I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (35 page)

The lights were out but there was enough glow from a street lam
p
coming through the window for me to clearly see doggy diarrhea al
l
over the floor. I used the floor to wipe the shit off my foot which left
a
huge brown streak on the egg-shell white carpet. After playing ho
p
scotch to get to and from the bathroom, I just went to sleep an
d
pretended nothing was wrong. It's not my dog, plus she'll see the poop i
n
the morning
.

She got up an hour later maybe, and stepped in the same shit I did
.
Lindsay "OH TUCKER! You shit on the floor! Why did you do this?
"
Tucker "He's probably jealous that he doesn't get to sleep in your be
d
tonight.
"

Lindsay "You never poop in the house! What happened?
"
[she turned the lights on
]
Tucker "How did he leave that huge shit streak on the floor? That i
s
like two feet long." Lindsay "OH MY GOD-how did you do that? LOO
K
AT THE FLOOR! BAD DOG! BAD!
"

Tucker crawled up to her, and gave her a few vomit-flavored licks i
n
the face. Lindsay "OK, I forgive you. But you are still a bad bad dog.
"

The next day I got this email from her
:
"I was being a good hostess because you're from out of town-bu
t
that is the drunkest I've ever been in my life so I'm not counting anythin
g
that happened last night.
"

Do I even need to translate that from GameSpeak to English
?
She didn't find the vomit, and of course I didn't tell her about it, so w
e
ended up going out the next night
.

Tucker "So, was it fun cleaning up all that crap?
"
Lindsay "UH! What a mess. I had to buy all these cleaning supplies a
t
Walgreens and I scrubbed and disinfected and cleaned for two hours
,
and it STILL stinks in there.
"

Tucker "Maybe he ate something. You should check the rest of th
e
room; he might have crapped or vomited somewhere you didn't find
.
Dogs are weird like that.
"

Midland, Texas is awesome. Not because it is fun or peaceful or has lots of hot girls. Midland is awesome because it is incredibly and irreversibly fucked up. Remember the scene in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil where John Cusack calls his editor and says, "This place is like Gone with the Wind on mescaline. Everyone is heavily armed and drunk. New York is boring." Welcome to Midland, Texas. I went to Midland to visit my friend Doug. I had met Doug at a party in Austin. He came up to me, huge dip in his lip, oil-stained jeans tucked into his dirty cowboy boots, wide grin on his face and said, "HAY! Yur Tucker Max!" and handed me his business card. It said:

[his full name
]
Oil Wells Du
g
Also: Revolutions started, Orgies Organized, Uprisings quelled
,
Tigers Tamed, Assassinations plotted, Virgins Converted
.
Also preach and lead singing for revival meetings
.

I know, my first thought was the same as yours: This kid is a fucking tool. But in spite of the absurd business card, I ended up hanging out with him several times, and he turned out to be a pretty cool guy. When he invited me to hang out with him for a week and work with him in the West Texas oil fields that his family owned, I took the opportunity. I landed at Midland airport and walked out of baggage claim to see Doug sitting in his massive truck, its engine making that obnoxious KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK diesel engine idling sound. I have to reach up for the door handle because the truck has huge 45 inch tires as well as lifted suspension, putting the baseplate at like four feet. I open the door to find the seat at eye level for me. He hands me a beer before I can even pull myself up into the truck. "WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! WELCOME TO MIDLAND MOTHERFUCKER!!"

It is 3pm on Sunday and he is at least six beers ahead of me. Scattered all over the floor are empty tins of Copenhagen, crushed up cans of Keystone Light, Chilean surplus 7.62 rounds and .45 magazines loaded with Mag-Safe hollow point rounds. On his gun rack-yes, his truck had a gun rack-is an M-14 assault rifle and between the console

is a holstered H&K USP pistol. If you don't know guns, let me explai
n
it this way: With just the arsenal in his truck, Doug could go roun
d
for round with just about any cop in the country, SWAT included, an
d
probably outgun many of them
.

It's a 20 minute drive to his place, and there is nothing resemblin
g
civilization on the road there. Every direction is flat, arid brush lan
d
scattered with mesquite "trees" (they look like bushes but Doug insisted
.
that they are trees) and the occasional tumbleweed blowing acros
s
the road. The only exception to this wasteland is the huge sign tha
t
reads
:
"Welcome to Midland: Home of George and Laura Bush.
"
Not even 20 minutes on the ground, and I begin to understand wha
t
General Sheridan meant when he said, "If I owned Hell and Texas, I'
d
rent out Texas and live in Hell.
"

We get to Doug's place and the first thing I see is a Colt .45 sitting o
n
his kitchen counter, pointing right at me. I notice that the hammer i
s
back, and upon closer inspection I realize that the pistol is FULL
Y
LOADED WITH A ROUND CHAMBERED. I grew up around firearm
s
and know how to use them, so I instinctually pick up the gun and mak
e
sure the safety is on-which much to my relief it is-then immediatel
y
clear the weapon
.

Tucker "DUDE-why was there a round in the chamber with the hamme
r
cocked?!?
"
Doug "The safety works better that way.
"
Tucker "Better than if there were NO BULLETS IN IT?
"
Upstairs in my room, there is an HK 91 assault rifle just laying out, als
o
locked and loaded. There was enough ammunition scattered throughou
t
the apartment to re-enact the Son Tay raid
.
Tucker "Dude, why do you have so many guns?
"
Doug "Well, just in case, you never know. Plus, we got some rowd
y
Mexican neighbors.
"
Tucker "WHAT? Who do you live next to, Pancho Villa?
"
He hands me a beer
:
Doug "Start drinking motherfucker, there are some bitches comin
g
over.
"
Tucker "Do you think maybe we should unchamber the rounds fro
m
the rest of these firearms and safely store them before we get rip-roarin
g
drunk with girls around?
"
Doug "What for? The safeties are on all of them.
"
Tucker "Are you kidding?
"

Doug "What if we want to go shootin' tonight?
"
Tucker "Oh.My.God.
"

I immediately called my friend PWJ and told him to tell everyone that
I
love them, because I wasn't coming home alive. But I didn't get t
o
where I am by fretting about these things, so I just said "fuck it,
"
slammed a few beers and relaxed. After all, alcohol always make
s
everything better
.

[SIDE NOTE: I came to learn during my visit that everyone in Midlan
d
is armed, and that they have a very different notion of gun safety tha
n
the rest of the world. Basically, if the gun is not going off at that exac
t
moment, then it is safe. Even the women ride around with loade
d
firearms in their cars. I consider myself a minor gun enthusiast, bu
t
Midland is ridiculous.
]

The girls arrive and I can immediately tell that they are all teenagers
.
How do I know this without asking? Well, the game of quarters the
y
started playing was the first indication. The conversation about th
e
newest Lizzie Maguire movie was probably the second. And thi
s
conversation sealed it for me
:

Tucker "What are you drinking?
"
Jenny "Chilled wine.
"
Tucker "You have ice cubes in it? No way. You're kidding right?
"
Jenny "I like it that way. It's how we serve it.
"
Tucker jokingly] "What are you, a stripper?
"
Jenny "No, I only work in a strip club. I don't strip.
"
Tucker "AHHAHHAHHAAH-YOU ACTUALLY DO WORK IN A STRI
P
CLUB!! Yeah, there is a bright line distinction between the stripper
s
and the waitresses.
"
Jenny "IT IS DIFFERENT!
"
Tucker "Let me guess-that is white zin. And you are probably ma
d
because Doug doesn't have any straws.
"
Jenny "Excuse me jerk; it is CHABLIS." [to her credit, she pronounce
d
it correctly
]
Tucker "My mistake. I apologize, you are obviously very cultured. Yo
u
only partake of the finest of the boxed wines.
"
Jenny "It didn't come in a box! It came in a jug!
"
Tucker "Oh right ... make sure to say hi to Carlo Rossi for me nex
t
time you refill.
"
Doug comes out of the bathroom and joins the conversation
.
Tucker "Dude-who is this girl?" [pointing to Jenny] "Don't you kno
w

me well enough yet not to bring girls like this around?
"
Doug "What? She is hot.
"
Tucker "Yes, she is hot. But she is painfully dumb and desperatel
y
needs braces.
"
Jenny "Excuse me, I've had braces.
"
Tucker 'Then why do your teeth look like you've been chewing o
n
rocks?
"
Jenny "Because I lost my retainer.
"
Tucker "Left it on the dashboard of a truck, right? Don't you hate i
t
when that happens?
"

I almost felt bad after this exchange. Fucking with 18 year old girls i
s
like kicking cripples; it's just too easy. Of course, the other two girl
s
with her thought this was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. One i
s
cute and skinny with no tits, and one is cute and kinda fat with hug
e
tits. You want to guess which one threw herself at me? Whatever; jus
t
give me another beer. I've fucked worse
.

As the night moves on, I continue to abuse the dumb one for th
e
entertainment of everyone else. If that girl didn't hate herself before tha
t
night, she did after it. The two girls that thought I was funny invited m
e
to go drinking with them at some friend's house. Jenny-the dumb
,
hot, crooked toothed stripper-doesn't want to hang out with me, an
d
asks Doug to take her to a bar. He kinda looks at me surprised for
a
second, and then realizes the lesson I just taught him: there is mor
e
than one way to be a good wingman. You're welcome Doug
.
Now, I assumed that when they said "a friend's house" these two girl
s
knew where the house was. And what happens when you rely on th
e
cognitive skills of 18 year old females? You get lost. After two hours o
f
riding around back country roads, we come to the sign
:

"Pavement Ends
"

Skinny Girl "Emma, do you know where we are?
"
Emma "No.
"
Skinny Girl "Tucker, do you know where we are?
"
Tucker "Is this a fucking joke? I LIVE IN CHICAGO!
"

We eventually find our way to someone's house who has beer. I
t
rained the night before, and I am drunk and bored, so I throw Emm
a
into this huge mud puddle. She doesn't take that shit, and flings
a
handful of mud at me. We wrestle and before I know it we are bot
h
covered in West Texas filth
.

Still dirty, we drive back to Doug's place and get in the shower to was
h
it off ... and then we start hooking up in the shower ... and it move
s
to the bed ... I put my hand down her panties, and feel somethin
g
gritty. I pull up and find a handful of mud. We get back in the shower
,
this time with all our clothes off ... and we start hooking up again ..
.
and move to the bed again ... and I start to fuck her ... grit again. I
n
her pussy. No matter how much we tried to clean it off, it just would no
t
all come out
.

I might as well have been fucking a dirt pile. Welcome to sex in Texas
.
Doug woke me up early the next morning, because I was going to g
o
work with him in the oil fields. He knocks on my door, opens it an
d
sees Emma in my bed
.

Doug "Shit. Get that land beast out of my house.
"
Tucker "I hope you have an elephant gun ready. You'll only get one
,
maybe two shots before she tramples us.
"

Aside from the random hookups with little girls, the really funny thin
g
about Texas are the people you meet. These are not normal people.
I
can't call them redneck, because that word implies a sub-standar
d
level of intelligence and sophistication, and that isn't really fair to thes
e
people, some of whom are very smart. I grew up in a pretty rural par
t
of Kentucky, and those people are red necks, but the Texans I me
t
weren't like that. Perhaps I should just refer to them as "country." If yo
u
ever grew up or spent time in a southern state, you know the differenc
e
between country and redneck. These are some of the people
I
met in Midland
: