Neighbor Talk
ALICE stood in the front yard of the furnished house she had rented sight unseen before leaving Tallahassee, a Waxahachie gingerbread belonging to an SSC physicist who had gone on leave for two months to organize a summer physics workshop in Aspen, Colorado. She liked the house; after three years in a small apartment, she enjoyed the extra space. It was turning out to be a pleasant environment for her writing, too.
She held her notebook in one hand, surveying the roof line of the house for sagging gutters or loose shingles. She had heard about the sometimes spectacular weather patterns of central Texas and did not want any roof-leak water on her computer equipment and papers. The house, however, appeared to be in good condition.
“He’p you ma’am?”
Alice turned and saw a man leaning on the white picket fence that separated her house from the one next door. He was about her age, tall and slim, his pleasant face crowned with a shock of unruly white-blonde hair.
She smiled. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Alice Lang. I’m a writer. I’ve rented this house for two months. Are we neighbors?”
“Sure are, ma’am,” the man said. “I’m Whitey Buford.” He indicated the building behind him. “I was born in that there house, and m’ Grandma and I still live here. I’m a master electrician. Been workin’ at the Super Collider for the last few years.”
Alice looked at him with interest. He wore soft jeans and a western shirt. He held himself like someone in a Frederick Remington painting, and his speech pattern was a distillation of the local Texas dialect she’d been immersed in since her arrival. She noticed that his pale blue eyes had a hidden glint of sharp intelligence. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mr. Buford. I’m doing a story for Search magazine about the people who work at the SSC. I’d like very much to interview you for my story.” She meant it. In the past she’d gotten some of her best material from smart folksy locals, and Whitey seemed to be another one.
“Call me Whitey, ma’am. Everybody does,” He looked suddenly shy. “Don’t know what I could tell you, though, compared to all those scientists out at the site. They’re the ones that know what’s goin’ on. They tell me what needs to be done, and I do it.”
Alice nodded. She had planned to see more of the Laboratory before she began interviewing the Waxahachie townspeople, but Whitey was a source worth cultivating. “So, Whitey,” she said, “you’re from around here. What are the good restaurants in the area? You know, where one might go for a special occasion?”
Whitey stroked his sideburn. “Well, now,” he said, “there’s the Texas Choice Steakhouse on the left side of Interstate 35 north o’ town near De Soto. They have pretty good steaks and barbecue. The K-Bob Steakhouse in town ain’t bad, neither. It’s part of a chain. The little Cafe on the Square has real good chicken-fried steak. And that fancy restaurant at the Denim Ranch Inn is supposed to be good. Never been there, myself.
“Course, if you want the real fancy eatin’ round here, you have to drive up to Dallas. There’s just no end to how much money you can spend on food up in Dallas. They have cooks there that came from France and waiters that wear those tuxedo suits, like they was in a weddin’ or a funeral. Saw a friend of mine in the oil bidness pay two hundred dollars for a bottle of wine once in Dallas. For wine! Can you feature that, Ma’am?”
Alice shook her head in mock-incredulity, thinking of the special bottle of ‘82 Chateau Margaux still lying within its protective wrappings in a box in her living room. She paused. “And what’s a good place for having a few drinks and perhaps some dancing? Know any good places for that?”
Whitey looked at her appraisingly. Then he smiled slyly. “Well, Ma’am, you have to understand that you’ve plunked yourself smack in the middle of Dry Country here. There’s lots’a Hardshell Baptists in these parts who don’t take to drinkin’, except maybe behind the door, and who don’t want nobody else drinkin’ neither. And that goes for dancin’ too. But it’s a free country, you know, and everybody understands that, so around here we have what’s called the Local Option.”
Alice blinked. Yesterday she’d been at a nice restaurant in Dallas that sold wine and mixed drinks, and she hadn’t noticed anything unusual about it. “How does that work?” she asked.
“Well, ma’am, any votin’ unit ...”
“Wait, Whitey,” she interrupted, “what’s a voting unit?”
“You know, like a city, or a county, or a town, or a local improvement district. Any group of a few dozen folks that live in the same area and know how to do the paper work. A votin’ unit can pass their own liquor laws. Make it wide open, or tee-totally dry, or anything in between. Mostly in these parts, ‘though, they’re either completely dry or they just allow drinkin’ at private clubs.”
“What’s a private club?” Alice asked. “You mean like the Elks or the Moose or some country club?”
“Well, there’s them,” Whitey nodded, “but there’s also the little ones out in the country and the ones that the restaurants run. Like, say, you was up at the Texas Choice Steakhouse up on the Interstate, and maybe you wanted to have a nice cold bottle of Lone Star with your dinner?”
Alice nodded.
“Well, real sorry, Ma’am, you just couldn’t have it. It’d be against the Law. But suppose you told the waiter you had a mind to join their private club, and you paid him five dollars? Then he’d write your name on a little membership card that’d be good for a year and give it to you, and then it’d be OK. You could have your cold beer and buy one for your friends too. They’d be your ‘guests’ at your ‘club’, y’see? That’s the way it works ‘round here.”
Alice closed her mouth, which had been gaping open. “Why, that’s simply incredible!” she said. “They make laws against drinking alcohol, and then they leave huge loopholes so anyone can get around them for five dollars. Why would the voters put up with such a stupid hypocritical system?”
Whitey grinned. “Cause they like it, Ma’am,” he said. “The Hardshells like it cause they’ve voted against drinkin’, just like their ol’ preacher told ‘em to last Sunday. The restaurants like it cause they get their membership fees, and their club members keep on comin’ back again and again once they’ve joined. And the drinkin’ folks like it cause they get their beer, and it’s kind’a exclusive and high-tone, you know, belongin’ to a private club? So everybody’s just as happy as pigs in shee-it. And the out’a state folks that are just passin’ by on the Interstate, well, they pay their five dollars, and they don’t vote anyhow. Ya’ understand, Ma’am?”
“You should call me Alice, Whitey. Ma’am sounds like my grandmother. I wonder how the physicists and engineers at the SSC like it,” she said.
“Not very damn much,” said Whitey. “They complain a lot. But then, they don’t have no votin’ unit, Miss Alice, so it don’t matter.”
Alice thought about that while she made notes.
“As for the dancin’,” Whitey continued, “there’s the Gaslight Inn up toward Dallas, but there’s mostly just kids there, and anyhow the music’s too damn loud. Maybe you’d like P.J.’s better.”
“P.J.’s? What’s that?” asked Alice.
“It’s a little private club, what you might call a waterin’ spot,” said Whitey. “It’s in a kind’a trailer near the north end of the ring, over by Palmer. P. J. is the lady that runs it. She’s got a juke box and places where you can sit indoors or outdoors and have an ice cold beer, and there’s a little dance floor, too. The local folks like it, and some of the SSC people go there, too. Has what you might call ‘local color’. There’s lots of little beer joints like it all over the county, but I kind’a like P.J.’s best. It really jumps on Friday and Saturday nights. They’s a few fights, now and then, but they don’t amount to much.”
“That sounds interesting,” said Alice noncommittally, wondering how many trucks were found in ditches near P.J.’s on Sunday morning. “Perhaps I’ll try it sometime.”
Whitey looked at her inquiringly, his eyebrows raised.
“Sometime when I’m not so busy,” she added. She was quiet for a while as she wrote rapid notes. Then she turned to a fresh page in her notebook. “Whitey, when they were first building the SSC, there were some news stories about the problems with imported fire ants. Are they still a problem?”
“Hope ta’ tell ya they are,” said Whitey. “Those damn little bugs are the ruination of Texas. Get into ever’thang. When my Daddy was in the oil bidness, he had no end of trouble with them damn fire ants. He’d set up to drill a well and bring in his trailer and equipment. If he put the trailer over a fire ant mound, the things ‘ud start chewin into the trailer insulation, then they’d get into the wiring and the plumbing. The next thing you know, you’d wake up with fire ants in the damn bed with you.”
“Can’t you spray them or something?” asked Alice.
“They sell lots of sprays around here, there’s long shelves full of ‘em at the stores, but they just don’t do much to fire ants,” Whitey answered. “I think they’re protected by the EPA or somethin. When Daddy was drillin’ a well, ever once in a while he’d drive down to Mexico and buy some insecticides down there that would kill the damn things. Was against some damn law, but it sure as hell killed the fire ants.”
“Can’t the Texas Government do something?” asked Alice. “With all the genetic engineering and biotechnology, I would have thought they could deal with a few ants.”
“The Texas Department of Agriculture has sure tried,” said Whitey. “Still tryin’, I guess. They got them bug scientists over at Texas A&M University to raise some fire ants of their own, and they fixed those boy-ants to make ‘em, you know, impotent?”
“You mean sterile,” said Alice, suppressing a smile.
“Yes’m, sterile, I guess. Anyhow, they turned thousands of ‘em loose when the fire ant queens was supposed to be, you know, a-swarmin’.” He grinned. “But it didn’t do no good. Guess they couldn’t fool them queens with impotent boy-ants. There’s as many fire ants as ever.”
Alice scribbled in her notebook. “Do they ever get into the equipment at the SSC?” she asked.
“Well, they sometimes get into our wirin’ in the surface buildings. Lot’sa relays and contactors and transformers have burned up because of the damn fire ants. Keeps me busy fixin’ ‘em. Now the SSC has a whole crew of bug experts that goes around in special bug-proof suits, spraying ‘em and digging ‘em outa the ground.
“But the big ring is way down under the ground, two or three hundred feet down there, and them ants don’t like to dig down that far. Oh, sometimes they crawl down a conduit pipe or something, but it don’t amount to much. Never caused any real problems down in the ring tunnels.”
Alice nodded. “Thanks, Whitey,” she said. “I have to go do some unpacking now. I really appreciate the information. Hope I’ll see you again soon.” She gave him a big smile.
Tonight after dinner, she decided, she was going to write another scene for F as in Fire Ants before going to sleep. She looked back at Whitey and smiled as she climbed her porch steps. He’s going to make a very good character for the book, she thought.