Bulls

“25 times, maybe.”

That’s what Dale had told me. 25 times before your brain could process the movement of the bull and allow you to change the outcome of the ride.

He was at my shoulder now, arm across the back of my vest and holding me upright as the big black motherfucker leapt without height and dove without depth into the metal fencing on all sides of me. I watched the spit and blood fly from his face, great clumps of liquid that burst on the metal and dropped across his back in chunks. He snorted and if I could see his eyes, I felt they would mirror mine. A wide eyed look of fear, sure, but also something else. Some sort of resolve that painted itself across both our faces. I wanted out as much as he did. But there was pride at stake.

So fuck it.

25 times.

This was number 23, I think. The 23rd time I kept my balance on the back of one of these beasts, gripped at metal and the rope that ran beneath its body, tightened across my fist. This was the 23rd time I doubted the whole fucking thing and held onto any last bit of stability before the black took over.

Dale, the metal of the chute, the rope that wrapped around the back of my hand and cinched in place. All of it was a bit of structure I could use to keep myself upright. For now. But that would change. It always had to. There was always a time when you had to make that movement, a slight dip of your head, the faithful nod that sent you out into hell.

And here it was.

I took a moment, tightened my hand in a neurotic gesture that hinted towards some level of acceptance.

“Go. You got this.”

Dale’s voice near my ear. The bull’s hump beneath my fist, the focal point of my vision.

Hang onto that.

This time would be different.

8 seconds. That’s all it took. Cash on the other side. You can do anything for 8 seconds.

So I watched the bull from hooded eyes and made that motion, the brim of my hat down and then back up. The world between my legs shifted, spun to the right and the gate yawned open, dirt and chaos beyond it.

Dale’s yelp and a shout of “Ride him bro!” A distant voice from the edge of the void, one last shred of humanity that shouted at me from the edge of civilization. The new world ahead.

The black.

And that was it.

The curtain drops away as you begin to run. Black and instinct and the vague sense of the ground beneath your back and then your up without thought and on the run towards the fence that opens up in front of you, a beacon of hope that rests beyond the sound of hooves and desperation behind you.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

And then you're on top, a jump and a scramble that takes you up over the metal and onto the other side.

The clown wanders over to you as the beast is herded off the circle of dirt. He tosses you the rope that was left behind. A nod of thanks and it’s all over. See, those are the heroes. I’m just riding the wave for lack of anything else. Those guys are the reason I’m not mauled to death out there. I tried to be tough, once, and feign indifference as the bull was corralled away from me. I remained in the circle and picked up my own rope, like a hard man.

“Next time just get out of there, makes our job harder.”

The clown wasn’t angry. But the tone was obvious. Dismissive. An outsider that didn’t understand the game. A form of masterbation, that bravado.

Just get the fuck out.

We don’t have time for your little show of importance.

So I played it from then on and kept my role simple. Ride the bull. Run for the gate.

Once I’m over the fence everything kind of drops away. The rush is an afterthought, an accent more than anything. Another lost conquest.

8 seconds?

Try 2 or 3.

I walk around the outside of the ring and there’s Dale, his arms across the shoulders of the next rider, the same voice that whispers in his ear. The same whoop of encouragement. A line of beasts that take up space between the chutes, each one desperate to leave as the riders wait their turn to leave along with them. The crackle of electricity that accompanied the true warriors. The ones that fight the system. A cattle prod that ignites and forces them forward in panic.

Ride the bull, run for the gate.

Repeat.

Again and again until the money was there.

23 times and the curtain remained.

Pony went to Afghanistan. He was there just after the height of it all, when IED’s were the norm and the gunfight was becoming rare. But it happened, twice, a contact on the outskirts of some shithole village.

When he got back we got fucked up and the stories came out quicker than I would have thought. The silent veteran is a cliche that Pony was far from fitting into.

He talked about the pattern in life. The change in the village as they approached. The first thing you notice is inactivity. Zero people, an abandoned cluster of mud huts and brick structures. You think to yourself, strange, and then you hear the crack of rounds that break the air around you. Some guys react, some just stand there. Immediate curtain, with nothing behind it. Stock still, these guys would just stand in the dirt, profiles against the sun. An easy target while the proper drill is to drop to the ground and find cover.

I asked him about the rush and Pony said it was incomparable to anything else. The closest thing was the moment before you jump from an airplane, he said. The gate opens up and the green light flips on and then your off into the sky, a speck of matter that floats on the abyss.

“It’s the closest. But getting shot at is three times that, at least.”

But Pony’s never rode a bull.

So I have that on him at least.

I drove through the dusk.

As soon as the rush wore off I texted Des. She was home alone, as usual. A new anticipation took the place of the bulls.

I was out of the for Sunday. So I drove through the shroud of failed light and left that town behind me. They were always in the middle of nowhere, these things. A shit motel and an old hockey arena, maybe a school. One gas station as you pulled onto the highway.

A few hours later and it’s my world again. Multiple lane highway, a garden of concrete and glass as the skyline slides into view.

And Naomi.

She greeted me with a kiss, a small bit of flesh on flesh. Fuck knows what we were. She was always free to hang out, a reassurance each weekend once the business was dealt with.

She had come with me, once. And only once. That night she’d watched me fail. Not only that but she’d watched as the bull I rode smashed his face off the fence, his horn caught and twisted off his head, a bloody affair that left the horn hanging limp from a destroyed stump in front of his face. Through the crowd I found her later, a limp to my step from a twisted knee. At the end of a bench I parted the sea of drunk rednecks and found her huddled there in a space between the masses, half eaten corn dog on her lap as she bent forward and stared at the ground. When she looked up I saw that tears had streaked her cheeks.

That was the one and only time.

Her apartment was downtown and her job was down the block, but the inside of her apartment was everything but a downtown space. I followed her into the kitchen. It was spotless like the rest of the house, the counters bare and the cupboards glass and empty. I’d never seen her cook anything, each meal we had together conjured on our plates from a chain of unseen cooks and friendly servers.

The living room was similar, barren and uncluttered. Except for the walls. The walls were something of an anomaly compared to the clean edges of the furniture and the bare floor inside that formed her box.

The walls were covered in art. Art, but of the loose, unframed variety. Behind her head where she sat on the couch, the wall was thick with paper, canvas, a photograph here and there. A ruffled layer of paper feathers that hung off the wall in layers, enough that many were hidden beneath the rest.

They were dark, but that was as far as I cared to analyze. Grey and black scenes or shapes, a massive tortoise here, it’s eyes bright against the forest background. A strange, hunched figure there, faceless behind a shawl and the glint of moonlight behind it.

Naw, fuck the art. The focus was Des, her long, black hair messy and splayed out across her shoulders, the grey of her eyes that peered from the shroud that formed from her hair. Against the art she looked similar to the tortoise, a black mass and the glint of life from two orbs that formed beneath it.

I slid into the seat beside her, customary, expected. But apparently not so much because something was different in the way Des sat there, stockstill and rigid against the couch back. There was no warmth tonight, no sense of comfort in my return. I leant closer and went for the warmth on my own, a small peck on her cheek, the lack of movement in return.

I stared out the window then, the vibe strong enough that I didn’t feel like pursuit anymore.

Fuck this.

The light from the apartments outside held a new sort of comfort. From my awkward perch on the couch I could make out the glass of anonymous vessels that held bodies of flesh.

There was an afternoon, months ago now, a lazy Sunday that turned into impulse. A fuck that turned into wine and a bit of weed. And then the mushrooms that she got from a girl she worked with, a baggie of brown fungus that we took as the sun was at its highest. And then we were steeped in the high as the sun dipped and the shadows stretched across from the balcony to the other side of the street, enough of the opposite apartments dipped in black that we could watch the lights come on and saw the open windows as a sort of thrill in itself. To watch as voyeurs, which made it all so significant.

That day I watched a girl, blonde and corporate, resigned to sweats and a packaged dinner, her legs folded beneath her on the couch as she watched TV with a sort of lonely stare that made me think of simple pleasures like way we sat together, myself and Des, a sort of domestic bliss to that afternoon and the realization that maybe I didn’t have to ride those bulls. Maybe I didn’t have to hit the 8 second mark because it wasn’t so bad sitting out here, in the warmth and the high and the closeness of another human being. Because there was this girl, out there on her own, eating TV dinners and focussed on nothing, really. Focussed on the absence of anything that formed itself into the glitter of the box that sat across from her. And the high wore off and I went home and the week crawled by until it was the weekend once again and I went off to find my fortune on the backs of beasts.

Rinse and repeat.

But now there was this, the cold sense that I wasn’t wanted, despite the greeting and the routine that had lasted too long, maybe? It was a foreign concept, the fact that maybe, after all was said and done, she was actually the one that had grown bored with me. I had always seen the opposite. I had settled. Settled and relented, for lack of anything else. And it wasn’t because of her looks.

So I started talking to smooth it all out. Because I did have that power. I told her about my ride and the 23rd time. I told her that I felt I could get it next time. I really did. At the very least I was close.

She sat there and when she nodded she did it slow and without much in the way of interest, eyes glazed over. Her face was pointed straight ahead, at the black of her own TV. I glanced at the curved glass and saw the outline of our bodies, the back lit couch and the single circle of light that formed above her head, a hazy amber glow warped in the reflection. I stared at our shapes, the faces gone and the lamp orange. A deadened form of reality. So I grabbed the remote and we settled into the distraction of noise, just for a bit.

After it had become too much, the strange way we sat together, I put my arm around her shoulders and took a leap of faith, a method of control, at least. The isolation of winter was starting to get to me.

A break in the seam. A pause and then I was standing on the edge, one step past the point of no return. And she relented and then she lent sideways and allowed the pressure to force her closer to me.

A breakthrough.

And then the feel of her neck on my mouth.

The night passed by quickly after that. We had reached a level of understanding and the ease returned. Whatever had shifted in her had sent us into a place beyond her bedroom door, the return to the living room sometime later, bladder full as I passed through to the washroom.

Early morning, too grey to see much through the glass, the dawn only just about to rise.

Naked, I flushed, watched the dehydration disappear in spirals. As I walked back towards the bedroom I stopped, the art holding a certain significance now, the sleep forced backwards enough that I toed a line between two worlds. Through blurred vision I watched the dark shapes, each one slightly more obtuse than before, but somehow that allowed them to look similar. They were less distinct and more of an entity that spread itself across the wall and crouched there, flattened.

I stared at them and made a note, a mental bookmark that I should ask her about these. Justify their existence somehow.

Because they weren’t just here on display. This was the overflow. The real bulk of them pasted the walls of her room, the layers of paper on all four sides of it, the dark shapes from floor to ceiling.

I knew why I didn’t mention them.

She was laying on her bed, sheets pulled back in sleep, tits splayed out and flattened.

I watched her for a moment and the art was less relevant. A coping mechanism at work. One stressor at a time. The inability to cope with more than one and it blotted out the theoretical that made itself known across the walls. All that remained was the void of lust that existed.

I didn’t mention them because there were other, more pressing matters. And they meant so much to me that, what if I did ask?

What was I then?

The week passed by and then I was driving again, the Friday afternoon young and traffic less. South this time, a town without a school.

I found Dale that night, the ease of a one bar sort of place and the guarantee of kinship. We drank and he spoke of his wife, the “goddamn piece of shit” son who messed up his combine. Dropped a shovel in it by accident. We took shots and he growled that tomorrow was my chance to “get a fucking ride in you”. And we were more than buzzed by the time I wandered out the door and down the street, shithole motel within walking distance.

A quick turnaround and it was morning.

A walk in the air to sober me up, the hockey rink in sight, crowded today. A smaller town but a larger crowd.

She checked my name off the list, cash in hand, wide, farm girl sort of lady that grinned and laughed too loud for my taste.

And then it was the wait. The half-assed announcer and the sound of their approach, hooves and muscle and anger borne of a sort of desperation. I watched as they were forced through the sections. Locked off and isolated, the bucks that became full leaps forward and above the metal, only to come back down hard and without restraint. Bloody faces and chipped horns.

I thought of texting Des then, as I watched the cattle prods and the blood. But there was nothing to tell her. Not yet. There was only this. And I knew how she would react to this.

So I left my phone wehere it was, jammed deep on the bottom of the gym bag. I pulled my vest down over my shirt and dragged the rope from the same bag. Pulled the pinny down across my vest. Number 24. That had to mean something. The synchronicity. It had to.

And there was 23, gone and into the dirt, his hat stomped on by the bull, his run accompanied by a limp.

And here was Dale.

He met me with a grin, a fist and a clap on the back as I took the stairs up towards the platform that formed a balcony to the chutes. Not much more than a square of metal, I sidled up beside one of the cowboys, a tall, lanky dude that couldn’t give less of a fuck. He was watching the outriders as they corralled the bull back into the chutes, a patch of sunlight through the back of the arena, then closed off again as the entire package disappeared from view.

A pause in time and the mind does weird things to justify itself. The brink of extinction maybe, a point where I was on the route to something harsh and unforgiving and my brain asked me why exactly this was essential to survival. Because the way it was wired, this was so far from logical that it couldn’t help but try its best to stop me.

My thoughts floated to Des, to her face as I left, the morning that turned to afternoon as we dozed and woke and fucked. A beautiful morning. Simple and effective. I could hear the commotion of the bulls behind me somewhere, their groans and screams that accompanied the sizzle of the prod. So violent and full of aggression. Cold faced motherfuckers clad in Wrangler and Levi’s, leather shitkickers and unhindered stubble. The notion of the humble cowboy was as inaccurate as the noble savage. These weren’t glamourous people. They were void of beauty. Reduced to hard work and the ability to unhinge their brain and detach it from their body. They did things because it was how they always had.

Fuck evolution. And it made me think of Des because she was so far from this, a complete contrast to the shallow nature of this world. Which made me wonder why, exactly? Why did the 8 second ride mean so much when….

Stop.

Next thought, because that wasn’t what I needed. The images of Pony then, an intensity that was unmatched by anything I could comprehend. He had his war. He’d been forged from it. And I would always be incapable beside that. Unless I followed my own path that wound its way through my own brand of chaos. This was my own, special war. And the thought energized me.

Dale then, his presence in this world. An idol and a mentor. He rode these things like Pony had killed. Detached and with precision. That’s what I needed.

I turned to look at him and the smile was genuine, a crinkle in his features that reminded me of why this was it.

“You got this.”

Fucking right.

“Number 24”. A hand that drifted towards one of the chutes. Indicative and impartial.

And here it came, this big, hunch backed piece of meat that made its way through the interlocking chutes, it’s nose running with exertion and fear and anger and fuck knows what else. It was aggressive out of necessity and the more it backed away the harder they prodded it forward, a sharp crackle of electricity that flowed through its body and sent it straight to the end, where I stood over top of empty space.

Empty space suddenly filled. The beast rammed though the last door, slid open to allow him entry and closed right behind him with a smash that I could feel in vibrations that ran through my legs, subsided somewhere in my crotch.

Bucking, desperate shoulders and traps that obscured its neck beneath the flesh. I knew the game from this point. You stop thinking. You move with a calm, controlled manipulation of your body. Because to think is to justify. And you could always justify a reason to walk away from this.

I stepped onto the bars of the chute, let the rope dangle beneath the hulk of its stomach. The coat hanger was in my other hand. A handled piece of metal, formed for this purpose, but I called it the coat hanger. Abortion mindset. Quick and dirty.

I hooked the side of the rope with the handle, dragged it up to meet my hand and then it was cinched underneath. I stroked the rope with one hand, a bit of foreplay, to warm the resin that grew sticky beneath my palm.

Settled into the groove of its back, my legs wrapped around flesh and the weight, the rope wrapped once, twice, three times around my hand and crossed in that token suicide grip.

Suicide for the simple fact that it was most effective. Cinched in like that and your hand wasn’t going anywhere. Unless you really wanted to get off. But no time for that thought. I had 8 seconds before that to worry about.

Moment of truth. Dale’s hand on my back, the buck of Apophis beneath me. A breath in, then out. Slow, controlled. Clarity.

The nod.

I watched the head swing to the right, focussed on its movement, a bridge formed between myself and its horns. Instinctive now, the calls of Dale behind me unnoticed. One arm up and I felt as if I was outside myself now, body programmed in a way I hadn’t accessed until now. I moved with the head, in time with its transition up, body leaned over top of it and then straight back with its fall. When it turned I shifted opposite of it, arm out to compensate.

Holy fuck.

Suddenly the horn blasted. Either the longest time of my life or the shortest because suddenly it was all relative. I was up against the fence now, hand cinched into the cocksuckers back, anger and desperation driving me against the metal. But I gripped the rope and pulled, hard as I could, and then I was off the top, onto the metal fence and over to the other side. Just like that. Outside the ring.

8 fucking seconds.

I should have felt like screaming. An uncontrollable joy accompanied by that great cowboy whoop.

But there was nothing, really. I was straight faced and suddenly my feet moved awkwardly, as if I had forgot how to walk. I walked away from the ring, the announcer's voice in my ears but so distant that it didn’t mean all that much. I had done it. So I kept walking.

At some point I was outside and my phone was out. The sun had dropped lower than before. A slight change in the light.

I might ride again tonight, the realization hit me. The first time I actually might go for it. A win. That’s all it took. 8 seconds and you were in the finals, statistically. Just by definition, you were one of the few with a full ride. Score meant little until the second ride.

I felt sick.

Standing there in the dirt, the tremble of adrenaline in my aching thighs. I felt like I wanted to walk down the gravel road and find my truck down by the hotel.

So I called Des.

I stood there and waited. The sound of a robotic voicemail.

Then I texted. As an afterthought. But words that meant everything.

“I did it.”

Hesitation. A second line.

“Can I come by tonight?”

A single check mark, my thoughts resigned to space, floating out there in purgatory. Then it became two grey shapes and the sun dipped further and, at some point, I wandered back inside.

I would ride that night.

And those check marks remained grey for weeks.