Summer Cowboy

Chapter 1

I become studious and learn a summer cowboy. This is what people—friends and relatives—think of me as I take on the juvenile task of watching Jobe Rider. It’s what I also think, but don’t tell anyone. He’s only temporary to the city, I come to understand, built rough, ch.0iseled, and thirty-six, maybe thirty-seven. Just adorable. Looks younger than what his physical age is. The kind of guy who smiles at me when I check him out from toes to head, and speaks kindly to, and of, others. He waves across the street. I wave back. He smiles. I smile back. The type of guy who seems humble, not really into himself, the opposite of arrogant, although he can be if he wants to, since he’s beautiful, studly, and charming. Tall as corn in August. Golden-blond like the finest crop. Nebraska or Oklahoma perfect. Just visiting for the summer; a few weeks. No more than four in all. So handsome, I can squeeze myself to death. Pop.

No one will believe me when I say, “I can easily fall in love with the cowboy. Honestly, I can.”

Sylvia, my mother, laughs at me. “You act like a child. Stop the nonsense. He’s too handsome for you.”

My Aunt Olivia calls me ridiculous. “Voyeurism never got anyone a man. You’re wasting your time, Parker. Stop already.”

Olivia’s two sons, Dean and Dave, my younger cousins, both think I should be institutionalized in a padded, white room.

I argue with them all summer long. “Don’t you realize the cowboy across the street is my soul mate? Can’t you understand we are meant to be together? Isn’t it time you all think outside the box and let me fall in love on my own terms?”

They all tell me I’m out of my mind, totally bat s**t crazy.

Sometimes, I have to agree with them.

Frankly, something or someone with Harry Potter powers sends the summer cowboy my way. Jobe Rider is mine, I determine. All mine. He will become my boyfriend. I know he will. Mission on.

* * * *

The Keller family takes care of their ninety-five-year-old patriarch, Harold Lewis Keller. Nieces, nephews, his four sons, his three daughters, and a slew of grandchildren come and go, playing nurse to the geriatric. Harold refuses to spend the last days of his nine-plus decades away from Shelton Street in a nursing home. The old geezer gets free labor from his kids and other relatives, a barrel of them of numerous generations, expecting them to shift their lives around for him, which they all kindly do.

Some come from San Francisco where Harold was born and raised. There’s a daughter who lives in Seattle and flies cross-country to take care of him during the entire month of June. He has over twenty grandchildren spread across the States and some in Canada, all of which do their time on Shelton Street, playing nursemaid to the man, fulfilling their duty as a Keller member. Some stay for a few days. Others stay for weeks.

Camille, his youngest daughter, an operating room nurse, usually spends all of November and Christmas with him since she’s a spinster now and surprisingly catless. No matter what, Harold’s never alone. Some Keller is across the street, caring for the man, washing his bottom, feeding him mushy food, watching The Price is Right or The Young and the Restless with him, and executing all the other whatnots of his wrinkled world, fulfilling the obligation of the Keller clan, being a nursemaid, which perhaps is a curse.

Of course, Harold has professional and private nurses throughout the week, catering to his medical needs. Too-Tattooed Tetia arrives on Mondays, always grinning from ear to ear. Bitchy Estelle comes on Tuesdays. Chubby Jim on Thursdays. Wacky Wanda on Wednesdays. Catty Catherine on Fridays. And the Tempestuous Twins, Anne and Lynn Mayday—an ironic last name if I have ever heard one—take on the weekends. I have names for all of them, none of which are very nice. They check Harold’s vitals and do what nurses do. In and out they go like ants, busy at work. How interesting, yet mundane at the same time.

Umberto “Umby” Espinoza, the middle-aged queer, visits 287 Shelton Street every Tuesday and Friday afternoon. He stays for about two hours with Harold. Umby’s a physical therapist. He stretches the old man’s legs and arms, massaging their flabby and pale muscles. And he makes Harold take a short walk with him. The two men either walk around Harold’s Tudor or up and down the sidewalk.

Sometimes, Umby sees me on my porch and walks across the street to visit me. We sit for a spell and have a beer together, being reliable friends. We talk about his husband, Craig, their three poodles, and his slutty ex-wife who lives with a man half her age, some jock named Gage Marsden who Umby says has a nine-inch d**k that’s two inches wide. No s**t.