Houston 2

March 6, 2010

Cooling my heels while the Filipino lady fluffs my pillows.

Walked last night, discovering that the Galleria– which I took to be an Arts District of some kind– is a shopping mall. But, it was a happy place, with a skating rink, and a Fossil where I replaced my demolished carry-on bag. An Israeli girl gave me a free sample which I thought was candy when I put it into my mouth. It was soap. Hit the hotel lounge, where I met Richard Parrish, a big, bright-eyed Wyoming boy who is now “Director of Business Analytics” at Key Energy Services, Inc. He lives in the hotel across the street, preferring a hotel to a bachelor’s house (his estranged family is back in Wyoming) and comes to the Sheraton for cocktails. I learned huge amounts about the University of Wyoming in the 70's, and huger amounts about the multi-layered petroleum business. He used a martini glass to illustrate how a well is driven straight down, and then the pipe is extended sideways into the actual oil deposit, and sandy water is used to. . . do something. . . which gets the oil flowing into the pipe. He is very valuable to the organization for, though he is an accountant, he also understands the mechanics of the business. Apparently the big oil companies out-source nearly everything, and his is one of those they out-source to. I feel a little inadequate, wondering if he now knows as much about writing as I do about oil.

Richard pointed out the direction of Montrose, and I lit out for it first thing in the morning. I have the following distinction: in 1981 or perhaps 1980, when I was in Houston for the MLA convention, I walked to Montrose from downtown. Today I walked to Montrose from the Galleria. So have I now walked from the Galleria to downtown, though the trip took me thirty years and I started at both ends and ended up in the middle. Today’s trip was considerably farther than I wanted to go when I started out and, unlike the former time, I had to walk back as well. But I was happy: it was a bright day in a new city. My ears first and then my eyes returned to me a vivid image from all those years ago: grackles rustling amid the leathery leaves of magnolias. Bright-edged image of a grackle shining in a parking lot on the evening I walked to Montrose from the other direction, one of the last days of the year, thirty years ago. I went to Mary’s Bar then. I couldn’t find Mary’s this time, but the memories came flooding back. Underwear hung from the ceiling, the custom being that any man who wore underwear would have it removed at the door. I bought but one drink when I fell in with a group of men who had planned an orgy, and needed, apparently, but me to complete the number. We went to their apartment, where five or six of us melted into the undifferentiated, ecstatic pile that was possible in the great innocence before the plague. Neighbors espied us from their balcony and joined the fun. The apartment complex seemed to be all male and all gay. Two singled me out in particular. The blond whose name I forget I nevertheless remember for his tenderness and standard, Hollywood issue physical beauty. John, though, I remember most vividly. He wore leather, and kept a leather harness on when otherwise naked. He was older, with a little gray in his close-cropped hair. His body was forceful, strong, rough where the others were tender, but tender itself in its own way. His spirit was a little sad. He kept returning to me, and I kept receiving him. He drove me back to my hotel that night, and named me the thing he would change in his life if I would stay with him.

I did not get a job offer at that MLA, and my failure professionally and my success (repeated elsewhere over the next few nights) erotically made me wonder if I had chosen the wrong path, if academics were perhaps not right for me while. . . something else was. I don’t know that this perception was askew, but in any case it was not that path I followed. Of course one wonders, does John remember me? Is John even among the living? Every one of those I-don’t-remember-how-many happy boys could be lost, or running antique stores, or beyond recognition.

Snapdragons and marigolds bloom in the cement planters on the streets. Roses–all a mysterious dark red–push through the slats of fences.