There’s a Ripley’s Believe It or Not Across the Street from the Alamo

I had this in my notebook from our trip to the Annual Meeting in San Antonio last November. I thought I’d share it for Musical Blogs today.

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There’s a Ripley’s Believe It or Not across the street from the Alamo. And a wax museum and a 3d motion ride.

Inside the sanctuary, I think about men standing with rifles, screaming. Thunder and shouting and the sharp smell of blood and brimstone.

I think this was probably literally their dream–that America would flow down like a glacier and cover their bones with all this bullshit.

I text message my friend Joe. I haven’t spoken to him in years. “My other hand is on the Alamo.” I rub the stone wall to get some of its dirt under my fingernails.

Joe messages me back, “So is my heart,” but I’m already walking down through the city past the Greyhound bus station, past the tranny smoking a cigarette on the curb, past the woman pacing and raving in the crosswalk, and under the Interstate–away from the tourists to where I think I might eat if I lived here.

I eat too much beef and beans and listen to the only English conversation as a waitress gets hassled by a regular about taking a ride on his motorcycle.

“I don’t even like motorcycles.”

“That’s not what you said last week.”

On the way back, I cut through a vacant lot and a burr gets stuck in my shoe lace. I bend down to get it out and it slices my thumb. As I watch the little bead of blood well up I remember that to get here I had to climb into a metal tube and hurtle through the sky for hours.