Gramps

So here it is, 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, and I am sitting in a bar, nursing a beer. Here you are again, I think to myself. At 50 years old, you would think I would know better. And the truth is I do know better. Still, here I sit. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been here. I tell myself every time, “No more. Never again. That was the last time!”

Fifty years of life experience, fifty years of knowledge, fifty years of wisdom, countless attempts and countless failures. Yet somehow, I always seem to find myself right back where I started. Intelligent analysis seems to be totally useless at times. After all, I see what is happening. I can see the warning signs. I’m not stupid. Even as it is happening, the irrationality of it all stands out to me like a blood stain on a blanket of snow.

Now there is an ironic thought: Like a blood stain on a blanket of snow. Could there be a more appropriate metaphor? Beauty, serenity, purity—perhaps even innocence—contrasted by the shocking sight of the liquid of life that runs through our veins; pumped throughout our bodies, carrying all the essential nutrients and oxygen that are necessary to sustain life; and propelled by this miraculous muscle that we call the heart. An amazing muscle in itself, the heart. It seems to know what it’s doing all by itself. It doesn’t seem to need us to tell it what to do. Sort of like it has a mind of its own. It just keeps on pumping, day in and day out. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty-five days a year—three hundred sixty-six on leap year. We never seem to have to think about it. We go about our business, eating, talking, sleeping, working, whatever and it goes about its. Pumping, pumping, pumping. Strong and tough these hearts we have. They never rest. They put up with what ever stress we put on them, even stepping up the game when we ask them for some extra effort.

Yet for all its strengths, it can be just as delicate and helpless. The smallest cut or tear, and it pumps itself dry. Shock it just right and you can send it into a massive state of confusion, causing it to get completely out of synchronization with itself in such a manner that it never recovers, resulting in a complete and total shutdown. Stab it with a knife and it bleeds out in a matter of seconds, maybe even leaving a blood stain on a blanket of snow.

Suddenly, my thoughts are broken by someone entering the door to the bar. In a bar this small you notice when someone enters, especially at 10:45 on a Tuesday morning.

An old man in a cowboy hat limps towards the bar. He doesn’t have that confident steady stroll that we associate with the John-Wayne types. You can tell by the way he walks, he is in pain. This guy looks more like one of those guys in the movies that said the wrong thing to John Wayne one day, then gets to live with the consequences of that mistake for the rest of his life.

His left knee barely bends as he shuffles along. His right foot is twisted out at about a thirty degree angle from his leg. He tries, unsuccessfully, to stifle a grunt as he lifts himself onto the barstool two down from mine. I notice the painful wince as he adjusts himself on his perch.

“Coffee and a shot of Jack, please,” he says to the bartender as he removes his hat and places it on the barstool between us. His hand is missing two fingers. He has a huge crescent-shape scar on the right side of his face that runs from the corner of his eye to just in front of his ear and around to the corner of his mouth.

“Mornin’,” he says as he glances at me and nods. “Good morning,” I replied. I noticed that his right eye was hazed-over white, although you could still make out the once deep blue iris hidden behind the haze.

“I’ve had better,” he said, “but I’ve sure had worse.”

Reaching into his shirt pocket he pulled out a small plastic container. Opening it he poured about a dozen pills of assorted shapes, colors and sizes onto the bar. He placed the container back in his pocket, and picking up the pills, he placed them in the palm of one hand. Picking up his shot glass with the other hand, he threw the pills in his mouth and washed them down with the Jack Daniels.

“Well, if you’re gonna keep staring like that, I might as well tell you the story,” he said, without looking at me.

“I… I’m sorry,” I stammered.

“Oh, it’s okay,” he said in a voice that was much gentler than his appearance. “I’m used to it actually. But you gotta pay for the coffee and shot in exchange.” He turned to me with a crooked grin that revealed the absence of several teeth.

“Sure. Be glad to,” I replied, returning the smile.

“How old do you think I am?” he asked

“I don’t know. Sixty? Sixty-five?” I guessed.

“Try Forty-seven,” he said, straight faced.

“Bullshit!” I replied, before I thought.

“No, it’s true. That’s what it can do to you.”

“That’s what what can do to you?” I asked.

“Bullriding. I started when I was fifteen, and I rode those bastards for thirty years. Every time I got a chance, I rode, or at least tried to ride one of those sorry bastards. And this is what it did to me.”

“You see this scar on my face?” he asked without pausing for an answer. “That’s what happens when the foot of a 2100-pound bull comes down on you hard. Busted my face open, broke my upper jaw in two places, my lower in three, knocked out every tooth on the right side of my mouth and blinded me in my right eye. Three months later I found myself sitting on the back of another one of those crazy critters.”

“These two fingers?” he said, holding up his hand for me to see. “They got left behind on the rigging of a bull that dragged me around the arena for two minutes before the bullfighters could get me loose. Quite possibly the longest two minutes of my life.

“My left knee shattered when another one of those sons of the devil landed on it. My right ankle and shin? Crushed when I was trying to climb a fence to get clear of one especially mean bundle of hamburger. He had thrown me neatly and cleanly less than two seconds out of the gate. I knew he had a reputation for looking for the cowboy he had just thrown. So I headed for the fence as soon as I got my senses about me enough to get to my feet and find the closest one. Well, before I could get over, he caught me, rammed my leg at full speed, crushing it against the fence. I remember looking down at him from the top of that fence—just before I passed out from the pain. He took about two or three steps back and looked at me as if he were thinking, Please, fall to the inside of the arena. I’m not done with you, yet.

“I spent eight months flat on my back in a hospital in El Paso one time. A bull managed to get me in the air behind him and as I came down, he kicked and found my spine, breaking it. The doctors said I was real lucky that I wasn’t spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair. I still didn’t learn though. A year later, I was nodding my head and hanging on.

“Before it was all over, I had broken every rib at least once, several twice and one three times. My right shoulder socket is so tore up I can slide the ball in and out at will. Hell, that don’t even really hurt no more.” He grinned and shook his head. “I’ve had my pelvis broken twice, more concussions than I can remember, probably can’t remember how many I’ve had because I’ve had so many.” Another grin. “And to be truthful, if there is a bone in my body that hasn’t been broken, I couldn’t tell you what it is. If I could find it, it would be the one that doesn’t hurt, but I don’t think I got any of those anymore.

“Top that off with the internal damage—lost a kidney, bruised my liver, busted spleen, even losing a lung to a bull that caught me on the ground and knew how to use his horns properly—didn’t keep me from climbing back on ‘em.

“It was the thrill of the ride. I was addicted to it, and there ain’t no cure for that. No matter how little sense it made. Even knowing there was a big chance I was gonna get hurt again if I continued, I just couldn’t resist it. I had good rides, I had bad rides, every ride was different. Every ride had something to teach me. And every ride was its own thrill in and of itself. All 4015 of them.

“But then two years ago, I was out in Cheyenne and I drew a bull called “Satan’s Sidekick”—a 5-year-old in the prime of his life, a big strapping 1978-pound specimen that had never been ridden for the full eight seconds. As soon as I drew his name, I began thinking it was time to retire. Actually I began thinking it was way past time to retire. Hell, forty-five is ancient in this business.

“But I had entered the event, I had drawn the bull and I’ve always been taught that a cowboy never backs down from a challenge. So an hour later I found myself in the chute, climbing on his back. I adjusted my rigging, took a deep breath and nodded my head.

“All of a sudden the world exploded underneath me and I knew that it was on. I don’t know how to explain it, but that was the best ride of my life. I could feel every move that bull made. It was like we had some sort of connection. I knew every move he was going to make before he made it. Perfect would be the only word I can use to describe it. It seemed to go on forever. And I was loving every one-hundredth-of-a-second of it. It was literally the greatest feeling of my life. All the pain, all the falls, all the attempts of the past were suddenly irrelevant and even worth it as it all came together in that one ride.

“Then out of nowhere I heard a loud buzzing sound that took me a second to recognize. It was the eight second buzzer. I had gotten so involved in that ride that I had forgotten all about what was going on around me and where I was at.

“I let go of the rigging, flew off and landed on my feet. Having refocused I turned to see where the bull was and what he was going to do. Amazingly he wasn’t heading my way. Rather, he was just standing there looking around at the grandstands. That was when I heard the roar of the crowd and looked up to see 45,000 people standing, cheering and clapping.

“I looked back at Satan’s Sidekick just as he looked back at me. Now I know this sounds crazy, but I would swear that bull was thinking, We did it, I gave you the bucking of my life, you gave me the ride of your life and we gave them the show of theirs. Good job, Cowboy. It was a real pleasure.

“I never rode again after that. And never will. Because in that one ride I found what I had been looking for my entire life. And I rode it out for all eight seconds.

“Well, that’s the story, Thanks for the coffee, the shot and listening. Happy trails,” he said with a grin and a tip of his hat as he placed it back on his head and began his journey out of the bar. Strangely, it appeared that he left that bar walking a little more “John Wayne-ish” than he did when he walked in.

I sat there for a few more minutes thinking about the story I had just heard, laid a twenty on the bar to pay for the drinks and walked out.

An hour ago I had walked in to this bar wondering how I had allowed myself to end up here again. But as I walked out I realized the truth about it all. Thanks to that young man.

Yes, I would chance falling in love again. I love the ride. And who knows? Someday, I just might experience the perfect ride and last all eight seconds.