The Bull Rider

Like me, he had come up the week before: he for the long summer, me for ten days. He had driven an old camper with bald tires through four states. When he got to town, the first place he went was the Silver Moon Bar so he could register for the bull ride and the roping contests. But when he got there, he was too late. The slots were full and there were already riders on the waiting list. So that night, he sat in the bleachers with his new hat and his boots and a rope of licorice for dinner. He studied the riders who were behind the ring. They paced and fidgeted and some would bounce on their heels and talk to themselves while they pulled on their hats. I told him later how there were nights when I would lie awake and with my finger I would write out a sentence midair and then turn it over and over again dozens of times until the thing sounded just right, and how there were other nights when I would get out of bed and go to my desk because I knew I would not sleep until I got the thing down on paper. He laughed and said he understood. Those were the moments he lived for: the befores—when the rider cleared his head from all fears and doubts and submitted himself to that rising burst of adrenaline. 

*          *          * 

He did not sleep that first night in town. How could he? When the rodeo finished, he walked to the Silver Moon, but the crowd was sparse, so he retreated to his camper. He sat outside and listened to the trucks on the highway. There was some whiskey in a flask to help calm him down, but his mind still buzzed for hours with thoughts of those wild bulls and that long Arizona winter and the amount of cash he had saved and how long it would last. 

*          *          *

The next week, he set his alarm for 5:58 a.m. He started calling the Silver Moon at 5:59. On the third call, he got through. Ambition wins over talent every time, he thought. This was part of the competition. He was the second rider to register for the bull ride and roping contests, though truth be told, the only thing that mattered to him was riding that bull and the thought of sending some money back to his mother. 

*          *          * 

I met him that same week on one of those guided trails where they take you up into the hills, through old forests and along the banks of some stream. It was the kind of ride where you walk in a straight line and spend half of your time watching some horse in front of you take a long shit or piss like a hydrant. He had been hired as a handler and was assigned to our group. I was behind him, and as we ascended the hills he started talking to me about Arizona and how he had spent all winter helping cows give birth to calves. The rancher who owned the Arizona farm was a grizzly bear who spent his days with his Camels and his lighter and satellite TV. Whenever a cow was about to give birth, the old bear would sound an air horn and the hands would rouse out of bed and run to the stalls. There they waited in long johns with their own cigarettes. When the time came, one would pull on the legs of the calf until the smell and the texture of the moment filled the room. On the trail ride he looked back and said, you have not experienced life until you have taken in the smell of a cow giving birth. He said, if I never spend another winter in Arizona, I will be a happy man. 

*          *          * 

By the end of the ride, I had decided to give him $60 to cover his next rodeo entry fee. I honestly thought he would decline, but when I handed him the money he took it and tipped his hat. That was the last of my cash. I told him not to make me regret it by getting himself hurt. He smiled. He had told me he was named after a famous bull rider who had been killed in the ring. Not in the way you might expect. Not trampled or gored. What happened was when this rider got off the bull the thing bucked him into a metal fence. The sheer impact caused a vital organ to collapse. He was dead before he made it to the hospital. There was something fatalistic about a mother naming her son after a fallen rider. He took it, though, as good luck. The fallen rider was watching over him, he said. In fact, his father had actually met this rider long ago. They had shared a beer once in some beat-up bar while the other riders were raising hell. His father had sat and listened to this bull rider as he replayed all his injuries from the ring. That night, his father showed the bull rider a picture of his son. The rider smiled when he was told they shared the same name. 

*          *          * 

When I got back to my motel, I wrote out the entire conversation from the trail ride. I wrote about the fallen rider. I wrote about his obsession with his mustache. I wrote about the $60 and how I wished at some point someone had come along in my life and shown me that my dreams had some value. That night, I stood in the motel parking lot and considered the stars and the rider and listened to the trucks on the highway. I reread what I had written and realized I knew nothing of the rodeo or the ring. The only thing I understood was that thing inside the rider that made him drive through four states to some dusty rodeo with one-dollar hot dogs and a speaker nailed to a wooden post and some trailer park in the distance where old women on lawn chairs watched the riders ride. In my motel room, I wrote about my studio back home and those endless days when I would pace the floor with that blank screen staring at me and that one quote on the wall from The Polish Complex about the absurdity of writing and the emptiness found in this eternal quest to be understood and how the most we can hope for in life is that one moment when Great Meaning falls on us and we have some understanding of all things. 

*          *          * 

That Thursday, I went to the Silver Moon and watched as the riders roped and raced. I sat in the bleachers and waited for the bull rides. I could see him behind the stalls. He was standing on the bottom rung of the metal fence. He looked stoic and reflective. Whenever another rider burst out of the stall, he would climb to the top railing of the fence and tug on his mustache and tip his hat and watch. Then came his turn, and for some reason when they announced his name I stood. I watched him mount the beast and I thought of the $60. The rider leaned forward and rubbed its neck and whispered something into its ear. The wranglers were holding the bull and then the rider tipped his hat and the stall was opened. It happened so fast, in my mind it was either a flash of light or a movement of sound. He leaned back on the beast and with his one free hand he held his hat on his head. The bull bucked and kicked and the rider gave a loud cry that sounded like a great whoop. The whole thing lasted four seconds. The animal responded by bucking him to the side, and in that moment, the rider must have known that all things must come to an end and he jumped off. 

*          *          * 

I went back to my motel that night and stood in the parking lot and listened to the trucks on the highway. I thought of those drivers who lived for the night. There was peace to be found in the emptiness of land and some security found in darkness. I thought of that bull rider who had spent all winter working and saving—all for those four seconds on the back of that beast. I thought about that first short story I had gotten published and how I had waited for months and when the magazine came I read my story four straight times. Then I shared that story with some people I loved and when they read it they smiled and said it was nice. That was it. Nothing changed. We are never known for the things we feel most about ourselves. 

*          *          * 

That night, I lingered in the parking lot and thought of that rider as he had finished his ride. He had hurried to the fence while the bull continued to kick and snort. When the bull got bored and stopped, he walked to the center of the ring and stared at the women in their lawn chairs. I kept thinking of that bull rider, hanging onto that metal fence on the edge of the ring, and by god, if he didn’t have the biggest grin. 

JONATHAN LINDBERG

Jonathan Lindberg writes from Asheville, North Carolina. His most recent stories have appeared in Concho River Review and Whitefish Review and as a finalist for the West Trade Review’s annual Prize for Fiction. He is a current MFA Fiction candidate at Bennington College in Vermont and an Associate Fiction Editor at West Trade Review.