Cowboy

Chapter 1-3

Afternoon finds me beneath the tent, the fan

stirring hot air over my denim-clad legs and a towel full of

melting ice tied around my neck. When I first hooked up with Kent,

I made the mistake of wearing shorts outside—came in that night

with welts up and down my legs, mosquito bites and red chigger

trails on my thighs, black fleas like freckles on my ankles and

feet. Scratches, too, where the dust blew up against me during the

day, I was raw from the heat and the dirt, and I never felt more

filthy in my life.

“Now you know why cowboys wear jeans,”

Kent told me, and it was as close to I told you so as he’d

ever come, but he sat with me in the bathroom as I showered,

painted the chigger bites with clear nail polish to kill them,

covered me in calamine lotion until I looked as pink as a newborn

baby. He can be so good to me.

The customers are here now, women in bright

prints swarming around the flowers like bees. They call out to Kent

by name, giggling when he turns their way—how much are the

petunias? And does he know a good recipe for tomatillos? And what

kind of sun should these morning glories get? They don’t ask me—I’m

just the boy by the register, my name’s not up on the sign out

front and I don’t have my shirt off so they can gawk over my chest,

which doesn’t look anything like his. I’m not tan, not buff, and if

they weren’t so blind, they’d see that Kent’s color is more of a

perpetual burn, his stomach muscles aren’t as firm as I’d like them

to be.

But they only see the man they came here to

see, the cowboy in the black jeans and black hat who looks like he

stepped off a pack of cigarettes. They sigh over him as I ring up

their plants—don’t they notice he’s not interested? If one

propositions him, he gracefully backs down, and that makes them

want him all the more. He’s mine, I want to say as I take

their dingy dollars. He doesn’t sleep in my bed but we have s*x;

that means he’s with me.

A few pay him directly. I watch him stick the

money in his back pocket almost absently, like he’s just putting it

there until he can give it to me, but somehow it never makes it

into the register. He thinks I don’t notice, but I know it’ll be

gone by the time he comes home tomorrow, spent in town on beer and

pints at the local bar. I know how he is. If I mention it, though,

he’ll get indignant and think I don’t trust him, and the air

between us will be like cracked glass, threatening at any moment to

shatter into an argument. So I don’t say anything, and when he

glances at me I look away, as if I didn’t see it. Twenty bucks,

maybe fifty, it’s not worth the fight.

When the sky begins to grow dark and the

shadow of the house stretches across the yard to reach into the

tent, we close up shop. Tie down the tent flaps, cover the stands

with tarp, water the plants one more time as the sun goes down. I

hurry the few lingering customers along while Kent moves large,

sand-filled barrels into place to block our driveway, a deterrent

against anyone pulling up to browse our plants at night. Now he

tips his hat, as the last couple climbs into their car, and there’s

a ghost of a smile on his face when they back out into the road and

are gone.

Then it’s just the two of us, alone, and I

try not to stare at him as I count out the money in the drawer but

he’s beautiful in the setting sunlight, his skin the color of the

arroyo, his hat pushed back to reveal his enigmatic eyes. He’s been

drinking since before noon, I know because I saw the empty bottles

of Killian’s in the trash, but it’s loosened him up and he actually

grins at me when he’s finished watering the plants. “Good day,” he

tells me, meaning we were busy.

I nod and keep counting. Easily three

hundred, maybe four, because he sold the rhododendron in full bloom

for a pretty penny, and out in these parts plants like that are

scarce, like gold or diamonds in the dust. After the tarp is down,

held in place with large stones to keep the night wind from

whipping it away, Kent comes up behind me, rubs a hand around my

waist, over my stomach, until his thumb hooks onto my belt buckle.

His fingers on my zipper arouse me despite the alcohol that rises

from his pores, and when he blows on my neck, I giggle and squirm

away. I’m as bad as any of those women in here earlier. “Let’s cook

out tonight,” he says. That means he wants me to fire up the

grill.

Folding the money into a deposit envelope, I

ask, “Burgers?” That’s about all we have right now—he’ll pick up

groceries tomorrow when he’s in town, and put this money in the

bank, and get a showerhead, I have to remind him about that. “One

or two?”

He leans against me, heavy and sweaty through

my thin t-shirt. “Two,” he says, and I know he’ll only eat one but

I nod anyway, I’ll cook two. Rubbing his hand against my crotch, he

murmurs, “And maybe later…”

He lets the thought trail off but a thrill

runs through me all the same. It’s been almost a week since we’ve

had s*x, four days and three hours and I’m counting here, I am,

because at twenty-eight I should be getting it more often than

that. I’m in my s****l prime, right? I have to settle for my hand

in the washtub because most of the time he’s too drunk to get it

up. But he’s promising a little loving now and I’ve been waiting

for this all damn day. I shove the rest of the money into

the envelope, I’ll count it later, and turn away from the register

so fast, I almost trip over the fan and send us both to the floor.

“Careful,” he warns, grinning again.

“Can you tie down the tent?” I ask,

turning in his one-armed embrace. This close he’s intoxicating, but

I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the man, and right now I don’t

care. “Two burgers. You sure you’re up for dessert?”

So he won’t mistake my meaning, I poke at the

front of his jeans, where he’s already hard, I can feel his

erection through his pants. Sometimes beer will do that to him, and

tonight I’m loving George Killian and his Irish red lager if it’ll

get me a piece of my man. “Just make it quick,” he tells me, and

I’m already stumbling for the house, thank God we have a gas

grill and I don’t have to wait for charcoal to light. “I’ve got to

leave first thing in the morning—”

“Already halfway there,” I say,

breaking into a jog. Vaguely I’m aware that I’m no different from

the women who drive all the way out here to see him, but what’s it

matter? He’s with me, remember? Let them dream of a cowboy in black

because this one’s mine.