Texas: Attempted – Greg Corcoran
May 13th, 2009 | Published in Volume VI: Desperately Seeking
The sign in the restaurant looms over me, captivating my full attention. It is mahogany, the words carved in brilliant gold.
“Ignore this sign”
I stand transfixed, lost in a philosophical spiral that would have given Socrates the shits. But in time I move on, and return to the booth where the rest of my family waits.
‘Theash Margaritas are rheally nicesh!’ says my mother. I nod, and look at the arse of a passing waitress. A woman carrying food – is there any sight more pleasing? According to Adam: no.
After placing our order, we are handed small devices, like Gameboys. The waitress smiles and points to a screen next to us. I look at her breasts for guidance, but nothing is forthcoming, and so I look at the screen.
“We are awaiting more players. Your game of Texas Holdem will begin shortly…”
I look down at my device and see that I have been dealt an Ace and a 10.
As we play poker, we feast like kings; we dine like pigs. King-pigs, scoffing tacos, burgers and chilli-fries. A waitress takes my dad’s half-empty cola; he frowns. The waitress returns with a full cola; he looks at my mother nervously. I watch her arse as she leaves (the waitress, not my mother), and then I place another bet on my poker hand.
I lose $500 to someone called Peeweegirl, and my shame is paraded on the widescreens all around the restaurant. The locals chuckle and look around for the dumb Brit, but I have already dodged behind my mother’s margarita glass.
Everyone in this restaurant seems to be beautiful. Parents shepherd small lines of perfectly formed kids to their seats, and supermodels take orders from the bastard-spawn of Brad Pitt. It’s like it was all planned, just to make me feel like shit. My goblinoid family peers on from the booth and continues feasting.
‘Guacamole?’ says the passing waitress. I lift my gaze from her breasts and go to respond.
‘No – English.’ answers my brother.
‘We’re from Boston.’ clarifies my mother.
‘The real one.’ adds my father.
‘Yes. Please.’ I say, sparing the waitress from her suffering.
Having paid the bill with a single note, we move on to Sherman, where the only tanks are the Soccer-Mum wagons that roam the freeways. My father argues with the female sat-nav, disputing her every decision. I sit beside him, keeping up a constant narration of death-averting instructions.
“That’s one-way, Dad.”
“The light’s red, Dad.”
“Car, Dad.”
“The light’s red, Dad.”
I am the saviour unrewarded, the angel unacknowledged.
We spend the morning in a museum getting shouted at.
‘Please don’t touch, Sir.’ says the old lady. I recoil my hand from the newspaper article entitled “Negroid cremated in courthouse” and smile apologetically. We are given a tour of the Red River museum, the guide frequently interrupted by my parents, who used to have most of the exhibits in their home when they were young. The tour guide explains that America is a very young country, and then shouts at me as I reach for the skin of a rattlesnake.
Next up, it’s the antique shops, where my parents go to exhibit their jokes.
‘Where you folks from?’ the attendant asks, in an American accent. I sigh in the corner as I play with a stuffed polar bear.
‘We’re from Boston.’ says my mother.
‘The real one.’ adds my father.
They laugh. I tug at the bottle of coca-cola sewn to the polar bear’s paw.
My brother and I are the walking dead. We shuffle up and down the aisles of the antique malls, stalking our parents as they drift from item to item. But in time we find our respective distractions. My brother notices a sign saying “Complimentary coffee” and he stands there, paralyzed like a true Englishman.
As for me, I find a stack of old Playboys amongst the cutlery sets. One of the magazines proudly introduces a lovely blonde by the name of Pamela Anderson. Man, that girl could use a boob job. I sit in the corner and nurse my sexual frustration, while my brother reaches nervously for the coffee…
Later on, we return to the car, where my father resumes his argument with the sat-nav. I play with the buttons, trying to change the navigation voice to something non-American and non-female. Alas, I am unsuccessful, and we spend the rest of the afternoon with my father defying the presumptuous machine.
“That’s a red light, Dad.”
“Drive on the right, Dad.”
At last we return to the hotel. My brother turns on the TV and my mother puts some teabags in the coffee maker. I cannot stay here. I go to the bathroom and take out the hair gel designed for African-Americans. I didn’t realise it was Afro-gel at the time, and no one stopped me at the airport shop. American bastards! I run a handful of the gel through my hair and then go to the hotel bar.
‘So, where you from?’ the bartender asks. He is a burly man who massages cows at the weekend (don’t ask).
‘Boston.’ I joke, adjusting my afro, ‘The real one!’
In my over-inflated scrotum, I hear the sighs of a million sperm, lamenting my future children.
The next morning, things are looking up! I used the hot-tub last night and my sexual frustration has abated somewhat. Don’t worry – I didn’t do anything disgusting; it just relaxed me. Masturbation by osmosis, I suppose; there were a lot of suds. But maybe that’s just the American bubble bath.
I crawl out of bed and eat a complimentary jelly bean. Peanut flavour – fuck! I wretch and then go down to the business centre for a sneaky internet session, where I am intercepted by the complimentary Texan weirdo. It’s the bartender from last night, who massages cows at the weekend.
I stare at him as he talks, looking for a sign on his shirt that reads “Ignore this man”. But there is none.
‘You Brits have got it all wrong,’ says the bartender, in a much better accent. ‘You think us Texans are all about jumping on the back of a horse screaming “Yeehah!” and then galloping round the ranch like a crazy person. But you see, all that does is stress the cows out, and makes for some real tough steak. If you want the good meat you gotta make the cows feel at ease. A rub here, a brushdown there, and you’ll get that steak real juicy.’
I stare, transfixed. Maybe the Welsh had the right idea all along. The next time my bacon’s not up to scratch I’ll have to vault the fence and give a pig a Swedish massage. It wouldn’t be my first time….
Clearly the Bartender is trying to dispel the Texan stereotype. I ponder telling him about my osmotic-jaccuzi-wank and how it made me a little less English, but he’s already gone.
Returning to the hotel room, I eat another jelly bean. Liquorice flavour – fuck! I then fish the teabags out of the coffee-maker and wonder what today has in store. More antagonism from machines? More waitress-arses floating in the void? Cow masseurs yelling at me not to touch things? Maybe I could squeeze in another session in the hot-tub…
I make a tactical withdrawal from the jelly bean bowl and put some more afro-gel in my hair.
At last the family has an action meeting. My brother eats his toast and porridge, staring at the TV screen as he stirs his tea counter-clockwise, while my Dad puts on a jumper and mutters something about grasshoppers. With the Autistic half of the family catered for, me and my mother discuss our plans as we straighten the picture frames around the hotel room.
‘What’s the plan?’
‘It’s completely up to you luv.’
‘Can we go to a casino?’
‘No.’
‘How about the Frontier Village?’
‘Okay.’
The conclave is victorious. I make a fresh offensive on the jelly bean bowl. Vegemite flavour – fuck!
Later on, in the car, I turn off the sat-nav to avoid further defiance from my father, and instead give verbal direction.
“Turn left here, Dad.”
“Freeway exit on the right, Dad.”
“It’s a red light, Dad.”
We enter the Frontier Village and my father slams on the brakes, pointing ahead, ‘Look at that! It’s a coyote!
I remove my face from the dashboard, ‘No Dad, it’s a basset.’
The puppy trots across the road in front of the car, followed by the owner, who gives us a funny look. I wish my mother had a margarita glass to hide behind.
The Frontier Village is closed, so we decide to walk around the lake nearby. We park by a sign that reads “No Fireworks”. I consider taking it home for my ex-girlfriend, but I doubt she’d see the funny side.
I walk around the lake, my brother directly behind me with his head lowered. It’s like a scene from Rain Man. And behind that my dad zigzags the path, muttering to the trees. Bloody Autistics! I’d recommend the gas chamber, but they’d only talk us out of it.
I forge ahead, seeking an authentic Texas experience. I want to smell leather, whip a horse, watch a cow having shiatsu. But Texas has yet to yield the Bisto moment. As I go off into the woods for a piss, I hope that a rattlesnake will take a shine to my todger. That would be authentic. But… given the prevalence of my erections lately I’d probably split the poor thing apart the moment it chowed down.
Or maybe I will encounter a bear. If it had a coca-cola bottle sewn to its paw I could play Androcles, otherwise I’d have to climb a tree. I picture my family getting run down by the bear while I dangle from the branches of a fig tree. But then I push the thought to one side. It’s not a very pleasant thing to think about. I’ve seen that film with Anthony Hopkins and the bear, where they have to join forces to destroy a marauding Alec Baldwin. Not pleasant at all.
After doing the lake, we begin the search for food. We walk through a gargantuan shopping mall where people shout “Hi! How y’all doing?” from all sides. It’s like being stalked by sycophantic ninjas. We ask them for food, but they have none, their smiles like shimmering jelly beans.
The nice lady on the sat-nav directs us to the nearest Denny’s, much to my father’s consternation. There we dine like king-pigs fresh from the massage parlour. I order nachos and a Philly cheesesteak, and my mother dials a 9 and a 1 on her cellphone as I tuck in.
Thankfully there are no levitating waitress-arses here, just a really tall waiter and a really short waiter. We get the tall one, who wears a leather jacket over his uniform. Clearly they are keeping the midget in reserve.
‘You look like a milkshake kinda guy.’ he says to me, in a better Texan accent. I wonder what he is insinuating. He gives me something big and lumpy to suck on. Damn, that’s good milkshake. Some lucky cow must’ve got a facial and a footrub this morning.
The midget watches us as we stagger back to the car. I continue to yearn for my authentic Texas experience, and I look back towards the midget, wondering if he and the tall guy would take me out on the town tonight. But then my mother pulls me into the car and takes me to Walmart.
Walmart sells everything. Everything. I ask them for a ceramic Bulgarian cheese grater made by hermaphrodites. They ask me what colour I want it in. But joking aside, this place is cheap. I drag an industrial-sized tub of vaseline to the checkout and smile at the attendant with cracked lips. I wonder what kind of industry uses vaseline… no wait, don’t answer that.
As I leave Walmart, I see a sign above the entrance, reading “Tire and Lube”. I consider taking it home to my ex-girlfriend, but I doubt she’d the funny side.
It’s our last day in the hotel. We lumber down to the restaurant for breakfast. There is no sign of the bartender – he must be out exfoliating the chickens. We spend breakfast antagonising the waitress by not letting her help us. She stands nervously to one side, watching as we get up to pour our own juice and toast our own bagels. Her every altruistic manoeuvre is frustrated by English humility and sarcastic refusals.
But there is hope. I take a mouthful of my coffee and suddenly she is by my side, brandishing a coffee jug like a set of prayer-beads.
‘Would you like some more?’ she asks, her voice trembling like a hopeful child. I stare at her breasts as she adds another inch to my coffee. The greatest tragedy is… she could help me – she really could. But right now, all we can do is refuse each other, like haemophiliac porcupines…
The waitress also refills my Dad’s coffee and walks off, leaving behind confusion of Shakespearean proportions as my Dad returns to the table.
‘I thought I drunk that,’ he says, pointing at the cup.
‘You did,’ I reply.
‘Have I got yours, Ross?’ he asks, staring at my brother, who is buttering his toast like Norman Bates.
‘No, that’s yours,’ I sigh.
‘I could of swore I drunk it.’ says Dad
‘She refilled it.’
‘She’s what?’
‘She refilled it!’
‘There’s no need to snap!’
We return to the hotel room and pack the last of our stuff. I read the instructions on the jelly beans and make my final offensive. Strawberry flavour! Yes! Fuck you, jelly beans, I win!
We load our stuff into the car and then find that the sat-nav has passed away during the night. I suspect foul play, but my father plays dumb as usual. We are thus reduced to reading road signs, like Barbarians, as we make our way to Irving, where my aunt and uncle buy mansions for a living. We are to stay with them for one day, before catching the flight home.
That night, I sit by the pool with my aunt.
She feels it, like she always has: my sadness, deep… fundamental.
‘Are you happy?’ she asks.
‘No,’ I reply – instantly. It’s the only thing I’m ever certain of.
‘What defines your life?’ she asks.
This takes me longer. A lot longer. I sit there for heavy minutes, staring at the ground. “I don’t know.”
‘My defining moment,” she says, “Was when I decided I wasn’t gonna be like my parents. You’re a spectator, Greg – that’s what your name means: a watcher. You watch things but you never participate. You have to put all the bad things that have happened in your life behind you. Get involved again.’
I stare at the water. ‘I just don’t know where I fit in.’
‘Is that a bad thing?’ she asks.
And so, as my family and I drive to the airport, I touch upon the problem. It wasn’t an authentic Texas experience I was looking for; it was a person, a man who is not alone. A man who doesn’t hide himself behind idiotic travel anecdotes.
As the plane takes off from Dallas I feel the ache in my nose and jaw, the one that comes before tears. What defines my life? Loneliness. I groom my pain and bear it with me, to make a better writer of myself. I watch in order to lament. And were I to ever reach out to someone it would destroy me. Mine is a tragic book, written well. I cannot burn it.
England… please… give me something. Destroy me. I beg you.
I have to stop writing now. The people on the plane have seen me bursting into tears. They might think I’m a terrorist.
Texas: attempted.