Seguin, Texas on a Saturday Night

[Doktor Howl]

A few weeks back, I went out to San Antonio on business.  I had a bag of free time and an expense account, so I did some wandering around.  The Alamo was a bit of a let down, aside from the crazy preachers in the plaza out front.  Mike (not Engineer Mike), Jeff, and I stopped to listen to one, and he became flustered.  It was kind of neat, actually, and we pulled for him, like we'd pull for a first time stand up comic with a bad case of stage fright.

Then I made the mistake of visiting Stella, out in Seguin.  Stella wasn't the problem...On the contrary, she and her daughter made me feel very welcome.  The problem was the town itself.

On Saturday, Stella and I went to get some coffee at about 2PM.  As we pulled up to the coffee shop, we saw a small group of teabagger-esque protestors holding up signs.  We couldn't read the signs, because they were either really tiny, or - in one case - done with all the letters colored differently, on the back of real estate signs they had stolen.

I am annoyed by bad propaganda, so I pulled forward 3 spaces along the curb, both to read the sign, and to annoy the fat lady with the sour face that was holding the offending sign.  The sign read "WIGGENS MUST GO"...Apparently, Wiggins is a judge there, and he got caught dealing pot.  Being a typical small town, the police refused to do anything about it.  I found out later that they were playing jurisdiction games to try to make the problem go away.

The lady, upon being blocked, shot Stella a nasty look, and then moved to the next block.  We had a good time making fun of them while we drank our coffee...The coffee shop owner was giggling while we did so, but the other patrons kept giving us sour looks.

There was NOTHING ELSE TO DO in that town...So we wound up going to the bar a little early for Saint Patrick's Day.  Outside the bar were a bunch of rusty cars and pickups, each with a confederate flag.  One nice, new Avalanche was also out front, with the infamous "re-nig" bumpersticker on it.  I was clearly in the Yahoo Nation, and I could tell that things were going to go downhill fast.

Inside, there were a half-dozen rednecks at the bar, and an older guy wearing expensive - by Seguin's standards - clothes.  He was apparently the owner of the Avalanche.  He was about 60...But if the girl sitting on his lap swapping spit with him was 18, I will kiss my own ass.

The bartender was a young Hispanic lady with a ridiculous leprechaun hat and a smile stapled to her face.  She was clearly not enjoying the holiday.  I ordered a Sprite for myself and a Shiner Boch for Stella, and then spoke to the bartender.

"You don't LOOK Irish."

"Heh.  My boss made me wear this damn thing."

"Is HE Irish?"

"No.  He's as German as everyone else in this fucked up town."

She was giving me the stink eye.  I think she smelled cop, and apparently the town was waiting for out of town cops to come investigate Judge Wiggins (Judging from the news online, they're still waiting).

"Well, tell your boss that St Patrick's Day is no excuse for wandering around being Irish all day."

She laughed, and went to serve one of the rednecks down the bar.

Stella and I sat there for a while, making fun of Texas, the Alamo, and Seguin.  I named all the rednecks, as each one exemplified a different type of redneck.  The fat one was Bubba, the guy trying to hide his lack of chin with a scraggly beard was Cletus, etc.  The locals that heard us didn't look happy about our behavior, but I think the cop thing kept them from giving us a proper Texas "welcome".

After a time, I went to take a piss.  The men's room was a stall, a trough, and also the back door to the bar.  While I was pissing, two ladies of Japanese descent walked through the backdoor, right past me, and into the bar.  I'm telling you, this place OOZED class.  Above the trough, some confused yahoo had written "Liberal faggots shood (sic) suck my cock."

When I came back out, the mood had turned even uglier.  The Japanese ladies had decided, it seemed, to sit at Someone's Chosen Table.  The man was telling them that this was his traditional table, and the Japanese ladies were explaining that they couldn't give two fucks about his traditions.  Strangely enough, the man backed down and sat at the next table, sulking at them, much to their amusement.

Stella and I continued talking shit until we got bored, and then decided to whip around to the park, where there was supposedly some kind of party going on.  There was, but everyone there was in their 20s, so we sat in a pavilion a few hundred feet away and smoked & joked for a while.

The park, incidentally, contains the town's sewer treatment plant.  Right next to the fence surrounding the plant was the bathroom...One of those hideous cinderblock blockhouse-type bathrooms.  We both had to piss like racehorses, but I dreaded the bathroom.  You could smell it from a hundred feet away.

But what choice did we have?  She went around to the women's side, and I went in the men's entrance.  I looked down in the urinal as I began to piss, and saw a pair of leopard-print women's panties wadded up in the bottom.  This added the perfect amount of sleaze; it sort of told all of Seguin's pathetic story to me...Failure and low-rent romance, in a town that empties itself of Black people a half hour before dusk.

When I came out, Stella was still in the bathroom, so I waited on the lawn beside the service road.  A few seconds later, a pickup truck with a lift kit and two chinless wonders roared up.  The yahoo in the passenger seat eyeballed me, sizing me up for a stomping.  A strange face in a small town is fodder for that sort of thing, especially in a drunken Texas backwater. 

He belched, and then said "Who the hell'r YEW?"

I glared at him and said, "FBI.  Is something wrong?"

The yahoos eyes got big, and they roared off.  Thanks again, Judge Wiggins.

Stella came out a moment later, and I drove her home.  I dropped her off near her house, and then went up to the Texas Cooler on the corner to get a pack of smokes.  There was nobody at the counter, but I heard what was apparently a little on-the-job loving coming from behind a cubicle-style partition at the back.  I loudly cleared my throat, and I heard some frantic whispering behind the partition.

A moment or so later, a woman weighing at least 300 pounds waddled out and sold me two packs of smokes.  As I was leaving, I saw a guy weighing maybe 95 pounds standing next to the screen in his underwear, looking at me.  The woman was probably in her 50s, the guy was maybe 25, and apparently had no teeth.  I was overcome with loathing, for reasons that I can't really explain to anyone who has never been to small town Texas.

I calmly got into my rental car, and then screeched out of the parking lot.  Although I hate machines that talk to people, I engaged the GPS...I was NOT getting lost in this creepy fucking town.  I hit the city limits doing 70MPH, and jammed onto the highway, accelerating up to 90 or so, dodging drunks, heading back to the relatively civilized San Antonio, where people at least have the decency to keep all their chromosomes in the right order.

None of this really does justice to the hopeless squalor that is Seguin.  It's everything that's wrong with rural America.  It's the reality behind the myth of "small town living".  Small towns aren't "wholesome", they are horrible pits full of crime, alcoholism, and drug abuse.  You can't leave anything around, or it's gone.  The people are bored, mean drunks who will stomp you for any reason or no reason at all, if they think they can get away with it.

They are the people of the flattened DNA helix.  We must leave them behind, if there is to be any hope at all for our species.

Okay for now,
Dok

[LMNO]

I'm gonna have to remember the "FBI" trick next time I find myself in the Wild.

[Doktor Howl]

I'm gonna have to remember the "FBI" trick next time I find myself in the Wild.

It's not a bad line, but the fact that they were expecting outside law enforcement gave me a bit of an edge.

[Cain]

Small towns aren't "wholesome", they are horrible pits full of crime, alcoholism, and drug abuse.  You can't leave anything around, or it's gone.  The people are bored, mean drunks who will stomp you for any reason or no reason at all, if they think they can get away with it.

Absolutely.  Having spent far too much time in many "rural towns" and "small towns" I can tell you nothing combines ethnocentric hostility, small-minded meanness and ingrained prejudice as living in a town where everyone knows everyone, and cares more about what that guy on the next street's father did thirty years ago than what is happening nowadays.  They say isolation drives people crazy, but apparently social and cultural isolation does the same things for entire communities.

I am, in fact, returning to my parents place next week, which is located in such a town.  I'll have the house to myself, at least, but I suspect I've been gone long enough for most people to have forgotten my face, never mind that I was serving them their drinks at one point.  Oh well, it's only for six days.  I'm sure I can't get into that much trouble in such a short period of time...

[Doktor Howl]

Small towns aren't "wholesome", they are horrible pits full of crime, alcoholism, and drug abuse.  You can't leave anything around, or it's gone.  The people are bored, mean drunks who will stomp you for any reason or no reason at all, if they think they can get away with it.

Absolutely.  Having spent far too much time in many "rural towns" and "small towns" I can tell you nothing combines ethnocentric hostility, small-minded meanness and ingrained prejudice as living in a town where everyone knows everyone, and cares more about what that guy on the next street's father did thirty years ago than what is happening nowadays.  They say isolation drives people crazy, but apparently social and cultural isolation does the same things for entire communities.

I am, in fact, returning to my parents place next week, which is located in such a town.  I'll have the house to myself, at least, but I suspect I've been gone long enough for most people to have forgotten my face, never mind that I was serving them their drinks at one point.  Oh well, it's only for six days.  I'm sure I can't get into that much trouble in such a short period of time...

I have faith in you.

[Cain]

Well, I do have obscene amounts of money and some small grudges to settle...

In fact, I've arranged my first meet-up in the bar that still refused to pay me after I'd worked there for over a month.  Might have to do something about that...

[Doktor Howl]

Well, I do have obscene amounts of money and some small grudges to settle...

In fact, I've arranged my first meet-up in the bar that still refused to pay me after I'd worked there for over a month.  Might have to do something about that...

I can think of about 10 ways to take it out of their hide.

[Cain]

Same.  Friday night is always the biggest take...it would be terrible if something were to happen which would mean they needed to close up that night.

Or if someone reported a case of food poisoning to the local (free) paper.  Or rats to health and safety inspectors (with a corpse or two relocated from the local fields where cats hunt them).  Or half a dozen other things I shouldn't really talk about on the net.

I know, ultimately the best revenge is success, but a little vindictive pleasure in the misery of others often goes down well, too.

[trippinprincezz13]

Woooow, I've seen and/or heard of some weird/awful/gross things in worse parts of town and/or worse off cities, but it all seemed to be symptomatic of "city life"/drugs/poverty and sort of...fit it? (not that it makes it ok). That all just sounds so creepy, and unreal. How does anyone live there? (sorry, Stella)

[Doktor Howl]

Woooow, I've seen and/or heard of some weird/awful/gross things in worse parts of town and/or worse off cities, but it all seemed to be symptomatic of "city life"/drugs/poverty and sort of...fit it? (not that it makes it ok). That all just sounds so creepy, and unreal. How does anyone live there? (sorry, Stella)

City life is safer and more pleasant than small towns.  As I say, the small town life is a myth.

I have an ex-GF who now lives in Ireland.  She loved Dublin, but then she and her husband & kids moved to a small town several miles away...She's been miserable ever since.  They'll always be outsiders, and the townies never let them forget it for a moment, with nasty "jokes", etc, and as I say, you can't leave a fucking thing laying around for a second without it evaporating.

Small town Arizona is even worse, with the exception of Benson.

[EK WAFFLR]

" If you move away from here for more than a year, then come back, you're a fucking tourist. We don't like tourists"

^quote from one of the people I went to school with in a small norwegian town (pop. 280).

[Doktor Howl]

" If you move away from here for more than a year, then come back, you're a fucking tourist. We don't like tourists"

^quote from one of the people I went to school with in a small norwegian town (pop. 280).

Jealousy at anyone that escaped for a time, I imagine.

[EK WAFFLR]

" If you move away from here for more than a year, then come back, you're a fucking tourist. We don't like tourists"

^quote from one of the people I went to school with in a small norwegian town (pop. 280).

Jealousy at anyone that escaped for a time, I imagine.

I imagine. I visited said town for the first time in 15 years last summer. It had not changed one single bit. The old folks looked just the same, the grown-ups were a little greyer, and people my age had either escaped or turned into their parents.
Also, drugs are rampant, and the "cool kids" tend to get into knife fights with the local sami population. 

[Doktor Howl]

" If you move away from here for more than a year, then come back, you're a fucking tourist. We don't like tourists"

^quote from one of the people I went to school with in a small norwegian town (pop. 280).

Jealousy at anyone that escaped for a time, I imagine.

I imagine. I visited said town for the first time in 15 years last summer. It had not changed one single bit. The old folks looked just the same, the grown-ups were a little greyer, and people my age had either escaped or turned into their parents.
Also, drugs are rampant, and the "cool kids" tend to get into knife fights with the local sami population.

Sami?

[Don Coyote]

" If you move away from here for more than a year, then come back, you're a fucking tourist. We don't like tourists"

^quote from one of the people I went to school with in a small norwegian town (pop. 280).

Jealousy at anyone that escaped for a time, I imagine.

I imagine. I visited said town for the first time in 15 years last summer. It had not changed one single bit. The old folks looked just the same, the grown-ups were a little greyer, and people my age had either escaped or turned into their parents.
Also, drugs are rampant, and the "cool kids" tend to get into knife fights with the local sami population.

Sami?

Aren't they the semi nomadic reindeer herders?