I was heading for Merkel partly because the mailman’s map suggested it as a detour round Abilene, and partly because I’d heard of a man there who scratched a living selling secondhand cars, making sculptures out of old radiator-grilles, and raising earthworms in abandoned refrigerator bodies: the embodiment of that can-do western ethos, the kind of new frontiersman I’d hoped to encounter. He sounded truly heroic, and I was looking forward to meeting him. There are magazines who buy profiles of people like that. They pay badly, and they pay late, but when all else fails you soon find yourself slinking towards their door.

After a long crawl round the town’s side-streets, I finally found Mr Earthworm’s place on Jefferson. It wasn’t what I was expecting.
I was expecting a sort of shack surrounded by workshops, a front drive littered with disembowelled cars and old domestic appliances, a hand-painted sign offering BAIT – or whatever else earthworms were good for. What I found was a neat production-line bungalow with net curtains over the front windows and a row of flowers lining the path. I hit the bell-push, and waited. Hit it again and waited some more.
I was about to give up when the door opened a crack and half a face appeared. It was stubbly, and it was motionless. The mouth was a thin horizontal line.

“Hi,” I started, brightly, “I’m looking for Joe. Joe Kozinsky?”

A bare foot curled around the bottom of the door and opened it wider, revealing a young man in a pair of boxer shorts. He was covered in muscles from head to toe, and the muscles were covered in tattoos. “Joe who?” he said. I flipped open my notebook. I was hoping against hope that I’d made a mistake, that the address was Adams, not Jefferson, and maybe the town he lived in was Anson, not Merkel. “Why doncha step inside a moment,” the man suggested. He had one of those quiet voices that start out sounding mildly threatening and get worse – much worse – as they lower the volume.

From this vantage-point – that is, safely back at my desk – I could claim that when I went inside I was just being what I’d set out to be, an intrepid travel writer. Investigative, fearless – that kind of thing.
I have an uncomfortable recollection, however, of being rigid with fear, wanting to run, but irresistibly drawn forward.

In the front room of the house a young woman of about twenty lay full-length on a sofa. Blonde, curvy, with as sleek a pair of legs as you could dream of, and eating a chocolate bar. She had on a skimpy Simpsons T-shirt and nothing else. She probably had about five more years of looking drop-dead gorgeous before she went to fat. Or, of course, she might decide she needed to get away from all this and take up with some other guy – a sensitive, intellectual type, perhaps, an artist, maybe even a writer – whereupon Mr Muscle would re-arrange her face before dismembering the new man in her life.

But Mr Muscle didn’t seem too interested in me right now. He’d gone to the corner of the room where there was a crib, and had picked up a tiny baby, which he now fed from a bottle as he stood watching the TV. It was one of those sub-Jerry Springer daytime confessionals. My boyfriend wants me to dress like a hooker.

“Kernawski,” I said. “His name’s Joe Kernawski.” I checked my notes again. “This is 412 Jefferson, isn’t it?” There was still hope.

“Yeah, this is 412.” The girl on the couch sat up and smoothed her T-shirt over her body, stretching it an inch or two over the top of her thighs. “What’s he done?”
“Nothing. I’m hoping to interview him.”
She scowled. “I knew it - you’re from the Government.”
“No, I - ”
“You’re a Revenue Inspector.”
“Listen,” I said, “I was just passing through town, and - ”
“Nobody passes through Merkel….” It was Mr Muscle, speaking without moving his lips. I waited. I wasn’t entirely sure that he’d completed the sentence. I had an awful fear that it went on: “Nobody passes through Merkel – alive!”

“I got lost,” I said. “I got a map from the mailman. Look.” I shoved a hand into my shirt-pocket and pulled out the folded napkin. “I’m trying to avoid Abilene, see - ”

Mr Muscle was cooing at the baby, who was now asleep in his arms. He stopped in mid-coo and looked me up and down. “Say,” he said, “I know that accent. Where you from?”

“England,” I said. “I’m from England.”

“That a fact?” He thought for a moment. “Say, you guys drive on the left, doncha?” I didn’t like the way he said that. I couldn’t tell whether it was it an innocent conversational gambit, or a veiled accusation. “Left” has all kinds of associations in Texas, few of them helpful if you’re trapped in a house with Bonnie and Clyde. Without straining my memory too hard I can come up with “Commie”, “pinko”, and you might as well throw in “faggot” for good measure.

“Sure, but over here we drive on the right. Always.” I can still hear myself say it, and I still shake my head in disbelief. I think I expected it to re-assure him.

He grinned. “Ya hear that, Denver?”

Denver was suddenly engrossed in the television. A huge women in a tiny sequinned dress and eight-inch stilettos was attacking a thin, weaselly man in black leather, and the heavies were wading in. Denver had her fists clenched and was mouthing silent encouragement. As far as I could make out her lips were spelling out “Rip his fucking head off.”

“Denver!”
“Uh-huh, honey.” She re-emerged from her trance, took a bite of chocolate and smiled sweetly at her beloved.
“He’s from England.”
“Oh, right.”
She turned to me. “So what brings you to” – she swallowed her chocolate and laughed – “I mean, Merkel, for chrissake!”
“I’m looking for this guy Kernawski.”
“Oh, old Joe?”
“You know him?”
“Sure. He used to live here.”
“Oh, so he doesn’t live here any more.”
“Nah. Moved out a couple months back.”
“Oh.”
“I can tell you where he is, though.”
I brightened. “Where’s that?”
“You sure you ain’t with the Government?”

Her old man butted in. “Honey, he’s English. Drives on the left.” I was warming to Mr Muscle. ;

“You could try Safeway.”
“Why, does he spend a lot of time there?”

She laughed again and crossed her legs. Jesus, she was lovely. “No, stupid. He works there. Runs the produce section.”

Produce. Well, I thought, it’s perfectly reasonable that a guy who tries to make a living raising earth-worms should get a day-job. Nevertheless, I was kind of disappointed. In fact, more than that: I felt cheated. Here I was, all psyched up to interview a latter-day pioneer - and he’d sold out to a supermarket. I thanked Mr Muscle for his help, politely looked the other way as the lady of the house peeled off her T-shirt and headed for the shower-room, and went on my way. Of course, Mr Muscle had to come to the door to see me to the car. And as I backed out of the drive he gave me a cheery wave and shouted after me “Keep to the right, ya hear!” I don’t think there was a political sub-text there, but if there was I was prepared to do exactly as he said.