Walk With Me

where the rubber meets the rubbish

In my last post I mentioned how I have taken up long walks during my extended holiday break. The Houston weather is such that you get a few weeks at most during which I would describe as perfect walking weather. Then there is the rest of the year. Most of that weather is comprised of life-threatening heat and humidity which begins around 9 or 10 AM and ends around 2 or 3 in the morning. The remaining seven or so hours are still drench-inducing sweat hells, but you could probably walk during them and not risk dying of heat exhaustion. Probably. You would, however, have a much greater risk of dying at the hands of some dickhead who robs you under a bridge, or runs you over in their Tesla on autopilot mode because they’re busy getting a micropenis hummer from a bar waif while cranking Avenged Sevenfold.

All I’m saying is that summer walks are pretty shit. Unless you love to feel like you just walked through a pool filled with rubber cement that smells like balls while your entire blood supply is drained through the proboscises of a million hungry mosquitos. It’s not really my thing.

To walk in a Houston winter can still mean that it could be pretty balmy, in which case you will still sweat profusely. It’s doable, though still poses challenges.

It can also get cold here, and during a standard winter will usually have a couple weeks that hover around freezing at some point in the overnight hours. It’s not the Dakotas cold, but you wouldn’t want to sleep outside in it. We’ve had one of those stretches over the last couple weeks, which means that my walks have been pretty decent. One day was cold enough that I spent my walk with my nose running and my eyes tearing up from the wind blowing directly into them. It was glorious.

I live in West Houston, in a neighborhood called Westchase. Westchase is a place that has for decades fostered delusions of grandeur, but is more of a melting pot than I think its wealthier and longer term homeowning residents care to acknowledge. I stay just south of Westheimer Road, which is by all accounts the main artery of Houston roadways. Although I have a Houston address, I essentially live in a suburb of Houston called Alief.

Alief is home to a massive population of minorities, who in this case are in the majority. The Vietnamese population alone is huge. In comparison, over 20% of Alief is of Asian descent, while only about 17% is white. Doesn’t that just get you all fuzzy inside? It does for me. I love it.

When I take my walks I like to huff it down from Westheimer to Bellaire Blvd, into the heart of the Vietnamese community. It’s a different world there. And when it’s cold outside, you can smell the savory amazingness of Viet cuisine wafting off of Bellaire from about a half mile away. It’s a sensory treat in an otherwise stench-ridden place.

Another thing about the Alief area is the obvious income disparity between here and the Memorial neighborhoods just north of Westheimer. The businesses in Alief tend to be more ragtag and random, more rundown and untended. You’ll find strip-mall churches next to restaurants, next to nail salons, next to travel agencies, next to massage parlors, next to Vietnam war memorials. The effect can be dizzying.

Anywhere I walk in Houston is filthy. No area is immune. Nature trails, sidewalks through heavily trafficked areas, neighborhoods, it really doesn’t matter. There is trash everywhere. In a disposable culture, people see the world as a giant trashcan. And Houston is a flag bearer when it comes to trash.

This is another reason why the warmer it gets here, the less savory the walk. Even along a well-maintained, miles-long nature trail along a bayou becomes an exercise in tolerance. Just to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, here’s a running list of random things discarded on the side of the road that I’ve seen in just a handful of walks this winter.

soft drink cans

beer bottles

cigarette butts and packs

playing cards

a decapitated naked baby doll

road signs

promo cards for businesses

cigarillo packaging

chip bags

half-eaten fast food, cookie packages, and a random bag of rotten food of some undetermined origin

tiny bags (usually used to hold illegal drugs)

car parts

light and utility poles laid out for installment at a later date

raw sewage

mud, lots and lots of mud, often covering the sidewalk, forcing you to cross the road or walk in the road to get around it

broken cement everywhere

unpaved stretches

tall grass

weeds

a pair of filthy sweatpants

a soleless shoe decorating the top of a fence

tighty whities (also filthy)

tires

shopping carts

stolen mail

a backpack with its contents strewn about

dog shit

more dog shit

so much dog shit

holes torn in hurricane fencing to allow passage

I think you get the idea. Houston is a giant garbage dump, and it smells like one too.

Alief gas stations often have itinerant workers hanging around waiting for someone to hire them for cash under the table. These guys are usually illegal immigrants, and their life must be really tough. You’ll see these guys all over town, scrapping to get by. The tendency of the right to hate these people is pathetic. Especially knowing damn well that they’d do the same if they were unlucky enough to have been born in the same boat and crossed into the US looking for a better life.

Houston pretends to be proud of its cultural mix, but that’s mostly a smokescreen. Like most large cities across the nation, Houston is a blue town, voting mostly democrat. But don’t let that fool you because cultures don’t mix so much around here. Houston is as racist as any other town. Anyone who tells you different is either ignorant, delusional, or lying.

One of my old friends, John Lomax, who became a local writing legend and larger than life personality, even prior to his untimely death, considered Houston his grossly dysfunctional but greatly loved home. It’s a sentiment I have always appreciated and understood. Houston has a lot to love, but it won’t meet you halfway. You’re gonna have to work for that shit. She’s fickle and hard. One of his most beloved articles was the one he wrote following his walk from the westernmost edge of Westheimer Road down to just south of downtown Houston where it terminates at Bagby, changing names to Elgin.

John ventured along the entire 16 miles of the tattered mess. And then he wrote about it in his Sole of Houston series. Here is a link to the Houston Press articles that collects most of his work in the series with more links at the bottom of the article to the stories. His observations are lucid, often very funny, fair, and loving in a way that endeared John to so many.

One of my biggest regrets regarding John—after my deep regret for not having spent more time with him in general—is that I didn’t accompany him when he made the Westheimer pilgrimage. He invited me, but I was too stuck in my own head to take him up on it. That’s normal for me, but I’ve kicked myself ever since for not being a part of that walk.

And that’s the point of this crappy piece.

I intend to make the walk myself in his honor. I will take his spirit with me all the way from the ragged post-glory-days of the West Oaks area along Highway 6 on through the entire 16 mile madness. And then I will write about it in here for the sake of prosperity. I don’t have much of a readership, but then I write for myself more than anyone else anyway. And I don’t foster any illusions of sharing in the strength and sheer skill of his writing. I have just always wanted to make the walk myself. And plus, I know he’d approve. I just wish I’d had the sense to join him when the offer was made.

I miss John, like so many others, and will always be grateful for the opportunity to know him, no matter how brief it might be as I sit here passing through the relentless face of time. I’ll trek the damn thing and then keep him, and anyone else dumb enough to read my shit, posted. I hope he’s resting easy. And John, just in case you were wondering, the city is still just as weird as it ever was. And just as nasty too. You’d still love it.