Foy Davis was born in 1960 in the small, West Texas town of Fort Davis, which lies within a triangle formed by the cities of Van Horn, Fort Stockton, and Marfa. When he was young, his father told him the town was named for Colonel Davis, a distant ancestor of theirs who fought the Indians with great passion and vigor right up until the time he ran off to join them and was never heard from again. A few arrowheads and a leather bag were produced as evidence of the story, but none of it was true. The Davis family was new to the area, his father having arrived in 1956 with his new bride. He came to be the associate pastor of the Baptist church at the end of Bloys Avenue, which was unpaved then and remains so today. Their house was 50 yards east of the church, around a little curve in the road. It was a yellow plaster house with a metal roof and a small corner porch with concrete steps. The house was modest enough, but the view from the backyard, if you could call dirt and sand a backyard, was spectacular. The foot of the Davis mountain range - also named for Colonel Davis according to his father - lay no more than 100 yards from their house. These were desert mountains, brutal mountains. Rocks and outcroppings jutted toward the sky at harsh angles. The sand and the scrubby, barbed plants blistered in the summer heat without trees for shade. Foy’s father used to say this was real desert, none of your sissy deserts like they have down below San Antonio and Uvalde.

Coyotes ate his first dog, so said his father, and it may well have been true. She went into heat and disappeared one night when the Coyotes’ howls were particularly close. A second dog was purchased and met with the same fate. Coyote cries at night. No dog in the morning. After that Foy and his younger brother were given a Guinea Pig. It was left out in the sun one afternoon and suffered some sort of heat-stroke. It never took another step, but stood, blinking, wherever it was, until someone picked it up and carried it to another spot. They did not have good luck with animals.

When he was three he used to lay in bed at night and listen to the sounds of the desert that trickled in through the open window. He stared into the darkness until he made himself see green and red lights. He flew the lights around the room in formation until one night they got out of control and he couldn’t shut them off. At least that’s how he remembered it. He would pick his nose at night and reach over in the darkness to wipe the mess on the wall. Once it left his hand it was gone completely, as if it never existed. No other possibility occurred to him until his father bellowed from the room one morning. It was his first philosophy lesson. Things still exist after you let go of them in the darkness. They will be there in the morning. Their existence is not dependent on you. It was the first of many Copernican revolutions, and the new idea was so pleasurable that it overcame even his fear of his father. He watched as his father scrubbed the wall, mouth agape in wonder.

When he was five, Foy’s nose began to bleed regularly because of the dry climate. His father was a kind man and overall a good parent, but he had a tendency to insist on using his personal treatments for ailments and physical problems. He pulled their loose teeth with a string, regardless of their protests, because it was the best way. Get it over and be done with it. He told Foy the best thing was to get the inside of his nose cauterized. No reason to fool around with bloody noses in West Texas when the doctor can fix it right up. Having lost battles like this in the past, Foy made a private vow never to be seen with a bloody nose. He would squat behind the shed and let the blood drip into the dirt until it stopped of its own accord. Then he covered it with sand, like a cat. His parents never found out about that, nor did they know that Foy ate seven or eight tablespoons of white sugar every morning for breakfast. When his mother wasn’t looking Foy would scoop spoonfuls of sugar onto his Rice Crispies and shake the bowl until it settled at the bottom. He would skim his spoon along the surface and eat cereal until his mother turned away. Then he used his spoon to dredge the bottom of the bowl for the good stuff.

Periodically his grandparents would appear from deep East Texas, where both of his parents grew up. It was an epic journey, almost a thousand miles after they swung far south into the Rio Grande Valley to buy grapefruit. His grandfather never lost his excitement about grapefruit. It absolutely thrilled him and was certainly worth the extra 250 miles. He said the Ruby Red from the Valley was the greatest grapefruit in the world and grown right here in Texas. Foy loved the grapefruit, but he was bothered by the strange membrane that separated the sections, visible after he spooned out the meat. It didn’t seem right that something like that should be in any way connected to food.

His grandparents always brought Foy and his brother a new pair of boots, which was occasion for great celebration, so much so that in time Foy developed the vague impression that they only made boots back East, an idea that stuck with him much longer than you might imagine. Once his grandfather brought dry ice and put it in water so that a ghostly fog bubbled out of the glass. It was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen. All of these things, the boots, the grapefruit, and the ice, created another vague impression that far away in distant lands were exotic mysteries and wonderful things to behold. This impression stayed with Foy for as long as he lived, and as an old man he would weep when he saw pictures of places he knew he would never go.

His grandparents liked the climate in Fort Davis. It was hot, but the lack of humidity made it cool in the evenings. His grandfather never tired of pointing out that theirs was a dry heat and not nearly as difficult to manage as the heavy, humid heat of East Texas. Now that was real heat. This aggravated Foy’s father, who was a straight thermometer man and believed you looked at the number on the thermometer and shouldn’t factor in modern notions like humidity. The men in the family had a powerful need to claim the bragging rights that came with living in the most rugged and difficult part of Texas. Though Foy would grow up to be very self-aware and laugh at this trait, he could not escape it. All of his life he enjoyed telling people about the dogs.

“We lived out in the wild parts of Texas. Out West. The coyotes ate my first dog. Got another dog and they ate him too.”

He enjoyed the horrified stares that this comment often brought and the way it tended to silence to the conversation. He was only bested once, by an old man in his church in San Antonio who claimed he was strapped to a dental chair in Van Horn when he was twelve and had his tonsils removed without anesthesia. Tonsil care was a part of dentistry in those days, apparently.

“They made me drink CoCola when they was done to cauterize it. It burned like the devil going down.”

That time it was Foy who was silenced and stared, horrified. Of course, cauterizing always did give him the heebie jeebies.

When Foy’s mother was very old, long after his father had died, Foy asked her if she believed in God. He had always wondered about that but for some reason had never gotten around to asking. It was part of the secret they shared that the question didn’t really need to be asked. She was so old when he finally did that it was obvious the question came from pure curiosity and nothing else. He knew she would understand that.