Let’s Waltz, Boys!
The fog is so thick that when I drive directly over the roadkill—the wheels of my Honda Civic eliciting a terrible crunch—my only solace comes from knowing it was already dead. This weather makes everything seem mystical, as though I were driving into County Cork, Ireland, and not West Texas. State Highway 71 from Horseshoe Bay to Brady winds leisurely, dotted with historic courthouses and Dollar Generals. The cows in the field plod along, steam rising from their backs. Extremely tall fences signal game reserves, and I imagine African kudu lurking in the cottonwoods.
My big city compatriots spend almost no time on roads like these. Most people I know shuttle between Dallas and Houston and San Antonio on crowded, stressful interstates. To a woman raised in Abilene, that’s not real driving.
Today, I’m headed to Big Spring, a town located less than two hours west of where I grew up. Both Abilene and Big Spring are West Texas, but not the Far West Texas where New Yorkers make land art and buy property with views of the Davis Mountains. My West Texas is flat, dotted with scrub brush and mesquite trees barely taller than I am (5 feet, 0 inches on my tiptoes). Having left my husband and 18-month-old daughter back in Austin, I’m on my way to meet my parents to go boot-scooting to Western swing at an old dance hall called The Stampede. Though it’s been a few years for me, my parents are regulars. We’re
