The Fort

Last night my friend Jessica and I took a trip up to Fort Smith, which is two hours from Little Rock on the border with Oklahoma, kind of near Fayetteville. It's Arkansas' second-largest city, and both my roommates are from there, so I was curious. Jessica prepped me on the way, saying it wasn't going to be like Little Rock, or like Fayetteville. Back in Louisiana purchase days, Fort Smith was the last outpost before Indian Territory, and it was where all the fugitive outlaws would gather trying to get out of the country. As a result, hangings were frequent -- the gallows are still there -- and there were something like 200 saloons on the main strip downtown.

Today the downtown is strange and sort of deserted. She described it as a working-class city, but I would have just said tough. It actually reminded me a bit of Allentown, where I was born. I think it's one of the tougher places I've ever been. Like punk is definitely not dead, or at least it wasn't at the bar we went to. We got out of my car and watched as a truck in a nearby lot spun its wheels until all was burnt rubber and smoke. Within five minutes of entering the bar there was a fight, and a mosh pit was definitely in full swing, and this was at a charity event for a girl who had gotten in a car accident and needed to raise money to learn how to walk again. She was there in a wheelchair, along with her mom and other older-women caretaker sorts. The crowd was a diverse mix of age groups, predominantly young. In genre the folks ranged from a Davey Crockett-type (he had a beard, ponytail and leather fringe jacket), to gutter punk sorts and people in country-western shirts with roses embroidered on them. We stayed on someone's couch, in a big old pioneer-looking house that was surrounded by vacant lots. We tried to have breakfast at a locally famous Vietnamese deli, but it was closed, so we went to a greasy spoon, thick with cigarette smoke and hash browns. The fry cook wore the stars and bars on his hat and a large hickey on his neck. I think I understand my roommates better now, or at least why one opted to drop out of high school.

But Fort Smith has bars that stay open until five and lots of pool tables. Oklahoma is only a river away, and you can visit both the old gallows and the fort that started the whole thing. You see a lot of license plates from the Cherokee Nation, and some funny bumper stickers, like "Work is the curse of the drinking class." I liked it. Or at least it was a change from the usual weekend drinking routine.