Scorched Earth
Scorched Earth. This leg of the road I’ve traveled enough to drive blind. As the tolls to eternity grew higher the cadence of potholes and billboards whirl with each passing fruit or taco stand in the shade by the roadside. The hum of bug zappers and tapestry of cicadas sweet as sweat. I’ve never taken the toll. Concrete breakes[breaks?]. Lamb’s quarter like the slow exposure of taillights at dusk.
Parts of this drive used to be stunning, especially wildflower season. Small town scent of gas and ribs fracking flames light up lonesome fields of mesquite and huizache at night. Cattle plod along. Here you can chase a hot mirage down the highway till turkey day. Motel parking lots full of F-250s, rubber boots wedged between the bed and the cab. It’s paid for. The rooms. The trucks. It’s all paid for. Laborers smoke and drink light beers on plastic chairs out on balcony or blacktop.
‘I married one’ is what the Canadian said when I ask about Texas. His wife is from El Paso and has the tattoos to prove it. We’re sitting in the back while she calls out questions at trivia night in the new complex of condos[the new condo complex?]. The Canadian orders a sour beer, grimaces, then orders what I’m having[what are you having.?], then washes it down with a daiquiri. There’s something about people who don’t know what they want.
As darkness settles, we survey the impervious coverage leading up to the swamp at the end of the lot. Three sleeping cranes off to the right. In the morning, they will be back to work, erecting more creative office space on this superfund site, but tonight it’s just us and the skeeters and the warm orange glow from the shanties on the floodplain. Knowledge, which is power, knows no limits, either its enslavement of creation or in its deference to worldly masters. It’s just AI calling the questions.
Fact of the matter is there’s no reparation possible. There’s nothing to return but scorched earth. Folks talk about saving the earth, but she’s just fine. What modern life has made clear is that we are incapable of saving ourselves from ourselves. Nothing grows here anyway.
Cuero is the turkey capital of Texas. And just north of that is Luling, known for its watermelons. And just north of that is Lockhart, once known for its beautiful jail and now an escape from Austin for the hipper than hipsters. I throw her in reverse and head farther south through Goliad, known for its civil war reenactments then father[farther?] south to the coast. Texans are always talking about ‘rain events.’’rain events.”] Why can’t it just rain anymore?
Art detour: at the rental there’s a painting of two orange women walking the beach, a small white poodle between them. The heavy one on the left waives[waves?] her finger[her left-hand’s pointer?] in the air and the woman to her right looks like a retired porn star. Hook ’em.
Approaching the crossroads you turn left and on the right there’s a flag stand, confederate, fuck Biden, Go Brandon, Texas, you name it. Julie said something about our trauma being genetic that stuck with me like a dominant hand. A menorah for Athena.
Listening to the January 6th hearings on the road and thinking of Reznikoff. I was slipping in people’s blood. Cheney testifies. The day before, a pediatrician from Uvalde describes the difficulty of identifying decapitated children. The cartoon characters on their shirts like dog tags. One eleven-year-old girl outwitted the gunman by covering herself in a classmate’s blood. How many times will she to tell[will she tell] the story? My first year teaching Columbine happened. My life as an educator could be described succinctly as a sequence of school shootings.
The guy in the NRA hat at HEB stands about six-six. Not a word. Officers travel to Uvalde from College Station to protect the fellers who just stood there, dumb as posts. Motorcycle gangs are hired to keep journalists away from the crime scene.
I’m writing all of this for the beauty of the Frio River and the plants in Hill Country and for you. In the truck we take turns describing paradise: Duke likes candy and video games; Cam likes horses; Amy lots of trees. When I dream, I’m in my childhood home. I wonder if the landscapes of dreams are our collective home? Cam wonders where the dolphins sleep. You know that feeling of floating just before you drift off? We stop by Flowers for shrimp. A thin Korean man on the La-Z-Boy smokes and watches TV. I wonder where he dreams.
Dolphins are awake now. It’s morning. We sift through the humidity clearing garbage from the breakwater watching jumbo tourists on private charters. Hired hands hose down the dock for a photo op. They throw down ice and string up snapper and a mako shark, the Gulf of Mexico in the background, or whatever they call it now. A monster truck in the lot reads, I Love Titties, Beer, and Guns. Mister McConaughey goes to Washington. Hook ’em son.
Here, people drive on the beach. And if you’re too young to drive, you can drive a golf cart. I count the men with missing legs. Diabetic soda for breakfast. Some pray for Starbucks like rain.
Stumped, we take another pass around the big tree. An acquaintance explains that the HEB family compound consists of some fifty acres of beachfront property. ”That’s why we have such a fancy HEB,” he continues. “The Butts family actually comes here.” There is a certain reverence in his voice when he speaks of the Butts. Children climb on a windswept oak trees[climb on windswept oak trees or climb on a windswept oak tree]. A deer in a field of Indian paintbrush. An oil tanker so far on the horizon.
KYLE SCHLESINGER is a poet, printer, and professor. His publications include A New Kind of Country (Chax Press); Color & Light (Dusie); None of Us, a collaboration with Ted Greenwald (Kin Press); Vast Acid West, a collaboration with Crane Giamo (Cuneiform Press/ Pocalypstic Editions), and A Poetics of the Press (Ugly Duckling Presse). He resides in central Vermont, where he serves as the proprietor of Cuneiform Press. Kyle Harvey photo.