I quickly made a couple of phone calls and managed to buy some land just north of HE Butt foundation property along Highway 83. The land was over priced the rancher wanted a truck but darn this was a dream and I was doing everything I could to chase. It was just inside Real County. I would have enough space to build a landing strip of about 1800 feet in length a parking lot and the café. I got the name of well driller who would do the work as well as the phone number for an installer of a septic system that would not pollute the Frio.

The following 6 weeks were a clash of emotions as I attended 3 graduations. The last remnants of an empire were fading. There was the contradiction of drinking deep knowing that the sweet taste would be gone. Our friendships were like doomed grand empires built with the clock mercilessly running out we knew it and we worked on them more furiously because of that fact they were doomed out of youthful spite. While at my sister's over in Boston where I scrounged ideas for the place at the Grendel's den near Harvard. This is what I wanted the café to be somewhat like. I said good bye to my friends the TAMs freaks looking back we were part of a pre-designed shotgun shell and we were leaving the barrel to our assigned spots through the modified choke of Denton. That night at The Cracker Barrel sipping coffee and talking is a fond memory. I went back to Hotel Unicorn where I bragged about the empire I had built and I faced the fact I would have rather built the empire in the blue and white. I felt awkward part of the class yet different. It once was my class but now I was an outsider and the fact cut the very heart of me. I guess I had become big city sophisticated even though I hated the intense culture war and the isolation that could me found in many places of the DFW metroplex. The contradictions and sharp edges were seen now in the sharp white light of wisdom. I also realized that my standards of cheesiness and insincerity plunged the speech from the salutatorian busted my cheese meter it whole lot or art with maybe a shred or 2 of meaning. I was disgusted by it. I was just shocked I was surprised by cheese within it. I knew the person giving the speech and well it was par for the course with him it had been that way for the last seven years. I felt a hint of accomplishment when I heard the speech. I had escaped and done something better and built something better. The rebel's dream of New Braunfels High School of sincerity was realized three hundred miles away in Denton.

Finally came my graduation and well I was the rock in Bob Seeger's song. My steps were, "quick and light" and "I held firmly to what I thought was right." We had bonded as class and the farewells were hard to come by. From the $500 wall clocks that were in our classrooms a Jesus Freak hanging with agnostics atheists and post modernists I was close to them. Our class unity was forged as we had one our own raped and murdered. That wound cut deep within our collective conscience and blood was still oozing from it. Now it was time to go our separate ways. That night a grad nite 2 people who had left our class early hung around. One to college early the other to Oklahoma. I gave one a fair distance. We were never close. I was this storm that came roaring from the hills of Texas and reformed again packing more passion that intellect barely contained or guided. I felt her pain and understood her awkwardness. One side of me wanted to antagonize her arrogance but 1 look in her face and I realized I felt that way a week before in New Braunfels. Being a part of a class while not being a part of class was one heck of an awkward position to be in. It was not comfortable and in more than one way it was sad. She felt towards Denton as I felt towards New Braunfels. I could not help but leave her alone. The chapter in my life that dealt with Unicorn pride would always be left unended with pain like blood seeping from the final paragraph.  Like a raging storm it was all over with and the dreams we once talked about had to be pursued in the real world.

The following day I slept in and went down to for ground school at Delta Aeronautics I was going to get my pilot's license before the end of the summer as well as building my café. I absorbed a couple chapters worth of material and then I headed for home. As I drove back to Denton I could feel the restlessness about the café and I wanted just the get out of the big city.

That night I packed up the "tan turd" my trusty 82 Mercury Lynx hatch back and made contact with the property owner for payment deed transfer. He got his new Ford pickup and I got my ticket out of the metroplex out of the deal. That area was hardly grazed by cattle anyway. I decided to take 20 west out of DFW and shoot down 281 just to avoid the game of chicken that was the I-35 corridor.

My alarm jarred me out of bed at 6 o'clock. I showered and went out to the car and began my escape run. I think I shouted for joy as I climbed in the car. It turned over quickly and as I made my 1st turn out of the driveway for my journey. I slid in Billy Joel's "Piano Man" into my new CD player and turned on the vent as I got on 35. The 4-cylinder engine howled as kicked the pedal to the floor and it tried to desperately to accelerate the steep on ramp to I-35E northwest bound. My play list for the CD had been customized 1st starting off with the 1st 2 tracks"Travelers Prayer" and"Piano Man" followed by "Ballad Of Billy The Kid" and"Somewhere Along The Line"for the most part it was great music for a young man. The music aside from Piano Man was full of hope. It was shameless seventy's romanticism of the West. In other words perfect fair. I was trying come across a long forgotten heading. It took me to just south Alliance airport and the sun was beginning to rise in the east. I slid in Billy Joel's "River Of Dreams" and sang out"No Mans Land" as the car was flying in the predawn darkness of 35 it was somewhat of a release. "No Mans Land" was a scream against everything I detested in DFW and I screamed right along with it. I sang with full fury,"Give us this our daily discount outlet merchandise raise up a multiplex and we shall make a sacrifice!" A hint of the tons of tension was released into the predawn darkness. Following that CD I slid in some music from Gordon Lightfoot. I was happy I had found a Gord's Gold CD I could not help but admit I was an old folkie at heart. The CD took me the 820 interchange. The songs had lost some of their edge my speedometer pegged at 70. I harking to the major event after my birth also put Summer Time Dream to listen to "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" the electric guitar was powerfully haunting. I was free as bird as I drove and I could not help but savor that fact. The car had slid to north Carswell AFB. I started crying a bit as the car headed for interstate 20 westbound putting a mile behind it every minute the little 4 cylinders working up a good sweat. Once I hit 20 and accelerated back up 70 miles per hour putting the lash to turd as Pink Floyd echoed through the car. "The Division Bell" was slow album lacking power when stacked up to"The Wall"there were still many a haunting song on it. The CD took me off Interstate 20 and on to Stephenville. I was still in a Pink Floyd type mood and while I slid in "Delicate Sound Of Thunder." I was rolling down the backbone of Texas my eyes seeing the beauty my heart failing to understand and the brain remembering there should have been some kind of emotional response. There were hills,valleys and vistas my eyes saw but my heart failed to comprehend. I was haunted by the memory of once upon a time seeing the same beauty and being moved by it. That time though seemed long ago. The heart still trying running madly away from the metroplex even the body was a good distance away well beyond the transition zone. I rolled through Burnet without a notice and I decided to fill up a Johnson City after I turned onto 290 west. I was still burning up the highway only aware of numbness to the beauty that was all around me. At Johnson City I fueled at a Citgo with Bar-B-Que place and store. I left a wake of mild hostility rushing in rushing out in silence only using the bathroom and buying some Gatorade. I was wearing the DFW metroplex like bad body odor. The place had dark wood paneling from seventies and gas was expensive yet the service was friendly and one could almost sense that they were living life according to a different backbeat. Once upon a time I understood the backbeat. The memory only added to the tension. I shot through the Valley of the Perdinales over the ridge between the Valley's of the Gaudalupe and Perdinales and into Kerrville for a final top off. I went on Interstate 10 till it hit highway 27 and on 27 I rode the top of Edwards Plateau oblivious to it all. I was losing just a hair of tension but still I was wound tighter then some watch springs. The ground was rocky all around small canyons were visible on either side of the road as Cedar trees dotted the landscape mingling with light green wire grass. I was on top of this part of Texas.