And then a week finally and perhaps inevitably went missing.
All we have are the memories archaeological.
It started out so well …
The ones I know best are more themselves.
Sometimes that’s a good thing.
That’s all I have to say ever and out loud about that.
There were new faces too, and they lingered somewhere between nearly tolerable in small doses, and oppressive to the undomesticated spirit of broken solitudes, at the far end.
On the return leg and just this side of Houston, tornadoes and torrents smashed the Interstate highway system, I-10 specifically–I have never, ever, seen a big road that fucked up before. The low point was crawling past a spun semi in the left lane and a wrecked car in the right, just barely, squeaking along the shoulder in water four inches and more deep. We survived the violent episode with only some shitty plastic undercarriage on the rental to show for damage.
There were some surprisingly intriguing geographies in the East this time. There are at least two places in Louisiana I wouldn’t mind revisiting with time. The hill country around San Antonio was flush with greenery and water, looking better than it ever has.
But by the morning after the night we limped into dry Cruces, those considerations had passed definitively downstream, because there we finalized the deal for the lots with the old developer over huevos rancheros.
Someday soon I’m going to have to stop calling people that age old, or pay the consequences.
Breakfast over and half-ass camouflage repairs complete, we drove the last 111 miles to the holy place of the baby quail. We weren’t home yet, because it’s not home yet. Except in my still beating heart. Got the burritos. Got the java. Got to see the mama bird but not the quailets this time, fluttering over the blessed quarter acre amidst the gnarled genievre and fireweed.
Then shuddering with exhaustion back up the hill to the SandRock compound and crashing safely at last in the mess and debris. A bottle of wine had exploded its cork and contents all over the bathroom hallway, and the cats were full of eager loneliness, but otherwise it was the same old oasis.
The next day, or maybe it was two (they’ve blurred in a haze of laundry and half-mad hunger for exclusive quiet moments) the money of the brave unsmart decision rained down on me, making me richer than I’ve ever been, in the very short term.
I threw thousands of it at the most pressing problems immediately. There’s still 15/16ths of it left technically, but every penny is either spoken for or must be invested quickly.
In truly valuable things like the babyquail land.
In the crucial capital trust fund of an anticapitalist.
I come down at last back into my art to tell you this. It’s scary and heady.
If you love me, pray to Lurlina for my mortal soul.