Durant, OK

I know where the police station is in Durant. I also know where the jailhouse is. And the phone number of the nearest bail-bondsman (who is the guy you contact to raise the bail to get you out of the jailhouse). This is much more information than I really need about a place that is, after all, merely a rather unpleasant blot on the Oklahoman landscape.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

The waiter at breakfast told me there was an outlet mall in Allen, about 45 minutes north of here on Route 75, so I thought it might be worth a trip for some last minute shopping before I return tomorrow. So, after breakfast, I jumped into my shiny red Pontiac Grand Am (quite a poky little beast, even though, as you know, I don’t worry about such things; and anyway, red doesn’t really suit me). As I headed north on the highway, an idle thought crossed my mind that it would be nice to just keep driving to see where I finished up, maybe thousands of miles later. I’ve had these thoughts before, and one day I’ll do it, just because I can. It’s the sort of thing you can do here that’s just not possible in England, because you hit road-works, or Barnstaple, or some other annoying obstacle. Ever since I read Jack Kerouac in my early twenties I’ve had a hankering to be a hobo (just for a while, you understand – not on a permanent basis), and, of course, the modern equivalent of that is to drive across an entire continent. Ideally, this should be on a Harley, but at my age, practicality cuts in rather rudely to remind me that creature comforts are now more important than image.

But I digress. I didn’t just keep driving after all, and stopped at the mall, where I spent an enjoyable hour. By then it was still only noon, so I decided to get back onto Route 75 and head north, for no particular reason. Not very much time had passed before I saw a woman hitching a ride on the side of the road. I know I shouldn’t do this sort of thing – everybody tells me that – but I just can’t help myself. She was pleasant enough, mid-forties, I’d say, and one-third Choctaw Indian. Brenda (not a Choctaw name, I suspect – well, actually, I know, because I asked her; she must have thought I was a total idiot) was heading back home to Durant, Oklahoma, which was about 45 minutes away. I said I wasn’t going anywhere in particular, so I’d drive her home. And in case it has crossed your mind, as it did mine, it's genetically impossible to be one-third anything.

Naturally, I asked her what she’d been doing in Texas. Apparently, she has an abusive husband. Last night he’d got drunk, dragged her out of the house and beat her up (she had the bruises to prove it), and so she’d called the police, had him arrested, and gone to her sister’s in Texas. Now she was trying to get home, but had no transport and no money. I refused her requests to buy her first cigarettes, and then a diet Coke. I told her I was happy to give her a ride, but that was where it stopped.

We crossed the Red River into Oklahoma’s Chickasaw Nation, and soon pulled into Durant, and she asked if I’d stop by her sister-in-law’s first, because that was where she thought her husband would be after being released from police custody. We stopped by a trailer that was so dilapidated that the only thing that stopped it falling down was the variety of broken-down cars on cinder blocks that surrounded the place, propping it up. There were three rather large guys outside, none of which was her husband; small children somewhere, judging from the toys littering the yard; and her sister-in-law inside, to whom she spoke through the window. I kept the car engine running, just in case.

It seems her husband was still in jail, and she was now struck with remorse, because she really did love him, and wanted to get him out of jail. So would I take her over to the police station? Don’t ask. I did. The police were not very cooperative, this being Sunday, and told her to go over to the jailhouse and speak to them. She got back in the car, and told me what the police had said, in spite of her telling them she wanted to drop all charges, and that she was now back on her medication again. Errrrm … medication? I didn’t ask – the important thing was that she was back on it, whatever it was, and I thought I’d rather not know which variety of currently-suppressed lunatic I might have in the car.

I’m torn here. On the one hand, I want to find out how you go about getting someone out of jail; on the other, since they don’t have any transport, I’m not overly happy about having a medicated woman and her wife-beating husband in the same car as me. Still, I keep my cool, and we go to the jailhouse. They’re not cooperative either, and we have to find a bail-bondsman who will put up the money to get her husband out. Despite offering a “24-hour” service, it seems that Sundays are usually excluded. I know this story seems to be going on a long time, but I’m cutting big chunks out, as we ride backwards and forwards between the police station, the jailhouse and the local gas-station, where she can use the pay-phone to call several bail-bondsman. Note that, at no time during the entire episode, did I leave the car, turn off the engine, or unlock the doors for longer than it took for her to get in and out. I’m not as stupid as I look.

All is to no avail in the end, and she can do nothing until Monday morning. She’s practically in tears as I drive her to her home. I use the word “home” in the loosest possible sense. We enter a neighborhood where I’m, for once, very glad that the car doors lock automatically as soon as you start moving. And here is the sad part. She lives in a trailer almost indistinguishable from her sister-in-law’s, except that it’s at the end of a long street full of trailers, all in an equal state of disrepair. I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to live in such conditions, with no transport, no job, and no money except for the meager amount supplied by social security. And I wonder if, under similar conditions, I might be a wife-beating drunk. I hope not, and hope never to find out.

Heading back down Route 75, I stopped at “Dickey’s Barbecue Pit” for a beef sandwich and a medium sweet iced tea. I know what “medium” means in England; in Texas, it means a pint. And I know I’ve said this before, but Texas barbecue is absolutely the best. Probably half a pound of tender, slow-barbecued beef, smothered with barbecue sauce, on a hamburger bun. It’s difficult to suppress a “Yeehaw!” as you take the first succulent mouthful.

I drove through a sudden violent storm, where even the windshield wipers at full speed can’t keep up, and the thunder was deafening. But it was brief, and as I came out the other side into the sun again, there was a wonderful rainbow arcing across the sky. And I couldn’t help wondering if, when Brenda saw a rainbow, she saw the same as me, or whether she saw something else that was forever just out of reach.