X. Texas Highway 171. Tehuacana.
Mexia Turn-off.
Population: 265
Elevation: 600
Climate: Temperate
Topography: Hilly blackland.
Historical Oddity: In 1845 there were two cities on the ballot when
Texans voted on moving the capitol from Houston. Tehuacana lost.
Prominent Amenity: Mexia (pop. 7,094), five miles away.
Category: Agricultural.
Best One-word Description: Dirt-poor.
Insight: The name turns up all over the American southwest in a variety
of spellings. The Spaniards had got it from the Indians of central Mexico. The inhabitants
of this village pronounce it tuh-WALK-uh-NEE.
1. The two next quests: curves, and silence.
–Wild Man
* * *
1b. When you see a giant, the first thing to do is to determine
the position of the sun–and check to see if it's not actually the shadow of a pygmy.
–Novalis
* * *
2. I was just talking to hear myself talk. I do that ever now and
again.
–Bar Ditch
* * *
3. Never, never take your hands for granted. Nor your feet.
–Mrs. O'Leary
* * *
4. A modern Diogenes would surely seek a loving man.
–Mercan Beauty
* * *
5. David stands in Florence.
–Wild Man
* * *
6.
–You like to hunt?
–You mean, like, little bitty animals?
–Yep.
–You thinkin about goin out there and shoot Bambi?
* * *
7. The world has a way of humanizing us.
–Wild Man
* * *
8. They was this farmer who figgered he needed a computer to run
his place, so he orders the biggest one Radio Shack sells, and they send this smart aleck
kid of a boy out to install it and show him how it works. The kid spends the night and in
the mornin the farmer finds his wife in bed with him. He knocks the kid out, and the when
the kid comes to he's out in the barn with his pecker clamped in this big old vise. Over
in the corner the kid sees the farmer sharpenin a butcher knife big enough to kill a
horse. "Jesus Christ," the kid yells, "you're not gonna cut it off, are
you?" "Nope," says the old farmer, "you can do that. I'm gonna set the
barn on fire."
–Mud Flap.
* * *
9. Beware of cut-and-paste art. Its truths sneak up on you without
warning.
–McLoony Tunes
* * *
10. Beware of ordered art. It lies all the time.
–McLoony Tunes
* * *
11. To understand all is very French.
–Jack Flash
* * *
12. At times we seem to be lassoed dogies, but who is the cowboy?fn1
–Tinfoil Seagull
* * *
13. Well, you took care of that problem. We won't have to listen
to that again maybe.
–Preacher Man
* * *
14. The starry, starry what? Our planetary experience conditions
us to expect to find cycles everywhere. Sleep and death suggest otherwise.
–Fritz
* * *
15. How dull a world without Arabs and Jews.
–Dr. Detroit
* * *
16. Poetry is no more reserved for truth than nests for eggs.
–Zig-zag Joy
* * *
17.
–Cecil, go down on 15.
–Yeah, I made it.
–I went in down there at the Almeda Mall, went in this damn movie house down there.
and uh went in there to see a movie. Me and this ol gal walked out there and my fuckin car
was gone. And I said, son of a bitch, somebody stole my fuckin car. And she says, she
says, it aint sittin there. So I went over there and called, I went over there to the pay
phone there outside the movie theater. And i called the fucking Houston police, and them
son of bitches come out there. I told em where I was at, you know. They come out there and
I said, somebody stole my car, and he said, how do you know they stole it? I said, because
the son of a bitch aint where I parked it. He said, maybe they repossessed it. I said, I
paid cash for the son of a a bitch, they couldnt have repossessed it. And he said, oh
yeah, it happens all the time, you know, and all this that and the other and just kinda
blowed it off, filled out a report and everything, and I told him, I said, you know, I
said, Can you give me a fucking ride home, and he said not. And, fuck, I only live up
there at Edgebroook which is a mile and a fucking half away, it's the next exit up, and
that cocksucker wouldnt give me a ride.
–Yeah, that's just about like em.
–I couldnt fuckin believe it. He said, well they got taxis here in town, he said,
just call one of them. You know, well I said, just fuck me arunnin. I had to go get a taxi
and haul me over to another place where I had another car at, pick my other fuckin car to
take the bitch home.
–Ha, ha, yeah but that insurance when they steal cause they gotta pay you full retail
book on em.
–Oh I made out like a bandit on that son of abitch. I didn't make but about $6500 on
that mother fucker. Aw shit, if I go home and all three's gone, I'm still ahead of the
game. You know, it just pissed me off, cause I'd just fixed it up. I was gonna give to me
boy when he got old enough to drive, you know. It had a six-sylinder in it with an
automatic, had the t-tops, and the mag wheels and all the shit on it, black, had that
velour interior in it, it looked real, i mean it was a sharp son of a bitch, boyoy, you
know. I figured I let my boy have it or the kids, or whatever, let em have it for a car,
you know, with that motor in there they wouldnt be likely to get in trouble and shit, but
it'd still be a pretty nice car, you know.
–Yeah, you can make it. Did you go down town and check em out on that insurance deal?
–Oh yeah, I checked it out. man they had to pay off on it. It was an 85 and they had
to pay off the full value of it. They waited 30 days. They gave me a fuckin car to drive
for 30 fuckin days.
–Yeah, that's like mine, when they stole mine. They just looked down the book value
and give me the book value, and i said, oh no, you aint addin in the options and
everthing, you know. You gotta ad in all the options and everything. They kinda overlook
that if you dont point it out.
–Oh I pointed it out. Cause I told em that I had the receipts and the canceled checks
for it even where Id just bought you know about $1700 worth of fuckin tires about 3 weeks
before they stole the son of a bitch, and I said, I been gone in the goddamn truck and
I've used the car two fuckin times, and I dont even wanta hear this shit that youre gonna
discountthem fuckin tires and mags.
–Yeah, cause they'll talk that shit if you dont know how to stand up to em.
–Oh I know how to play them fuckin games. I sold some insurance at one time. I knew
what I was talkin about. The bitch didnt fuck with me at all on. I said heres what it is,
was an 85 and had all these options on it, and Id even had it over at Hank’s place.
Matter of fact, the first time I drove it after I had the mag wheels on it was the day I
dropped over there and went over and paid the fuckin insurance, and they, they'd even seen
the fuckin car and knew I had em on there and shit, you know. It was a hell of a nice car,
it just come up fuckin missin. I had it all polished up and everthing. It just looked to
fuckin good I guess.
–Well, that's a popular car to steal.
–You know what the most popular car is on the market that they're stealin right now?
–No, not really.
–83 Buick Regal.
–Hard to find one that ain't damn near run into the ground.
–See them and the Cutlasses are the two most stolen cars cause all the parts is
interchangeable on em, you know, you can swap all the parts on em. They're two identical
fuckin cars. Them's the two most highly stolen cars right now, accordin to the insurance
company, that's what they told me. But I said, I bet they get a lot of Camaros stolen, and
they said, Camaros was about third or foruth really, you know, as far as GM cars.
–I dont even know where the Cadillacs rate. I have no idea.
–You know, they tell me they was gonna quit through a regular insurance company
Corvettes, IROD Z-28, them Datsun 300 ZX's, and somethin else, I forget what the fuck it
was, that they were gonna quit takin up.
* * *
18. Those who can write poetry don't.fn2
–Jack Flash
* * *
19. This civilization, with its compulsive imparting of linear
rationality, isolates us from a goodly part of our genetic heritage. Only the East
remembers, and they only a little.
–Hyundai Hunk
* * *
20. Dream gifts are partly ours for the asking, wholly ours for
the accepting, and partly ours for the giving.
–Beach Stone
* * *
21. First week ever year at A&M we'd check out to see who had
the biggest dick in gym class. Come time to haze and this old boy'd get special attention.
We'd get him up in a fourth floor room of a night, get him buck naked and we'd tie one of
them fifty-pound weight-liftin weights to his pecker. Then we'd blindfold him and we'd
tell if he really wanted to be a Aggie he'd hafta throw that weight out the window. And
boy, you shoulda seen those guys sweat. And you know what, ever one of them would do it.
Course, what we didn't tell them was, we'd cut the rope.
–Bar Ditch
* * *
22. Okay, so we got great tuners for most of the electromagnetic
vibes. What I want to know is, where's the CB radios and the Radio Shacks to sell em for
some of the other spectra?
–Horny Teen
* * *
Tehuacana Notes
1Charles Fort, who made a
career out of publishing books of weird events that actually happened, came to one of the
more shocking conclusions. We are, he finally decided, property.
2Had Jack Flash been
reading Lao-Tzu ("those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know")?
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