Escape from Hell-fer-Sartain: The Vinton Boy

I spent a year (actually 210 dreadful days) in Hell-fer-Sartain, Texas, teaching bonehead English to homophobes at a horrible college about 15 miles north of Houston (which means an hour's drive on the parking lot they call a highway).  I don't remember a moment of joy, happiness, or contentment during that entire year, just anger, frustration, anger, embarrassment, loneliness, and anger.

The most minor task -- going out to eat, getting gas --was a nightmare, with problem piling onto problem, complication onto complication.

Even hookups.
"Why do you want to know my name? Are you a cop?"
"There was a car in the driveway of a house three doors down, so I got scared and bailed."
"Meet me at the public restroom somewhere far away, and we'll do it there."

The happiest day of my life was May 8th,1985, when I finished grading my last horrible final exam, walked the final grades to the horrible dean's office, and left those Brutopian concrete slabs forever. I walked through the sweltering Sahara of a parking lot, slid into my car, and started driving.

The quickest route home would take me north, but that would mean five more hours in Texas, so instead I drove south on the I-45 toward Houston.

12 miles.  Fortunately I turned onto the I-610 before it became a parking lot.

10 miles around the eastern edge of Houston in traffic that was just horrible, not a parking lot, mostly surrounded by roaring trucks, nothing to see but nondescript Brutoian warehouses

I-10 east in mor horrible traffic through horrible Houston suburbs: Jacinto City, Cloverleaf, Channel View. Greens Bayou, Marwood.

I hooked up  with a guy in Jacinto City once.  I felt like the town's first  mayor, a guy named Inch Handler.

The suburbs went on endlessly. Nothing to see but billboards, car dealerships, nondescript Brutopian warehouses, and the occasional fast-food restaurant.

Past Burnett Bay, the traffic thinned out,  and the highway narrowed.  I was out of Houston's clutches, but still in Texas, in a swampy no man's land,without even a billboard.

Or a rest stop.  I didn't care. I wasn't stopping until Texas is a distant memory.

At the small redneck town of Winnie, home of the Texas Rice Festival, the I-10 veered northeast.

East Chambers High School in Winnie promises "photo galleries," but all they have are three photos from 2015, all of cheerleaders.

When I searched for "Winnie Texas wrestling" online, this photo popped up. Apparently his video of "wrestling with a dead Christmas tree" made it to the tv show America's Funniest Home Videos.

Another few miles of scrub grass, and I was in Beaumont, Texas, a sizeable town of 100,000, all oil refineries blinking like cyclopses and giving off an unpleasant smell.

Today Beaumont has some interesting sights:the Art Museum of Southeastern Texas, the Dishman Art Museum on the campus of Lamar College, the McFadden-Ward Museum, the St. Andrew Basilica,Temple Emanuel. There is a gay bar, and Beaumont High School has a Gay-Straight Alliance. 

But in 1985 it was a concrete-and-steel nightmare.  Not as bad as Houston, but bad.

The I-10 curved northeast, past the town of Cheek,  past Beaumont High and the Tyrell Park Church,  heavy traffic at the junction of I-69, and then downtown.  No skyscrapers, just low concrete buildings and restaurants with names like Luby's.

Across the Natches River, and then more wilderness.

I saw a country boy standing ankle-deep in the swamp, maybe fishing for crawdads.  A fleeting glimpse of beauty, but not enough to make up for 9 months in Texas.

Not by a long shot.

At 5:00 pm, I was passing through Orange, Texas, population 18,000, "a small town with big city culture."  Its culture involves a small art museum devoted to the Wild West, a historic home, and a confederate monument.

But it has one benefit that other towns in Texas do not:  it's next to the border.

A sign for St. Mary Catholic School.  "Hail, Mary," I said.

Five or six miles of scrub grass, and a sign said "St.Charles 35."

That's in Louisiana!

A few more miles, and the Sabine River, aka the River Styx. But I was leaving the Underworld behind.  On the other side was the Promised Land, Louisiana, aka Anywhere That Was Not Texas.

I crossed the border carefully, worried that someone -- the police, demons -- would drag me back, or that I would end up in a "No Exit" situation, back where I came from.

And suddenly, I was driving through Vinton, Louisiana.

I stopped to go to the bathroom and grab a hamburger at a fast-food place across from Vinton High.   The high school boy behind the counter (dark hair, wrestler's build) asked where I was heading.

"The Land of the Living," I said.

Ok, not really. But it sounds good.