“You cannot pluralize Texas, as she is singular. Realities reach from right where you standing at all the way to possibilities’ horizon. Instances fractalate and iterize with one another, like a Christmas tree gettin’ freaky with itself. Universes made from cheeseburgers and tungsten, places where gravity can be bribed. There are entire planes that know naught but the joyous yelps of teenage angels, and there’s one reality gettin’ et by a spider, eternally. And yet across the multiverse, only one Texas exists.
“Maybe that’s why drivin’ across her takes so long.
“Is this from whence my Yellow Rose draws her nutrients? Does she sup from the Fount Fantastic? Is her thirst slaked with beer from God’s cooler? Ask her prophets! Ask Sam Houston, and Stephen Austin, and Johnny El Paso! She is a mystical land, this is known by all who reside within her. Texas surrounds us. Binds us. Penetrates us non-sexually, but sometimes sexually. The true Texan is connected to these dusty magics. Maybe that is the source of the juice with which I power the sinful, soulful, fanciful, danciful legs what done made Roy Head a star both at home and amongst broads. Yes, that Roy Head.
“You should’ve heard of me.
“It was 1984, and my career was flatter than Twiggy’s boobie-patch: where there should have been, there was not. What was once bountiful was now mutinous, and, as I once heard California say, the fault was mine. I had crapped out in Vegas. Biting Elvis was a tactical error, as was breaking into Pearl Bailey’s dressing room and stealing her wigs. Big Bucktoothed Pete still dons several of them wigs, but that is besides all possible points. Lake Tahoe was, for me, also dry, as I burgled Miz Bailey in that gamblin’ semi-mecca, as well.
“I might could play Reno, but I got my pride.
“So many locales had tired of my tirades. Bad feelings were common in Boston, it got weird in Normal, and the relationship twixt me and Flagstaff had wilted. Atlanta made time to hate me. My incidents were international! I called Parisians “gay,” and I called Montrealers “Canadians,” and neither salutation proved salutary. I mispronounced Lisbon in precisely the way you’d expect me to, and then described Barcelona as gaudy. I never even heard of Montevideo, but they sent me a highly official letter telling me not to come.
“When in Rome, I did as the Romans did, but I also tackled some nuns.
“Record sales were a similar dismality. My releases once scampered up the charts like Skippy Joe, shirtless and sweaty and sinewy and speedy, but now they climbed like Louie Grabass, who’s like a dead cow, but fatter. Billboard showed no sign of me! New wave was in, and I was old hat. My country-flecked soul screechin’ was like Edison’s offerings in the Voltage Wars: not directly current.
“The salad days was gone, and we was now smack-dab in the sneakin’-out-of-the-restaurant days.
“Surrender wasn’t on the menu. Course, a lot of things wasn’t on the menu no more. Was a time I would demand twelve lobsters, make the waiter line ’em up like they was in a congregation, let Big Bucktoothed Pete lay some Gospel on ’em. My proselytizing pal could preach him some Lobster Jesus. He would forgive their sins, and then glory in their buttery flavor. The wine flowed and never slowed until we glowed and got real plowed. Skippy Joe was fond of ordering the kitchen’s entire supply of oysters. We kept tellin’ him that food oysters wasn’t pearl oysters, but he shucked with such intense glee that he was permitted his frivolity.
“Louie Grabass was generally not allowed to eat with us, but was provided with a staff meal daily.
“Life was darker than an eclipse made out of dead babies, and we had slipped into low and surly habits. We ate beefsteaks of poor quality. We made many prank calls. The horn section was laid off. The universe shrank up like a willy in cold water for us! We kept to my ranch, Head Quarters, which was just outside of Cascabel, but for a Texas definition of “just outside,” which means ’bout an hour.
“Ain’t nothin’ proves Einstein more right about time being relative than Texas.
“Head Quarters was my home away from bein’-away-from-home. My land was spacious, capacious, and fertile as a teenaged Catholic. The fields would respond to the merest rumor of seed with harvests bushy and grand. Stalks bearing rare varietals of bean launched themselves skyward, though I had planted no legume! I owned a thousand head of cattle, and I also held title to their bodies. They grazed in the green grass. My sheep produced wool so soft you could hug it with your eyeballs. Chickens, naturally. My stock shared the ranch with ferocious bobcats, and wily coyotes, and several species of deer, each one more shootable than the last.
“Deer’s eyes are on the side of its head, ours are facing forward, and that’s the relationship.
“The grounds were grounds for celebration. The main house was stately, in the sense that it was the size of Rhode Island. I was amenable to amenities, and so options was necessary. Head Quarters got two of everything, one indoors, and one out: pool, tennis courts, bowlin’ alley. Regular movie theater inside, drive-up theater outside. I covered my bases during construction, too. Built me a fencin’ gym. Woodworkin’ shop. Flight simulator. I did not engage in any of these activities, but should the urge overtake me, I would be ready.
“Boy Scouts get two things right: preparation is key, and sashes are awesome.
“The situation dired. Half the cattle died from Brucellosis, and the other half were killed by Bruce Ellosis, a local man whose only explanation for his foul deeds was ‘No one ever did Equus with cows before.’ The sheep all kept getting bubblegum stuck in their wool. Even worse, no one could figure out where they was getting the gum from, let alone who taught them how to blow bubbles. Skippy Joe also done traded an entire year of beans to a man he believed to be a wizard, but who was in fact the trumpet player I had fired. That ain’t all on him, though: Skippy Joe never could resist no wizard, and me and Big Bucktoothed Pete should’ve been vigilant.
“The years have proven that Skippy Joe needs checkin’ in on.
“Already operating at a loss, Head Quarters began hemorrhaging cash so fast it made an owl’s head spin, and their heads was specifically made for that purpose. Bankers sent letters, and then junior associates, and then more letters remonstrating against how the junior associates had been greeted. This was the nighest the end had ever been when from the most expected of sources came salvation in the form of a changa, perfectly chimi’ed.
“Sometimes, the Lord sends a burning bush, and sometimes He sends a fuckwit.
“Louie Grabass could chimi my guests’ changas during meals, which would be taken in between hunting excursions, or maybe just humpin’ in one of poolhouses. Head Quarters would become a luxury ranch experience. I would construct a runway for jets with the proper amount of privacy, and host rich goobers what want to pretend to be cowboys. My compatriots agreed that my plan was a masterstroke of genius, and we began booking guests immediately. As ever, an endeavor! we cried happily, and repaired to repast in celebration of our new roles as hoteliers. We drank Motel 6’s, which are cheap vodka and suicidal ideation. We drank Louis Ritz’s, which are champagne served in your own private bathroom. We drank flaming MGM Grand’s.
“Our soft opening was even more flaccid than predicted.
“Very quickly, we saw the weaknesses in the plan! Turns out you gotta be hospitable to be in the hospitality business! Big Bucktoothed Pete struck several under-tippers, and the courts will be deciding what Skippy Joe did or did not do! Several planes full of wealthy Texans crashed due to shoddy runway materials! The one jet that did land safely was gotten onto by Bruce Ellosis!”
“So, are you gonna say ‘Trick or Treat,’ or not?”
“HE DID EQUUS WITH RICH FOLKS!”
“That’s not even a costume, is it? Get off my porch.”
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