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A perfect road trip requires a hired Dodge, country music on the radio, a classic motel and a bellyful of southern barbecue …
This article is brought to you by the Rivera brothers. I say that because three of them, friends of mine, live in a mechanic's shop around Northside Village, Houston, Texas; and the key to a successful Texan road trip is to not consult or visit them, or even go near their street. Big characters, adventurous in business, dangerous at backgammon, generous with rum – but I never fully survived a drive that started at their place, or followed their directions.
The first time I drove from their yard I was held overnight at the Mexican border post they recommended, where my residency was cancelled despite paying gratuities. That post phoned the next and I was detained there as well, my residency cancelled again, after paying gratuities the first post told the next I was good for. It all eventually led to me living and writing in Ireland, hence the boys' responsibility – plus here borders are open, and officers are content to just be smug.
In the meantime, though, I roamed as a tourist over that border. The second time I left the Riveras, seeing that I was driving nearly seven litres of Americana, the boys loaned me a radar detector, which in the end only beeped after a sheriff's deputy reached the window to book me for speeding. Then I was busted for the detector as well. And still I returned – but by the third time I hit Rivera territory, I just parked the car in their yard and had them drive me to the airport after a fortnight of lending each other money and choosing who would make Leroy go for beer.
A few months after I left, they sold the car.
It's a long introduction, I know; but things are richer with context, and it lays a context for this: in the end I devised a road trip from Houston that avoids the Rivera brothers altogether. A weekender like a TV movie, where a girl slams a motel door, where pumpjacks and crickets compete in the night, where guitar players called Cletus drink rye. A ready-meal road trip that we can take today, a mixture of neon lights and nooks and crannies; because although the perfect drive is the one without a destination, if we're travelling from here we don't have the time to ask that many gas station attendants the way to the interstate. With these instructions, all the realities and hospitalities, the expected and unexpected beauty of central Texas can unfold without need of a map; we just have to get to Houston.
Even without a destination, a good road trip will have a goal, however; and this, if not risky, should at least mess with temptation – chasing fruitless infatuations, gambling, escaping an abusive partner, or a suicide pact with a friend are all valid fuels for the road. For this starter road trip, the goal must be Texas barbecue: the best in the land, beef as soft as sashimi, served by the pound, on paper.
For vegetarians there can be turkey and beans.
To do it properly we need to rent a Dodge Charger, if not a small truck. It's not a long drive for a weekend, maybe an eight-hour round trip. If you draw the route on a map, you'll see it's a small triangle in south central Texas – but bear in mind that Texas is almost three times the size of the UK, plus any itinerary should have room to sit and hear the world creak in a breeze. As this page goes to press it's 28C in central Texas, and humid. Grackles chatter in trees.
Friday: arrive at George Bush Intercontinental Airport. I once saw Larry Hagman here, back when he really thought he was JR – suddenly we risk seeing him again. If we're travelling with children or parents, now is the time to leave them; children can shuttle to the Johnson Space Center, parents to the Houston Medical Centre, arranging to meet on Monday before the flight back.
Pick up the car. Before setting the mirrors, tune the radio to 102.5FM, KMKS, a Bay City station with range. Leave the airport and turn right on to the Sam Houston Tollway, heading west to Interstate 10, the Katy Freeway. This junction is the closest we come to the Rivera brothers. Keep moving. If you're a ZZ Top fan, we pass the turn off to La Grange, and can detour and pose at the road sign. If not then, two-and-a-bit hours west along I-10, keep an eye out for signs to Luling and Lockhart.
For these two-and-a-bit hours a local might say there's not much to see – but it's a good time to reflect on how hard it is to imagine John Wayne riding through these subtropics; and to calculate that there are 254 counties in Texas, a mixture of wet, dry, and moist counties, alcoholic beverage-wise. Moist counties are wet and dry depending when and where you are.
Take a right into Luling on 183, cross the railway lines, and across the road to the left (633 East Davis Street) sits City Market – the holy grail of beef brisket. If it's before six in the evening, go in for a pound in butcher's paper, with a jalapeño, some potato salad, bread or beans. After six, mark the spot to return for breakfast or lunch. Note the heavy smell in the air around here – crude oil. This is a town where oil pumpjacks spring out of backyards and roadsides, many decorated, turned into moving characters, cowboys, grasshoppers, girls, planes.
Drive a few miles up 183, watching out for skunks if it's dark – hit one and never smell the same again – and just before Lockhart, the Plum Creek Inn (plumcreekinn.net), our motel, appears on the left. What can we say, a motel – big rooms, a swimming pool, air conditioners, no Laura Ashley. In the movie of your life a girl slams a door. Maybe some neon fizzes and crackles. Critters make noise in the grass.
From here it's a quick drive to the old town centre of Lockhart – mecca of barbecue, and somewhere small to wander and soak up. Find North Main Street, at the far side of the courthouse square, and stroll north to Lilly's at number 110, a beer shop and pool joint – practise your Spanish, one of those nice ladies is Lilly – or walk on one block to Black's Barbecue (blacksbbq.com) the oldest continuously owned barbecue restaurant in Texas.
And after collapsing to late-night TV – maybe something with a motel in it – there's only one way to spend Saturday if the car is pointed up highway 183: follow it a while more to Austin, through Mustang Ridge and past Bergstrom Airport, veering left down East 7th Street to East 6th Street. This is the home of live music in the south, a mellow chaos of blues, rock and country. Get lit up at Shakespeare's Pub (shakespearesaustin.com) then trawl the street for the bands that most pull you in.
To recover on Sunday, with our mayhem all rinsed out, a long drive down Interstate 35 to San Antonio is the key – for my money San Antone is one of the three most beautiful cities in the US. Hang out by the river, visit the Alamo, eat an enchilada and ponder – this is where Mexico lost its northern state of Texas in battle.
Then, driving down I-10 back to Houston, reflect: the Rivera boys are still levelling the score.
• DBC Pierre's first novel Vernon God Little, set in Texas, won the Man Booker Prize in 2003