The Lambs of Houston

Once, I went on a date with a girl who used to live in Houston. When I asked her what she did for fun when she lived there, she looked away into the middle distance and told me she used to run across several parking lots to her regular Dunkin Donuts. If I had not lived in Houston, I'd have excused myself to the bathroom and run away really fast, but unfortunately, I knew she was probably not crazy.

The first step to making new friends in a place like Houston is to try and do everything else that you possibly can to avoid first-world ennui. Exhaust your options. I tried walking because I grew up walking most places before I moved to the US. Not the idyllic European walks that Americans think about when they think about walking. In India, you walk along unpaved sidewalks or sidewalks with unmarked holes that probably lead to middle earth. The air was such that by the time you walked a few miles, you transformed into an ol’chunk of coal. Still, people walked, and because of that, it did not feel like a strange act. Everyone made it work. Sometimes not so much. One time I stood my ground against a guy on a moped bike trying to maneuver his way through traffic by driving on the sidewalk. I did not budge until he got back onto the road. Later he followed me back to my apartment and told me he'll bring his friends and kill me that night. I actually left to the United States that evening, seeking refuge from the Moped Sidewalk Gang. I'd like to think there's a mob hit on me back home for walking on the sidewalk.

Back in Houston, I walked along neurotically clean sidewalks and wondered why there was no one else around. The first pics I took when I moved to the US were of the sidewalks of Clear Lake, Houston. Later I realized most of the sidewalks never went anywhere. They just looped around the same suburb. Sometimes I'd stray from the given path, jaywalk across a few streets to see if the sidewalks would take me anywhere - a grocery store, a movie house or a coffee shop. Eventually, I'd reach a part of the neighborhood where the sidewalk abruptly ended without any explanation. Did they run out of money? Did someone get bored paving sidewalks? So I'd flail my arms like a tube man (as I usually do in such situations) and walk back, just wishing that someone would threaten to kill me for walking on the sidewalk in Houston.

Since walking did not work, I tried finding meetups on meetup.com. I found one called 20s 30s in Houston. The generic age group and purpose of meet-up seemed very unsuspecting and innocent of course. In fact, I was surprised by the pleasant-natured blonde fellow who I met first at the meet-up. He had one of those faces that always had a smile whatever news he delivered. He even got my phone number and texted me two days later "Hey what’s up dude."

"Not much dude, just went for a walk to nowhere."

"Nice dude! If you or anyone of your friends want a real estate agent let me know."

So what if he was trying to sell me a house on the side? He was my first friend in Houston. We never met again but had the same three-message exchange every two weeks for about two years. I also moved houses 4 times in those two years and never used him as an agent. I like to keep friendship and business separate.

The first girl I met at this meet-up was as tall as me and weighed twice as much, but not in an athletic powerlifter way. She told me she lived with her mom and didn't work. Not wanting to ruffle her feelings about being unemployed, I asked her, "So, what do you do for fun?."

She turned to me and deadpanned, "I know how to use a bow and arrow and to shoot a rifle."

"That's cool..survival skills" I replied, my tone inexplicably becoming high-pitched.

"Yeah, you know I could probably survive and even kill you if the apocalypse happens," she continued, still deadpan. I wonder if she still lives with her mom or if she actually killed someone. Is she the Den Mother of the Longhouse right-wingers keep talking about?

The only people not selling houses or living with their parents at this particular meet-up were other new immigrants. I had nothing in common with most of them except for finding ourselves in the fortunate company of the people of Houston. The last time I went to the meet-up, I hung out with this Chinese couple. I didn't understand their accent and they did not understand mine. We just politely chuckled at everything the other person said. That is the Asian way of getting along. There is diversity in not understanding each other. Somehow I ended up at their house, late at night, smoking half a joint. They served me some kind of Chinese dessert. I had forgotten that weed makes me paranoid. As I sat on their couch, wondering how to get myself out of this predicament, the girl took out a big roll of Saran wrap and started exchanging words with the guy in Mandarin. At that point in my life, I did not know what one uses Saran wrap for except for suffocating people in Hollywood movies. I sank deeper into the couch, conjecturing if they were going to kill me with the Saran wrap, and also laughing in my head at how ridiculous that thought was. Before my mind unraveled on the couch of strangers I had just met, I got a text from my fateful reliable friend "Hey, what's up dude? Still living in the same place?".