ELECTRONIC REVERIE

My first computer was a Mac SE. That was 1989. It was a workplace device, so it wasn't really mine. I used it to design brochures and annual reports … full color, viewed on a black and white monitor. There was no internet, but the eventual addition of After Dark gave me flying toasters to stare at. A primitive version of King's Quest provided the heady option of playing on company time. I became so addicted to King's Quest that a bartender called the office at 8:15 one night to see if I was okay. 

Back then, this device unexpectedly thrust me into what felt like the future. I was ripped from the fraternal domain of t-squares and rubber cement and callously shoved into a world of diskettes (ask your parents) and software manuals (which I never read) and shifting, elusive terminology that still makes me feel like the dog ate my homework. But, for a few short years, I also felt like a member of an exclusive club. I knew things. (Things I absolutely could not explain, so don't even ask.) Eventually, an offhanded conversation with a cab driver about sans-serif fonts helped me realize that I was just another primate tethered to a computer. And ... everyone had a computer. And so did their kids. And those kids could explain things.

Thanks to an accommodating client, I now have a Mac Pro that looks like Robocop's carry-on, a flat screen monitor with millions of colors (actually, there are only three colors) and a wireless modem the size of a personal pan pizza box that throws off enough blinking light to illuminate my apartment. There is also a telephone attached that serenades me with a dial tone when I lift the receiver. It's that dial tone that keeps me from flying off into the future again.

SUNDAY, NEAR THE PARK.

I currently walk with the aid a cane. This may or may not be a temporary condition. I think it is, but since I have yet to consult a physician concerning the offending joint -- a knee vehemently rejecting the notion of conveyance -- I couldn’t say. The condition is tolerable when I avoid walking, and the pain dissipates exponentially with disuse. This luxury is elusive, however, as I must periodically use public transportation to make the ten mile trip from my apartment to the location of a part time job. I did this a few days ago, which was also Veterans Day. This is not a story about Veterans Day, however. Not really.

When I reached the halfway point of my commute, a bus stop between downtown Austin and Zilker Park, I found the bench clogged with amiable drunk folk of the homeless variety. One of them was strumming a guitar. Standing off to the side was a small, silent, nearly invisible man I have seen around that neighborhood for years, notable at this point because he uses a cane when walking -- which I was also doing. At the risk of appearing unkind, I will admit to viewing them all as interlopers. That bus stop is almost always devoid of pesky humans, until I arrive for a thirty-minute wait. I generally use the time to ruminate and untangle the knotted thoughts inside my head.

Guitar Guy started playing and singing. He played well enough, but should never sing. People who accuse Bob Dylan of being a bad singer should listen to this guy and reassess the concept. When he finished his song, he held up his right hand and said, "It's almost back. Them two fingers is coming back. When them two fingers quit working, my guitar-playing career is over." Then, he sang the song again, alternating strained and loud with nasal and plaintive. I still had twenty minutes to wait, if the bus was on time. This particular bus is always on time. This particular morning, it would be late.

After completing his ditty, which had something to do with Babylon, Guitar Guy looked over at me. "Sir? You ain't got a beer at home I could buy, do ya?" I told him I lived five miles away and I had no beer. "That's a shame. My DTs is kicking in. Do ya’ think Schlotzky’s would sell me a beer before noon?” I reluctantly continued relaying bad news until a fiftyish man with a ponytail and guitar case stopped to admire Guitar Guy’s guitar. Suddenly, my sketchy knowledge of Sunday beer law was irrelevant.

The two men fell into a guitar conversation. The pony-tailed man pulled out a pitch pipe and tuned Guitar Guy's guitar. Then, he inspected Guitar Guy's guitar, the way R. Lee Ermey inspects an M16. He started explaining how guitars are made, like a man who knows everything and assumes he's addressing a man who knows nothing. I had no reason to doubt the veracity of the information, but I stopped listening anyway. Finally, he said, "Well. A Mitchell is a Mitchell," and handed the instrument back. Then, he opened his case, pulled out a Martin with a dull, flat finish that reminded me of a terracotta wall. He started strumming and babbling and offered a lengthy, unsolicited dissertation concerning the hole in Willie Nelson's guitar … including dimension, age and causality. 

The bus was even later. The man with the ponytail finally put his guitar back in its case and very nearly walked away, until a previously mute fellow sitting next to Guitar Guy said, "Hope it don't rain." The man stopped in his tracks, put his guitar case down and began explaining how weather works. It seems there was a front, and what happens when a cold front collides with ...

The bus arrived. I climbed aboard, followed by the doe-eyed half-ghost with the cane. I sat down near the front of the bus and rested both hands on the wooden handle of my cane. A young man seated next to me asked if I was a veteran.

“I do not have that distinction,” I replied. My internal calendar flickered dark amusement, but I did not show it. That would have been disrespectful. 

TRAILERS FOR SALE OR RENT

The mobile home park on Barton Springs Road I attempted to describe here and here is gone. In its place is a mound of dirt surrounded by green mesh fencing. There is also a sign announcing the “amenities-rich” condos that will eventually replace that mound of dirt. I encountered this depressing site Sunday morning on my way to work.

To be honest, I am ambivalent. My knee does not necessarily jerk in any specific direction in the face of progress or gentrification. I suppose it all depends on the circumstance, or my perceived connection to the blight, the landmark or the treasure being replaced … as well as the nature of the replacement.

My connection to the former Manor Mobile RV Park was specious. I simply liked the look of the place. A spirit of individuality was palpable. While walking past, I could imagine a rogue’s gallery of eccentric, lovable ne'er-do-wells living an ephemeral version of the Life of Riley … or Good Neighbor Sam. I’m certain the reality was less romantic. I ponder the inevitable exodus.  When an RV park is closed, those evicted can’t simply leave. They must, as the song says, pick up their beds and walk. Or, at least, drive. Either way, I’m sure it wasn’t pretty. Cursory Googling suggests the axe fell because of escalating property taxes. I have no reason to doubt this, and no inclination to dig further.

I had a second, more personal connection to this humble community. In the fifties and early sixties I lived in a mobile home. (Now, you must confess something that makes your eye twitch.) I was quite young, and frayed memory has long since morphed into a shifting landscape of childhood reverie and numbing minutia. In my mind, the experience exists in a single place and time. It’s all connected by highways and holidays and time served. Listening to Dylan’s Desolation Row often takes me there, even though my family was unhappily ensconced in a jittery apartment in Houston by the time I first heard that song. Anyway … the sight of the Manor Mobile RV Park performed a similar function. It was a standing invitation to remember something as bland as pavement and as glorious as unfettered youth.

I hope the residents of the new condos are respectful of any ghosts who might choose to stay behind.

KEEP MOVING. NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

The only thing I hate more than being late is waiting. This is an unfortunate combination for anyone who uses public transportation, because in order to prevent the first, one must often endure the second. I suppose the opposite is also true, but being late is never an option I accept gracefully, so I’ve rarely tested the theory.

I’m jealous of anyone who can wait patiently. Unfortunately, what works for many does not work for me. Sitting at a bus stop while reading a book is not conducive to my natural state of internal combustion. Listening to my iPod and staring into space while contemplating the universe occasionally helps pass the time, but I lose interest easily, and as a rule … I just end up pacing and waiting. There is no muttering. I don’t mutter. Not yet, anyway.

In a particularly pensive or nostalgic mood, I might look around for a trigger to engage the process that sometimes leads to the creation of one of these webological entries. Sometimes this pays off. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, I generally get what I really want … the illusion of accelerated time.

Yesterday morning, I arrived even earlier than usual at the bus stop that represents the halfway point between home and work. I had about forty minutes to kill, so I walked to the next stop, and this took me past a blinking EMS vehicle, which was parked with little regard for geometric conformity near the entrance to a coffee shop. My destination was in front of the quaint mobile home encampment where I am occasionally distracted by the antics of an amiable white cat while waiting for the bus to arrive. Unfortunately, the cat was not present. Several spaces near the entrance to this modest community of kitschy aluminum had been vacated, and I sincerely hope the cat belongs to one of the units that moved on. I refuse to entertain a more calamitous explanation.

I was thinking about how much this facility reminded me of the 1950s, when a distant train whistle audibly validated this observation. Okay. Here we go. These squat, metallic Quonsets could just as easily represent some ancient Bradbury colony on Mars. And, if I were to clamber over the painted fence behind those distant Airstreams, I just might be reunited with the foreboding woods of my feverish, childhood dreams. I took note of the sky, as dead as gunmetal, and the temperature of the air – which hovered somewhere between the bracing chill of a walk-in cooler and the glacial stare of an unhappy spouse. There was gold here, if I could mine it. There were rocks to upturn, and snowballs to kick downhill.

There were …

Nah. It just wasn’t happening. My imagination was denied all transport. I had obviously left the letters of transit in my other pants. I was still halfway between Hyde Park and Westlake and my muse was still at home, sleeping like a headless zombie.   

The sound of a door slamming alerted me to the departure of the ambulance. Dousing its frenetic light show, the vehicle pulled away from the curb and drove slowly past me. After a lethargic u-turn, the unit proceeded toward downtown Austin with no hint of increased velocity. Obviously, this had been some sort of a coffee emergency. Meanwhile, the train whistle continued doing its part, but I was resigned to waiting for my bus.

Someone was approaching. I saw a figure several blocks away, walking north by northwest up Barton Springs. One is likely to encounter an inordinate number of homeless citizens on this stretch of road. There is a 351-acre park nearby, and heavily wooded hills all around, as well as elevated train tracks and a veritable network of inviting ditches. So, if you stand for very long on this street, you will probably encounter someone who will more than likely ask for money. As a rule, I don’t mind, but this particular Sunday morning, I was feeling the pangs of my own temporary impecunity, and was not in the mood to explain this to a total stranger. And, as it turned out, I didn’t have to. As the man got closer, I saw the logo on his shirt. It was the same as the Mexican restaurant right down the block, and he was obviously on his way to work. We exchanged pleasantries, as civilized strangers sometimes do, and he walked to the rear of the restaurant, where he probably began unpacking produce, washing lettuce and breaking down boxes. I did that job for several years, and I often miss the shared misery and free coffee.

Before my mind could return to the stupefying preview of death we like to call waiting, I saw another figure approaching from the opposite direction. Even from a distance, I could see that, instead of a logo, his grey sweatshirt displayed a great deal of dirt and moisture. The man wore an equally soiled red ball cap and carried an overstuffed backpack. Okay. This guy was homeless. He was coming from the park and he was going to ask me for money and the minute I told him I had none, he would dismiss me with a look of judgment and disdain amplified by its own maddening predictability. 

Why should I have to apologize for having no money? Leave me alone. I’m just trying to get to work.

I turned away and feigned interest in my phone. I planned to hold this pose until the gentleman had walked by. Hopefully, he wouldn’t stop. I had no money. None. Not one penny. I couldn’t help him. It wouldn’t even be a lie. 

And then, in my peripheral vision, I saw him in the middle of the street. He was crossing over, a half-block or so from where I stood. There was nothing over there except a bike shop, but for some reason he had decided to continue his journey on that side of the street. Sonofabitch. He was crossing the street to avoid me.

As the bus approached, I made a mental note to examine my obviously troubling visage in the bathroom mirror of the coffee shop I always visit on my way to work.

What? Okay. Fine. I had coffee money.