Torch

by Roxie Noir

  “Nobody’s gonna put you on trial, darlin’,” he says. “I’m not known for doing things I don’t want to.”

  “Are you known for being a complete and utter idiot?” I ask, my voice pitching a little higher.

  I’m not being very nice, but the last thing I want is Jackson Cody’s blood on my hands. People are still looking at us. If I caused his death somehow I’d probably get lynched.

  “I’m a professional bull rider,” he says, his voice teasing. “Being a complete and utter idiot is all I’m known for.”

  He steps closer to me and holds the camera out. I feel eighteen again. There’s some deep, primal part of me that still likes this: the swagger, cockiness, the sheer enthusiasm for danger.

  He just risked his life for a camera. My camera. It’s stupid and reckless and macho in the very worst way, but God help me, it’s still making my insides flutter and I hate myself for it.

  “I’m not known for causing needless deaths,” I say. “Would you mind if we kept it that way?”

  I take the camera and our hands touch, but he doesn’t let it go.

  “You got a good grip on it?” he asks, teasing, those hazel eyes looking down at me like we’re alone in this arena of a thousand.

  “I can handle it,” I say.

  He slides his fingers over mine as he lets go, and they’re rough and calloused, hands used to farm work and heavy labor.

  I slip the strap back over my neck and look down at the camera, praying it’s not too broken from the fall, but Jackson doesn’t leave, he just stands there in front of me.

  “How busted is it?” he asks.

  I hit the power button and hold my breath. The screen comes on, though the picture is blurry.

  I exhale.

  “Not as busted as it could be,” I say.

  Something’s broken for sure, but the camera’s in one piece, not a thousand.

  Still, I can’t believe what an idiot I am.

  “Can you fix it?” he asks, crossing his arms in front of himself and looking down at it like he’s examining a truck engine.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Probably not, but I’ve got a backup camera. This one’s better, but I’m not totally screwed.”

  “Good,” he says. “I was afraid my pretty mug might not make Sports Weekly.”

  “So that’s why you risked your own hide to get this thing back?” I say.

  “My hide?” he says, and laughs. “You’ve been around cowboys too much already, darlin’.”

  Crap.

  I’ve mostly shed the West Texas twang I grew up with. Back in New York, when I tell people where I’m from, they’re usually surprised.

  But here, where everyone talks like this? I can practically feel my accent elbowing its way back into my speech.

  “Please don’t call me darlin’,” I say, still looking down at the camera.

  “It’s just a nickname,” he says.

  “I’ve got a real name,” I say, and finally look up at him, into his laughing eyes. “It’s Mae.”

  “You sure Mae’s not a nickname?” he asks. “It’s awful short is all.”

  My stomach twists and I narrow my eyes.

  Does he remember?

  “Nope,” I say. “Mae’s what’s on my birth certificate.”

  Technically, it’s true.

  “All right, Mae,” he says, and then someone calls his name.

  We both look at another guy waving Jackson’s hat in the air. One side of it’s a little crushed, but it could be in worse shape.

  Jackson nods, then looks back at me.

  “We’re gettin’ drinks at Betty’s Lounge when this is over,” he says. “You should come by. There ought to be some good photo opportunities. And if we ask real nice, they’ll turn on the karaoke machine.”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “Have some fun for once, darlin’,” he says, and winks at me.

  Then he walks away before I can even open my mouth to protest, and I watch him go.

  Heads turn after him — male, female, it doesn’t matter. He nods at two girls, both dressed up in their rodeo finest, and says something. They both burst into giggles once he passes, and I feel a pang of solidarity with them. No matter how prickly I am to Jackson on the outside, deep down, I turn to jello when he looks at me.

  I wish my camera weren’t broken, because this could be a good shot: a cowboy walks away, heads turn after him.

  Then he turns a corner and I feel invisible again, like I fade into the background, and I take a deep breath of relief.

  This is how I prefer things. I’m behind the camera, after all.

  When the rodeo’s over for the night, Bruce and I hold a quick conference on the way back to the motel. I don’t want to talk about dropping my camera, but he saw the whole thing, of course. Thankfully he’s nice enough not to lecture me.

  “You brought a backup, right?” Bruce asks.

  “Of course,” I say.

  He nods, and we move on.

  We go over the plan for the next day — a parade, barrel racing, a bunch of roping events — and then we’re at the motel.

  “I think I’ll turn in,” he says. “I’m bushed. You?”

  I hesitate.

  “I heard all the cowboys are going to a bar to celebrate,” I say.

  Bruce raises his eyebrows a fraction of an inch.

  “I might go down and document a little,” I say. “Get some flavor for the article.”

  “If you’re not too tired, it’s a good idea,” he says. “Oh, to be young again and able to stay up all night. Have a good time.”

  I parallel park our small white rental car right in front of Betty’s Lounge, amazed at the sheer amount of street parking that’s available here.

  I could park anywhere, in front of whatever store I want. I don’t even own a car in New York, but I’m familiar with the nightmare of trying to find a parking spot. In Kettle, Oklahoma, I’ve got my pick.

  Bettty’s is a pretty standard bar, and everything about it screams regular America: the neon beer signs in the window, the men wearing jeans and baseball caps at the bar, the news on the TV over the bar. As soon as I walk in I hear a shout go up and look over to the right, where a group of cowboys are sitting around on some couches around tables and doing shots.

  Jackson’s in the middle, and he puts the shot glass down on the table, shakes his head from side to side, and shouts, “Yeah!”

  There’s already a girl next to him, wearing tiny cutoff shorts and a plaid shirt even in November, smiling up at him and laughing.

  You’re here for flavor, I think. This is flavor.

  I get a good grip on my camera and walk toward them.

  8

  Jackson

  I’ve only had three shots of tequila but I’m starting to get buzzed. They keep showing up and so I keep doing them, and I’ll probably keep going until they stop coming or I can’t do another one.

  There’s a cute blonde on my left and a cute girl with golden-brown hair on my right, and every time I say something they both laugh, so that’s good. Betty’s is filling up, even though it’s still only nine-thirty.

  I don’t think Mae’s gonna show up, and the disappointment chafes at me like a stiff tag in a new shirt, even though I try to ignore it. I shouldn’t have even invited her in the first place, so it serves me right.

  Betty herself comes over. She’s in her forties, her hair just going gray, and she brings a pitcher of beer and a slew of pint glasses.

  “On the house,” she says, setting it all on a table. “Y’all are good for business, you know.”

  Raylan laughs.

  “I’ll drink to that,” he says.

  “I know you will,” Betty says, wiping her hands on her apron. “You’ll drink plenty to that.”

  “Cheers,” Raylan says. He pours himself a beer, clinks it against the pitcher, and then drinks half of it.

  “You ladies want some?” I ask the girls on my left and right.

  “
Sure!” says Left.

  “I’d love some,” says Right.

  I’m a gentleman, so I pour their drinks before I pour my own. Someone’s shouting something a couple feet away, and I hear the clink of shot glasses again. People hoot. Another girl comes and sits next to Raylan.

  “All right,” I say loudly, holding up my glass. A few people stop talking and look at me, then hold up their own glasses. “Here’s to Oklahoma!”

  It’s the first thing I thought of, but everyone cheers. We clink glasses and drink beers.

  More shots show up. We drink to more things. The girl on my right gets replaced with another girl, or at least, I think she does. The new girl is a little more handsy, always touching me on the arm and shit.

  Raylan gets Betty to put out the karaoke machine, and him and Clay go over and work on figuring it out until they’ve found the power switch, and then they argue over which Johnny Cash song they should sing first.

  I head to the bathroom. When I come back, my seat’s still there, and I realize that Betty’s is wall-to-wall plaid and cowboy boots. It makes me smile, and I sit back down and drink what’s in front of me.

  A while later, I see a flash go off behind Raylan’s head. I don’t think anything of it for a moment, until I realize that also behind Raylan is a blond head.

  Then I sit up and lean forward, elbows on knees.

  “What,” says Raylan. He’s got an arm around a girl, both of them pretty drunk.

  I’m getting there, too.

  “Is that Mae behind you?” I ask.

  He twists his head and looks, then turns back to me, both eyebrows raised.

  “I thought you had a restraining order,” he says, a wide smile plastered onto his face.

  The girl on my left looks up at me. There’s no girl on my right. I guess she’s found something else to do.

  “It ain’t an order, it’s a suggestion,” I say. “I’m gonna go be civil.”

  I walk up behind Mae, but she’s taking a picture of two ropers, both of them grinning, thumbs tucked into belts. I’m a good head taller than her, so I just watch what she’s doing from over her as she snaps a few shots, changes something, takes a few more.

  “Those ain’t really candid,” I say.

  She jumps. The two cowboys laugh, and she turns to me with an exasperated look on her face.

  “Don’t just sneak up on people, Jackson,” she says.

  “Sorry, darlin’,” I say.

  “Please don’t call me that,” she says, looking at the camera. The two other cowboys drift off to go drink something else.

  “Sorry, Mae,” I say. “Let me buy you a drink to make it up to you.”

  “No thanks,” she says. “I’m working, you know.”

  “Just one,” I say. “It’ll loosen you up.”

  “What good is that gonna do for taking pictures?” she asks, but there’s laughter in her voice.

  I shrug.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe invite the muse in or some artistic shit.”

  “My muse is a teetotaler,” Mae says, looking around the bar.

  “Your muse is no fun,” I say. “Aren’t they supposed to get a little wild so you can make great stuff?”

  She laughs.

  “Is that how it works?” she asks. “The muse comes, gets buck wild, and then you make art?”

  “That’s how mine works,” I say. “She’s a cowgirl, though. Drinks like a fish. Swears like a sailor. Tons of fun. But all she ever tells me to do is ride animals that try to throw me off.”

  I take a long swig of beer, and try to ignore the voice telling me to put a hand on Mae’s shoulder while we talk. I don’t think it’s a muse, though.

  “Maybe I ought to audition new ones,” I say. “I bet I’d make a great cowboy poet.”

  Her flash goes off, and she looks down at the screen.

  “Whoops, sorry,” she says.

  “You afraid I was going to start writing poetry right now?”

  The flash goes off again, and this time Mae grins.

  “I can take a hint,” I say, humoring her. “No drinks, no poems, no fun. Come on, I’ll introduce you around to the people whose pictures you’re taking.”

  Mae shakes a good twenty or thirty hands: cowboys, wanna-be cowboys, buckle bunnies, the guys who handle the animals, even the veterinarian on call for the rodeo. The girl who was sitting next to me before is sitting next to Raylan now, but I don’t really care. It’s not like I knew her name.

  Soon enough, a synthesizer starts up over the speakers and then Raylan’s doing a drunk Johnny Cash impression, singing Ring of Fire and getting almost all the words wrong, even though he knows this song cold.

  “Don’t quit your day job!” someone shouts during a break in the song.

  “I want my money back!” someone else shouts.

  Raylan grins and flips them both off, and then Clay, another cowboy, jumps onto the stage and throws one arm around Raylan.

  “We got this, y’all,” he says into the microphone they’re now sharing.

  They don’t got it. The singing gets worse, but the crowd loves it. Mae’s sitting on one couch where Raylan was, laughing along and snapping photos. There’s yet another girl sitting next to me, right across from Mae, and she’s got her hand on my shoulder, her body up against mine.

  All I can think about is a voice that whispered Come on, Jackson, into my ear six years ago.

  I get hard instantly. The girl who’s on me curls her body against mine just a little harder. Fuck. She thinks it’s for her.

  If I have a couple more drinks it could be.

  I keep my eyes on the karaoke — they’ve moved onto Brooks & Dunn — and try not to think about Lula-Mae.

  That song ends. Another one starts, and I get pulled onto the stage. Now there’s six of us up here and we sing Friends in Low Places, and I’m shouting at the top of my voice, not even bothering to attempt the tune.

  Midway through a girl comes bounding onto the stage and throws a fuzzy pink boa around my neck, and everyone laughs as I look at the thing, puzzled. Out in the bar, someone whistles loudly.

  “Give us a dance, cowboy!” someone else shouts, so I pull it over my shoulders and shake back and forth for a moment.

  Everyone goes nuts, and the girl who threw it comes back on stage. She grabs either end of the boa and I let her pull me off with it, right past Mae.

  Mae’s snapping away, looking at the camera and not at me. Someone hands me a shot and I sniff it. Jack Daniels. I shoot it, and the girl pulling on the boa around my neck laughs drunkenly.

  “Looks like I lassoed me a cowboy!” she shouts, still tugging.

  “Ain’t no lasso,” someone says.

  The girl rolls her eyes, but I’m already taking the boa off myself.

  “You want to lasso you a cowboy,” I say. “You got to have the right equipment first. Namely, a lasso.”

  I tie a lasso knot in the boa, looping it in on itself. It’s the worst rope I’ve ever had the pleasure of using, but I manage, and then I try to work the thing.

  Everyone laughs. A feather boa doesn’t make for a very useful lasso. Someone grabs it from me, someone a little better at roping than me, and after a couple of tries he manages to land the lasso around an empty beer pitcher.

  I sneak another glance at Mae, who’s laughing along, still watching through the camera. The world’s starting to feel a little unsteady, and then I realize I’ve been looking at her a little too long. I’m still looking, too drunk to drag my eyes away when my brain tells me to.

  Finally she looks at me, her eyes so bright they almost glow in the dark, and as she holds my gaze something changes in her face, like she’s thinking of a secret that the two of us have, alone, even in the middle of this crowd of people.

  Come on, Jackson.

  I guess we do have a secret.

  The cowboy with the boa lasso manages to rope someone else’s head. Another boa appears, and I’m wondering if there’s a box somewhere i
n this bar full of weird costume props. Now Mae is standing and people are on the couch, two girls and a cowboy, all posing like they’re in a photo booth.

  Mae’s being very obliging. I wonder if the pictures will turn out the way they think, and then a girl pulls me down onto the couch and I’m way, way too drunk to resist.

  She grabs my hat from where it was sitting, puts it on herself, and then sits on my lap, a boa around my neck. Mae snaps the picture and the camera’s in the way of her face, so I can’t see it.

  The girl kisses my cheek. Snap. She pulls my hand onto her ass and I squeeze, out of habit. Snap.

  She takes off my hat and holds it in front of our faces.

  “I bet these pictures are going to be so hot,” she whispers.

  “Yeah,” I say, because I’m pretty sure I have to say something.

  “You going home alone tonight, cowboy?” she asks me, her tequila breath hot on my ear.

  It’s getting a little stuffy here, behind my hat, but I’m on autopilot. I’ve got one hand on her ass and one on her thigh.

  “You tell me,” I say.

  The girl kisses me on the mouth. Her lips are soft but almost flaccid, she’s at a weird angle, and she’s drunk. Her mouth is only half on mine when she pushes her tongue past my lips and giggles, the cowboy hat still covering our faces.

  I try to kiss her back, but it’s all teeth and tongue and tequila, so after a second I give up and turn my head away.

  I push the hat down, but Mae’s turned away, snapping photos of the other couch.

  The girl over there’s taken her shirt off and is just holding a cowboy hat in front of her tits and giggling. Mae just keeps taking pictures, a look of total concentration on her face. In a minute the girl is on her knees on the couch and Raylan’s behind her, and she’s making a face at the camera that I think she thinks is sexy.

  “You wanna get out of here?” the girl on my lap purrs into my ear.

  “It’s still early,” I say. “Give it some time.”

  She pouts, but my eyes slide past her and to Mae, who’s perfectly sober, quietly snapping away.