Weekly Circuit Rodeo

After a long week it is Friday, and that means it’s time to go to a corral twenty minutes off, the weekly circuit rodeo. Get there early ’cause they always have a barbeque before it starts, also basic line-dancing lessons for ladies and their sweet-hearts. Drifting through the nearby western store while things are getting ready, buy a new belt with an eagle print, it’s both rustic and steady. In the ring they’re warming up horses, preparing them to ride slack, a teenage girls talks on her cell-phone while perched on a gelding’s back. It starts off with some nice pageantry, a dozen riders with flags, anthem plays to the stars and the stripes, makes a free man’s soul feel glad. I sit way up high in the bleachers, bronc-busters the first to ride, unbroken horses don’t like the weight, they buck, they spin ’round, they dive. The riders always will get thrown off, it’s just a question of when, next the ropers go line up to ride, chasing steers loosed from the pen. Lassos flicker in stadium lights, and slowly they scribe a path, then swoop down low and seize on a hoof, how the heck do they do that? Now the steer wrestlers leap from their mounts, never fails to bring a cheer, wonder if they put on resumes ‘Am adept at wrestling steers’? Things slow down, the trick-roper comes out, spins a line as if born to it, then pops balloons from a woman’s head with a swish of his bull-whip! Then pony-tails fly behind women, barrel-racers ride compelled, moving so fast you’d think they were chased by the damned devil himself. Finally men, more crazy then sane, sit themselves on a huge bull, two thousand pounds of angry muscle, testosterone flowing full. One by one the riders are thrown off, then the clowns distract the beasts, buying the rider just enough time, to scramble back to his feet. But one young man will not break his hold, he passes eight second by luck, just enough to win the night’s small prize, a hard way to earn a buck. The crowd is drifting back to their cars as the sunlight settles low, cowboys and girls I’ll see again at the weekly circuit rodeo.