Rankling because they excluded him from their secret speech, Howard invented his own. He coined a vocabulary of nicknames. He gave the men labels they didn’t understand and made them answer to their misnomers, no matter how patronizing or insulting they were. Clyde, for example, he called Greedge, a shortening of Egregious Ass. Old Andy, the doorman, who moved too slowly for Howard’s taste and was the essence of Decrepitude, he called Deak. And it delighted him, as it annoyed Mike, that the men, even when they learned the meanings of the made-up names, started using them among themselves.
One day Mike gave Howard his comeuppance. The man was always treating him as an illiterate, the way he treated the others. So far, he hadn’t found a nickname for Milo, and the cowboy knew that if it came, it would be galling. When Howard did find the name, Mike was ready for him.
There had been an accident on the field. Two bulls out instead of one, both bent toward one rider, a stupid boy named Grundy. The clowns and pickup men were having a rough time of it. Mike flipped his chute gate and rode out between the bulls, bronc riding and bullwhacking at the same time. For the horse to have run between the two bulls was all luck and no headwork but it looked as if the trick had been adroitly maneuvered.
When Mike came back under the stands, Howard said, “I finally found a name for you, Milo. I think I’ll call you Jenny. For ingenuous.” Then, thinking Mike didn’t know the word, “Because you were clever.”
“You mean Gene for ingenious, don’t you?” Mike said.
Howard flushed. It was an error he couldn’t have made in a million years, but he’d made it. Then he smiled. His eyes weren’t meant for smiling, they were like frozen danger, and Mike regretted having snatched the little moment away from the man. Howard would fire him.
But he didn’t because that afternoon Mike came up with the Ride-Out. That’s the way it went on the program—The Ride-Out, A Special Event.
The rodeo hadn’t been making the grade, not quite. What the show needed was one galvanizing episode, a heartstopper. Mike wondered—aloud, in Howard’s presence—what would happen if a cowboy were to mount a bucking bronc and completely ride him out, to a finish. They’d been using competition rules until that time—riding a bareback horse for eight seconds and a saddle bronc for ten. What if they got a good bucking bronc, not too wild an animal of course—a dink, in fact—and rode him until the man bucked off or the horse rode quiet?
The Ride-Out was an immediate success. It was novel, it got into the papers, it brought the crowds. The special event was put at the end of the show and the audiences went out screaming. Mike was back to being a star again.
Recently, however, to jack up the front of the program, Howard had introduced an additional Ride-Out, right after the Grand Entry. And more recently, for added excitement, Polk had started to add fresh bucking stock for Mike to ride. And not one of the new broncs was a dink.
* * *
• • •
Thinking about Howard, he didn’t notice that the traffic light had changed. A truck honked behind him. He jammed his foot down on the gas pedal, almost collided with the car ahead of him, circled it and turned into the stadium alley.
Howard’s car was parked halfway down the narrow street at the entrance to the tackroom. Mike pulled up behind the Mercedes and, as he crossed the alleyway, he could see Howard through the window, arguing with Andy. Not really an argument, more like a leathering, as the boys called it, and the old man’s face was twitching.
Mike never liked going through the lounge; he disliked Andy’s smell, the rancid odor of chewing tobacco and the stink of senility. He was always bothered by the pathetic sight of the old man’s quaky grandeur, how he lorded over his attendance ledger, his locker keys, his mailboxes. No grandeur at all now—Andy, tongue-lashed, was cowering.
Mike opened the door and went in. He didn’t rush, didn’t seem to notice Howard was there. Walking past his employer, he went round the end of the counter, reached to the board, picked his key, the last remaining one, pulled the mail out of his pigeonhole. Not many letters, a few. He stood there quietly, as if nobody were present, perusing his mail. Advertisements, a circular letter, a few postcards he flipped over and glanced at, then all into the wastebasket by the archway. At last, stubbornly taking his time, he bothered to notice the doorman.
“Hi, Andy.”
“You’re late,” Howard said.
“Late for what?” he asked quietly.
Howard pointed toward the loudspeaker box. The Grand Entry music—“The Eyes of Texas” played like a march—was blaring.
“Grand Entry’s almost over,” Howard said quietly. “You’re not in it.”
“Never have been.”
“In this company, everybody’s supposed to be.”
Mike was about to speak but Howard cut in quickly, “We’ll skip that.”
His waiver threw Mike off balance. Clearly Polk had come for the open purpose of challenging him. Why had he turned away?
Howard pointed to the attendance ledger. “Sign in,” he said.
“I never do.”
“You don’t?” asked Howard, with elaborate surprise.
The son of a bitch, Mike thought, he’s pretending he never knew it; he leaves such matters to his manager and the doorman.
Howard was pursuing it. “Is that true, Andy?” He sounded shocked. “You let members of the company go through without signing in?”
The old man’s mouth trembled a little and a small drool of tobacco juice dribbled down toward his chin. “Mr. Polk,” he said with a touch of entreaty, and he couldn’t finish the sentence. The old man looked from Howard to Milo. The latter was expressionless and still. Then Andy moved the attendance ledger just a few inches in Milo’s direction, picked up the pencil and handed it to the man. Andy’s feeble hand shook.
Mike thought: Howard couldn’t have staged it better. Damn you, old man, stop shaking.
Andy said, “Please, Mike.” His voice shook as much as his hand.
Mike knew exactly what Howard was thinking. What are you going to do now, bronc buster? Shove the old man into a tighter corner? Have you got the guts to beat on his old head a little? I have, have you?
Mike took the pencil and scrawled his name in the book. He turned and walked toward the tackroom.
As he cut the corner past the iron rail, he had a quick glimpse of Andy. The old man had his hand over his mouth, stifling a giggle, a moist little pleasure that he had scored a victory over the gullible cowboy. The wet cackle, hidden and sneaky, was disgusting to Mike. To think that he had demeaned himself for this old kiss-ass who was now laughing at him. And what had he gotten for it? Not gratitude but contempt. From a mean old, hideous old, smelly old man who had suckered a fool. Howard would call it sentimentality. Weakness. And maybe Howard was right.
Roiled, he walked into the tackroom, down the aisle of lockers, swinging his right arm more vigorously than usual to hide that it hurt. As he looked along the row of lockers, he realized there was no necessity to hide anything—nobody was there. The Grand Entry was just finishing, the punchers were already out in the alleyway by the chutes, getting ready to enter the arena, and all Mike was looking at was paraphernalia—racks, hooks, pegs for bull ropes, buck reins, halters, saddles, a clutter deeply comforting to him, not really a clutter at all, come to think of it, for everything was always easy to find, not a rowel ever got lost.
Mike’s locker was at the end of the tackroom, the closest one to the field. It was the only double-doored closet in the room, twice the size of the others, with a large tarnished brass star on the lintel. With his right hand Mike put his key in the lock, turned it and just as he started pulling the door open the pain came back, sharper this time, a hot knife. He cursed. He had thought, when he left the apartment, that the four aspirins had worked better than the triangular pills, better than the compresses and liniment. But here it was, the killer
again. Well, the hell with it; he daren’t pay attention to it anymore. He yanked with the hurt arm.
The first event had started—bareback bronc riding—he’d have to hurry. He pulled out his rig bag, dropped it on the floor and proceeded to dress. He tried not to notice the medals, awards, ribbons, buckles, trophies that hung on the inside of his locker door. They were another time . . .
Thirty-eight years old. In this business you’re an old man when you can vote, his first handler used to say. If he’d gone in another direction, if he had finished the four-year college course in animal husbandry, if he’d become a veterinarian as he had once wanted to be, he’d just be approaching the crest of his career. Instead of years without winning anything . . . and he would never win anything again, except perhaps in an exhibition.
“Be a vet,” his grandfather had said. “Since you don’t mind readin’, may as well put it to some use—and bein’ a vet is nice for an orphan boy.” He couldn’t remember when he had first heard the words orphan boy. So long ago that he once thought it was his name, Michael Orphanboy.
It was no trouble getting the pants on. The boots were a little harder. He left the shirt for last, hoping by some inspiration to seduce the right arm painlessly into the sleeve. But the pain was just as sharp as he thought it would be and even when it subsided a little he was depressed.
He tried to shake the mood by looking at himself in the mirror—all in white, everything, shirt, pants, beaver hat, even the iguana-skin boots, pure white: an audacious statement that he was fearless and expert, he would not sully a button or thread. Flawlessly tailored of shiny silk, the shirt was open halfway to reveal he wore no undershirt, didn’t have to, didn’t sweat. Only the ropers and doggers sweat, never the riding star.
He heard the announcer on the loudspeaker, the crowd yelling for the bronc riders. In a minute the boys began coming back from the Grand Entry, Bill, Hurley and Rolfe, steer doggers, and Jonah, with the lariat. They were in a hurry to get out of their “fancies” and into their leather stuff. More came in. Some greeted him. The newer ones, still in awe of him, didn’t greet him at all. His manner to them was friendly, but they were, in rodeo ways, another generation, he was not their pal.
Robbie appeared. He was the newest of the boys, with straw hair and a cherub face, a baby. It was the first time the boy had greeted him. “Hello, Mr. Milo,” he said.
The “mister” stopped Mike. He smiled at the apprentice but the smile was wry.
The door banged open and there was another onslaught of four punchers, led by Frank Sherett, whom Mike always identified as the guy without acne. That is, he didn’t actually have acne but whenever Mike thought about Frank he pictured him with blemishes. Frank was particularly rambunctious this afternoon, for the twenty-year-old punk had apparently just had a clean ride on the field.
He waved to Mike. “Hiya, Grampa,” he said.
Milo was very still. “What did you call me?”
“What’s up, Gramps?”
As reflexively as a knee jerk it happened. Mike grabbed him. “What? What did you call me?”
“Hey—let go.”
“You called me Grampa, you little shit! You called me Grampa!”
“Let go! Are you crazy? Let go!”
Mike pulled him to the open locker door. He shoved the bronc rider’s face close to the trophies, buckles, awards. Nobody moved; not one of the young men even had an impulse to interfere. It was a good show.
Mike shoved the face closer to the trophies. “Look at those! You see them? Medals, you bastard—ribbons, buckles, awards. And that one—you see that one? The National Finals!” He twisted Frank’s head downward, pointing to a Ride-Out medal he’d won at an exhibition. “And that one—you know when I got that one? Not twenty years ago—I won it three years ago. Three years, you little shit! You see it? You see it?”
“Yes!” Quaking. “Yes!”
“Lick it!”
“Jesus—!”
“Lick it, you bastard!”
The others didn’t stir, but their breathing changed a little. They saw Frank’s terror, then the head moving downward.
Somebody tittered. “Go on, Frankie—lick it!”
That’s what saved the boy. Just as Frank heard it, Mike heard it too. It wrested him back to sanity.
“No—don’t!” he said. He turned away from the indignity as if he couldn’t bear to associate himself with it. He muttered something that might have been a gagging sound, then said something that had the word sorry in it.
Frank moved away, behind the hardware rack, and was gone. The others drifted away too, silent, in various directions.
Mike closed the locker door and turned the key in the lock. His hand was unsteady; he had trouble getting the key out.
Angelo, an arena hand, a bright-faced teen-ager, rushed indoors.
“Tailkite is sick, Mike. You’re riding Tabasco.”
The boy was puzzled at the indifference of his response. “Tabasco, Mike,” he said again.
“Tabasco?” It was getting to him now.
He never liked riding Tabasco—he was always uncertain on the horse and, he had to admit, a little apprehensive. He started to reach for his rigging bag on the floor but Angelo grabbed it first.
“We’re running fast, Mike.”
The boy hastened out into the clearing. Milo flexed his right arm and straightened it a few times. He had to limber the muscles or he might lose his grip on the rigging. Then, slinging his chaps over his shoulder, he went out into the clearing.
Angelo was far ahead of him, past the platform under the stands and hurrying toward one of the alleys. Mike followed him to the alley that ran alongside the pens, the bull chutes on the left, the horse chutes on the right. As he entered the long corridor, a number of cowboys were working out. One was breaking in a new rope, another was flicking a bullwhip, a third, just in from the field, was getting out of a damp, ripped shirt. Many simply milled, with nowhere to go. A pacing parade. Nervous. Aimles movements to the belts of their trousers, to their flies, to the sweatbands of their hats. Quick trips to the men’s room—fear is hard on the kidneys. Sweat, dust, dung, terror.
Mike walked to the front of the alley and looked out at the arena. A chestnut bronc was being ridden by a young puncher, a good rider who had twice been fired for drunkenness and twice begged his way back. He was riding especially well today, Mike thought, taking the rears and the bucks almost before they happened, “liftin’ and bearin’.” But it seemed too easy; the crowd didn’t know how good the boy was; there were few cheers.
Mike stepped up on the walkway where Angelo was waiting with the rigging bag. He could see the horse in the chute.
Tabasco. A sorrel stallion, rough, capricious, with a wild eye. A beautiful animal, too big for bareback and too small for a saddle bronc, he was faster and ranker than any of the others; also smarter, probably too smart to be a rodeo horse. Mike had vowed to get him reconciled to the Ride-Out, but so far, not a sign of it. He was always tenser than usual on the animal and felt strange, as if Tabasco’s musculature were somehow different from other stallions.
He patted the horse’s flank. “Hi, big ass.”
Then the bronc rider went about his business. He worked in silence for the most part, uttering a syllable only when the sign wouldn’t do, moving with speed and efficiency, proud of his grace. He reached to Angelo for the rigging—a piece of hard leather, curved, with a handle—and poured powdered rosin on it. When the boy handed him his chamois glove, he tied it to his wrist by means of a thong he tightened with his teeth. His pants had come loose in his boots so he shoved them in more securely and, again with thongs, tied his boot tops. Extending one foot to the edge of the platform, he rolled his rowel against the wood. It was all right. He tested the other rowel. Then he slipped his white chaps off his shoulder, brushed away a few blades of straw, tied the half-britches
to the front and fitted them to the back.
Seemingly from nowhere, Barrows, the chute boss, appeared. The man was short and stocky and barely came to Tabasco’s muzzle. As Mike was fitting the rigging on the animal, Barrows started to attach the flank girth. The instant the bronc felt the flank strap so close to his loins, he snorted and started to rear. Mike patted him hard to distract him, and Angelo pulled at his mane. The girth was on.
Mike jumped up on the chute. High over Tabasco, astraddle but not yet mounted on the animal, the rider wedged his booted feet between the slats. Barrows’ hand was on the girth strap, ready to tighten it. “Now?”
Mike shook his head. He wasn’t going to rush and get thrown in the chute to be trampled by the stud bastard. Anyway, the field wasn’t ready yet. A bronc mare was cavorting, eating yards, making a show for her rider. The crowd was respectful but nobody was ringing the show bell, no gold flag was run up over the scoreboard, and the big interest in the stands was still hot dogs and beer and candy apples. Even the announcer’s voice was routine as it droned the rider’s score.
Tabasco, sensing action, was getting jumpy, doing scrape-ass, tiny quick movements that rub the skin off the inside of the rider’s thighs.
“Easy, bonehead,” Mike said, “Nobody’s on you.”
The bronc mare was off the field. The arena was clear.
The music swelled and died. The voice on the loudspeaker became suddenly louder.
“The next event, ladies and gentlemen—The Special Event—riding the bronc till the man gets thrown or the horse goes quiet! The Ride-Out! Featuring the star of the rodeo—winner of three National Finals—the Dallas Buckle for bareback—nine Cattlemen Trophies—riding bare on the hot hot hot Tabasco! Ladies and gentlemen—the champion—Mike Milo!”
Cry Macho Page 2
