The Cowboy Year
I was coming up on fifteen and I’d been at The Ranch for about three months when I took a shine to one of the female “counselors.” Kathy was her name and she was married to Jim—a nice enough guy, with one of those sort of perma-grins that seems to wrap all the way around the head. Jim was sort of a Neanderthal-ish kind of guy, in his late twenties, stocky, really stocky, like 5-8 and 190 pounds, all workhorse muscle. Kathy on the other hand was 18, quite a looker, stacked, almost to a fault. A permanent fixture of my dreams for a good part of that summer. They weren’t so huge that they looked out of place. More like your modern, garden-variety, comic book superheroine. In other words, just right.
It was your typical beauty and the beast scenario: pretty little horsey type girl from a nice family in Orange county gets scooped up off her feet by incredible hulk of a cowboy/ex-heroin addict/ex-low rider cum born-again Christian. The type of pairing-up which seemed to be common amongst the staff of The Hotline, the drug-intervention organization tasked with staffing The Ranch—the place which I was at that time, after three months of nominal incarceration, beginning to think of as home.
Like I said, Kathy was a little hottie (albeit, long before that word existed) and though it was her physical attributes that drew me to the young couple, it was Jim’s pure manliness—his cowboy up! outlook on life—which really imprinted itself onto my formative young mind. You see, hailing from Orange county in southern California, I’d never really considered the possibility that cowboys, per se, actually existed outside of Clint Eastwood movies. And I’m not sure if it was Jim’s aw-shucks attitude, his straw hat shaped just so, his work-beaten cowboy boots, or maybe even Kathy’s pearl button cowgirl shirts stretched to bursting around her nubile torso—whatever it was, I was hooked. It was goodbye surfer punk, hello cowboy (or “goat-raper” as I would soon find out was the moniker that newbies like myself earned by wearing their hats on the first day of school).
At 14 I still had the ability remake myself entirely, simply by changing my wardrobe and cutting my hair. The transformation was fluid and seamless, mainly, I assume, because I was completely cut off from any social interaction with my peers, so there was little if any ridicule, shunning and clique-switching to be endured. Indeed, I can recall one day staring at pictures of tiny suicidal young men gracefully tearing across the faces of four story ocean swells in Surfer Magazine; the next day staring at pictures in Western Horseman Magazine of suicidal young men not-so-gracefully sprawled out across the backs of saddle broncs—and all without so much as a sidelong glance from anyone who mattered a whit in my teenage universe. There was no effort involved in this transformation, save driving to the Valley Western Store and picking up a couple pairs of Wranglers, a few pearl-button cowboy shirts and, of course, the obligatory “summer” straw cowboy hat.
The felt hat would have to come later as it would require a substantially larger investment, not to mention a more narrowed-down awareness of which cowboy camp I would toss my reins into. Right out of the gates it was obvious to me: Bareback Bronc, or possibly Bullrider. But Jim imparted some good advice and told me to wait till I figured out “which saddle fits your skinny greenhorn butt,” before I laid down (my mother’s) hard-earned money on a felt hat. Sage words, from one who’d been there, and likely more than once.
Lest one think it was all just one big dress-up party, it was far from it. There were stalls to shovel and rake, (I never could figure out why the stupid horses couldn’t just wait till they were outside of their own bedrooms to shit, especially when they shit so prodigiously), there were horses to brush, medicines to administer, corrals to tear down and rebuild, tack sheds to construct (my proudest moment was the day I brought home an 8’x10’ tack shed I built in shop class), and best of all, saddles to cinch and rides to enjoy, all of which I did more than my fair share of, being the lowest on the totem pole.
By the time my 15th birthday rolled around I had pretty much narrowed it down to a couple of not-necessarily mutually-exclusive decisions with regards to my foreseeable future. First and foremost (after watching a movie called American Cowboy) was Bareback Bronc Rodeo Star. This was, as far as I could tell, what God had created me for. I would become a rodeo superstar and help to win the souls of all those poor wretched, drunken, Skoal-sucking, Winston-puffing cowboys and cowgirls all over the west. They would see that bucking the cultural stereotype was cool, very cool. Yes, God would use me to evangelize the world, starting with the cowboy types. I would be the strong, quiet, “let them be won without a word” type, whose strength of character and heavenly sun beams of radiant and peaceful joy would be unmistakable and irresistible to all but the most satanically duped.
(Interestingly, I was a bit disappointed to find out that there already existed a CRCA, the Christian Rodeo Cowboys Association, having assumed, naturally, that God had been preparing the path specifically and exclusively for me—since the foundations of the world were set and Lucifer cast out of the heavens forever. I decided that, in order to fly under the radar, I would not associate with this, albeit well-intentioned, CRCA. No point in drawing ridicule and prejudice from those who in the end would be my adoring disciples. No, no point at all.)
To this end I decided that, just maybe, carrying my King James to school every day, that maybe it wasn’t the way God really wanted me to go about my earthly duties. Of course it was a necessary part of my training: suffering the slings and arrows of ridicule from my classmates for being dork enough to not only dress like a drugstore cowboy mannequin, but to also have the audacity to carry a bible to school. I mean, it’s one thing to make fun of drugstore cowboy who shows up to school decked out in brand-spanking-new cowboy regalia. But it’s another thing altogether to poke fun at that same deluded kid when he’s carrying an ostentatiously large, leather-bound King James bible. It’d be like poking fun at the retarded kid: you just don’t do it. And, in retrospect, it’s got to be downright unnerving, spooky even, to see this walking anachronism pile out of the back of a long white stretch van full of obviously psychopathic gangsterish looking youngsters (tattoos, bandanas, khakis, prison regalia one and all) invading your quaint little backward high school. One might be tempted to think he was amongst this unsavory crowd for a reason.
We must’ve looked like a co-ed chain gang—freshly-unshackled and on our way to sentencing—because other than blank stares and arched eyebrows and nervous sidelong glances, there wasn’t so much as a veiled sneer directed our way. Further evidence that God had ordained this little vacation in the desert as but a minor detour in the greater trajectory of greatness, which would be my life’s calling.
And if dressing and acting the oddball with impunity wasn’t proof enough that God had a firm grip on my young life, well, there were grades to help prove the point. Which is another convoluted story in and of itself, to wit.
TO BE CONTINUED
Next: A RABBIT WARREN
It was your typical beauty and the beast scenario: pretty little horsey type girl from a nice family in Orange county gets scooped up off her feet by incredible hulk of a cowboy/ex-heroin addict/ex-low rider cum born-again Christian. The type of pairing-up which seemed to be common amongst the staff of The Hotline, the drug-intervention organization tasked with staffing The Ranch—the place which I was at that time, after three months of nominal incarceration, beginning to think of as home.
Like I said, Kathy was a little hottie (albeit, long before that word existed) and though it was her physical attributes that drew me to the young couple, it was Jim’s pure manliness—his cowboy up! outlook on life—which really imprinted itself onto my formative young mind. You see, hailing from Orange county in southern California, I’d never really considered the possibility that cowboys, per se, actually existed outside of Clint Eastwood movies. And I’m not sure if it was Jim’s aw-shucks attitude, his straw hat shaped just so, his work-beaten cowboy boots, or maybe even Kathy’s pearl button cowgirl shirts stretched to bursting around her nubile torso—whatever it was, I was hooked. It was goodbye surfer punk, hello cowboy (or “goat-raper” as I would soon find out was the moniker that newbies like myself earned by wearing their hats on the first day of school).
At 14 I still had the ability remake myself entirely, simply by changing my wardrobe and cutting my hair. The transformation was fluid and seamless, mainly, I assume, because I was completely cut off from any social interaction with my peers, so there was little if any ridicule, shunning and clique-switching to be endured. Indeed, I can recall one day staring at pictures of tiny suicidal young men gracefully tearing across the faces of four story ocean swells in Surfer Magazine; the next day staring at pictures in Western Horseman Magazine of suicidal young men not-so-gracefully sprawled out across the backs of saddle broncs—and all without so much as a sidelong glance from anyone who mattered a whit in my teenage universe. There was no effort involved in this transformation, save driving to the Valley Western Store and picking up a couple pairs of Wranglers, a few pearl-button cowboy shirts and, of course, the obligatory “summer” straw cowboy hat.
The felt hat would have to come later as it would require a substantially larger investment, not to mention a more narrowed-down awareness of which cowboy camp I would toss my reins into. Right out of the gates it was obvious to me: Bareback Bronc, or possibly Bullrider. But Jim imparted some good advice and told me to wait till I figured out “which saddle fits your skinny greenhorn butt,” before I laid down (my mother’s) hard-earned money on a felt hat. Sage words, from one who’d been there, and likely more than once.
Lest one think it was all just one big dress-up party, it was far from it. There were stalls to shovel and rake, (I never could figure out why the stupid horses couldn’t just wait till they were outside of their own bedrooms to shit, especially when they shit so prodigiously), there were horses to brush, medicines to administer, corrals to tear down and rebuild, tack sheds to construct (my proudest moment was the day I brought home an 8’x10’ tack shed I built in shop class), and best of all, saddles to cinch and rides to enjoy, all of which I did more than my fair share of, being the lowest on the totem pole.
By the time my 15th birthday rolled around I had pretty much narrowed it down to a couple of not-necessarily mutually-exclusive decisions with regards to my foreseeable future. First and foremost (after watching a movie called American Cowboy) was Bareback Bronc Rodeo Star. This was, as far as I could tell, what God had created me for. I would become a rodeo superstar and help to win the souls of all those poor wretched, drunken, Skoal-sucking, Winston-puffing cowboys and cowgirls all over the west. They would see that bucking the cultural stereotype was cool, very cool. Yes, God would use me to evangelize the world, starting with the cowboy types. I would be the strong, quiet, “let them be won without a word” type, whose strength of character and heavenly sun beams of radiant and peaceful joy would be unmistakable and irresistible to all but the most satanically duped.
(Interestingly, I was a bit disappointed to find out that there already existed a CRCA, the Christian Rodeo Cowboys Association, having assumed, naturally, that God had been preparing the path specifically and exclusively for me—since the foundations of the world were set and Lucifer cast out of the heavens forever. I decided that, in order to fly under the radar, I would not associate with this, albeit well-intentioned, CRCA. No point in drawing ridicule and prejudice from those who in the end would be my adoring disciples. No, no point at all.)
To this end I decided that, just maybe, carrying my King James to school every day, that maybe it wasn’t the way God really wanted me to go about my earthly duties. Of course it was a necessary part of my training: suffering the slings and arrows of ridicule from my classmates for being dork enough to not only dress like a drugstore cowboy mannequin, but to also have the audacity to carry a bible to school. I mean, it’s one thing to make fun of drugstore cowboy who shows up to school decked out in brand-spanking-new cowboy regalia. But it’s another thing altogether to poke fun at that same deluded kid when he’s carrying an ostentatiously large, leather-bound King James bible. It’d be like poking fun at the retarded kid: you just don’t do it. And, in retrospect, it’s got to be downright unnerving, spooky even, to see this walking anachronism pile out of the back of a long white stretch van full of obviously psychopathic gangsterish looking youngsters (tattoos, bandanas, khakis, prison regalia one and all) invading your quaint little backward high school. One might be tempted to think he was amongst this unsavory crowd for a reason.
We must’ve looked like a co-ed chain gang—freshly-unshackled and on our way to sentencing—because other than blank stares and arched eyebrows and nervous sidelong glances, there wasn’t so much as a veiled sneer directed our way. Further evidence that God had ordained this little vacation in the desert as but a minor detour in the greater trajectory of greatness, which would be my life’s calling.
And if dressing and acting the oddball with impunity wasn’t proof enough that God had a firm grip on my young life, well, there were grades to help prove the point. Which is another convoluted story in and of itself, to wit.
TO BE CONTINUED
Next: A RABBIT WARREN
posted by Jefferson | 10:09 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home