Late last night so far away
I dreamed myself a dream
Well I dreamed I was so all alone
Isn’t it nice to be home again?

— the prophet james vernon taylor
—

And then you go for a drive. Because that’s what he would have done.

Down the I-20 with a stop at the Toyah High School, because it’s part of “Fandango” and closer than the Rio Grande. Onto I-10, the gateway to Big Bend and Marfa and Terlingua and so many things he loved. Over to the Kent truck stop, because it’s abandoned, and it’s fascinating to watch things change over the years and decades. Not for better, or for worse, just different. Life is like that. Nothing stays the same.

A Dr Pepper and a Mrs. Baird’s pie. A Blue Bell sandwich and Dreamboat Annie. Breakfast tacos and Lowell George. Stops at every damn historical marker, stretches of endless one-lane road offering nothing but solitude and a view of heaven.

Hours and hours of time to think. About life and love, joy and regrets, triumphs and mistakes. You wish you could go back to those days and be a better person, but you can’t. This is who you are now. You hope that’s enough.

You always kept your treasures in Vancourt Store cigar boxes when you were kids. And now he resides in one, riding shotgun on a trip back to the place where the dreams began. You sit on a picnic table in the Guadalupes and watch the sun go down behind those mountains that seem so out of place in the pancake landscape of Texas. You hope he’s glad to be here one last time.

And then you keep driving. Into the darkness, the unknown, the memories, the future.

You cry every now and then as the miles go by, then laugh, then cry again. You ingest way too much caffeine and snooze anyhow while driving along the long stretch to El Paso in those magical hours between dusk and dawn. You wonder when the hurting will end. “The point is, grief may not have an ending point,” the prophet Knapp once said. ” I’ve learned that that’s OK.” Maybe she’s right.

900 miles later, you’re back. It’s hard to believe it’s over.

Over.

You come home to your best friend and your indifferent cat. You place your brother on your desk. You tell him he’ll never be all alone. And neither will you.

Isn’t it nice to be home again?

– 30 –