by Roxie Noir
I bet Mae’s the only one who’s going to remember most of this tomorrow, I think.
9
Mae
This wasn’t really how it was supposed to go, but I’m rolling with it. Instead of quietly taking pictures from the background, somehow the pictures have become the main attraction.
Right now, there’s a half-naked lady on a couch holding a cowboy hat over her chest. She’s alternating between looking at the camera flirtatiously and trying to get her bra back from Raylan, who’s holding it just out of her reach.
She’s not trying that hard. Neither of them are, but it’s a good diversion from Jackson, who’s got a girl on his lap right now and keeps sloppily making out with her.
I don’t mind. There’s no version of reality in which I have a claim on him, and it’s not like I didn’t know what I was getting into by coming here.
That doesn’t mean I have to watch.
“Raylan!” the half-naked girl squeals, and lunges across his lap for her bra, her ass sticking into the air.
Raylan looks at the camera and grins, and I snap it.
“Okay, everybody,” says a woman’s voice behind me, and I turn. Everyone turns, and the crowd quiets a little.
It’s a middle-aged woman, streaks of gray in her brown hair, stern face.
“This ain’t a nudie establishment,” she says, picking up two empty pitchers. “Ladies, please keep your clothes on, you got that?”
She stares hard at the half-naked girl. The half-naked girl actually blushes. I’d love to get a picture of them both, a wide-angle shot, but I’m not in a good spot for it. Crap.
“Sorry, Betty,” the girl says, and everyone else mutters an apology too.
Betty grabs a few more empties and leaves. Amazingly, most of the cowboys there look slightly chastened, and I raise my eyebrows.
The half-naked girl takes her shirt and bra and slinks off to the bathroom. I take the chance to fade into the background again, lean against a wall, and just watch.
Karaoke kicks up again. The girl finally gets off of Jackson’s lap and walks off somewhere else, and he stands and joins another karaoke group. None of them can carry a tune in a bucket, but everyone is so wasted that they hardly notice, or if they notice, they don’t care.
I’m trying some shots with a slightly longer exposure, the camera kept still on a table, when one of the cowboys who isn’t singing walks over to me. I think his name is... Clay, or Wyatt, or Trevor, or something else typical.
“You takin’ pictures?” he asks, coming up behind me. His voice is slurred, and it makes his accent sound particularly thick.
“Actually, I’m a minion of Satan and I’ve been sent here with this soul-capturing device,” I say. “If I can capture a hundred souls in one day, he’ll give me a bonus. I’m saving up to buy a house in the nice part of Hell.”
I click the shutter and hold my breath, giving the exposure an extra moment. Then I look over at Clay-Wyatt-Trevor, and he just blinks at me.
“What?” he says, his face a mask of confusion.
“Yes, I’m taking pictures,” I say.
He frowns.
“You said something about Satan,” he says.
“You must be hearing things,” I say. “I’m a photographer for Sports Weekly, covering the rodeo.”
I know I shouldn’t mess with drunk people, but it’s so tempting sometimes, especially when I’m the only sober one around.
“Right,” he says, and gives his head a little shake, like he can knock his confusion out through an ear. “You like it?”
I turn away from the camera for a moment and look at him. He’s young, probably college-aged, though I don’t know if he’s ever been to a college course.
Most of these guys haven’t. Rodeo riders are young, because the younger they are, the more reckless, and the faster broken bones and punctured lungs heal.
Bull riding breaks people, and it breaks them fast. Most of the guys here are my age or younger, and it can be easy to forget.
“I like—” I start, but someone else swoops in and snatches my camera off the table, laughing wildly and running away.
“Hey!” I shout, and go after him, my heart squeezing in my chest.
He turns and looks at me. It’s Jackson’s friend Raylan, and he rushes off to a knot of young men.
“Cover me, y’all!” he says, and pushes between them.
I grind my teeth together, but I know better than to get outwardly upset. I know Raylan’s type. I grew up with Raylan’s type, and he never got much beyond pulling cute girls’ pigtails just to get a reaction.
He’s just gotten away with it for about ten years longer than he should have.
“I hope you got four thousand dollars if you break that,” I call.
I force myself to walk, not run, to where he is. He’s standing behind a couple other guys, his back turned.
The other guys look a little alarmed when I say four thousand dollars. It’s not hard to push my way past them, and then I stand there, arms crossed.
“Give it back, Raylan,” I say.
I just watched him play keep away with another girl’s bra, and I’m not about to fall into the trap of looking like I’m enjoying this or flirting with him.
“Come get it,” he says, and turns around.
I have a bad feeling that I know what he just did with my camera. Black flames of rage kindle in my chest, but I don’t do anything. I know better than to seem upset.
Instead, I hold out one hand.
“This is my job,” I say. “You break that one, I’m out on the street.”
Now the other cowboys look really nervous. Raylan considers this, the humor draining from his face.
The karaoke song ends, and suddenly everyone’s looking at our standoff.
“It’s right here,” he says, wiggling it a little.
My stomach lurches. If he drops the camera, I’m screwed. I’ll probably have to go into Oklahoma City to get another one and put that on my credit card, and God only knows when I’ll be able to pay it off — not to mention I’ll lose a day of shooting.
From the corner of my eye, I see Jackson walk over. For a moment, I’m afraid that Raylan is going to toss the camera to him or something, and then Jackson’s going to run somewhere with it.
It’s like I’m on a playground. With children, except these children ought to know better by now.
The flames of anger grow.
“Give me the camera,” I say, keeping my voice low and soft.
Raylan looks around at the other people, but they all look uneasy, and I think he realizes he’s the only one still playing the game.
He hands it back, and I take it with both hands, holding it as tight as I can.
Then he smirks.
“Let me know if you see anything you like,” he says.
Now I’m certain I know what he did with my camera. I turn it on, and after a second, the viewfinder screen lights up.
I scroll back one picture and I’m not thrilled to see I was right: there’s a blurry, grainy photo of a flesh-toned tube sticking out of a pair of jeans.
Raylan’s grinning, and I’m so mad I’m shaking.
They would never do this if I were a man, I think. I wouldn’t have to play these stupid games. I wouldn’t get hit on by the people I’m trying to photograph.
I could just do my job.
I know better than to show them how angry I really am, because that’s just want these cocky, idiotic, amped-up man-children want. Instead I cock my head slightly and frown, like I’m trying to figure out what it’s a picture of.
“Is that your finger?” I finally say.
The other guys chuckle. Raylan’s grin broadens, like he’s trying to cover something.
“Ain’t no finger,” he says.
I squint.
“You sure?” I ask, and then extend one pinky, trying to match the angle of the penis in the picture.
The other guys laugh more, and Raylan starts to frown.
“You can just admit you like it, you know,” he says. I think he’s trying to sound cocky, but he just sounds sulky.
Now I laugh.
“It’s not even that cold in here,” I say, and now everyone’s on my side here, and we’re all laughing at Raylan, who’s flustered and trying not to act it.
“That wasn’t all the way out,” he says, but no one’s listening anymore.
I hit the delete button. I’m still nearly shaking with fury, but I feel like I’ve got a handle on the situation. I feel like I’ve won.
“Raylan, if I wanted pictures of small peckers, I’d photograph birds,” I say. “Leave my camera alone from now on.”
I turn and walk away, pretending that I’ve got something else pressing to do. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Jackson go up to Raylan, but I step away before I can hear anything.
I pretend to take more pictures, but I’m barely paying attention. I’m still mad and slowly getting madder: mad that I have to put up with this bullshit, mad that I have to insult someone’s penis in order to get my job done, mad that no one else seems to mind.
After about fifteen minutes, I give up. I grab my jacket and slip out of Betty’s quietly, hoping that no one’s noticed me leave. It’s only eleven, but the whole rodeo crowd is beyond drunk, so I don’t think anyone’s paying attention.
I haven’t even crossed the street before I hear someone shout my name. It sounds like Jackson, so I take a deep breath before I turn around, forcing my anger back down.
“Yes?” I say, all my muscles going stiff.
“You okay?” he asks.
He smells like beer and whiskey, and his eyes are a little loose in his head.
“Just tired,” I say. I keep one hand firmly on my camera.
He jerks one thumb over his shoulder.
“Listen,” he says. “I’m real sorry about Raylan, he’s like this when he gets drunk but he don’t mean anything by it. He was just having some fun with you, but I think you put an end to that.”
I snort.
“Don’t worry, I’m learning that apparently harassment is just part and parcel of this gig,” I say, sarcasm slicing through my words.
Jackson looks drunkenly taken aback.
“Harassment?” he asks.
“Yeah, that’s the word for when someone shows you their dick against your will,” I say. “You need me to spell it?”
I take a deep breath, because I don’t want to get into a fight with the guy I’m here to photograph. I know full well that he’ll never think there’s anything wrong with what Raylan did, just like he didn’t think there’s anything wrong with propositioning me for sex an hour after we met.
“Jackson, I just want to do my job,” I say. “Not look at bad pictures of Raylan’s junk. Not spend my time turning down your advances. Just my job.”
We look at each other for a long moment, and for a second, I think I might be getting through to him.
Then he tucks his thumb into his belt and grins that swaggering, sexy grin that he has. For once, it doesn’t work on me.
“So don’t turn ‘em down,” he says.
I turn and walk across the street without even waiting for the light to change.
“Mae!” he shouts. “Mae, come on.”
I get into the car without even looking back, drive back to the motel, and pretty much fall into bed. Of course Jackson completely missed the point, but what was I expecting? He spends all his time in a world where men are macho caricatures and women are buckle bunnies.
You could just leave and go back to New York, I think. Stop dealing with these immature jerks. Invent an emergency or something.
It’s tempting, but there’s no way I’ll give up the best chance I’ve got at really making it.
Totally unbidden, I think of Jackson clinging to the gate of the bucking chute today, grinning up at me, rescued camera in his hand. I know full well that he was just showing off, but I can’t help thinking he was showing off for me, and he risked his neck to do it.
As sleep pulls me under, I think: I’d really like to stop wanting to have sex with Jackson Cody.
10
Jackson
The next day’s got a rough start. I wake up the minute the sunlight hits the cheap green curtains, just like always, even though it feels like a pair of gorillas are slugging it out in my head. I take a deep breath, sigh, and then look to the other side of the bed.
Empty.
I look at it for a long moment, even though my eyes feel like someone’s taken a high-pressure fire hose to them, and I wait for the night before to piece itself together. We were at Betty’s. There were shots and karaoke, and I know there was a girl sitting in my lap, asking me if I was going to take her home.
I close my eyes again and scoot over in the double bed, the cool sheets briefly making me feel better, and more comes back.
Mae taking photos. Some girl with her shirt off, Betty coming over and putting a stop to that. More karaoke, and then Mae giving Raylan a dressing-down for some dumbass thing he did.
The sidewalk. Mae telling me she just wants to do her job, her leaving, me going back inside where I did another shot of Jack.
I pull a pillow over my face, remembering what happened next: getting in Raylan’s face, both of us drunk as hell. I think I shouted something about dick harassment and he shouted something about a bitch who couldn’t take a joke, and then we got pulled apart.
There’s flashes of me making out with some girl in the bathroom, then flashes of getting a ride back to the motel from the rodeo veterinarian, who kept asking if I was gonna puke in his car.
I didn’t. I think.
I came home alone and crashed, and now I’m here, paying for it.
“Goddamn,” I mutter, and push myself out of bed.
Everyone’s hurting today. Everyone except Mae, who didn’t drink a thing, and seems refreshed and spry as a spring chicken.
I pull myself together with about ten cups of coffee and a pound of bacon, then grab one more cup and stand around the arena, watching the ropers practice on each other. The rodeo proper doesn’t start until two in the afternoon, so until then there’s nothing to do besides wander around, breathing in the tense air.
Bull riding doesn’t start tonight. It starts tomorrow night and goes for three nights. By the end of the third, someone’s the champion.
My pulse pounds, just thinking about it. The head rush, the pure force of nature, the feeling when you leap off after eight seconds and the crowd roars.
There ain’t nothing like it in the whole world.
After about an hour, I see Bruce and Mae making their way around the arena. There’s still thirty minutes before the rodeo opens again, so people are trickling into the stands but most are still hanging around the fair, riding the Ferris wheel or buying knickknacks in the old west town they’ve got set up.
I realize that the two of them are walking over to me, so I stand up a little straighter, try not to look so hungover. I’m sure Mae can see right through it, but maybe Bruce won’t know.
“Jackson,” Bruce says.
“Howdy,” I say.
“Do you have a minute to walk through the stable and talk bulls?” he asks. “I wanted to get your take on them.”
“I could talk bulls all day,” I say, and smile at the two of them.
Bruce just nods and writes something down, but Mae looks at me with an undecipherable look on her face. Like she’s made of iron. But for once, she’s not taking my picture, and I’m grateful because my hungover mug doesn’t need a place in Sports Weekly.
The stables aren’t far, and as we walk I ramble on about the bulls: where each of these guys are from, who their sires are, who they’ve bucked off so far this year. Bruce takes notes and Mae just follows along, not saying anything.
I talk more so I don’t look at her too much.
Inside the stables, I ramble more. I walk them down the center aisle and name each bull to them: Screaming Heat, T
wist and Shout, Muscle Grunt, Bank Robbery, Hopalong, Mr. Torque, and Crash Junction.
“Screaming Heat’s a kitten,” I say, looking at the big, ugly white bull. He snorts. “Twist and Shout ain’t bad, but when I rode him in Laredo I really had to spur him to get much enthusiasm. Muscle Grunt and Hopalong I ain’t rode, but I’ve heard they’re about average. Good days, bad days.”
“Which one are you hoping for in the draw?” Bruce asks.
I nod my head down the barn and they follow me to stand in front of a stall. Inside’s a big, ugly, brown bull with bloodshot eyes. He glares out at us, and I take a step forward.
Bruce and Mae don’t, though I hear her snap a picture.
“This is Train Robbery, my second choice,” I say. “He’s scored the highest average for all the rodeos he’s been in. Kicks like a motherfucker, goes buck wild right out the gate. Unseats most riders, but earns good scores for the ones who stay on.”
Train Robbery barely moves, just blinks at Bruce and Mae. They both look back.
“He don’t look like much now, but just wait until he’s in the arena,” I say, gazing at the big, placid animal. “He’s gentle as a lamb in the chute, but the second that gate opens? Watch out.”
Mae takes a picture, then frowns at her camera. Bruce makes a note.
“That makes Crash Junction your top choice?” he asks.
I can’t help but grin.
“Yessir, it does,” I say.
I cross the aisle to another stall, this one with a big white bull in it. The bull glares at me, and I wink at him, just for fun.
“This here is Crash Junction,” I say. “And he’s zero for, what is it now, fifty?”
“Fifty-two,” Bruce says.
Mae raises her eyebrows.
“Nobody’s stayed on the full eight seconds?” she asks.
“No ma’am,” I say, but she’s looking at Crash Junction again. “He’s got a front end drop like a freight train, a tight spin, and he switches directions on a dime.”
Crash Junction snorts again.
“Riders just fly right off of him,” I say. “Most riders, anyway. Ain’t that right, buddy?”