It’s a hot, dry August evening on the Oklahoma panhandle. The sun is going down and the crickets have begun to sing. There’s no breeze at all tonight, nothing to ease the blistering heat. I am twenty-three years old. I finished four years of college before I realized that a banker’s life was not for me. Right after graduation, I joined the PRCA, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, and haven’t looked back since. I’ve traveled across the country riding bulls… big, mean, strong bulls. But through it all, what I’ve really wanted is a different kind of rodeo job. Tonight I’m going to make my dreams a reality I’ll be one of two clowns at a local rodeo. Unlike circus clowns, rodeo clowns have a dangerous job. We’re not just there to make the crowd laugh. During the bull riding, we become bullfighters, distracting the bulls to help keep the riders safe. I slip into my costume. I pull on overalls that have had the legs cut out so they resemble a skirt. I need to be able to move freely and turn fast. I pull on tights underneath to cover my legs. They are bright and colorful to attract the bulls’ attention. I’ll wear a cowboy hat but that goes on later. I begin to paint my face. It takes longer than anything else. As I am finishing up my makeup, I look into the mirror. I see my mother enter the room behind me. Her lips tremble and her tense white fists are pressed together. Her face is pale and ghost-like. Her eyes plead with me. “Matthew,” she says, “please listen to me. Don’t do this, honey I love you too much to see you put yourself in so much danger.” “But Mom,” I tell her; “I don’t really have a choice. This job chose me, remember?” “But Mom,” I tell her, “I don’t really have a choice. This job chose me, remember?” The look in her eyes tells me that she remembers all too well. I walk across the room and wrap my arms around her. I tell her that I am listening to her. That I really do understand her concerns. Then I tell her again that I really must do this. Not only for myself, but for Charlie too. Just then, my father limps through the door to join us. Dad used to fight bulls. He’ll understand. He smiles at me. Then he puts one hand on my shoulder and says, “All right, Matthew… ready to go?” “Yeah, Pop,” I tell him. I turn once more to my frightened mother and say, “All right, Mom, we’re going now. Wish me luck.” She pulls me close. She hugs me hard. She starts to cry I tell her once again not to worry. “Please be careful,” she says. I’m not sure if she’s crying for Charlie or for me. But then, I don’t guess it really matters. I tell Dad that he can drive. We climb up into our rickety old Ford pickup. It is so badly rusted that its original color cannot be determined. My father bought it brand new in 1950. He says that it was black then, but you couldn’t tell that by looking at it today. It only takes ten minutes to drive to the local rodeo grounds. When we arrive, almost every seat is filled. The rodeo began over an hour ago, but bull riding is always the last event of the night. The bulls wait impatiently in small pens behind an iron gate. There are Brahmas and Brahma crosses, Charolais, and scrappy Mexican fighting bulls. Their breed doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they buck. There is only one given in bull riding. Those bulls will try to kick, trample and crush anything that’s in their way, including me. I slide out of the truck and turn to my dad. “Now remember,” he says “I’ll be back to pick you up at ten o’clock. I’m going home so that I can be with your mother. If you need anything, call the house. Knock ’em dead, cowboy” he says to me, and then he is gone. I spot my partner for tonight, another clown named Slim, and go to say hello. Along the way I pass cowboys who all greet me happily. Most don’t know my name but they’re glad to see me anyway. One look at my clothes tells them that I am a bullfighter. I will risk my life to grant them a few seconds of safety They know that I will at least give them the chance to get up off the ground and run to the fence, avoiding danger. In the chutes, they’re getting the first bulls ready. A bull rope is slung around each bull’s belly, and is snugged up right behind their front legs. One end of the rope is called the tail. It gets passed through a loop on the other end of the rope and then the rope is tightened. The cowboys then wrap the remainder of the tail around their hands to secure their grip. A sticky substance called rosin is applied to the tail to keep it from slipping. If you listen hard, you can hear the occasional clanging of cowbells as the bulls mill around in the chute. The bells are hung on the bull rope for weight. When a cowboy lets go of the rope, this weight will cause the rope to fall harmlessly to the ground, so that no one has to remove it from an angry bull. Later, when the bulls are turned loose and are bucking wildly, you can hear the cowbells easily. Of course, by then everyone is too distracted to even notice it. The sun has gone down completely now as I walk out into the dusty arena. The first bull rider is preparing to climb aboard his bull. I secure my position, not too far away from the chute but not so
March/April 2008
There Was a Blizzard
Blizzard white snow twirling dancing like another kind of ballerina. I see a girl she is white— seeing something I can’t see— a white hawk circling Alice Provost Simmons, 10Barrington, Rhode Island
Cedar Wood and Rose
“It’s too cold.” “Aw, come on, Trinity, just jump!” I glowered at Will from the riverbank. “It’s too cold.” He considered me for a minute, then, holding his hands up in a sign of surrender, he walked out of the water, dripping, and sighed in resignation. I crossed my arms, feeling very proud of myself. I had finally out-willed him. Ha ha! I thought, You have no control over me now, Will Brydan! I was just about to voice this thought when he suddenly ran at me, scooped me up, and carried me kicking and screaming back into the lake, sundress and all. When he was up to his waist, and I was almost touching the water, he stopped. “Ready?” he asked, grinning down at me roguishly. I crossed my arms and glared at him, quite aware that I was helpless while he was holding me up like this. “You’re horrible,” I said with finality. This said, he promptly dropped me into the sun-warmed water. I came up sputtering, and immediately started swimming out to catch him. He was already out in the middle of our tiny lake. Laughing, he called out, “Hurry up, slowpoke! I haven’t got all day!” I quickened my pace, and before long, I caught up to him. “Now, aren’t you glad you came into the water?” he asked impishly. I opened my mouth to say something biting, but he had dunked me into the water again, and was off laughing. I came up with revenge written all over my face. This friend of mine needed to be taken down a notch. As we watched the clouds roll past, Will and I talked over the last couple of years I lunged after him with a yell, and caught him around the neck. After sufficiently punishing him for his ungentlemanly deeds by way of shoving him underwater, I relaxed and just floated there with my arms still around his neck. “You’re an idiot, did you know that?” I said to him after a little time had passed. He just smiled. “Yeah, I know.” After about an hour in the water, we retired to the shore and lay down in the grass, the sun shining over us. I spread my dark brown hair out so that it would dry faster, and turned my green eyes to the sky. As we watched the clouds roll past, Will and I talked over the last couple of years. He was only half a year older than me, but was about a foot taller and a lot stronger. I had been living here for as long as I could remember, and Will had always been in the picture someplace or another. He and his family lived across the lake from us, but he had always seemed like a brother to me. His mother home-schooled us both, so we never had much homework or the like to worry about for most of our lives. We had grown up in utopia. “Look at those clouds, they look like a dragon with a big fat knight running after it,” Will said. “Yeah… Do you remember when we went to that medieval masquerade in Riverside?” I asked. “Yep, that hoop skirt you had on was atrocious.” “It was not,” I answered, slapping him on the shoulder good-humoredly. “You were just mad that day because your mother made you wear that ridiculous suit.” “Any self-respecting seven-year-old would have been throwing fits,” he countered. “OK, fine,” I said. After a few minutes of companionable silence, a question popped into my mind. “Do you ever feel really old when we talk like this?” “Like what?” “Well, so… nostalgic.” Will turned onto his side to look at me, his coffee-colored hair glinting in the sun, and fixed his brown, almost black eyes on me. Assuming a very serious expression, and pursing his lips a little, he said, “Well now, I can’t say I have.” He stopped and winked at me. “That was the best imitation of Uncle Marty yet,” I told to him, smiling. Laughing, he rolled onto his back again, paused, and turned his head back in my direction. “You really think so? I thought I made him seem too old.” “Nope, that was as close to perfect as you’ve gotten yet.” * * * While walking home, we talked, joked, and laughed as only eleven-year-olds can. When we got there, our parents were in the living room discussing something in hushed voices. “Yep, there’s no way around it. The company transferred us both, and we can’t seem to get them to rethink their decision.” “But the children will be devastated.” “I know, Ellen,” Will’s dad said, “but it’s unavoidable.” “Do you have to move as far as Minnesota, though?” my mother asked. “Yes, I…” Will’s father trailed off as he saw us standing in the door. We were paralyzed, horrified at what we heard. “Where will we be moving?” I whispered, almost breathless from the tension. I was almost afraid to ask the question, and I dreaded the answer the minute the question came out of my mouth. “South Carolina.” I found Will skipping stones on the lake. When he had run out of the house after our parents told us we were moving to different states, I hadn’t been able to keep up with him. We didn’t say anything to each other; we just stood side by side, with “Will mechanically swinging his arm to throw the stones across the water. I watched as each of the stones skipped across the smooth, glassy surface of the lake. He never missed a beat. It had taken him a long time to learn how to do that. As I stood there, I reflected on all the golden years I had spent here. Everywhere I looked, I could name off something that had happened in that very spot. Each of the stones made their journey: skip… skip… skip… sink. Skip… skip… sink. Skip… skip… skip… skip… sink. After some
