Cowboy

Chapter 1-2

I bring him coffee, black, because that’s the

way he likes it. My own looks like hot cocoa, I use so much milk.

Two steaming mugs, one in each hand, and my fingers start to sweat

from the heat when I step out of the main house and head for the

market lot. It’s already close to seventy degrees outside and it’s

barely eight o’clock yet—by noon it’ll be almost unbearable for a

northern boy like me, and I’ll have to retreat beneath the tent

where I have a cashier’s table and a fan set up, and I’ll sit in

the shade and watch Kent move through his plants like a mirage in

the waves of heat that radiate from the desert sun. How he keeps

anything green in this arid clime, I’ll never know.

He’s watering now, like he always is when I

first come down. Setting my coffee on one of the veggie stands, I

sidle up behind him and snake an arm around his waist—his skin is

already damp with a fine sheen of sweat, I taste it when I kiss the

back of his neck, and a bitter smell rises from him, a mix of work

and alcohol and s*x. “Hey babe,” I purr, resting my chin on his

shoulder. He’s a tall man, a head taller than me, and when I lean

on his shoulder, I fit perfectly beneath the brim of his cowboy

hat.

This close I can see his hair, dark and

plastered to his head under the hat, and he has a thin mustache

that makes him look older than his thirty-two years. It makes him

look more western somehow—I think of Dallas and Magnum

P.I. and all those old shows I used to watch as a kid, all

those shows that made me want a man like the one in my arms

now.

From here I can also see his unshaven cheeks,

the stubble laced with a gray fuzz that I won’t point out. Instead

I breathe in the whiskey that rises up from him like the sun off

the road and I hold out his coffee mug where he can see it. “For

you,” I tell him. By noon, it’ll hold more alcohol than java. He

thinks I don’t see when he spikes it.

Kent grunts, not quite the thanks I would

like, and then shrugs out of my embrace. “Don’t hang on me,

Marcus,” he says, his voice bleary and gruff. “It’s hot out

here.”

No s**t, I think, but I hold my

tongue. I learned long ago that the best way to deal with a mood

like this is to just keep quiet and let it ride itself out. Once he

wakes up a bit more, shakes off the drink from last night, he’ll be

easier to deal with. He’ll smile for the customers, at least.

They’re the ones that matter.

“Your coffee,” I say, holding out the

mug like a peace offering. He frowns at it a moment, then takes it

and chugs half of it at once—good thing it wasn’t scalding. I doubt

he would’ve felt it, anyway. Shoving my hands into the pockets of

my jeans, I glare at the flowers he’s watering and tell him, “I

have that washtub out—”

“I’m going into town in the morning,”

he mutters. It’s his don’t nag me tone of voice, one he’s

been using more and more around me. The showerhead’s been busted

for the past week and I’d swear he hasn’t bathed since then, that’s

the alcohol and sweat I smell on him.

The day after the shower broke, I found an

old aluminum washtub in the back of the barn, scrubbed it up and

hosed it down and it’s so damn pioneer that I find any excuse to

strip off my clothes and sink into a lukewarm bath of suds. Out by

the barn, the sun hot on my naked body, the soap drying on my skin,

it’s as close to heaven as I’ve come so far, and I can’t understand

why Kent won’t take me up on an offer of a bath. I’d heat the water

for him, on the gas grill like I do for myself—I’d wash him,

that could be fun, maybe end up with the two of us entwined

in the sparse grass, rolling through suds and water, when’s the

last time we did anything like that?

Heh, when have we ever done that?

But Kent always says no. “I’ll fix the damn

shower,” he tells me, before I can point out that it’s still

clogged. “Just lay off it already, will you? Can you move back?

It’s hot.”

As if I’m right up on him. But I do as he

asks, mindful of the hose as I step back, and I watch him for a few

minutes, before he can tell me to get to work. From the house this

morning I leaned over the sink while the coffee brewed, watched him

through the kitchen windows, told myself he’s everything I’ve ever

wanted.

But in truth he’s only a shadow of the men I

see in the magazine clippings my sister sends me, the models in

cowboy hats and little else, Calvin Klein and Guess ads that sell

what I’m hoping to find. Those cowboys don’t have Kent’s thick

waist or his drink-rimmed eyes or his alcohol-pinked cheeks. They

don’t have that line where his tan stops abruptly at his hips,

everything above a deep Indian red, everything below pasty and

white. And they smile, in those ads. Even the cigarette ones, where

the cowboy’s riding hard to round up stray cattle, he always has

the hint of a smile in his eyes, on his lips. Kent doesn’t smile

much, and he never laughs. Once I thought that was part of his

appeal but now I’m not so sure.

With a sigh, he looks at me over his shoulder

and says, “I’ll pick up a new head when I’m in town tomorrow. I

said I’d fix it—”

“Okay.” I kick dirt over the hose so I

won’t have to meet his eyes. They’re dark like his hair and

bloodshot from drink, and I hate that I can’t read them. I’m good

at reading people but there’s something closed about Kent that I

just can’t figure out. Maybe that’s what draws me to him. Maybe

there’s a part of me that wants to be the one to crack through his

rough exterior and find that I’ve been right all along, there’s

something deep inside of him that’s exactly what I need. It’s just

buried, and every now and then I think I catch a glimpse of it, in

a rare smile or a sudden touch, or a wink that will surprise me and

take my breath away. I live for those moments, that

hope.

Kent frowns at me, then cuts the hose off,

downs the rest of his coffee, hands the mug to me. I take it and

wrap both hands around its lingering warmth. “Marcus,” he says

softly. He can speak so softly when it suits him.

I look up and study his face. He needs to

shave, he looks grizzled and old, and his moustache needs to be

trimmed, it’s getting bushy. Sometimes he lets me do that for him,

after hours when it’s just the two of us, and I’ll sit on his lap

and gently clip the hairs above his lip, or shave his cheeks in

long, even strokes while he leans back in his recliner, beer close

at hand, one arm draped almost negligently around my waist. We

haven’t done that in awhile now. I’d suggest it but I have a

feeling his response would be the same as it was when I offered to

bathe him. Not right this second, he said, exasperated.

Can’t you see I’m busy?

“I’ll fix it,” he tells me. He means

the shower, and I nod because I know he’ll fix it. He’s going into

town tomorrow, he’ll buy the parts, we’ll have a working shower by

evening. When I don’t answer, though, he sighs and reaches out for

me, his fingers slipping behind my belt buckle to pull me close.

“Come here,” he says. I have no choice.

He gives me a kiss, damp and sloppy and

tasting of sour whiskey, but it’s his lips on mine, it’s something

at least. His cheeks scruff my skin and I close my eyes so he won’t

see the flicker of disgust in my gaze. He needs a bath, a shave,

mouthwash, something. But it’s a kiss and it’s more than I

was expecting, more than I could’ve hoped for this early in the

day. If he were one of the cowboys in my daydreams, this would be

when he’d whisper he loves me and I’d suggest a quick tryst out by

the barn before the first customers arrive, and he’d agree.

But he doesn’t say anything, just pulls away

and clears his throat, asks for more coffee. And I don’t offer

myself to him—I just nod and grip his mug tight, head back for the

house and the pot simmering on the stove. This isn’t a daydream and

he isn’t a model in an underwear ad. My sister’s right, that world

doesn’t exist.

This is what I got instead. As I trek back to

the house, I tell myself this is enough. It’s going to have to

be.