I awake and manage not to get lost amongst service drives and bi-level highways. I eat fast food, greasy stuff.
I drive around the city searching for gloves. The only ones I find have no fingers. Why is this?
Opulent hotels, malls, gentlemen clubs, and tacky tourist traps line the exterior north loop of the city. The center has the Alamo and the River Walk, which is nice even though the water is green and the river obviously man-made. The south houses poor Mexicanas.
I drove west of this south, passing Sea World. No clouds anywhere.
Thirst pulls me into a seedy club called Liana's. Inside, two army men chuckled over beer. The only other patron is an unwashed, gnarly looking fellow. He never looks up, not once; he just clutched his drink tightly.
The bartendress brought me a Miller Lite. I am not touching that crap again. I don't recall it being that awful; maybe it wasn't really Miller. Maybe they put some other junk in their cans.
A Fat Woman entered and turned on overhead red lights. The bartendress asked the army guys and I for a dollar each, which she put in the juke box. Music began to play.
"The dancers ain't here 'til six," she said, sitting across from me.
"What?" I wasn't sure I heard her.
"They don't get here until then. You'll have to wait."
I nodded. "I just came for the beer."
Later I learned that Shiner Bock is the drink of choice and Lonestar is swill. Randy told me this.
No sign of Carlos.
Randy believes you are a walking legend. I did or said nothing to contradict this.
We wandered into the city center and found Taco Cabanas and a
pitcher of Margaritas. Fast food and alcohol in an upscale Taco
Bell. I think this meal originated the slow burn in my intestines
that lasted all weekend.
More Shiner Bock, and I lost track of where we stopped. There was a Caribbean place and reggae. Others. The main strategy was to avoid falling in the river. We found Dick's, totally thrashed though it was, one of the more unsettling and obnoxious places I've been to. Everyone's intention seemed to center around finding someone to sex while we stood on the corner of the stage and the band roared twisted jazz. The people danced & danced and we laughed & laughed; a blonde hippopotamus would not have been a surprise. Green water and stolen glasses followed us into the night and the search for an Irish pub & peanuts. The peanuts were all gone so we left.
Dennis Leary spouted madness into my dreams.
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