Cowboy Roundup

Taming Brooks by R.W. Clinger-3

Later this week, fireworks overhead in Custer Park fill the black night with an illumination of bright hues. Spirals of red-pink flowers pulverize the heavens. Green-blue-yellow zigzagging arcs of light explode above our heads. Bombs burst around our twosome and the violent sounds echo for miles. Fountains of floral colors paint the darkness, and mushroom-shaped clouds cover the festive night, visually intoxicating all of Stockton County in attendance. Boom after boom explodes above us to rock the earth beneath our jean-covered bottoms. The ricocheting sounds cause it to feel as if it is the beginning stages of Armageddon.

As more flashes of sizzling light decorate the onyx-colored sky, I snuggle against Brooks, place my head on his shoulder, and wrap an arm around his middle to comfort him.

Eventually one of his hands slips over one of mine and gives it a squeeze. He nuzzles his lips against the top of my head and kisses it, burying his mouth next to my scalp.

There are more than two dozen couples around our twosome. Some are straight and others are gay. All are nestled together with an arrangement of pillows and light blankets. Two picnic baskets are present and the scent of white zinfandel hangs in the elaborate night, which is consumed by semi-drunk onlookers.

We move even closer together and collapse lips. Our faces meet and the kiss is overwhelming with a relentless amount of passion. The spectacle we concoct leaves heads spinning in our direction and mouths to open. Stockton County is liberal, though, and few are shocked by what they witness. Rather, the viewers of our connection—sparks flying between us, which are very similar to those fireworks in the night’s festive sky—seem to enjoy our show of unquenchable lust and likings.

When the fireworks are over we gather up our blanket and two pillows, head back to his truck, toss the trio inside its cab, and meet at a traditional barbecue at Lloyd Mathew’s residence, which sits across from the sprawling park. Lloyd, one of the county’s congressmen, has an annual Independence Day party for all his family and friends. A bonfire is almost a story high and just as wide. Tables inside illuminated and screened-in tents are covered with an endless amount of food: every fruit pie known to man, a variety of salads, casseroles, a roasted pig, hamburgers, hot dogs, and everything under the moon to drink. There’s music also: some country mixed with today’s pop.

Brooks isn’t shy about dancing with me: the two-step, a line dance, and what he calls a cowboy waltz. We celebrate the holiday chest to chest, swaying to and fro, kicking up our legs, and end up having the time of our lives, growing together as a couple, broaching something that we can label (although we don’t, of course) love.

He drives us back to his ranch thereafter and the place is quiet and dark. We’re a little drunk, I know, and we wobble into the main house, laugh like young men occasionally do, and he escorts me up to his bedroom, where I’ve been sleeping. But he doesn’t want to sleep tonight, I realize. No siree. The cowboy has other things in mind that are quite s****l but not at all unrefined. He takes off my checkered shirt, then my cowboy hat, dropping them to the floor. I know exactly what he wants to do, agreeing with his unlimited hunger.