Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey by William Least Heat-Moon Page B
Authors: William Least Heat-Moon
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license plates: THE NATURAL STATE. Along Route 7, whatever the natural was, it served mostly to turn a buck.
A section of mountaintop had been cut open for “America’s Largest Gated Community,” an advertising slogan Q found poorly reasoned: wouldn’t more people only increase chances of residents meeting up with those they’re trying to escape? Expressing the reverse of what we saw, another slogan for the place — “Welcome to Heaven on Earth” — suggested a paradise residing in covenants about the color of a garage door and whether it could be left open on Sunday, as well as land prices assuring that thy neighbor shall not have a portfolio significantly smaller than thine because, as we all know, inadequate negotiables are a major cause of unmowed lawns and political preferences leaning toward populist positions. Q thought a pretty good alternative covenant could be hammered out of inclusion rather than exclusion, tolerance rather than suspicion, openness rather than fear. She said, “Why not call a state penitentiary a gated community?”
I mumbled how such a degraded stretch of mountain could drive a fellow to drink, and Q, who was at the wheel and has been known to rephrase my sentences into something I can only describe as more convivial, said, “Would a fellow settle for being driven to a drink?” He would, and she did, right after we took quarters in the historic Arlington Hotel a few miles south in old, ungated Hot Springs, in the heart of what was once called the Valley of Vapors. And vaporish it was on that cool evening as we walked along Central Avenue, wedged into the hills, to follow the stream that once carried off about half-a-hundred thermal springs formerly pouring forth openly from the eastern ridge — nearly a million gallons every twenty-four hours. No longer does much of the water rise to see the light of day, piped as most of it is to somewhere else. For Indians and French trappers and hunters, and, in the last century or so, for thousands of Americans who used to arrive by train, Hot Springs has long been a place to seek the loosening of a stiff joint or cleansing of a gland or purging of a tract.
On that Monday night I needed my memory of Heaven on Earth purged or at least loosened, so we went strolling on Central, a pleasant avenue, nicely influenced by the Bathhouse Row restorations of the National Park Service. Things were quiet to the point of being shut down, and cleansing a memory took some walking past gimcrackeries: a wax museum; catchpenny shops selling photos of monkeys in sombreros, cheap incense penetrating even closed doors, primitive wall masks plasticated in Bali, stick-on tattoos, peacock feathers, mood rings, ELVIS LIVES! bumper stickers. There were emporia offering T-shirts imprinted, in the manner of our time, with various notices to answer our pressing questions: I’M WITH STUPID . Or: DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE? And one for the motorcyclist: IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THE BITCH FELL OFF.
At last we came upon the healing potation we wanted, not an analeptic of sulfur or magnesium but one of spirituous heat rising from a distiller’s craft: a jigger of hooch.
Maxine’s Coffeehouse and Puzzle Bar, we were told, was once a place where ardor got engendered not so much by spirits or thermal waters but by human flesh. Maxine, now a citizen in the City Celestial, was the author of
Call Me Madam
and the operator of an upstairs bordello. To suggest that history, hanging from the walls were various ladies’ intimates, unmentionables, and underlinens in various sizes, but every one of them crimson. Tacked to the high ceiling were smoke-stained dollar bills signed by customers as a kind of calling card. Q, expecting to be given a riddle, asked what made the place a puzzle bar, and Stevie, the bartender, set before us several little perplexities made from nails, or horseshoes, or twisted rods of steel and nickel. She said, “I’ve got more when you figure those
A section of mountaintop had been cut open for “America’s Largest Gated Community,” an advertising slogan Q found poorly reasoned: wouldn’t more people only increase chances of residents meeting up with those they’re trying to escape? Expressing the reverse of what we saw, another slogan for the place — “Welcome to Heaven on Earth” — suggested a paradise residing in covenants about the color of a garage door and whether it could be left open on Sunday, as well as land prices assuring that thy neighbor shall not have a portfolio significantly smaller than thine because, as we all know, inadequate negotiables are a major cause of unmowed lawns and political preferences leaning toward populist positions. Q thought a pretty good alternative covenant could be hammered out of inclusion rather than exclusion, tolerance rather than suspicion, openness rather than fear. She said, “Why not call a state penitentiary a gated community?”
I mumbled how such a degraded stretch of mountain could drive a fellow to drink, and Q, who was at the wheel and has been known to rephrase my sentences into something I can only describe as more convivial, said, “Would a fellow settle for being driven to a drink?” He would, and she did, right after we took quarters in the historic Arlington Hotel a few miles south in old, ungated Hot Springs, in the heart of what was once called the Valley of Vapors. And vaporish it was on that cool evening as we walked along Central Avenue, wedged into the hills, to follow the stream that once carried off about half-a-hundred thermal springs formerly pouring forth openly from the eastern ridge — nearly a million gallons every twenty-four hours. No longer does much of the water rise to see the light of day, piped as most of it is to somewhere else. For Indians and French trappers and hunters, and, in the last century or so, for thousands of Americans who used to arrive by train, Hot Springs has long been a place to seek the loosening of a stiff joint or cleansing of a gland or purging of a tract.
On that Monday night I needed my memory of Heaven on Earth purged or at least loosened, so we went strolling on Central, a pleasant avenue, nicely influenced by the Bathhouse Row restorations of the National Park Service. Things were quiet to the point of being shut down, and cleansing a memory took some walking past gimcrackeries: a wax museum; catchpenny shops selling photos of monkeys in sombreros, cheap incense penetrating even closed doors, primitive wall masks plasticated in Bali, stick-on tattoos, peacock feathers, mood rings, ELVIS LIVES! bumper stickers. There were emporia offering T-shirts imprinted, in the manner of our time, with various notices to answer our pressing questions: I’M WITH STUPID . Or: DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE? And one for the motorcyclist: IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THE BITCH FELL OFF.
At last we came upon the healing potation we wanted, not an analeptic of sulfur or magnesium but one of spirituous heat rising from a distiller’s craft: a jigger of hooch.
Maxine’s Coffeehouse and Puzzle Bar, we were told, was once a place where ardor got engendered not so much by spirits or thermal waters but by human flesh. Maxine, now a citizen in the City Celestial, was the author of
Call Me Madam
and the operator of an upstairs bordello. To suggest that history, hanging from the walls were various ladies’ intimates, unmentionables, and underlinens in various sizes, but every one of them crimson. Tacked to the high ceiling were smoke-stained dollar bills signed by customers as a kind of calling card. Q, expecting to be given a riddle, asked what made the place a puzzle bar, and Stevie, the bartender, set before us several little perplexities made from nails, or horseshoes, or twisted rods of steel and nickel. She said, “I’ve got more when you figure those
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