♥️ATX (2003)

It's hot in Austin, Texas.

Tourists huddle indoors and gripe

about the summer heat.

"They're laughing at us," Mary says,

pointing at the Tejanos 

in denim and long sleeves 

laying asphalt.

We are drinking ice-cold beer

in the afternoon 

at Guero's Taco Bar.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It's weird in Austin, Texas.

Misfits and malcontents 

make their home

in the Lone Star State capital.

"I'm running for Mayor," 

Leslie announces,

hiking her miniskirt to reveal

(MAY)(OR!) 

written in permanent marker

across freckled butt cheeks.

Will Bill offers his legal services 

pro bono.

The campaign is launched.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It's loud in Austin, Texas.

Live music rattles the cityscape

with a bluesy, 

honky-tonk vibration.

"Who's playing the Continental?" 

Victor asks,

reaching for the weekly Chronicle:

        Dale Watson at ten o'clock,

        Tony Price at Saxon Pub,

        Charlie Sexton at Antone's.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Creativity flourishes in Austin, Texas.

Every service industry person

has a side hustle in the arts.

"Read my screenplay?" Hannah asks.

I don't want to read it.

I consent anyway.

Around here,

yes is a form of currency.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It's harsh in Austin, Texas.

A hostile climate chases off

the weak and infirm.

Heat scorches lawns,

peels paint,

warps judgement.

"This is Comanche territory," 

Tocho declares.

"Our ancestors suffered 

raiding parties,

forced slavery, 

pestilence and disease."

Carmen reminds him 

that most of us

are from somewhere else.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It's hip in Austin, Texas.

Newcomers flood the city

from all corners of America.

"Hundreds a day!" Sarah laments.

Scaffolds and cranes 

dot the horizon.

The skyline swells like a fever.

Every season, something iconic

disappears.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

It's home in Austin, Texas.

"The place gets into your blood," 

Eddie says.

He came in 1987

for the South by Southwest

music festival.

Found a tribe 

under the live oaks.

Never left.

The Colorado river 

carries our secrets

all the way to the Gulf.

Drunk Driving Incident

Once, after a night of Scotch and port wine 

when the moon was a White-Russian mistress 

and the stars aligned in regiments 

of sparkling gin shots, 
she insisted he drive them to a motel─

them meaning she and her feral, 

one-eyed girlfriend 

closing up the tavern.

"We'll party if you pay for the room," 

said the girlfriend.

They climbed into his pickup
and proceeded in the wrong direction
down a one-way thoroughfare.

"Easy there, Sport," the ladies protested.

"You trying to get us killed?"

 

He cut across a stranger's lawn 

and through the neighbor's 

meticulously-groomed azalea bushes.

"We'll pull over here for one more."

And one became three, four,

then a round for the bar.

It ended abruptly when patrons 

inquired if their one-eyed companion 

was a pirate?.

"Are you a rectal lobotomy?!" 

her friend replied.

"I think I'm in love with you," he said,

then declared a plague 

upon their antagonist's houses 

as the trio hustled into the sapphire night.

He cursed the tyranny of traffic laws 

while racing past bicycle cops, 

crowded boardwalks,
and escalating appeals for safe passage,

finally screeching to a halt on the freeway 

to inquire 

WHY IN THE HELL 

they were nagging him 

about his driving?!

"Let us out!" the ladies screamed.

He pulled onto the shoulder

and summoned an incoherent plea 

for solidarity.

But it was too late for speech-making.

He saw it in their frantic eyes

as they spilled barefoot onto the concrete,

straightening their skirts

and bouncing into their high heels.

Within minutes, they vanished

and he stumbled into the wild grass

above the freeway offramp.

The radio shouted Green Day's

"Boulevard of Broken Dreams" 

as the car sputtered its dying gasps.

Morning found him

beneath a buzzing Motel 6 sign,

ants biting his ankles,

a vague sense

of getting away with it.

Somewhere

in Corpus Christi, Texas,

two women

were telling the day shift

a cautionary tale.

**First published in Barbar Literary Magazine

**Illustration by Morgane Xenos

Galveston, Texas (2019)

  One last gasp of summer before school begins:  Galveston, you won us over with your casual charm, Victorian architecture, friendly locals, the sun, sand and surf.  Eloise met the "big, salty ocean" this week.  Both girls were determined to prove Papa wrong -- "mermaids are real!"  I anticipate a return next summer to continue the search ;)