Downtown Dallas (Final Day)

Downtown Dallas... they have a pretty good light rail system called the DART, that's what the cables and rails are for.

The hotel clerk told me yesterday that there was no public transport in Dallas but I didn't let this dissuade us from ditching our rental car. I just wanted to get rid of it so we could stop worrying about navigating any more of the labyrinthine freeways that riddle America's cities like wormy parasites in a piece of wood. That simile might sound a bit harsh, but they are truly nothing like anything we have back in Australia, and their intensity is no doubt compounded by the fact that we drive on the other side of the road.

I try to exercise an open mind when it comes to differences between the U.S. and Australia. Some things, like the differences in spelling, are rooted in each nation's history - the English colonised America in 1620, whereas the British colony in Australia wasn't founded until much later, in 1788. Things like that are a matter of history, so it shouldn't held against the Americans that they spell colour without a 'u' or say 'candy' when they mean 'lolly'. I guess I can understand the driving on the wrong side thing (Australia is in the minority when it comes to which side of the road we drive on) but, with all that said, one thing that I can't get behind is the way that gas (petrol) works over here. Here's how it goes:

1. You pull into a service station to get some gas.

2. You then have to go inside the service station and nominate the amount that you want to pay for gas, and then pay for it.

3. Then you go outside and fill your car up. The pump will stop when it gets to the amount you've nominated.

4. Then you have to go back inside if you want to add more petrol or get the excess payment refunded.

So inefficient! Do they just not trust anyone? Is it a way for gas stations to scam some extra money when people can't be bothered to go back in to get the few dollars change? I don't know, but it sure is annoying.

Anyway, Dallas. 

Skulls above store fronts are mandatory here.

The Old Red Museum in Downtown Dallas.

It's almost the same size as Sydney but way more industrialised and busy.  It turns out that there is public transport. There are trains and light rail and trolley cars, and we manage to work our way to Downtown Dallas from the airport after dropping the car off.

Got boots?

We learn from a nice couple in a western apparel shop that Texans pride themselves on being the friendliest people in America. I would say that this must be true, even the homeless guy outside the airport is unbelievably helpful - and that was after he realised we had no cash left on us. I would say, however, that some people are a little too friendly.

Mural inside western apparel store. Note the couple on the far right side... I think it's meant to depict a guy trying to remove a boot from his lady friend but at first glance it looks more like she's kicked him right in the crotch.

It starts at West End station, where I accidentally make eye contact with a guy wearing a purple pullover on the other side of the road. He nods at me and I take it as just more Texan hospitality. 

Nicole and I go into a steak house to get one of those famous Texan steaks but as we enter, Purple Pullover from the other side of the road follows us in. He hears us ask for a table and then starts talking to us about Australia and how much he'd like to visit. He claps me on the shoulder and wishes us a good visit to Dallas. 

Nothing particularly strange so far.

Later, I go to the toilet and Purple Pullover walks past me, pats me on the back and laughs, and goes back to standing at the restaurant's bar. 

When I come out of the toilet, he's at our table, talking to Nicole. He's halfway through a fairly detailed story about an Australian actor who was travelling to Perth from Sydney but then had to turn around to get back to Sydney because his audition for a part was successful. It sounds like someone he knows, because he talks about his sadness at this young man's passing. It's only towards the end of the story that I realise he's talking about Heath Ledger. 

Did he know Ledger personally? He talks about Ledger's young daughter as if he does, so I figure he might know the family. I listen intently as he goes on some more.

Nope. He doesn't know them at all. He's just told us the story of Heath Ledger because we're Australians. Maybe I should tell him about Johnny Depp. He rubs my shoulders a bit more before going back to the bar.

Purple Pullover chatting to Nicole. I almost didn't return to the table and briefly considered waiting for her at the airport for two days.

"Does he work here?" Nicole asks the waiter.

The waiter is confused, "Who?" We point the guy out, standing at the bar in his purple pullover. The waiter barks out a short, sharp laugh, "No". 

As we leave, Purple Pullover follows us out. It doesn't appear that he came into the restaurant for anything. He just stood at the bar the whole time we ate. That's weird, right? Once we're outside he sort of stands around a little distance away from us, as if he's deciding where he should go.

Nicole finds it hilarious that he kept grabbing or patting my shoulders but I'm starting to get a little unnerved by him. We start walking down the street and he follows, but then we change direction sharply and go into a store when he isn't looking directly at us. I watch him through the window to see what he does. He looks confused in the street, unsure where we went. I tell Nicole to take as long in the store as she wants.

The book depository from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. The window in question is the only one half-open, far right and second row from the top.

Coming to Dallas isn't completely random for me. As a bit of a history nerd I was motivated to visit because I wanted to see the Texas School Book Depository and the site of John F. Kennedy's assassination. 

The book depository is now known as the Sixth Floor Museum, an educational experience centred around JFK's political career and death. It's one of those museums where you get headphones and an audio handset that explains each exhibit. I haven't experienced this before but I thought it was great... just the sight of a hundred people spread throughout the museum, standing in front of each section, listening to their handsets in relative silence... it's sombre and moving. There's a suitable dignity to it, and it grips you and holds you to each section - demanding your attention for a pre-set amount of time. More than once I found myself forced to consider the context of the photos in front of me, what it would be like to be there; to be in Jackie Kennedy's shoes as she stood next to Lyndon B. Johnson while he was sworn in as President- only a few minutes after her husband was declared dead. 

To stand just a few metres from that window and see the same view down onto Dealey Plaza that Lee Harvey Oswald had as he shot Kennedy. It's... indescribable. I literally don't have a single all-encompassing word for the way it makes me feel. This is such a big part of history... not just American history, it's world history. Kennedy's presidency was such a focal point for prominent issues in the early 1960s - the Cold War, the space race, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the clash between the right and the left in both the public and political spheres. His assassination and the resulting discrepancies that have led to accusations of conspiracy are an ongoing zeitgeist of our times. 

Photos on the sixth floor aren't allowed, however, I was able to get this pic from the floor above.

Even more than fifty years later, there's a kind of power in standing down by the street where he was killed. People flit about the plaza like bees; photographing, absorbing, reflecting. 

View from the grassy knoll. The quote on the huge plaque is from the unspoken speech that JFK would have given if he had made it through Dealey Plaza alive.

X marks the spot where the fatal headshot killed the President. Click to enlarge.

I'm not completely sure if this guy was a conspiracy nut or not, but he had his only little ramshackle stand and group of onlookers, which certainly supports such a possibility.

Plaque outside the Sixth Floor Museum. Note the emphatic underlining of the word 'allegedly'. Despite this apparent vitriol, the museum is actually pretty accommodating and balanced when it comes to the conspiracies and inadequacies surrounding the investigation into JFK's death.

Coming back to the hotel we catch our first taxi in America. There are two in the front, and I'm unsure if they're a bickering couple or just father and daughter. Initiating conversation with them seems a little difficult at first, Nicole asks if they live in the area and the driver replies with a very stoic "Yep". At a few points the woman lights up and engages with us in an upbeat fashion, but every now and again they also speak to each other in hushed, strained tones. 

Nicole and I note various fast food chains as we drive past them.

The driver says quietly to the woman, "What are they saying?"

She snaps back at him quietly, "I'm not gonna listen, that's dishonest".

They argue about whether a three-wheeled motorcycle is a trike or not. He tells her that she can't drive, and she replies back, "You don't know what I can do". He seems quietly exasperated and grouchy, "What am I gonna do with you?" and she is all sass, "You aint gonna do with nothing with me!" Then she turns the music up really loud so we can all appreciate a female rapper proudly referencing how empowered she is in terms of what she's willing to do in the bedroom.

It's a perfectly odd and entertaining way to end our visit to America. 

More Bible Belt shenanigans.

If I had to get figurative and compare the country to a fruit, I would say that the United States is like a pomegranate. Firm on the outside and seemingly uninviting, but filled with a seemingly endless array of gem-like seeds of experience, each one separate from the other. There are so many different facets to America - the 50 states each have their own character, but within that there are other forces at play. 

There are the indigenous tribes who have walked the land for their own eternity, and there are the conflicting Spanish and English histories of colonisation that intermingle and lay on top of one another. There's the American story of immigration, and the Revolutionary and Civil Wars that led to the modern nation we all know today. There's 9/11 and the War on Terror, which have shaped the country in the 21st century with its retro rhetoric of freedom and independence. There's the narratives of industry, capitalism and progress that have crafted a world wide super power. And then there's the quieter story of the decaying places that inhabit the great dustbowl between the cities, dwindling towns relegated to pockets of history that have been left behind by the huge interstate highways - a network of long sterile roads that bring the two coasts closer to one another at the expense of the folk in between. 

Even after we drove 4200 kilometres in two weeks, we still only covered parts of six states: a small segment of central California, a lonely stretch across Nevada, the picturesque south-western corner of Utah, parts of Arizona that we've built a familiarity with due to our previous visiting, the great unpopulated desert wilderness of New Mexico, and the continuously growing industry of eastern Texas. 

Train to the outskirts of Dallas, painted lovingly in the Texan flag.

I could see so much more. 

This was my second visit, and Nicole's third. Previously we'd only visited southern Califonia, lots of Arizona and a really small part of Utah. If I was to visit again I'd like to try to visit at least another six states but it's hard to fit that much in to just under two weeks. The people here are fantastic (well, to these two Australians, at least) and there is so much to see. I can't put my finger on particular highlights but what I'm gladdest of is the opportunity to walk the roads left by America's powerful history... to see Alcatraz, Chinatown in San Francisco, to revisit the Navajo Reservation and to see the seemingly ageless Zuni and Acoma pueblos even if just from afar, and to interact with the conspiracies that refuse to leave our consciousness - JFK, Roswell, Area 51. 

If there's one thing America is good at, it's mythmaking. Whilst we were in New Mexico, I noted some of the language used on the plaques about the area's history. The Spanish are referred to as 'conquerors', but Americans are 'pioneers'. It's true that history is written by the winners, but there's a real talent in this nation's ability to craft such a strong yet complex historical narrative that seemingly has the power to perpetuate itself. There's nothing official or endorsed about the histories we've born witness to here, they emerge from the people we speak to as if they were living entities.

I will miss it.