Now before anyone gets the wrong idea I
love Texas! San Antonio is so cool, I’ve got some really great
friends in Austin and Dallas was almost home three years ago and
still might be one day. Admittedly I’ve got very mixed emotions on
Houston but that’s a story for another time.
In the course of the average year I
pass through Texas around 30 times plus probably another 6-8 where I
leave the airport and bring my own special brand of vengeance on the
world. Last week was one of those as I rested my head in a place I
have gold status with not far from DFW and enjoyed the 85 degree
sunny days.
It went like this – I landed early.
I head to lunch at a fish place since
it was Ash Wednesday and my companions and customer were all good
Catholics.
On to the Hotel – I checked in by
2:00 and called my legal friends…all went well and the world might
not end but just in case I penned a dark little number about what I
had allowed myself to become.
My NY phone rings (I carry more phones
than a bookie…don’t ask) Dinner plans have been changed to a
different place. One that is not Fish based…I hold out hope
I arrive a dinner, there are thee
people in the bar. A short brunette on a Lap top, a guy in a suit
and a really tall Blond behind the bar. The guy at the bar waves me
in and as fate would have it he’s one of the guys I meeting for
dinner. He knows the brunette and the the tall blonde who was every
bit of 6’2” before the heels she has very exposed DD’s (or better)
and such a sweet Texas drawl. I ordered a diet…they all looked at
me like WTF. So I explained that I hadn’t slept in almost three
days and if I had a beer it would go one of two ways me falling
asleep or me getting really fucking ugly.
After that I was very well
decaffeinated. Seemingly no one wanted to see me really fucking ugly.
We sit down, menus aren’t even brought to the table food begins to
arrive. The Potato is as big as my head, we go back to the bar.
Years ago during a some what stressful
acquisition I found myself in roughly the same area. That night a
Cabbie pulled a gun on another cabbie outside an over priced hugely
popular steak place, two days later my Driver pulled his gun on a
homeless guy near downtown ( I was glad there was a gun handy in that
case) and the night before after several hours of drinking and
meeting a girl who was a model and as dumb as a bag of hammers who
had been pawned off on me the revelers decided to shoot at the home
owners private shooting range.
I never equated it with Texas until
after dinner that night when a small and stout woman jumped on the
bar, walked 20 feet across it (not spilling anyone’s drink mind you)
and started screaming at a woman who she had not even made eye
contact with let alone an altercation of any sort.
She went and sat back down just as
randomly. I sipped my diet, hardly anyone paid attention to the
recent borderline psychotic episode. So I ask the well endowed Blond
bartender what the issue was. She just shrugged, batted her eyes,
adjusted her daringly plunging blouse and said “Don’t worry about
her she does this all the time. I’m just glad she didn’t have her
gun tonight.” Everyone else went on cavorting just like nothing happend except for me and the woman who had been accosted by the insane woman.
I left shortly there after
Note to self …don’t eat there again!