The Accidental Tourist – Part 1

The "Un" Real Texas By Steve Bussiere, humorist

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Shortly after leaving Bob and Andy at the icehouse, I thought about Rich, my Soul Brother. He had walked over to me a few days previous to the entire Flux thing, and said, "Hey, you got your hair cut, Steve." "Yup, I got a lot of them cut." I replied.

Rich is a very sensitive type of guy, so he smiled and asked me if they gave me a lollipop when it was done. "No, they just asked me to leave and tell anyone who asked that I got it cut across the street."

Rich is a great guy, but he still hasn't learned the most important secret in life is that the difference between a good haircut and a bad one is about 3 weeks, 12 beers or a baseball cap like Bob sports. It's tough enough trying to educate your kids in this world, but when you have to assist the proprietor of your favorite watering hole, life begins to become overwhelming.

I was under enough stress, trying to get hit by lightning, thereby increasing my odds of the big, elusive lottery win. Having to attempt to explain the deepest mysteries of life on this wildly careening orb to your soul brother, who has become the self proclaimed sultan of hair style, was something I didn't need to pile on top of all the other problems in my life.

I've seen Rich without his hat on and I thought of the number 3.With a number 2 on the side. That was when I realized I had two of the numbers I needed for the lottery. Now I only needed to find four more, and a favorable electrical storm. I was in like Flint.

Which made me think of Flint, Michigan.

Flint, Michigan, is north of Texas, as are an awful lot of other places in North America, which are not really worth visiting. No matter how much beer you have consumed.

Then I started thinking more.

I thought about a lot of things as I drove homeward that evening.

I thought about my haircut. I thought about my kids. I even thought about Bob and Andy, which was frightening enough in it's own right.

As I drove, a bolt of lightning streaked across the black sky, giving the luster of midday to objects below.

The bolt of lightning streaked across the northern sky. Which made me think of Flint, Michigan, again.

Which made me think of winning the lottery, a staple of life in Flint.

Then I thought about the lightning thing again, which made me think of magnets. It probably had something to do with Flint, which is in the general direction of the magnetic North Pole.

The magnetic North Pole is always moving. Somebody told me that once.

So I figured that this was all a sign, of some type.

I am not superstitious by nature, but hey, I know enough to not mess with a sign.

Opposites attract, which is why so many marriages are doomed to failure from the get go. People change and inadvertently become like one another. Once that little detail is completed, they are no longer opposite, and the magnetic attraction is flushed down the old commode. It is the natural death of love, and you don't ever mess with nature.

This opposition thing, would make most normal people turn their thoughts to politics, but hey, I ain't normal. Alton has told me that more times than I care to dwell upon.

It was somewhere around that time that I realized that natural laws should never be transgressed, even by a leftie.

"Time to analyze the situation, Steve." I told myself. So I grabbed a bottle of water and sat back to do it. Lightning was the key. Lightning, like magnets, is attracted to an opposite force. Being a southern kind of guy these days, I came to the conclusion that since I was unable to attract the big strike in the south, perhaps a move, at least temporarily, to the north, might be the missing link. The magnetic North Pole is in the North, (go figure, huh?), so it came to me out of the blue, or maybe from Flint, go north in search of the lucky strike.

I slept like a baby that night. Which isn't to say that I wet my bed or anything distasteful like that. When I awakened in the morning, I grabbed a cup of coffee, threw some stuff into a bag, got into the car, and headed up I-45, in the general direction of either Flint, Michigan, the magnetic North Pole, or Lotto Heaven.

It's tough leaving Texas, especially if Flint is as good as it gets, but sometimes you've got to just suck it up and take one for the team.

I got to Arkansas in very good time for someone with only a general direction in mind. When I got to Little Rock, I faced my first big decision. Do I stop and see how little the rock is? Or do I continue on the quest for gold.

I never did see the rock, so I have no idea how little it actually is. But I had to make a turn there. I'm not into NASCAR, so I decided to turn right, and found myself speeding toward Memphis. It looked like there was an excellent chance I would make it to Memphis by ten o'clock. Well it looked that way until traffic stopped dead on I-40 for about 2 hours.

I had never been to a fertilizer truck Bar-B-Q before, but they apparently have different customs in Arkansas. They are also very intelligent there and when the firefighters came to the realization that a pumper, with 500 gallons of water was not sufficient to douse the raging trailer inferno, they decided that they should just let it burn out on its own. Besides, having major traffic congestion on one of their highways at 10 pm, gave the appearance of a thriving metropolis.

So the trucker who was stuck beside me, and I, got out of our vehicles, smoked cigarettes, and watched the Arkansas Light Show.

"Where are you headed?" he asked me. "Kinda sorta towards Flint, Michigan." I replied.

"What the heck is in Flint?" he asked. "You going to build cars or something?"

"Nope." I replied. "I'm going to try for the lottery win. Well either that or a lightning strike." I replied. "But first I've got to get to Memphis. This Bar-B-Q isn't my style. And I need some sleep."

"When you told me about Flint, I figured that much." He replied.

Vehicles started to move, at long last. "Have a good trip buddy." He said to me.

"You too man." I answered.

I got into the car, put it into drive and continued the drive to Memphis.

I thought to myself, that I had never been asphyxiated standing in the middle of a highway before.

The mighty Mississippi lay ahead of me. I had never before realized that it was in actuality, the gateway to Flint, Michigan, before.

"Lightning strikes, maybe once, maybe twice" played the song on my radio.

"Another sign." I thought to myself.

"The world according to Fleetwood Mac."

And the next thing I knew, I was walking in Memphis.

(To Be Continued...)