Cowboy Up! (The End...)
I would have retrieved the purse and chucked it into one of the pitted steel cans set outside the rodeo rink. I would have grabbed my wallet and let the lipstick and powder and Avon business cards and slim notepad and "female supplies" and emergency lollipops die a slow asphyxiation death by killer perfume among the greasy paper plates and bits of hotdog and dirty-crusted potato chips. But the crash of fragrance bottle against cement support signaled the clouds and they let loose an anguished cry of pinprick light and piepan thunder. Boom! Boom! And a thousand gallons of cool mountain rains hit the tin roof above us, driving the smell of my Avon Extraordinary down, down, down, from the rafters to my head and nose and nervous heart.
"My God. What's that smell?" A cowgirl barely stuffed into lowrise Levis and a baby-doll tshirt two sizes too small, her long ratty ponytail slinking beneath a thirty-gallon hat rolled her eyes, glared at me.
"Oh man, I'm so sorry!" I yelled against the rains, and my voice echoed from tin roof to the steel grill still pumping out cheeseburgers below us. "That smell is damned Avon."
I didn't mean to be funny, but my expression must have cast hidden sunshine among the spectators and everyone exploded in laughter. Boom! Boom! Boom! Three thunderclaps smacked the ground surrounding us, but it couldn't cover the mirth. We laughed as if spilled smelly Avon perfume was the funnier than the cowboys who would slip and slide on the mud, funnier than dumb blonde and Helen Keller jokes, funnier than the time your gramma ate six slices of rum cake and decided her blouse was cramping her style. Hot damn, we laughed.
Funny thing was, when the laughter stopped, so did the rain, as if on cue, as if God herself waited for a moment of levity to turn off the spigot. An announcer praised the breaking sun and the rodeo began!
I blushed those next few hours, time and time again. Not because of the increasing Extraordinary smell echoing off the cracked wooden bleachers and peroxide hairdos of aging rodeo mammas holding mimeographed brochures and hope close to their hearts. But because the event held so much life. Cowboys hoisted themselves upon painted ponies the quick easy way I stamp my Avon brochures. They held the horns of cattle, thighs squeezing cattle-back in mutual fear and ecstasy, and I saw my knuckles wrap upon strangers' doors imprinted in their expressions as they tackled wild steer for the simple prize of a belt buckle.
Wow. Avon is a rodeo, I thought. All my life is a mutton bustin' rodeo.
A teenaged girl grabbed a rope and galloped into the ring. The mud sprayed across her chaps, her horse's mane, and she rose out of the saddle,leaned forward, tossed the noose! It hung in the air for a brief second, unsure where to land, then bee-lined for a crazy young bull, grabbing him by the horns. A lone cowdog howled Hooray from the sidelines, and the audience rose to applaud, the smell of Avon and small minded big city folk forgotten. She won first place, a silver buckle, and the men and boys cheered her as one of their own. I slapped palms with an old man missing two front teeth, his breath a symphony of green chilies and tobacco.
The drive home was long and silent until 10 cleared his throat.
"Mom?"
"Yeah," I answered as my sister drooled against the passenger window.
"People really are the same the whole world over, aren't they? It doesn't matter what they look like." He looked at the flying world as he spoke. An antelope ran alongside us, turned east, stopped short to watch us fly goodbye.
"Yeah. We are all the same in all the ways that matter. I wish I was a cowboy." I pictured myself leaping on a horse mottled gray with a braided mane and a woven saddle.
"Me too, Mom. I wish that, too."
We watched the sun fall behind some unknown hill, the rest of our party dreaming of Frito Pie and the strong scent of manufactured beauty and the few living things who can ride fast.
9:14:13 PM 
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