The Cowboy Hits Town

Originally posted 5/15/05 on Animal's first blog

The bus pulled up in all the heat and humidity of a Wisconsin summer and after having ridden next to an unwashed, nose-picking hippie since Des Moines he was glad to be home. These summers were a lot different than the Sandbox. The locals were always saying, "It's not the heat, it's the humidity" and it really was true. He'd survived days in dust and sandstorms and temperatures that were a hundred and ten in the shade, but this seventy percent humidity was almost too much.

Part of what he was feeling might have been nerves, too. He had done a lot of speechifying over the last few years about how there was nothing to go back to and there was no other life but the Army. Who would have thought that one raghead with a homemade bomb could change his life so drastically? But now, here he was. He had been depressed after a year and a half in the hospital and he was one of the lucky ones. When he got out he just sort of wandered around. He stayed in Colorado for a while, being near the base and hanging out. He had even gotten a job as a ranch hand for a while, but he felt lost. His hangin' buddies were slowly leaving, either getting married or shipping back to the Litterbox. He hadn't met anyone. No one that really knew him or cared about him anyway.

Just as depression seemed as though it would win, however, the strange e-mail had come. He had not heard from Mary Bundenburg in years and last he knew, she was spoken for. Now she was free. He had called her and they talked for hours, just like old times. He told her about how his face was a mess now and explained about how the plastic on the arm was so real, but that people were still creeped out by it. He told her about the time the kid's balloon had popped in the grocery store and he took a dive right into the celery and rutabagas and she laughed. Just that sweet laugh she always had when something was just funny. She didn't mock him or pity him or anything else, she just thought the idea of a six-foot tall soldier hiding in the carrots sounded funny.

"So how long did you keep Steve on the string before you married him?" He meant for it to come out as a tease, but it came out awkward. He had always been that way.

"Steve's in prison for life. He beat me up real good a couple of times when I had gone bar-hoppin' and threatened to kill me. Charlie and Jake the bartender went to go talk to him one day and he wound up stabbing Charlie. I came home from the diner and there were all these cop cars everywhere and Jake said something to one of the cops and came and told me what happened. Steve...was gonna be my Prince Charming..." Her voice trailed off.

"I, I'm really sorry Mair."

So, hard to believe as it was, here he was, back in Shawano after all these years with nothing to show for all his trouble except an old Army duffle bag and a soft-sided briefcase/laptop case. The only laptop he had at the moment though was one with a wire spiral binding, "college-ruled" lines and a number 2 pencil with a broken lead. A whole life reduced to those two bags, yet he felt freer than he had in a long time. His heart was in his throat as he gathered his things and watched the dirty bus pull away.

He had warned her to watch from the window and if she didn't like what she saw, she could still back out and no hard feelings. He really didn't believe she would, but he wanted her to have the option. He was pretty ugly these days. Where was she? They'd agreed that the parking lot would be the meeting place. He wouldn't go in the restaurant since she might be in there and not want to see him. So there he stood, in the dusty gravel parking lot with a pit in his gut, a two-week reservation at the Super Eight motel, several hundred dollars cash in his pocket and a hole in his heart. He didn't want to believe it was happening like this, but what had happened?

There he stood in his jeans and cowboy boots and beat up old straw cowboy work hat looking like something out of an old western movie with the heat and dust and the emptiness. He put the duffel bag on his back with long-practiced ease and picked up the briefcase full of notebooks. He had dreams of getting a laptop and typing all of his stuff up and maybe seeing if someone would publish some of it, but it all sounded hollow to him now. He'd walk, it wasn't that far, but he felt sick as he started walking down the road. Oh well. Maybe he could find a job here for a while. He knew how milking operations worked and he could always bale hay and sling manure.

"Shit!" She said, looking at her watch while sitting on the toilet in the restaurant. "Shit, shit, shit and double-shit!" Of all the times in her life to get the frickin' diarrhea. Of course it had to be nerves, but she was five minutes late for the bus already. She finally got done and rushed out the door. She looked down the road and saw a dejected looking cowboy walking down the highway. She had borrowed a new Mustang for the occasion and raced after him.

Normally you would not want to pull out of that parking lot at 50 MPH, cross four lanes of traffic, gravel flying, tires screaming as you tried to "head him off at the pass." You also have not been an obsessed woman in love, who has waited thirty years for this very moment.

He jumped into the ditch as he saw that 'stang come flying out of the parking lot like a bat with its tail on fire. Had the place been robbed? Was it someone in the Volunteer Fire Department? He just knew to get out of the way.

The car pulled up with a wild screech and the smell of burning rubber and a cloud of dust and the driver emerged. She was wearing "Daisy Duke" jean shorts and had on a blue swimsuit top that, well, I guess you might say was an attention-getter. Her long hair blew in the breeze as she walked toward him and said, "Howdy, cowboy. Need a ride?" She was more gorgeous than he remembered and he just stupidly stood there with bags in hand, just staring at her.

She came up to him and he dropped his bags and took her up in his arms. She didn't seem to notice the prosthetic or his disfigured face or anything else as she got him in a lip-lock and he held her close, feeling the warmth of her skin under his good hand. They stood there, locked in that kiss for what seemed like a hundred years that passed in an instant. She was so happy to see him she was crying and...Well, his eyes were stinging from all that dust and were kind of moist too.

"Nice filly ya got here, little gal."

He threw the bags in the backseat and got in.

"So, what happened? I got worried."

She burned more rubber and took off in the direction of the hotel.

"Don't ask," she said, "It was just a bunch of dumb shit."