Ponderation
THE WORLD slides away in great chunks. Literally, the ground beneath your feet—gone.
There are four sinkholes in and around Wink, Texas, the most famous being the Wink Sink. No one knows how deep it goes, but in 2002, a lone diver tried to figure it out. He was an amateur driven by simple curiosity, maybe. I couldn’t read his mind, and afterward, no one could ask. He disappeared. A team of two state rescue divers went looking for his body. They also disappeared.
My dad believes the missing men are good for business. He’ll give an unofficial tour of the Wink Sink to anyone who’s willing to pay. He has no steady income and relies on these expeditions to sustain him.
Wink, Texas, is also the childhood home of American musician Roy Orbison. My dad will try and weave these two phenomena together: the sinkholes and Roy Orbison. We are all meaning-making machines, but my dad’s mind works overtime. He’ll tell you the Wink Sink is the same site where a young Roy was denied his first kiss. It’s a stretch, but the pieces are there. The “seeds,” as my dad calls them. The story is water. His words make things grow into being. The truth of them is not what’s important. He told me time after time, “I’m sorry. I won’t do that again,” and each time I believed in their possibility.
The Wink Sink is located on public property just southeast of town. Half a mile further south is the
