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This is a re-publish of an story I put on Newsvine a few years ago...
Back in my early college days I participated in two clubs that didn’t have a whole lot in common with each other: theatre club and the rodeo team. But I found my best friends in both places. My best bull riding buddies included Pancake (so named because he always managed to land flat on his back after getting bucked off), Knuckles (his name explains itself, perfectly), and Harlot (so popular with other cowboys wives and girlfriends that he never dared go anywhere without Knuckles by his side). My best bull dyke buddies (as they called themselves) from theatre were Duke (so-named because of her prowess with women), Muffin (I was always afraid to ask), and Drake (who attributed the nickname to her two alter-egos, one being a dragon and the other being a male duck--which struck me as a curious combination). Anyway, while members of both groups seemed to like having me around, they were pretty damn sure I had no business associating with the other.
It sure made for interesting group dynamics around the lunch table in the cafeteria hall. One day I might be sitting with Pancake, Knuckles, and Harlot, telling them about how my latest bull stomped me silly--but only after he was completely dominated for all of 3.2 seconds--and they would be enthralled by my heroic self-portrayal. I would be smack-dab in the middle of my story when, sure enough, Duke would stop by the table and ask me if I was participating in the method-acting workshop over at the theatre later that afternoon. After she left I would turn around and be greeted with nothing but crinkled noses and ruffled Stetsons. Harlot and Knuckles could always be counted on to offer a few thoughtful insights about certain products on the market that could be purchased to…uh…enhance certain biological aspects that Duke might be lacking. Sometimes Knuckles would offer some gem like, “Your little theatre friends outta go back to San Francisco, where they belong.” Pancake would usually just grunt and shake his head back and forth, disgusted by it all. (He did use the word “icky” once but Knuckles popped him so hard on the ear with a spoon that he swore off the use of that unfortunate word forever). But all of the boys agreed that my conversations with Duke and her friends could only mean one thing…my manhood was suspect. Deeply suspect. I managed to maintain my cowboy credibility only because I drank a lot of beer and barfed regularly.
Anyway, back to the cafeteria scene…
The next day I might be sitting with Duke, Muffin and Drake while listening to them talk about how so-and-so was way too ugly to play Ophelia, or about how hilarious it was when I accidentally fell off the stage during a deep-breathing exercise. Sure enough, one of my bull riding buddies--usually, Harlot--would come sauntering up and ask if I heard about so-and-so getting hung up on a bull named Rancid Mayonnaise (no, I’m not kidding) and about how the guy’s was arm broken in three places and his two front teeth were now pointing sideways. After we laughed about the guy’s fate (we were a callous bunch), he would wander off and I would turn back to the table and be greeted with a smattering of hard stares and furrowed foreheads. Muffin liked to give me lectures about animal rights, patriarchal society and chewing tobacco. Duke repeatedly told me that she wanted to fight every guy on the rodeo team and steal their girlfriends--present company always excluded, of course. Drake would fold her arms across her chest and snap her gum. Occasionally one of them would say something like, “Your little cowboy friends outta go back to Texas where they belong, honey, where humping sheep is still legal.” (I admit I never confirmed whether Texas really allows such activities, but my guess is they frown on it.) Nevertheless, The girls were always good to me, and I to them, but I could always tell they were wary of me. After all, I did hang out with the rough-stock rodeo rabble.
So there I was--trapped between the warring fan bases of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. My repeated attempts to point out the finer qualities of either side would always fall on deaf ears at best, and would more often result in an argument about how those creepy/strange/ignorant/sick friends of mine on the other side were exactly what was wrong with this country. Eventually both clans got the message that ugly comments about my other friends were not well received. So they just compromised by pressing the ignore button every time they got near each other. I stopped asking for more than that.
But fate wouldn’t let this arrangement stand. Not for long. It decided to force the issue late one Friday night when me and the boys (Harlot, Pancake, and Knuckles) were headed for the local watering hole (The Red Rooster) to stir up some entertainment. We were jammed into the cab of Harlot’s beat up old ford pickup when the bailing wire he used to hold his transmission together gave out for the umpteenth time and we lurched to a sudden sideways stop, spraying Coors beer everywhere. In the commotion Pancake’s brand new Resistol cowboy hat got pitched out the passenger window and was run over by no fewer than three cars and one semi-truck (an atrocity which Pancake never has gotten over). We were smack dab in the middle of the center lane of a busy multi-lane roadway several miles short of our chosen destination. Harlot managed to get the transmission into neutral, but we were in a bad spot and would have to have to push the truck several hundred yards down the road to get it safely into a parking lot. There was an empty lot nearby but it was separated from the road by a mountainous curb. One look at the truck and one look at us and it was clear that we stood exactly zero chance of muscling it up and over the Mount Saint Curb. We stepped out of the road to collect ourselves and to let Pancake have a few moments to grieve over the remnants of his hat, which he had managed to valiantly reclaim from the busy roadway. Eventually, we decided the best thing to do was to stand there and get indignant and start insulting each other. We insulted Harlot’s mechanical skills, his truck, his romantic escapades, his tassled boots and his mother. Then we moved on to insulting Pancake’s hat, as if it hadn’t suffered enough for one evening. When the insults finally ran out of steam, we were surprised to discover that our many insults hadn’t resolved our broken-ass-truck-in-the-middle-of-the-road-problem. Fancy that.
And then it happened. A vintage, midnight blue Gran Torino rumbled up behind Harlot’s pickup. Figures could be seen talking in the car. They looked animated, like they were arguing. Then the passenger side window rolled down and I was looking at Drake. She didn’t look happy. Duke was in the driver’s seat beside her. Muffin was in the backseat. Her arms were crossed and her nose was crinkled. Drake called out, “You need help, Walt?” It didn’t sound like a communal offer. I looked at Harlot. He said, “I guess you can ask them if they’ll follow behind us with their hazard lights on while we push the truck down to that parking lot down the way.” I walked over and leaned on the driver’s side window and talked to Duke. I passed on Harlot’s request. She looked down the road, then at the truck, then at Mount Saint Curb. She said, “No way. That’s too far. Let’s just push it over that curb.”
Five minutes later, four bull riders and three bull dykes were standing by the side of the road laughing their asses off. How we managed to jump Harlot’s truck over that massive curb is still something of a mystery to me, but let’s just say that both groups must have felt like they had something to prove to the other. It was no small feat. The resulting mutual goodwill was sufficient for me and the boys to garner ourselves a ride down to the Red Rooster. (We were young--worrying about the truck or getting home was not at the top of our minds) All seven of us piled into the Torino. Because of my good standing with the bull dykes, I got to sit in the front seat. Drake insisted I sit “bitch” (in the middle), an irony which she seemed to enjoy immensely. There wasn’t much conversation for the next several miles. It dawned on me that everybody else in the car was probably experiencing the tight-packed journey as their worst possible nightmare. For me, it was magic. All of my folk together in one spot…if only for a moment. Before long, Duke pulled the Torino into the parking lot of the Red Rooster and me and the rodeo boys piled out. While they waited for me, I thanked Duke and the others for their help. I told Duke I owed her lunch on Monday. She argued for Tuesday, too. We laughed and then I joined the guys and we started for the door.
That would have been a pretty good ending right there. But it got better. Harlot suddenly stopped, whipped around and yelled for Duke to wait. He jogged back toward their car like a man on a mission. We followed him. Duke rolled down her window and Harlot offered his hand. Duke took it. “I sure would like to buy you and your friends a drink for the help,” Harlot said. Duke looked kind of startled. She scanned the parking lot full of pickups and the big neon sign of a Rooster wearing six-shooters and a cowboy hat. She said, “Thanks. But I don’t think this is our kind of place.” Harlot smiled back at her. “You won’t have no problem in here,” Said Harlot. “I guarantee you that.” His voice offered little doubt as to what he meant. Any trouble encountered by one would be met by all. He looked at Pancake and Knuckles. Both nodded their vigorous agreement. My pride in my boys swelled. Duke glanced at me. Then she said, “Sure.”
Every now and again I get accused of having Utopian views about people. I get told that most people can’t get along with each other, nor do they really want to. But all I really have to do is think back to the college cafeteria in the ensuing months after that first Friday night at the Red Rooster. It was a whole different kind of lunch scene, that’s for sure. Especially if you sat near the big raucous table over in the far corner--the one where all the bull riders and the bull dykes hung out together.
