In Texas they told me to stop at Buc-ee's for gas.
I have been to shrines. I have stood in temples that took two hundred years to build.
I was not prepared for the gas station.
There were one hundred and twenty fuel pumps.
I counted them because I did not believe them.
A man beside me was filling a truck the size of my first apartment, and he was not filling it because it was empty.
He was filling it because he was here, and here is where a man fills things.
Inside was a hall so vast I lost the horizon.
A wall of jerky. A wall of fudge I did not know the country produced.
A brisket sandwich handed to me by a man in a beaver costume.
And I want to be clear, the beaver is not a mascot.
The beaver is a saint.
The people speak of him the way my grandmother spoke of the mountain behind her house.
And the bathrooms.
I had been warned about the bathrooms and I had dismissed the warning as the pride of a loud people.
I was wrong to dismiss it.
The bathrooms are famous across the whole state and they have earned it.
I have slept in worse hotels. I nearly bowed upon entering.
A janitor was polishing the floor with the devotion of a man tending a garden he loved, and when I thanked him he said "welcome in," which I have since learned is what Texas says instead of hello, and also instead of I am glad you exist.
I went in for gas. I was inside for ninety minutes.
I came out with fudge, a shirt printed with a joke I do not fully understand, forty dollars of jerky, and a feeling I can only describe as having been to church.
I did not need any of it.
I needed all of it.
I have walked through the great cathedrals of the old world. I lit no candle there.
I lit no candle at Buc-ee's either.
But I did fill the truck.
And I understand now that in Texas, this is the same thing.
Been playing tennis at my local courts for a couple of years now. Yea I had a couple wins under my belt in 8th grade travel team. It’s usually a very casual experience just rallying against whoever shows up but today some high schooler said “get raped” when he hit me with an admittedly dirty serve and from then on it was understood I would be completely breaking his spirit. You will not play this sport again in my presence. First serve is an ace down the T. He whiffs. No words spoken. I take the next ball out of my pocket. I give him a meatball next to set up a 4-1 forehand down the line. Of course you’re chasing it you fucking retard. You lost as soon as you woke up. You lost the day you were born. How about another ace. Fuck you. He doesn’t even make an attempt to return it. “Game point” I say in the most disinterested voice possible. Power serve at his center mass. All he can muster is flinching into a pop. The ball soars in the sky. I’m pointing at it with my left hand and winding up with my right. He’s already wincing. I swing. Last second I feint into a soft slice. The ball dies on the court. I tell him to go fuck himself and then I just leave. I walk home. Enjoy your youth pussy. I just had the best day of my life.