by Tim Sandlin
The weasel said, "Smile if you want me to ride you like a shit-kicker on a bucking bronco."
I stood. "That's enough, son."
Homer looked at me as if he hadn't heard properly. "Who you sonning, boy?"
"You, buffalo brains." I stepped across the gap separating us. My plan was to get in his face, but that was impossible. I'd have to say I got in his sternum. "You're just the type who gives big, ugly, stupid football players a bad name."
He said, "You're just the type that drives up cowboy fatality rates," which, I have to admit, was pretty good. Maybe he wasn't stupid after all.
"At least I've still got balls, you steroid-saturated mountain of meat."
The frat boy who wanted to spank the girls said, "Break his jaw, Homer."
I stepped around the behemoth to address his sidekicks. "How about if I ream the ape's crack first and you three after?"
Weasel Boy said, "You going to let him get away with that?"
I snuck a quick peek at the French girls to see how they were taking it. They stood, upper arms touching, leaning on cocked hips with their pool cues resting on the floor between their feet. Maybe they were waiting to choose sides. Even without the language, they had to know this hard-cock showdown was over them.
The giant's fist doubled and I flashed on that shot of Yukon back at the table, wishing I'd had the presence of mind to drink it, pre-drama.
Then, the fist opened. "We were just kidding the girls. They knew I wasn't disrespecting them." Homer appealed to the dark, angry one. "Didn't you?"
Her face was a mask.
He turned back to me. "No need to fight over it."
The short one's face twitched and formed into the smallest hint of a smile. In spite of copper hair and a face full of scrap iron, she was pretty. Let's say Sandra Bullock after an eight-day amphetamine run.
"You insulted a woman's pulchritude. That's the best reason I know of to fight," I said.
Behind me, Yancy said, "Pulchritude?" and we all fell into a silence that lasted longer than the center of a phone call to Mica. I took heart because Homer hadn't spontaneously pounded me. The longer he thought about it, the more certain I was the big ball of gas would back down.
Finally, Homer said, "No chick's worth breaking my hand over your face for. You want her, she's yours."
The weasel said, "What?" Yancy said, "Yes," and Homer turned to walk away. I grabbed his shoulder, pulled him around, and hit him as hard as I could in the jaw.
Repercussions were about what you would expect.
The giant grabbed me by the shirt yokes, lifted me off the floor where we made an instant of eye contact, then he threw me over the pool table and into the condom machine.
I jumped up quick as I could — which wasn't that quick — ran around the table, lowered my shoulder, and plowed into him. Imagine running full bore into an upright freezer.
He said, "That's enough, small fry."
I threw the eight ball at his head, but he caught it. He said, "Idiot."
The dark French girl stuck her cue stick in my hand. To this day, I'm not sure if she was helping me win the fight or wanted to see how far I would go before he broke my neck.
Whatever her motive, I said, "Thanks, ma'am," turned, and swung the thick end of the stick like a baseball bat into Homer's thigh.
The bastard didn't even flinch. He one-handed my throat, lifted me up by the neck, and slammed me on my back on the pool table.
Breath sweet, like wintergreen Altoids, he almost whispered when he said, "Are we going to behave now?"
"You give up?"
Homer looked around at his friends, who were enjoying this more than he was. By then we had the attention of every sober and near sober soul in the bar. The band ground to a stop midway through "She's No Lady, She's My Wife." The only sound was a kid wasting Arab assassins on the Silent Scope EX game.
I felt around the pool table, searching for a ball I could use to crack him in the temple. He figured out what I was up to and tightened the clamp on my throat, so I stopped.
Once again, he leaned in close. "If I apologize, will you back off?"
I nodded yes. It seemed like time to give the kid a break.
Without taking his fingers off my voice box, the giant jock looked up at the French girls. I could barely see them over to the side of the table. The one with the tough-broad attitude still had it, but her colorful friend wore a grin. She was having fun. Her eyes did sparkly things that came across as enjoying life.
Homer said, "I'm sorry I was disrespectful. We only meant to have some fun and we stepped out of line. I truly regret my words."
The tall one didn't blink. The short one shrugged in a manner I'd never seen before — the shoulders and eyebrows moving up in unison. She put her entire body into that shrug.
Homer the giant looked back down at me. "You going to leave me alone now?"
I nodded.
"You come at me again and I'll be forced to hurt you," he said. "Neither of us wants that, do we?"
He eased the pressure on my throat to the point where I could say, "I'll let you go."
He released me and stepped away. I sat up and rubbed my numb neck. I could feel his fingerprints on my larynx.
My voice came out as a croak. "You and your buddies had better beat it back home to your coeducational brew pubs. Don't let me catch you in a man's bar again."
His hands came up in a gesture of defeat. They were big as mop buckets. "I'm done slumming. These people are crazy."
The crowd parted as the college boys filed out. The music started again, something by Dwight Yoakam. The guys on the stools turned back to the bar. The tall girl made a hand signal that I should get off her pool table so she could finish the game.
5.
My hat lay brim up on the floor next to the condom machine. It was a straw summer Stetson, not the black felt Resistol I wore for riding bulls. When I bent to retrieve it my nose dribbled blood on the crease, so I pulled a red bandanna from my back pocket and stanched the blood flow as I walked over to Yancy and the whiskey. I carry a red bandanna in my right back pocket. Most cowboys keep snuff tins in that pocket and their jeans wear through a circle there, but I don't dip or chew. I like to think of myself as a renegade.
Yancy said, "I guess you showed him." Yancy dips. It's disgusting but at least he keeps it to himself, unlike my ex-wife, Mica, who smokes.
"Damn straight," I said. "Where were you when it came time to watch my back?"
"I was watching it. Nobody touched you from that side."
"I could have used some frontal help, too."
"You said it was none of our affair."
I chugged my Yukon Jack, mellow and fruity with an aftertaste of kerosene. "That was before the jerk compared himself to a shit-kicker on a bronco."
We watched the dark French girl run the six, seven, and nine balls. They left the eight ball on the floor where Homer had dropped it. After winning the game, she blew on the tip of her cue stick and set it back on the rack. Both girls came over to our table.
The shorter of the two stood closer to my chair than American girls would have stood. She left-hand clutched a little beaded purse with an Indian design of some sort, I would say Blackfeet, as she gave a little speech in French which I took as a thank-you. When she spoke, her free hand fluttered about, with a space between her ring and middle fingers. I liked her round face and russet eyes, and the way she leaned her weight on one leg, toward me. She smelled nice, like a new pickup truck.
Between the bull, Mica, and Homer, I was feeling reckless, not so much suicidal as definitely in the mood of nothing to lose. I said, "I just got whipped defending your virtue, the least you can do is kiss my tallywhacker."
The nice-smelling girl said, "That is something we may be able to arrange."
Yancy howled with glee and the blood rushed to my face with such intensity my nose started up again.
The dark girl said, "What is tallywhacker?"
Short stuff must hav
e known, because when she explained in French her friend looked down on me and said, "Wicked cowboy," which just increased Yancy's mirth level.
I didn't play it cool. If you're going to blurt rude to a woman, you have to back it up with more cockiness or else there's no point in being a creep. Women who go for creeps will know you were faking, and the minority of women who go for nice guys will think you're a creep.
I said, "You know English?"
The shorter of the two said, "Of course."
"The jock said you didn't speak English."
"He said so, we didn't."
I stammered around through a couple of uhs and a gee whiz. Finally, I came out with, "I'm sorry about the kiss my . . . you know. Thing. I didn't realize."
The dark girl said, "If you are sorry, buy us drinks."
Yancy and I stood up and held the chairs while the girls sat down. I got the short one, Yancy the tall. At first, Yancy's girl didn't know why he was standing up holding the back of a chair. Once she figured it out, she said something to my girl that made them both laugh. Men are at a big enough disadvantage in courtship rituals without the women passing comments to each other in a language we don't understand.
I signaled across the bar to Patty to come and take our order. She didn't rush right over, and I firmly believe that was due to turf jealousy. Patty was the waitress twenty pounds overweight, as opposed to the others who were ten pounds under. She came from eastern Oregon and had sexy dimples at her elbows that kind of winked at a guy when she put a drink on the table. I'd heard Patty traditionally took the winner of the Labor Day bull riding home with her and I'd been eager to find out if this was true or just another small-town legend. Those dimples had been the highlight of a great daydream that afternoon in my shower.
When Patty finally reached our table, I said, "Another round of Yukon for us, and drinks for the ladies."
Patty propped her tray on her hip and waited.
The short girl said, "I would like an aperitif."
"We're all out of aperitif."
The taller girl said, "We'll take the American drink you brought us earlier."
Patty said, "Tequila."
The taller girl said, "You may keep the fruit this time."
While we waited for drinks, the four of us exchanged information. The dark one who rolled her own cigarettes was Giselle; the nice-smelling girl with the metal in her face was Odette. They were stu dents from the University of Paris who had been in our country for a week, doing something scholarly up at CU in Boulder. This was Giselle's first trip to the United States and Odette's second. When I asked what they liked best about the U.S., Odette said, "Hotel showers," and Giselle said, "Nothing." They were flying back to Paris first thing in the morning and had come to Crockett County this afternoon to take in an American rodeo.
"You were the champion today, no?" said Odette. I liked the way she said no at the end of the sentence. My Patty fantasy was rapidly taking a dive, replaced by something more French. I'd heard stories about French girls. I mean, the kiss is named after them. Nobody ever heard of an Oregonian kiss.
I fell back on modesty. "No. Yes. I got lucky today."
"It was thrilling when you fell and the bull stepped on you."
I said, "Pain is my life."
Giselle wasn't as impressed as Odette. "What you did was typical American cruelty. You torture animals and then rationalize your behavior by saying they enjoy it."
"A lot more cowboys are killed by bulls than bulls are killed by cowboys." I turned to Odette. "Do most French women have rods through their eyebrow?"
She said, "Of course," and smiled at me. It was a nice smile. It said, I know you are putting me on with the rural rube act and I can play the game, too. It said, Touch me, I don't mind.
Yancy popped open his tin of Brown Mule. I've told him about a hundred times to leave that stuff in his pocket around women. The boy never learns. Even your hard-core bunny is turned off by the oral exchange of wet chew. Classy French girls were not about to be charmed by juice dribbling down the chin.
Yancy said, "I want to hear more about the part where you said, 'That is something we might arrange.'"
Patty came up with our drinks — brown shots for the boys, golden shots for the girls.
Odette said, "We've been in your American West a week and we must return to Paris tomorrow" — she pronounced Paris Paree — "and . . ."
Giselle finished the sentence. "We have yet to experience a cowboy."
I shot my shot.
Yancy said, "Experience?"
Patty translated. "She means fuck."
Yancy said, "Oh."
Giselle shot her shot. I don't think Patty would have left our table if the place was on fire.
Odette leaned close to me. "You were so chivalrous with the college fellows." She touched the visible vein on the inside of my wrist. Her fingernail was cool and warm at the same time. It's hard to explain, but no one has touched me quite like that before. Her eyes took on the sparkle I'd noticed while Homer was pounding me. "We hoped you might be willing to oblige us."
Yancy leaped to his feet. "Hot damn."
Giselle spoke. "Not you."
Yancy's face pulled a classic What? Odette used the break in conversation to shoot her shot of tequila. Patty stayed put.
Giselle nodded toward me. "Him. The conquerer of bulls."
Yancy couldn't believe it. "Both of you?"
Odette drew a nail across my wrist. Her fingernails were glittery gold with red stars in them. "Think you can satisfy two curious girls from France?"
I reached over, took Yancy's shot, and drained it. "You got any friends? I'll take care of their cowboy needs, too."
Odette smiled. "Only us two."
"I can make do with that."
Giselle, Odette, and I stood up to leave. Patty didn't move a muscle to get out of my way.
Yancy was on the verge of a panic attack. "But two on one ain't fair."
Odette picked up the beaded purse. She said, "Only an American would think sex should be fair."
Yancy turned his eyes to me, pleading. He said, "Buddy."
I nodded. "What she said."
Odette and Giselle moved off through the crowd, neither one looking back to see if I was following. Yancy was ready to cry. I said, "Can you pay for that last round of drinks? I'm a little short."
6.
The night smelled of hot dust and horse dung. The dung came from trailers scattered about the parking lot and the dust rose from wherever it rises from on the plains. You'd think the dust bowls that blow through every few years would eventually scrape the earth down to rock, the way it did the Badlands. Besides the horse trailers, there were maybe twenty ancient Cadillacs — old cowboys love old Cadillacs — and seventy pickup trucks of every size, make, and age settling into spongy asphalt like dinosaurs sinking in tar pits. Not a single SUV in sight, praise the Lord. The only non-pickup, non-Cadillac on the lot was a little green Daewoo with a National Car Rental sticker on back. Doesn't take deep insight to figure whose car that was.
"We will follow to your hotel," Odette said, from the driver's seat.
"It's a motel," I said. "Super Eight."
Giselle said, "How authentic."
I pointed over to my '86 Mazda short bed with the off-color driver's door and the front bumper tied in place by pigging string. "I could give you a lift in my outfit. Bring you back whenever we get through."
Giselle said something French I took as disparaging about the size of my truck, because Odette looked over at it and laughed.
"We fly from Denver early tomorrow. It would be more agreeable if we had our own car with us."
I fell back on the cowboy version of whatever: "Suit yourself."
The thing about three-ways, in my experience, is they're never as exciting in reality as they are on paper. I mean, the anticipation between when you know you're in there and you're actually in there is a hoot — hot damn, I'm scoring double — and the social status at the chu
tes the next day is deeply satisfying — tall saddle bronc riders look at you with respect, even awe if the girls were presentable — but the actual oral and genital stimulation of the moment tends to lose itself in technical positioning.
"Lie there. No there. On your side, facing my feet."
"It won't go that way."
"Yes, it will. I've seen it in the manual."
"Jesus, when was the last time you cut your toenails?"
There are timing issues. Not everyone finishes together and those who get done early or late drift off into bored motions. Unless it's purely recreational fun between strangers, the emotional geometry gets too convoluted to follow.
Not that I'm Mr. Been-There, Done-That. The fantasy has only reached fruition twice. First was with two Big Springs pole benders in white hats and leather fringe who said they were nineteen but I found out later weren't. Those girls were dumb as gravel only more irritating to sit on naked. They giggled. We started in a Holiday Inn hot tub and afterward they made fun of my wanger, which is bad enough one woman at a time. They bounced humiliating metaphors back and forth without knowing what a metaphor is until they settled on my thing looking like a road-killed weasel.
The other time was with Mica and her Pilates teacher, who only went with me to get to her. It's no fun watching someone lay atop your wife, even if you are under her. Love has no place in sport sex.
Which adds up to why I was deeply divided as to whether I wanted the girls to turn right and follow me onto I-76 headed east, or I would rather have them cross the overpass and take the ramp back to Denver, laughing all the way. Part of me said, "Those girls are French. They'll know things Mica never even read about in Cosmo." The other part of me knew I could tell a better story tomorrow if we skipped tonight.
Okay. Hell. I'm blowing smoke and I told myself I wouldn't. Of course I wanted to nail the French girls. I'm not nuts. I wanted more than to anticipate nailing, and I wanted more than to say I had nailed. I wanted to nail. Honesty is a bitch. What happened was I cranked down the window and held the side mirror straight, which is the way to get a stable look at what's behind me. I flipped the right turn signal that was working because I'd changed the fuse in Cheyenne. There was a two-second dark pause, while I held my breath, then the Daewoo right signal blinked, on, off, on. The thrill was palpitating.