Father Figures and Ford Mustangs - Part 2

A Classic

This is the continuation of Father Figures and Ford Mustangs Part 1

The speedometer only went to 85  in those days, and it had been pegged since before the last gear change. Andrew's eyes were fixed firmly on the road, while Kelly and Angie vied for rearview mirror territorial supremacy. Mike nervously glanced from the girls, to the road, to the speedometer, and around again, while his palms filled with sweat that he wiped against the gelled sides of his hair. EAGLE 97 had been playing horrible music all night, and when Mister Mister's Kyrie made its third pass for the evening, Andrew reached his right hand from the wheel, and without so much as a peek at the dash, he quickly pushed the milky gray cassette tape into the deck.

As if it had been pre-cued, the first few notes of George Michael's Father Figure began to pop and hiss as it pushed loudly from the factory sound system. In 1988 anyone who was anyone had a "system". An Alpine head unit, class A amps, Kicker subs, and the ability to rattle windows in a windowless high school, were all prerequisites for having one's car considered "dope." Andrew's Mustang had no aftermarket audio equipment. Unbeknownst to the student body, the car was a lease, and no meddling with factory installed components was allowed.

Had the car belonged to anyone else at the school, they would likely have been labeled a "poser"; however, no one would have had the sack to apply that label to Andrew. While not particularly gifted athletically, he played every sport. A pretty boy in the eyes of even the most cynical and jilted teenagers, he won Homecoming King by a record margin. In a redneck town, where the sale of alcohol was divided along religious boundaries, and the property taxes along racial ones, his popularity knew no borders. The night Mike Tyson knocked out Michael Spinks quicker than boy's first orgasm, every manner of race, creed, and political faction was watching at Andrew's place.

He had the world on his plate, yet Mike always thought Andrew seemed sad underneath his polished exterior. Until this moment at least. As the intro began to Father Figure, Andrew once again moved his right hand from the steering wheel to the dash, where he quickly spun the volume knob up to its max. George Michael's first words were met with an atonal uprising from 3 directions. Andrew and the two girls began belting out the tune as if they had staged the curtain to go up at precisely 125 MPH. Mike was immediately appalled by the dissonant lack of harmony, and then became downright frightened when Andrew removed both hands from the wheel and began to plead with the rushing air, pulling both fists in tight as he wailed to the muggy night air.

"That's all I wanted, just to seeee my baaaaaaby's blue-eyed shine (all making sounds trying to imitate the orchestration...and failing) This time i think that my lover Understands me  (all: UNDERSTANDS ME (yelling) If we have faith in each other Then we can be Strong.......

At this point, Andrew turns the actual song down so that he and the girls can hear themselves singing more clearly. They all take in mighty breaths of hot 100 MPH wind, and begin belting out the chorus, while stunned bovine and night owls sought shelter.

"I will be your Father Figure, put your tiny hand in mine, I will be your preacher teacher, anything you had in mind" Then Andrew goes off script and cuts to the end... no hands on the wheel, eyes closed, knees guiding the path. "I will be YOUR...YOUR Teacher....and I'll be your Daddy" suddenly, his hips swayed right and the Mustang veered violently towards the ditch!

Mike, without hesitation, ripped his hands from his wind-blasted coiffure and grabbed for the wheel. His head met a lunging Angie's as they both attempted to steer a new course for these rock n' roll refugees. Andrew calmly came to from his bacchanal, applied the brakes deftly, and just as the right front wheel reached the edge of the pavement, he steered the black Mustang back onto the asphalt.

Kelly spoke up and said, " I need to pee" as Angie and Mike reeled from their collision. Unconsciously, Mike went back to pushing against his slick-downed sideburns. They were less than a mile from town after the near-accident. They eased their way back along Betchnik road pulled into the local convenience store chain, "My Brother's Place" on the outskirts of town.

"I thought we were going to crash Mike exclaimed." "I didn't" said Andrew, with a wry smile and a quick glance in the rearview at the two beautiful girls climbing out to visit the restroom.

"Oh yeah, why is that?" Mike asked indignantly, with far more confidence than this group would typically allow him.

Without a word, Andrew reached down, and with one hand pushed the eject button on the tape player.  He caught the projectile with the same hand in a move he must have made a thousand times, and in the same motion, flicked the cassette onto Mike's lap, and said "because we had FAITH son....because we had FAY-THU- FAY-THU Faith!"

Father Figures and Ford Mustangs

Twilight Road - Ellis County

Father Figures and Ford Mustangs is series of fiction on the actions and dreams of a young man, reared in rural Texas. The series is part of my upcoming book and my first piece of new prose for The Housewrighter.

Mike pushed hard on the sides of his head, attempting to hold his hair flat against the force of the wind blowing from the open convertible top. His chemically straightened mop was no match for Ellis county roads at high rates of speed. He was reluctant to grasp the top of his overgrown bangs so he didn't come off  like Audrey Hepburn on a scooter in Roman Holiday. He knew he still looked completely ridiculous, but his self-conscious calculations could not be restrained, and so he continued to push, looking more and more like he was covering his ears to block the shriek of a passing ambulance. With his hands occupied, the bolo tie round his neck swished back-and-forth across his gaunt torso. While he was the second tallest guy in his class of 300, he thought his height insignificant supported by a mere 155 pounds. The discounted Guess jeans he wore were easily a 1/2 inch too short for gangly legs. The black and white printed rayon shirt made his pale skin appear pearlescent, and his dark brown eyes seemed as black and one-dimensional as a shark's. Still, a booming voice, laser -wit, and a fervent curiosity made him gregarious enough to ask questions that well-heeled kids would not have asked. He did not belong in this fast-moving foursome, but he was good company, especially when no one else was around. He would later understand the true nature of being the sidekick.

Angie, in the backseat, let her flowing raven locks whip with the gale. Mike noticed how the ends of her hair slapped aggressively at her high cheekbones, and yet she did nothing to prevent it. She was locked into the music, the speed, and sadly Mike thought, the driver. Andrew was cool without equal, handsome beyond reproach, and was the first to sport a real navy bomber jacket after the release of Top Gun. The enormous question vexing Mike on this evening, besides was this particular high-speed junket through Garret, TX going to be his last, was: who did he love more, Angie or Andrew?

Only a year prior, in his sophomore year, Mike was an honor student, addicted to basketball, board games, and vocabulary words. Cool was a manifestation of his own ideas, the path he followed was cut through the marsh of his own nightly imaginings. The wants of puberty, the need for physical release, and the camaraderie associated with the other sex was not yet a concern. The Bard, Juan, and the two Dereks had been his usual companions. Their carefully planned weekends involved premature pattern baldness beer buys, campouts, drinking truth, masturbation dares, and the kind of unity that could only be disrupted by oxygen inhalation and sunrises. He often wondered how this could change, and frequently, he just questioned why his friends could be so short-sided. Why did they need girlfriends, and what was he missing? Mother tried to reassure him that his time would come, he would love and be loved, and that all of this would be a bad dream. Accepting that was basically self-mutilation. Acknowledging that life would get better, once it got bigger, was a copout. He had no capacity for patience, nor strategy. If being cool was now the game, then the game was on, and he would simply be what he needed to be, when he needed to be it.

Kelly had money. Her Dooney and Bourke purse collection made the blue-collar girls seethe with envy. She often changed purses between classes depending on the temperature in the upcoming window-less classrooms. The small clutch worked much better with the cashmere sweater for English class, while the full-strap in bright pink was very cute with a lab apron in chemistry. She drove a red Saab convertible with a manual transmission. Her aggression with the stick followed her to the bedroom, Mike supposed. She was bitchy in an adult way, in a Mother sort of capacity. Humor, sarcasm, and prodding could sometimes bring her to offer an uncomfortable smile, but typically, she simply pushed at her hair, or tugged at her skirt, when confronted with a confusing (i.e. intelligent) remark. All of this being said, he still imagined her naked on occasions when he felt slighted, and that was often. It mattered little, as she was only want to be wooed by Andrew's class. Older, wealthier, and of preferable genetic stock, there would be no consideration of less, not without more Mad Dog, and much, much more privacy.

The 1987 Mustang GT 5.0 was the most spectacular car on the market. 3 boys drove them in Ellis county. A bright red convertible with black top owned by the most elegant guy in school, a blue and grey two-tone hardtop driven by the quiet farmer turned drug merchant, and the most wonderful of all, the black on black convertible currently carving a contrail of high-speed exhaust near the Boggy Creek bridge. $28,000.00 seemed like such a deal for 225 horses of guaranteed copulation. Andrew was very secure in himself, so long as he had his entourage. Mike was always quick to volunteer for posse duty, and on this night, there was nowhere else on earth he would have chosen to be.

The Talented David Ray Housewright

David Housewright is my father

Ray was also his father's middle name

David is Odie's youngest child

DRH is his self-applied nickname and only to my brother and me

DRH was taken when they named their property years ago so it became DHR - I never liked that

DRH has been self-employed most of his life. I think this is genetic.

Housewright Construction is David's family business

DRH can build anything and I am not kidding: car engines, Court Room Benches, Pizza Oven installations, computer clean rooms, all types of cabinets, historical building restorations, every kind of cabinet, model airplanes, fireworks mortar shell launchers, and any kind of dog house.

DRH lives in Fairfield, TX and has for many years. He meets a group of cronies at a coffee shop every morning.

DRH loves breakfast as much as anyone could; we share this passion

David is extremely loyal and is saddened when it is not returned in kind

I worked with DRH 20 years ago this summer. We built a house for a client and ate lunch at a bait and tackle store each day

DRH took me to Mexico for my first ever trip abroad (check it out)

DRH is very musical and can still play a few instruments including a table saw

David is a hunter and every year ritually maintains a deer lease from which he stocks our freezers with excellent game

DRH pushed me to excel in school yet never told me what to study or what to do. This was an amazing gift

DRH was born on Valentine's day. His birthday is the only holiday I celebrate that day

DRH bought me a motorcycle when I was 10. I crashed it one day and he straightened the fork with vice and a 2x4

DRH loves weapons like knives and guns but he also loves flowers and his garden

David raised hogs when I was a kid. The hog barns smelled like fecal death. It taught me how much I did not want to be a rancher

David used to have a 1966 Plymouth Satellite Drag-Racer and a Triumph TR4A roadster. I am still sad that neither was around when I was old enough to drive.

When DRH was my age I was 20

DRH is married to Donna Joyce Housewright. He calls her Swipey, she calls him Bunny. They are a perfect match

Donna is a teacher which I think is more like a martyr

DRH is always there when I dial the phone - this is an extremely comforting notion

July 4th used to be our biggest event - I hope it will be again

DRH has a brother we call King. King is one of the funniest people on earth.

I would love for DRH to come with me to Italy and see that very important side of who I am

For now, I am just happy to have DRH in my life and in my corner. A father is a great thing to have. A father and a friend is even better.

20 years since Baseball Stars and DRH is still #1

Franklin BBQ - Finally

The Ribs Exceeded Our Lofty Expectations

At long last I made it to the famous Franklin Barbecue today. My very good friend @theleftoverchef had told me that the line was ridiculous and that the food was equal to the painful task of waiting. For those of you who don't know the good Dr. he is without question the most discerning eater I have ever known and his recommendation for a food joint is not something to take lightly.

Myself being an enormous fan of Texas Hill Country BBQ (especially brisket) cooked over a hot oak fire I had been excited about Franklin since they opened the trailer 2+ years ago. Why had I not already eaten there, you may ask. Because, I don't do lines. Simple as that, I just do not wait in line for anything. I will drive 15+ extra minutes through city streets to avoid lines of cars on the highway. I will go for sushi at 5pm sharp to be the first in the door at the bar, and you can bet your sweet ass I never go to any film on premier night. Nightclubs, not a chance, ice cream on a warm spring day, I get it from the grocer.

All of this being said, Franklin had been touted as freakin' Mecca for cue heads and while I am not some bowling shirt-clad Guy Fieri douche boy getting my primal man versus food fix, I am quite the fan of salty meat and fat interplay with a heaping helping of carcinogen crust. I knew after 6 months away from Texas I needed to bite the bullet and endure the line on this cloudless 72 degree day in Austin.

Juliet and I met another of our meat-loving friends and we chatted up the full 1 hour and 35 minutes before we got to the counter to order. $83 worth of brisket, ribs, sausage, sides, and pies were shortly on some pre-greased butcher paper and staring us in the face. $83 damn dollars for cue stung like a full jigger of Sex Panther stings the nostrils, but just like everyone else in the joint we were smiling as we paid and damn near high by the time we left. This is serious stuff and while the sides were actually pretty weak compared to some other local producers, the meat was exceptional across the board.

Of course, eating this kind of weight in salty meat makes one dry up and bloated like a lifetime member of Weight Watchers and Franklin would really do themselves and their clients a favor if they added a toilet  or two with a high flush capacity. People are not going numero uno here friends.

At the end of the day the line was actually kind of fun and filled with chatty expectations for a meat feast like nothing else in the city. I for one still prefer the overall charm of Lockhart, TX and the drive to get the cue there is a Texas right of passage. For the city of Austin though, Franklin now gives Austin the clear crown of best large BBQ city in Texas and makes the Hill Country hands down the top BBQ region in America for Brisket.

I will leave this with photos of what we loved and while I still miss a $6.99 3 meat plate at Bubba's in Ennis, TX.  I can see where the allure lies in paying heavy shekels for this kind of rare experience.

My strong advice is to skip breakfast, take a Zegerid, and get in line about 10:45 AM on a cool morning. I think a party of 4 is about the right size to sample everything and to walk away completely gorged like a Brazillian competitive eater at a Churrascaria.

I will likely be back someday here in the Big A, but I will not be ending my drives to Lockhart as the confident owner of Franklin's suggested I would do after trying his cue.

Return to Texas Images

Juliet and I drove till 3am this morning before we crashed in a panhandle hotel. When we awoke to our drive in Texas today the sky was a pristine blue and the images from the small towns brought me so easily back home.