M2M2M Trip (20)

TWENTY

OUR KANSAS:

You can see why this is our Kansas. The Natural State is so almost immediate nothingness. Memphis suburb for a few minutes, and then flat farm land for miles-and-miles. Rice. Cotton. “One of the most polluted parts of Arkansas, this flat farm land,” Dad says. “Overfarmed?” I ask. “YEAH! (Note to reader: Dad always sounds pissed off when he talks about something he cares about, like now) year-after-year of chemicals…there’s probably not an eartthworm within miles of here.”

We stop at a gas station, near a WAL-MART. The locals inside are stereotypical Arkansas, so very Arkansas. I take a picture of a friendly guy named Emmitt. He tells us he is from Iowa. I tell him my aunt and uncle live in Iowa. He wants to get back there. We don’t blame him. He has bad teeth and smokes and is overweight and works at a gas station…and I really like him. He is as real as real can be. I like him. Dad says, “Even that ol’ boy. Not always but usually when I meet someone half-way decent acting or normal looking in Arkansas, they are from somewhere else.” “And you have spent lots of time in Arkansas, too, Dad.” “YEAH! My son lives here…He loves this place.” “Wait a minute, Dad…that girl over there is pretty hot. Definitely hot for Arkansas.” “She’s probably from Texas, son.”

“You gonna write about Emmitt?” Dale asks me. ”Definitely…I am not going to make fun of him either.” “I know you wouldn’t, honey.” ”You know, Dale, he is about twice as real as all the people I know back home. I hope he makes it back to Iowa. Those folks, like my mom’s folks from Nebraska, that whole part of the country, they are salt-of-the-earth people. One reason I wanted to go study in the Midwest this summer is I enjoy how real they are. It would be the opposite of writing about California, I guess.”

“Oh yeah, Dad. They have a shirt in there that says: ARKANSAS, Land of Opportunity.” “YEAH! They are so poor and uneducated and uncaring about things that would normally be considered…decent, that there is freedom for business and government criminals to take advantage. They don’t care if they are raped and pillaged.” I say: “They don’t know no better.”