Dreamland

Fort Worth Dirt

I’m visiting an art gallery in Fort Worth. I’m talking with the woman who runs the place, looking at some sculptures that are for sale. I decide to buy one, a curvy, sensual, abstract piece made of metal and polished stone. It costs $235, a bargain, I think.

I ask the proprietor if she happens to know D.B., a woman I used to hang with in my younger, wilder days. I knew D.B. in Colorado, but she was originally from this area. The last I heard she had moved back this way. She had a lot of problems back when I knew her, and was trying to escape them, using drugs and alcohol. I was hoping to hear that she had gotten her life back on track by now.

“I know her brother, the musician, he comes in here once in a while,” the proprietor tells me. ”He told me a while back her kids got sent home because she sent them to school without any shoes. The county came and took them away from her after they went to check on where they lived. She wasn’t doing nothing for those poor kids, they lived on cereal and milk while she drank up the welfare money. After they took the kids, she got evicted for not paying her rent. Her brother says D.B. is out on the streets. He tried to help her but she wouldn’t let him. He hasn’t heard from her in months now, worries that the next time he sees her will be when he gets a call from county morgue. You know it’s really a shame...”

Hearing this saddens me, but I’m not all that surprised. Once on the slippery slope, some people bottom out and climb back up. Others just keep on sliding without stopping until they find their peace in death. Kinda reminds me of that Emmylou Harris song, “Red Dirt Girl”... Some people’s lives are just so sad…

As I’m leaving, the proprietor tells me they are expanding the gallery. She opens the back door: you can see the grounds are torn up, under construction. I see large dirt piles in an area behind the fence. I ask her if I can take some of the dirt with me, to level out the horseshoe pits in the park next door to my house (they are in pretty bad shape). She says, “No, we’ll need all that dirt to finish our expansion.”

I tell her thanks anyway, and leave with my sculpture. I look at the fence on my way out, see that there is a gap near one edge. I make plans to come back tonight, after the gallery closes, and steal a couple buckets of dirt. They’ll never miss it.