Texas, the Dishman Art Museum on the campus of Lamar College, the McFadden-Ward Museum, the St. Andrew Basilica,Temple Emanuel. There is a gay bar, and Beaumont High School has a Gay-Straight AllianceBut in 1985 it was a concrete-and-steel nightmare. Not as bad as Houston, but bad.
The I-10 curved northeast, past the town of Cheek, past Beaumont High and the Tyrell Park Church, heavy traffic at the junction of I-69, and then downtown. No skyscrapers, just low concrete buildings and restaurants with names like Luby's.
Across the Natches River, and then more wilderness
I saw a country boy standing ankle-deep in the swamp, maybe fishing for crawdads. A fleeting glimpse of beauty, but not enough to make up for 9 months in Texas.
Not by a long shot.
At 5:00 pm, I was passing through Orange, Texas, population 18,000, "a small town with big city culture." Its culture involves a small art museum devoted to the Wild West, a historic home, and a confederate monument.
But it has one benefit that other towns in Texas do not: it's next to the border.
A sign for St. Mary Catholic School. "Hail, Mary," I said.
Five or six miles of scrub grass, and a sign said "St.Charles 35."
That's in Louisiana!
A few more miles, and the Sabine River, aka the River Styx. But I was leaving the Underworld behind. On the other side was the Promised Land, Louisiana, aka Anywhere That Was Not Texas.
I crossed the border carefully, worried that someone -- the police, demons -- would drag me back, or that I would end up in a "No Exit" situation, back where I came from.
And suddenly, I was driving through Vinton, Louisiana.
"The Land of the Living," I said.
Ok, not really. But it sounds good.
This post with nude photos is on Tales of West Hollywood
Next: A Glory Hole at a Rest Stop in Arkansas