THE TEXANTHROPE

I always wondered why Davy Crockett liked Texas so much. It turns out he left Tennessee on Oct. 31, 1835, swore his allegiance to Texas in January 1836 and died a couple of months later, March 6, 1836.  It turns out he wasn't here long enough to matter. He wasn't in Texas six months before he died (some people might consider that a lucky break) but I'll bet he had plenty of time looking over the Alamo wall at all those Mexicans and first wondering where the hell they all came from (subsequent generations of Texans have had a similar response) and then wondering why he came. Maybe it was the last thing that passed through his mind as the Mexicans were killing him in a language he couldn't understand: "Why in the hell am I here?" The answer: It seemed like a good idea at the time. That happens to lots of people. It happened to us.

After all this time in Austin, my wife and I are just about to arrive in Texas or just about to begin leaving. I would like to think it is a toss-up, but probably not.

I have been battling Texas since our arrival -- for more than seven years. Now it appears Texas is winning. Or perhaps it has won already. Or the toss has been lost. At any rate, I feel tired, defeated and destined to spend the foreseeable future here. My wife and I came to Texas for the best of reasons (my wife's Texas-paid-for ph.d.) and the UnTexan was born out a mostly lighthearted, jesting disregard for a place he knew he would be leaving in a few years (four years at the most). Now we are three years past that and we have stayed for the worst of reasons (job, money, stuff, inertia, exhaustion, depression, fear, failure of imagination, more stuff, more money, more inertia or more fear or more exhaustion or less imagination, whatever) and over those "extra" years the UnTexan's lighthearted jesting has been drained of its lightheartedness. In fact, the UnTexan is well on the way to becoming the Texanthrope. We have stayed too long. We might not be leaving. She wants to stay longer. I am ill-prepared. Things have turned serious.

How does a man begin to survive such a place? Davy Crockett's no help; if he taught us anything it is that Texas will kill you.

First, I must remind myself that I am with my wife, not in Texas. Wife. Texas. Two distinctly different things. Looking at things this way has seen me through so far. And henceforth, I also will count on two documents to see me through to the end: 1) A Passport, which at least offers the illusion that I can leave though it seems more and more likely I never will; and 2) My Last Will and Testament, which will insist that my remains never be buried, spread, entombed or otherwise disposed of on or in Texas soil (unless they are with those of my wife because then I would remain with her, not in Texas). Remember that part of Lonesome Dove where Gus made his old friend Call haul his corpse all the way back to Texas in a buckboard? Now start after they arrived in Texas and run the film backwards and you will see what has to happen with me. I will insist on it. I'm sure it's something Gus would understand. One man's Texas is another man's unTexas. And it will be in writing. Gus understood that too.

My wife, my passport and my will. It's so simple. It's so complicated. It is the best I can do, at least for now. Texas is big; Texas looms large for us. And here we are like weary children on a long journey in a hot car who ask repeatedly and monotonously from the confines of the car's backseat, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet," and receive no answer. Still we can't stop asking. "When will we get there?"

"Have we left yet?"

Will it be soon?

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[Eric Howerton]

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