Texasville
An affair to misremember
Deep in the Heart of Texas, there are a thousand little cow towns strewn like confetti over the Llano Estacado. My father was born in one and picked another to call his own after the divorce. After I had run through all my family in states beginning with “A,” I went to exact my revenge on the man I thought ruined my mother.
The town in which my father lived seems lifted verbatim from the pages of McMurtry’s “Last Picture Show.” A dying town with six old family names, all ending in “schke.”
A cloud rolling in is an event at the Dairy Queen, the social hot spot in the county. The farmers and ranchers meander outside, important they not look too concerned. They assess distance and listen for wind, resting their hopes for the day on the chance it make for their own thirsty land. Slowly, they drift back to the same tables at which their fathers and grandfathers sat, drink the same coffee and tell the same stories.
Adultery and weather are primary topics, then high-school football, fishing and 4H. The county fair is the high-point of the year. Marriages and business deals are parlayed alongside prize hogs and barbecue. The faces change, but never the names. One son takes his father’s place on church pews and barstools, the rest head for the county line and never look back.
