in a day

The Roman Empire has not fallen: It merely moved to west Houston. Yes, took the brick walks and the arched piazzas and the rococo gateways and landed with a weighty sigh right off the beltway (the outer beltway, that is). The pansies and wide, sturdy grass are American additions, planted perfectly among freshly spread bark dust, which coats the adjacent air with the heavy, medicinal smell of treated wood. Rome, now, is luxury condominiums and tasteless jewelry stores and thickly sauced entrees. There are fountains—birds and angels and abstract figures, although there are few, if any coins glistening beneath the water. Marquis. Miramar. Empire Lofts. Plantation. These are places people call home. “Sweet home Plantation. Where the skies are so blue,” and, one suspects, the eyes are too.

Few zoning laws in the fourth largest city in the United States will get you this: high-rise apartment towers casting shadows on the arches of infinity billion served, and the woman on the sidewalk with two overweight Chihuahuas. Parking lots—many parking lots, empty but for a figure cutting across their right angles, running through sound waves issuing forth from fake rocks. Roads are unreliable, ending at fences or passing by guarded kiosks. In the service lot behind Aurturo’s restuarant, a man is watering a bed of basil. “You like?” “Si!”

The only sidewalk leading to the hotel ends at a locked door; the front entrance is tucked up against the highway exit ramp, and thus fleet footed folk must hedge the corner carefully to avoid the valets on their way to the garage. The Texas Ski Council SkiBidFest is in full swing, which has something to do with skiing and Texans who love it, and means women in sparkly shirts and suntanned men and all of them clutching glasses of wine and talking about the snow in Park City.

We, meanwhile, are in professional dress and tap tap tap our heels to meeting rooms with names like Topaz and Saphhire and Glass Palace and click click click our way through the day on a wave of endless PowerPoint presentations. Miracles exist: the east wall of Topaz is a sheet of windows. The blinds are only partially drawn, and through them is a highway, and all around shines natural Texas light.