San Antonio

I should have written a blog about San Antonio a long time ago. As of today, the trip was almost four months ago. To make it appear more topical, I’ll use what we in the writing business call creative license and change the dates of this trip to early June. This way it looks like it actually fit into the wedding timeline when in all reality, it was in March. I’m also going to skip the part about how Jeff ordered airline tickets for the wrong week and subsequently told Dave the wrong day, so he ordered incorrect tickets too because I don’t want Jeff to feel stupid. Next, I’m going to create a fake friend, Theo, and have him do all the stuff my friends and I wouldn’t appreciate being assigned. At some point I’ll kill him off, as to not cause confusion with real life. We will later eulogize Theo at the wedding and it will be sad. By doing this, I’ve turned autobiographical essays into fiction. This means unlike my normal blogs, I can exaggerate and/or embellish when necessary.

In April, when home for Christmas, two of my college roommates, Dave, Jeff and I were back in our hometown of Cedar Falls, Iowa 50613. As we drank, we talked about how we needed to visit our friend Ian who lives in San Antonio. It was agreed upon that this had to happen prior to my impending nuptials (July 4th—go America) because, as married men will have you know, life ends upon marriage. We looked at the calendar and since it was April when we had this discussion and the marriage was in July, clearly we had to have the trip in early June, which was only five weeks away. Thus it’s topical to discuss now. A further agreement was reached: we would drive to San Antonio, staying overnight at our friends’ house in Tulsa, Oklahoma on night one. At the end of the trip, we would then take separate one-way flights back to a destination airport of our choice (mine would be Moline!).

I met Ian on the first day of fourth grade on the swing set at my elementary school. I was a lonely fat kid with no friends. He was a lonely new kid with no friends. We talked a little before school and then found each other on the swing set again at lunch. The first Friday of my fourth grade year I was in my backyard when I heard someone shouting my name. It was Ian. He had rollerblades on and was riding a bike. It turned out the strange new kid lived behind me. We became best friends quick, partly because neither one of us had a lot of other friends and partly because we were both unique. Throughout the years our relationship has taken several different turns, best friends, sibling rivals, back to best friends again, but we’d always be close. He moved to San Antonio a few years back with a woman who he no longer dates. He’s one of the most content and interesting individuals I’ve ever met. He’s never really cared much about what society considers normal, and he’s proved to me on several occasions that marching to the beat of your own drummer is much more exciting than marching to the beat of everyone else’s.

Jeff rented a car in Chicago on June 1st, just five weeks ago, and drove to the QC to pick me up. Since neither of us is wordy, we forced ourselves to make five hours of awkward conversation as we drove to Kansas City to pick up Dave. “So Jeff, how’s Science?” I’d ask. “Good Jay, how’s Business?” he’d answer. Then we picked up Dave and Theo. We all talked about how awesome this trip was going to be. We talked of its legendary potential and how excited we were for it to start. After two hours of this nauseating pre-trip pampering, Dave asked as we pulled into a gas station, “So when do we stop talking about how awesome this trip is going to be and actually make it awesome?” I decided, “How about right now? This gas station will be the turning point.” At the gas station, we bought American Beers and Flavored Mountain Dew to drink and Doritos to eat. Upon getting in the car, we firmly established how much fun we were having.

No sooner than forty minutes after our fun had started we pulled into a town named Coffeyville, Kansas. Here is Coffeyville’s history: Sometimes God smiles upon you; sometimes you are born in Coffeyville. This town happened to have a manufacturing facility owned by the very company whose computer I currently use to type this blog. Due to this, I claimed this could someday be my home, and we needed to find a bar and have our (well, my) first June drink. We drove up and down the six streets that created the lovely culture-rich mosaic of Coffeyville before we stopped and asked ourselves, “Does this town have a bar?” Then the neon lights of both an “open” and a “Bud Light” sign shone into the car. We found Murray’s Diner w/ Full Bar. Inside Murray’s Diner there were three fellow patrons and six female employees. We sat at the bar. I ordered a tall, double Jack and Coke and a Philly cheese steak because I’m going through some weight problems. The restaurant started to shut down, so we made idle banter with the waitresses in order to earn the right to stay and drink a little longer. The waitresses, sad and lonely small town girls of all ages, told us about the fun bar to go to in Coffeyville. They really wanted us to go with them. Fortunately the three of us all had girlfriends we loved back home and an aversion to herpes, so we opted to get back in the car and head towards Tulsa.

In Tulsa, we avoided the temptation to eat at any of the 800 Sonic restaurants that litter the streets and arrived safely at our friends Steve and Abby’s house. I don’t remember much of the particulars because the first thing Steve said to me was, “Hey, I got this bottle of Crown Royal and I don’t like the stuff. Does anyone want it?” I do remember that Steve giggled at just about everything any of us said, Dave and I finished a bottle of Crown Royal, I ranted about how the primaries will never end and Hillary is ruining the country (which is weird, because this happened in June), Abby made us breakfast but burnt a lot of muffins, Steve proudly proclaimed he spent a day putting up some elaborate lettering on the wall which I proudly told him looked crooked, I smoked a cigar, I ate half a bag of Doritos, and I didn’t brush my teeth before bed. The next morning we woke up, bought some delicious Sonic food, hopped in our rental mobile and left for San Antonio.

The drive itself was a great bonding experience. We wrote a movie. More correct, we remade the movie Parent Trap as directed by M Night Shymalan. It was about two kids, one white kid and one Latino kid who arrived at summer camp to find they looked exactly like one another save for the tan discrepancy. The two boys eventually get into a fight and end up in a cabin all by themselves. On a fateful rainy night Richard saw a picture of Miguel’s papa. “Is that your papa” Richard asked? “Mi Mama dice.” Miguel said. In poorly translated English that means, “My mama says so. I’ve never met my father. He simply sends money from the United States every few weeks.” The two realized in a graphic and explicit conversation that the same man impregnated both of their mamas. The two boys agreed to pull the old switcheroo at the end of camp—Miguel going home with Richard’s family and vice versa. Since Richard was really tan at the end of camp, no one seemed to notice the difference until winter when a still dark Miguel wouldn’t stop trying to weed Richard’s family garden and Richard didn’t seem pleased with the bright colored clothing and maracas he got for Christmas. Suffice it to say, the white mother, being much more prudish than the saucy Latino mother, was a wreck when she found out about her husband’s indiscretions. She asked her dad what she should do. He then confessed he once cheated on her mother with a Latino woman. He showed her a picture he inexplicably carried in his wallet all these years. The picture of Grandpa’s Latin princess is the same woman who is the mother of the mother of Miguel. Cue Gong. Moving on…

Entering Texas, a large, “BUY PORN HERE” sign greeted us. Soon after a sign that said, “Texas, the proud home of George W. Bush,” lied to us. Does the fact your home state offers porn before claiming you make you at all reflect upon your life Mr. W? Twelve hours and forty phone calls from Ian later (not because we were lost, but because Ian wouldn’t leave us the fuck alone), we finally arrived in San Antonio. Along with Ian, our Marine friend Justin was there. It started innocently enough. We ate supper and had two drinks each. We then went back to Ian’s where we were to stay for the nights of June 2nd and June 4th. June 3rd was to be for camping, not, as it turned out to be, breakfasting with strippers.

At Ian’s we started to drink. A lot. You know how sometimes people walk up to you and say, “Wow I drank so much,” then they tell you how much they drank? Never be impressed with them again. We drank a lot. Those people who walked up to you didn’t drink much at all. The drinking may have impaired our decision making, as evidenced by the fact at 2:00am Ian and I decided to walk his dog around a poor Latin neighborhood to find a place we could buy cigars. Luckily for us we found an open gas station about one mile away from his house. It was right off the interstate at closing time, so naturally it was filled with riff-raff. Exuding charm, I asked the counter-lady, “Do you have any Al Capone cigars?” She stared at me. I amended my order. “Do you have any Black and Milds?” The man standing next to me, a really tall black man with lots of tattoos said, “I want a Black and Mild.” His short friend, also black but with more tattoos and scarier teeth said, “Do you know who this is?” He pointed at the tall man. “No,” I said. What was this short man thinking? I’m from Iowa. Up until that June 2nd evening, I’d never seen a real live black person (except for Theo who is fictional and probably shouldn’t count). The short man said, “He’s from Bone Thugs N Harmony.” Let the record show I did not believe this man. However, not wanting to die I said, “Get him a pack of Black and Milds too.” I walked outside and in the parking lot sat a giant Escalade with “B Thugs,” or some equivalent on the license plate. I bought a multi-millionaire platinum recording artist a cigar. What have you done with your life?

Later that night, we decided to go to bed even though we were really hungry--especially Theo because the dude smoked a lot of weed. Ian though, not believing in food, had only Chocolate Skittles and frozen pizzas but no oven for us to eat. Theo offered to grill them for us on the grill, but under his mental condition that seemed like a bad idea. Theo started feverishly digging through the fridge and found string cheese. I had never in my life seen anyone so damn happy to eat string cheese. The night ended when Justin drunk dialed every girl we knew in high school and yelled at them for not sleeping with any of us (note: I really was never that angry), Theo passed out after eating string cheese, and I smoked a delicious cigar under the same moonlit sky as a Bone Thug.

Day two in San Antonio got off to a later start than expected because most of us woke up wanting to die. We planned to go tubing down a river later that day and end the night camping. To start the day we went to a pretentious restaurant that served breakfast for $14 and sucked. We then went shopping in a mall that sold absolutely nothing of value because tourists are stupid. I respect wasting money and my heritage though so I purchased a wrestling luchador mask for fifty dollars. If you find yourself wondering why I’m telling you any of this nonsense, it’s because the six of us wasted the entire day piddling around San Antonio and didn’t leave to go tubing or camping until 7:00pm. Keep in mind this is a Sunday night in a month not regularly camped in (um, June?). Also, Ian didn’t let us know that the campsite was over an hour away from his house. Regardless, we stocked up on camping food and camping libations and headed out for the country.

Two hours later as we drove from campsite to campsite trying to find an open one I became irritated, hungry, and a little drunk from the alcohol I drank in the back of the car (Don’t worry, there be no law in Texas. Spit.). I finally told Ian, “We’re not camping.” We regrouped at a delicious restaurant and decided since this trip was sort of technically a bachelor party type get together we should probably go to a strip club. I’d never enjoyed strip clubs up to that point in my life and didn’t expect to like this one, but what the hell, it beat driving around in the dark.

It being a Sunday night, the strip club had roughly twelve patrons, of which we were six. This meant we had the fortune of having every stripper come sit at our table and tell us their life stories. Every one of them went like this: “This isn’t my real job. I do this for fun honey. I work as a (insert professional sounding job). I have dogs and two kids. Oh, it’s my turn to dance. Come up and visit!” It might be that at stripper school they tell you, “evoke sympathy from your potential john by telling him of your children.” In me it evoked feelings of sadness for you, me, and the big blue Earth. One stripper, Peaches, seemed different though. She sat by us and didn’t seem to be begging for money. In fact, she seemed to genuinely like us, especially Theo, who said she smelled divine. At closing time, we decided to go to breakfast and somehow Peaches got invited along. She agreed to come, but we had to wait awkwardly outside the club because strippers can’t leave with clients. It would look bad for the women who rubbed their naked bodies against strangers to leave with a man. What would people think about their morals?

At the breakfast restaurant, which was much more reasonably priced and better than the one from earlier that day, Theo and Peaches really hit it off. Here’s what she told us: “My name is Veronica. This isn’t my real job. I do this for fun honey. I work as a nurse. I have dogs and two kids. I don’t have many friends. I’m glad you came to visit.” Theo, recently sex deprived and always neurotic, started to tell her of all the great aspects of San Antonio’s history. She said that sounded interesting. There in that strange breakfast restaurant on an early Monday morning in June, love blossomed.

As you will find out, their relationship moved very quickly. She immediately texted him when she got home to let him know she was safe and sound. The two of them spent the entire next day texting each other deep and sometimes disgusting things. I’ve generally reserved text sex for day never of a relationship. Theo moved there in less than 24 hours. They did agree to meet later, possibly go shopping or something. As common sense advisor, Justin advised Theo not to let her find out where he lives as she might be crazy and dishonest. He assumed this because of the stripping.

The next day our only plans consisted of sitting on a front porch drinking. At some point that night we planned to go to a concert of a band whose music is described as Surfer/Swing music. Before the concert we went and met two of Ian’s good friends, a woman who didn’t like the White Stripes latest CD and thus probably has mild brain retardation and a woman who seemed way too peace and lovey for this conservative business man. Personality quirks aside, the two were quite nice and were enjoyable to sit on a porch with. In fact, sitting on a porch eating tacos and drinking whiskey all day makes it perfectly understandable why people from warm climates never get anything done.

The day picked up when Theo decided to take all remaining alcohol and finish it all before 4:00. He then started dancing in the front street and soon passed out in the front yard with his hand down his pants. He appeared to be talking to his girlfriend on his cellphone too, but I don’t think the hand in his pants was not related to that. We tried to wake Theo up for the concert with magic, snapping, cold water, screaming, kicking, and biting but nothing worked. Thus, we locked him in the house with a dying cell phone, no food, and no Tylenol and left for the concert.

What made the band great to watch, aside from Ian “dancing” or “impersonating a coma patient in an Earthquake” or whatever it is you call what drunk white people do in front of crowds is the fact that THEE San Antonio Swing Society was on hand. That’s right, I was in a room with the THEE San Antonio Swing Society. We continued the general theme of the trip-binge drinking-with Justin taking charge. He spent his entire bank account on drinks while becoming a hyperactive drunk monkey who insisted on taking pictures and slapping people. I was almost ready to kill him when I noticed I had about eight missed calls from Theo. Evidently he woke up and found that all the doors were locked from the outside. Let that be a lesson to you children: Don’t trust hippies. Who the hell has doors that lock from the outside?

After an uneventful exodus from the bar we picked up Theo and returned to Ian’s. As we fell asleep that night, Jeff, Dave, and I stayed up and talked about a variety of inconsequential topics. Justin, who earlier in the night set the world record for speed talking and hadn’t shut up since 7:30, had officially driven Jeff insane. After Justin fell asleep every time he breathed loud or moved in his sleep Jeff would exasperatedly yell at him to shut up and threw ice at him. It makes sense if you think about it. The three of us making fun of someone else and talking about nonsense brought me back to college and our late nights watching Legends of the Hidden Temple and/or appreciating the fine art of soft core pornography. While I have no intention of ever having to share a small room with two other men again (at least on a regular basis), a weird part of me is glad I did.

The next day, after a brief lunch with our new stripper friend and a stop at a drive-thru liquor store (the hell?), we parted ways for the time being. San Antonio was hot, hippies and rap stars littered the streets, and Theo could have killed himself with such reckless behavior. That said, it would now and forever be one of my favorite places.