Texas Trip

by Daryl Rogers

 

In the featureless
oven-hot hell hole
of west Texas
Bobby and I sit in comfort,
in a dark Mexican bar.

We're eating chili peppers
and sucking down bottles
of triple-x beer,
breaking out in cold sweats
every time we bite into
one of these bad boys.

When it gets dark
we head home.
Brenda, Bobby's wife,
is waiting up for us
with a bag of strawberry mescaline.

We walk out to the windmill
that powers the water pump
for the tenant house.
A deep wide well below it,
that once watered bony cattle,
is now filled with goldfish.

The world here is flat
but we can't see a porch light
in any direction.
Stars swarm overhead
unlike Kentucky.

A small owl streaks by
snatching up something
from a cloud of dust.
Bobby pulls his pants down
and dances into the dark screaming.
Fire ants.

I convince them
that the Davis Mountains
are only 150 miles away.
It's more like 300.
At ten'o'clock we take off.

We travel all night,
passing oil fields lit up
like Disneyland, and
just shy of the Mexican border
a state trooper stops us.

I freak. We're busted.
We're doomed.
But Bobby gets out,
calm as a log and talks
to the officer.

The cop apologizes.
He was suspicious
when he saw our new
four-wheel-drive pickup,
thinking maybe it was stolen
and we were headed for the border.

He says we can get gas
just up the road at
a truck stop
that opens at six.

The building is dark
when we arrive so we park
and wait.
The shit kicks in again and
we wander into the sage brush
laughing our asses off.

The place opens
and we get a table.
I look over the top
of my menu at Bobby.

His eyes are shiny black holes.
He catches my glance
and we start to laugh again.
We laugh until we roar.

The tile below the pay phones
begins to shift and flex.
Old truckers, with sideburns,
receding hairlines and disturbingly
large faces, glare at us.

I get up to go to the bathroom.
Bobby goes to get a map
from a cartoon vending machine.
When we get back to the booth
Brenda's gone.

We pay the bill and find her
sitting in the truck
with Bobby's thirty-eight
tucked between her pretty knees.

We continue on...
The sun comes up in a valley
where Geronimo and his men
hid out between raids.

The ground turns milky white
when I go to take a piss
and I have a hard time
finding my way back,
although I can see far away just fine.

Some dude in short pants
and hiking boots
is climbing the mountain just above us,
over boulders as big as houses,
with the ease of a fly,
and he has a huge cooler under one arm.

When I do find the truck
my friends are laughing at me.
I've been groping around
like a blind man.
Oddly enough,
they let me drive back.

 

© 2006 Daryl Rogers

Daryl Rogers was born in 1955 and started writing poetry around 1984. His first acceptances came from Wormwood Review and the New York Quarterly, which, unfortunately, only encouraged him to keep it up. He edited River Rat Review from 1986-1992. He's done some illustrations for small press magazines, including portraits of Patti Smith, Bukowski and WCW for Bogg Magazine. His most recent chapbook is Sunny Day, available from March Street Press.