February 1976, Texas

If Not for the Vultures

There was an old time Esso guy, a Texan. A large man with a toothpick perpetually stuck in his face. He had a desk in the middle of the construction office pool near the one I used to do Troxler nuclear density calculations at to determine optimum soil compaction. There he was, generally doing nothing, when I would come in from the dust to plug the raw readings into the formula after guessing the type of material by eyeball. This big guy, whose name I have forgotten, had a ranch in Wilson County, not far from the famous Connally spread, 200 miles west of Houston. (Bob Casey(?) came to me, eventually)

He talked and talked about this ranch, and Wilson, and how he had cattle on it, and how he went every weekend. Two hundred miles is nothing in Texas. I was first in the office at seven, and there until five before driving to school three nights a week. By Friday at five o’clock I was shot, but the big Texan made a big deal about taking me out to his ranch on my birthday weekend. So, what the hell. I thought two nights in a nice ranch house might be better than the sleeping bag I had spent the last six months in.

We left right from the job and went straight to the ranch. To my dismay, there was no fancy ranch house. Instead, there was an old shed, with shelves of canned goods, two bunks and a small stove, which barely got the cramped space above freezing. I was too tired to do anything except fall asleep, only to be awakened before dawn on the morning of my nineteenth birthday to drive more than half an hour for breakfast. I sat in this country joint with these old boys, not near half awake, getting my balls busted for being a Yankee, feeling a bit sorry for myself, out there in the middle of fucking nowhere, on my birthday.

After breakfast we went back to the ranch to take care of the cattle that were somewhere out there. The sun came out a bit, and after a few loads of hay, I escaped into the tall grass, lay my tired body down and went right to sleep.

I was out like a light, warm and dreaming, when I woke to hear the tractor approaching. Damn if those vultures did not bring that big Texan in. I might have been rested and avoided the unpaid labor had it not been for them. We had some beans and tucked in, and in the morning, we drove back to Houston. I must have heard that vulture story ten times before the following Friday.