Bitch Hill

Some friend of my wife has died, and she's only just found out. I think she'd been wondering what became of the guy for a long time, and what became of the guy was apparently an oxycodone overdose. Oxycodone is one of those opioids about which everyone is presently shitting themselves, which is unfortunate because I've taken it and it actually works - which is always, I would argue, a bonus where drugs are concerned. I hadn't realised that it was either addictive or even possible to overdose on oxycodone, but I guess it makes sense. My wife's friend was something of a live wire when they were all teenagers, then suffered homeless interludes and took oxycodone for a back injury, probably because, as I say, it works. The news of his passing sent my wife's thoughts back to a certain hillside where the whole gang used to hang out, watching the sun come up after nights of what was probably moderate revelry; and that's sort of why I'm up and approximately about at 5AM on a Saturday morning.

To be fair, I've spent most of my life getting up at what most consider to be an ungodly hour - for a paper round when I was at school, then twenty years as a postman with times ranging from 4.30AM at the earliest to just before six. I'm no stranger to dawn, and I've never really been a night owl, which is handy. Having turned my back on Royal Mail for a more leisurely existence of writing stuff and cleaning out an endless succession of cat litter trays, I've tended to get out of bed around seven, rarely later because it starts to feel like I'm wasting the best part of the day; but even so, 5AM is a bit of shock to the system, albeit a familiar one. Our plan is to drive across town in time to catch sunrise, which should occur around 6.45AM, and getting up at five at least means we have plenty of time.

We leave at around six. It's no longer quite dark, and stars are still visible on the western horizon. There are already more drivers out on the highway than we anticipated, but then we didn't anticipate any at all given that we're still in the middle of a pandemic and it's the weekend. We drive to a part of town called Grey Forest which feels more like hill country than any part of San Antonio. The roads tend to wind up and down through woodland comprising mostly salt cedar and the like. House are hidden and away from the road, presences indicated only by a mail box or a fence. Then we're driving up what Bess refers to as Bitch Hill, although that's not its official title. I don't know how steep it is, but it feels like 1:2 at the very least.

The top of the hill opens out and we suddenly have a panoramic view across what looks like most of San Antonio. The city fills the landscape from horizon to horizon, and ordinarily it might not be so obvious but for the fact that we can still see all of the street lights traced across the landscape. There was a time when all American movies featuring teenagers included at least one scene where they all drive up to some isolated point overlooking the city, usually for the narrative convenience of something either extraterrestrial or supernatural. Whether it's down to variations in landscape, town planning, the film industry or teenage psychology, I don't recall this scene ever having graced any English production and always assumed a large helping of artistic license had been applied; but here I am effectively in that scene or something very like it. Life in America often seems like a film from where I'm stood.

Bess and her gang used to come up here to watch the sunrise as teenagers. Sometimes they had been up all night, although neither booze nor drugs seem to have been part of the equation, meaning I suppose we can't always rely on movies, as I find myself calling them these days.

We park and get out, then stand around on what seems to be common land for about ten minutes. The light is stretched so far along the eastern horizon, all tangled up with cloud, that we can't really tell where the sun will appear. Suspecting it may be obscured by an upward swell of the hill upon which we're stood, we get back in the car and move another fifty yards on.

Now we're in some subdivision with sprawling luxurious houses, mostly single story and ranch style nestled way back from the road on either side. We stand in the road like those people in Close Encounters of the Third Kind waiting for the saucers. The city is a glittering plain spread across the darkness below. I look along the horizon trying to see the Tower of the Americas, but it's either too far away or obscured by early morning mist. We stand together in the warm air of dawn, still with that unsteady jittery feeling of having left one's bed too soon, a feeling which seems to come with an expectation of coffee close to actual physical need.

An old couple passes, out walking their dog. We say good morning, having been made comrades by our shared experience of far too early to be up and about.

Bess and I stand and talk about her friend, her own teenage years and so on. It's all sort of familiar from one angle, but from another serves to remind me that I'm in an entirely different country to the one where I grew up - which is actually a relief for some reason. Aside from my wife once having street surfed on the hood of a moving car, none of it would really make sense written down because you had to be there, even though I wasn't.

By seven, it's obvious that the sun is up, but we still have no idea where due to the bank of dramatically backlit cloud still hugging the horizon, but it doesn't seem to matter. We did what we came here to do by some definition, whatever it may have been.