Bob Bell's Hitching Across America - Reaching Jackson Hole 1980

June 1980  Honky Tonkin’ in Jackson, Wyoming

If I had randomly parachuted from a passing plane and had landed in Jackson, I would have thought I had arrived on a Wild West movie set. Small town storefronts, feed stores, little hotels, wooden sidewalks under canopies extending to the edges of the street, all was in perfect cowboy order - only things missing were dirt roads, horses, wagons and gunfire. Most of the men wore western attire, blue jeans, Stetson hats, big buckled belts but absent the holstered 45, and some even had that squinty look that a lifetime of living in the sun engenders.

Mountains loomed to the south, east and west, while northward stretched Jackson Hole - “Hole” being a delightfully anachronistic word for a valley. The Teton Range towered in the distance, its snowy grandeur defining the place geographically and economically - a magnet for skiers - and hour or so away was Yellowstone, Old Faithful, and dozens more old geysers.

It being June, the snow crowd was long gone, but summer tourists, here to explore the national parks, wandered the main drag, peering into shop windows, drinking coffee and munching on burgers in small cafes. I sat at the table of one of them, watching the action, hearing snatches of conversation. “Say, Harry, whaddya mean it’s time she grew up? She’s all of twenny two, she’s a damn woman now…” and Harry mumbles back, mouth full of burger and cheese, crumbs sticking to his moustache, “For Chrissake, Joan, ya know what the hell I mean,” the following words drowned out by the roar of two Harleys growling up the street, incongruously ridden by elderly couples clad in new shiny leathers, dark glasses, blue-tinted hair peeking out from under the helmets of the pillion riders. 

The roar diminished and Harry and Joan continued bickering. A young couple sat themselves down at the table next to mine, obviously tourists and just as obviously not Americans. They sounded German, and ordered milkshakes in accented English, and after the waitress left resumed their conversation in their native tongue, smiling at each other between sentences and playfully touching each other, laughing, and so plainly very much in love. And yet would they, in twenny years, be like Harry and Joan? Would that joy and love, affection and wonder slowly turn, under the pressures of parenthood, rent-paying food providing horrible job enduring, into sniping, bitching nagging disputing you just continually get on my fucking nerves all the time lives?

Harry and Joan split, their table taken by two very old couples, one woman in a wheelchair, the other with a walker and the two old gents with canes which they hung from the backs of their chairs. One of the guys wore a faded old light blue western suit, bolero tie and all, and the other was in jeans and checked shirt, the collar frayed. Both had on cowboy boots, scuffed and beat. Their hats a little on the slightly battered side of looking almost new, a wee bit too sweat-stained to be called clean. Their wives wore pants, the polyester shining in places, and their hats, in rebuke to their husbands, looked clean and new. The women ordered coffees, the men discussed the possibility of beer, but I heard the words ‘damn prostrate makes me pee so much’ and they settled on sodas. They were at ease with each other, lifetimes of sharing troubles and joys bringing them to a state of wry amusement at life's foibles, its unpredictability so constant that the only reliability was unreliability itself, and that every hurdle and disruption was nothing but another punchline in the continuing joke of being alive. I watched them with a smiling respect, four old buddha natures joshing each other between turning up their hearing aids and squinting through thick-lensed glasses at the menu. One of them, the guy in the blue suit, started to tell a story, and the others leant forward intent on catching every word. Blue Suit was obviously a wit because although I could not hear him over the clatter and mayhem of the cafe, I could see him finish a sentence and cock one eyebrow, eyes twinkling and his mouth on the cusp of a smile, and the others looked at one another laughing, shaking their heads in disbelief, and then leaning forward again for the next instalment. 

And so went the afternoon. I finished my meal, drained my last coffee refill, paid the tab and wandered back onto the street. Early afternoon, and I didn’t have the energy nor the will to be out on the road, and so spent the rest of the day exploring this western town, bought a bunch of postcards, and ended back at the little cafe for coffee and a place to write my cards.

Come the evening, I found a bar, ordered a draught beer, took a seat in the corner and took in the clientele. A mixed crowd,  a few looked like tourists, but the majority had that undefinable local flavour. Probably around thirty, thirty-five in all, a few moving around the wooden floor, others clumped at the bar, some in booths. It was around six-thirty, and most were probably there to have a couple before going home after work. The jukebox in the corner pumped out a mixture of oldies and country tunes, and a couple desultorily danced, laughing as they mangled the time, stepping on each other's feet, not really listening to the music, but more to each other as the guy told some long and interminable story, miming with a long face what someone, his boss maybe, had said to him earlier that day. Now and then he’d just stop dancing altogether, to make a particular point, and she’d bend over laughing, and then reach for her beer sitting an arm's length away on the bar. 

Two elderly men, grizzled looking and kinda raggedy, sat at the far end of the bar deep in discussion. The subject matter was grave, their faces serious and questioning, they pulled long and hard on their cigarettes, expelling the smoke in long slow blows, that very act being the prelude to the next deep and considered statement, the incubator as it were, of the ensuing well-formed thought, nicotine the drug at work. Next to them, oblivious to the adjoining gravitas, two young men shouted at each other reliving some recent act of derring-do, slapping their knees at each recall, young laughter etched on their faces, downing beer after beer, unconscious of the fact that this was how their lives would unfold for year after year, drinking at the bar, the escapades more desperate, the humour becoming increasingly bitter. It was easy to look at all this madness going on and to project possible futures for all these people. The two grizzled old guys … what lay in store for them? Was their greyness of face the vanguard of coming cancer? Were they to spend their final days wan and pale, coughing up blood in forgotten rooms, the shades pulled down, lost in the shadows, phlegmatic and groaning? And the couple dancing … what was their story? Were they a real couple, or workmates just relaxing after another day at the store? Would their dancing tighten up with a slow one, pulling each other closer as The Flamingo’s sung ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’? 

And sure enough it did, for in all honesty, who the hell could not be moved by the exquisite production of that recording, its ethereal reverb resonating across the bar, momentarily hushing the crowd. They leaned into each other, her face buried in his neck, his hand in the small of her back, and they slowly and sensuously described lazy circles on the floor, their feet dragging to the beat, lost in the sound. The two ancient guys, unaware of their impending doom, continued their somber discourse. The young bucks had been joined by two more young men, equally exuberant, equally loud, equally enthusiastic for life, lived right now, right here in this bar with this here beer and this here whiskey chaser.

It was now around seven-thirty. The size of the crowd was around the same. Many of the early birds had left, domestic obligations calling and had been replaced by what looked to be a more professional drinking type, mostly in their twenties and thirties sprinkled here and there by hardened old-timers and blowsy barflies. The noise level increased as people shouted over the jukebox, the laughter of the folks next to them, the endless clinking of glasses and shouts of ‘Hey, Barkeep!’ and the inevitable uproar, hubbub, bedlam, disorder, commotion, tumult, racket, clamour and blare that occur at the nexus of people, alcohol, and music. Shouts of recognition, embracing of friends long unseen, cracking of jokes, greetings hollered the length of the bar, guffaws of manic laughter by the dozen, giggles by the score, odd Tarzan like cries from a huge fellow in a red lumber jacket. The noise was deafening but was defined by a mad joy. Everyone was everyone’s friend. Even the grizzled pair had grins on their faces now, the previous somberness banished. Five or six couples were dancing to Fats Domino’s ‘Blue Monday’, Fats’ right hand hammering out triplets like there was no tomorrow, and those saxes churning and groaning in orgiastic New Orleans ecstasy.

And then old Hank his own self comes on the box, grinning and winking ‘Hey Good Lookin’' and the floor fills again, folks two-stepping faces alight with pleasure, for old Hank never fails to spark that spark, never fails to connect, his humanity shining through.

And so the night went on. At some point I looked over the bar and spied Harry and Joan. Now they were lit up with smiles and good humour, and a certain amount of red wine by the look of the glasses they were toasting one another with. The noise ebbed and flowed, the crowd thickened and then pulled apart, we were all like some crazy roux that was being forever stirred, thickened and then thinned down again. Harry and Joan took the dance floor as Ernest Tubb’s ‘Walking The Floor Over You’ came on, and a fine pair they made too. They knew each other's moves, they knew the tune, and they beat out the time with an ease and confidence it did one good to witness. They were good and they knew it, and so did the crowd, shouting out encouragement interspersed with ’That’s Right!’ and 'Ooo Wee!’. Some fine and dandy high steppin’ indeed.

The song ended and the two returned to the bar, passing a pair of women who looked to be in their thirties, a short-haired brunette, the other a blond - both were fairly loaded. ‘Hey Harry, you gonna dance with me?’ Says the brunette, grabbing at his hand. Joan shot her a vicious look and tugged Harry to a bar stool. ‘Aw, c’mon Harry, dance with me’ insisted the woman, as Joan turned her back on her and mouthed at Harry ‘don’t you damn well dare’ while tossing her head and motioning to the bartender for more wine. I could see Harry from my corner, his moustache red with wine. He had to be at least ten years older than the brunette, but even at my distance from them, it was plain there was a mutual attraction. She and the blond were dancing together, but she kept glancing at him, and he at her. He was obviously trying not to be obvious about it, he just couldn’t help himself. And neither could she. This went on for two or three tunes, and then Joan erupted. ‘Fuck you Harry!’ And threw her wine in his face, slapped him across the cheek as she slipped off her stool, and stormed out off the bar. In spite of all the inherent drama no-one took any notice, there was no pause in the rushing mayhem, no lowering of the roaring volume, it was simply another arhythmic heartbeat in bar life, just one more moment existing in eternity …

The brunette got her dance with Harry, on a small and temporarily empty space next to where I sat, and Harry got to hold her close and feel her breath on his neck, and listen to the sweet nothin’s in his ear, and felt the pressing of her body against his but as a dance partner, compared with Joan, she didn’t have the goods, didn’t have the feel, lacked the sense where the bass was going and worst of all, said she didn’t like the tune. ‘Who the hell is this singing? He sucks.’ ‘It’s Lefty Frizzell, he’s one of my favourites, he don’t suck’ retorted Harry, his moustache aquiver with indignation. It appeared this brief romance was headed for the rocky coast of cultural ignorance, almost before it had begun. It was an interesting tension, lust on the one hand, and purity of artistic appreciation on the other, the only common denominator being boozy lust. I sipped my beer and watched. The song had ended, Harry had let her go, artistic appreciation trumping lust, returned to the bar and retrieved his wine glass, lifted it to his lips, drained it and tossed it to the floor, and headed for the street, staggering a little as he walked. His erstwhile dance partner looked at her friend, and they both guffawed. 

Heading for the john, I squeezed through the roaring mass, the endless braying and constant yakkety yak, barrages of sentences from every direction, fusillades of mad laughter seasoned with volleys of insults, joshings and put-downs. Pushed the swing door open to the toilet, and spied Tarzan retching in a corner, these particular yodels being most un-Tarzan like. The urinal was a long trough, three guys standing next to me, the closest reeling back and forth, shouting at Tarzan,’ Hey Johnny, what the fuck man, go do that in the bowl, not on the fucking floor you pig’. The stink of puke, urine and shit was overpowering, and I pissed as fast as I could and split, leaving the king of the jungle kneeling in the corner, his red jacket smeared with vomit.

The volume in the bar seemed to be at a continuing crescendo, unremitting in its pandemonium. The mixed scents of alcohol, tobacco, beer, perfume, cologne and after-shave combined into a barroom smog. It practically glistened on the skin, touched the temples, you could almost make shapes of it with your hands. The jukebox played, dancers danced, drinkers drank and speech, unless delivered at the top of one’s voice, was impossible. It was an orgy of laughter, a bacchanal of Dionysians, it was frenzy piled upon frenzy and it was finally all too much and I walked through the crowd, muttering inaudible ‘’Scuse me’s’ and elbowed my way to the door, the street and cool fresh air. Walked down the street a way and sat down on a bench, digging the solitude, digging the quiet, digging the night. Above the Wyoming sky was dark and constant, punctuated in mysterious fashion with lights, some bright, others dim, shimmering, dancing, dazzling quivering and fluttering, a collective coruscation of scintillations, all of them zillions of miles away and all of ‘em sober. I guessed, anyway.

I don’t know how long I sat there watching all this, absorbing it like it was some kind of night star tanning lamp, metamorphosing all that starlit galactic energy into my psyche - cosmic osmosis.  Maybe an hour, long enough to doze a bit, and then awaken with a start. 'My bag, my bag, where is it?’ Shit, left it in the bar. Back up the road and into the bar. Most of the crowd had gone, a handful of stalwarts remained chins in hand, staring into their glasses, their fragmented and ragged worlds at last condensed into this reality, a confused and incoherently rambling guilt-edged pain, an indefinable state of endless and nameless hunger for something alcohol constantly promised but never delivered. One of them was Harry whose unquenchable thirst had led him back to the bar, he looked up at the bartender, his mouth working but no words came out. ’No Harry, no more. You’re too drunk to even talk - time to go home’.

Harry’s lips wordlessly mouthed something undecipherable, and the bartender ignored him. I walked to the corner table where I had been sitting, and thankfully my sad little bag was still there, tucked under the bench. Reached down, grabbed it and with a wave to the bartender, walked past the line of silent doleful introspective drunks and headed back out into the night.