Jules has driven for three and a half hours to see his roommates in a small-town rodeo. Trudy declined to accompany him.
Mark has successfully ridden two bulls, both of them heavy and sluggish but just energetic enough to earn him some points and keep him in the game. Both times he ended his ride by neatly jumping off and landing on his feet. One more and it will have been worth it to come. The next one will not be so easy, though. Mark casts a glance at the bull in the chute.
The bull’s name is Frankincense and Murder, son of Frankenbull, grandson of Frankenstein’s Monster. So it goes. Generation after generation of thundering evil. The bull swings its head toward the clutch of cowboys behind him. Its eyes bulge so that a ring of white shows at the edges.
Jules watches as Mark lowers himself onto the back of the bull, his legs spread wide, straining. He shimmies forward until his crotch is touching the rope that is wrapped once around the huge chest of the animal, behind its shoulders. James is standing beside him on a rung of the fence, pulling the rope tight. A third cowboy stands on top of the fence on the other side with one boot on the shoulder of the bull, trying to push it away from the side of the pen. The bull is the colour of wet sand and weighs about eighteen hundred pounds. Muscles ripple below its coarse-haired hide.
Jules wonders again: Why do we do these things? What has brought us here?
Mark’s gloved hand is palm up on the back of the bull, flattened under the first round of rope. James gives the rope another heave straight up, and then Mark grabs it and wraps it around his hand twice. He has to use his other hand to bend his fingers closed around it. The bull shifts against the side of the pen, pinning Mark’s leg. Slowly, the bull increases force until Mark is wincing with pain. The bull kicks the back of the pen and then crouches down, kneeling forward, unseating the cowboy.
Fuck.
Mark unwraps the rope and is lifted off. They will have to start all over again.
For the first time, Jules thinks his friend looks like he is getting nervous.
It starts to rain. The arena is turning to mud. Eight seconds is all Mark needs. Stay on the bull for eight seconds. Get to the final round. Win a thousand bucks. Drive home. Please. Jesus, thinks Jules. Just one more time.
They start the procedure again. Mark sits astride the bull, shimmies forward. The rope is wrapped around the animal and pulled tight, then around the cowboy’s hand and pulled tight again. Gloved hand folded over rope. Hat crushed down on head. A quick nod and the gate is thrown open.
Jules has a bad feeling. He doesn’t want to watch. But he has to watch.
The bull explodes out of the chute like it has been shot out of a cannon. It leaps skyward, throwing its hips up and kicking out the back. Mark is sticking to it, one hand in the air. The bull spins to the right, bucking. All four hooves are off the ground at once, the bull twisting its body in midair, trying to send the cowboy flying off over its backside. No dice. Mark is still there, knees driven into the sides of the animal, bending at the waist, keeping that hand high.
Two seconds left before the horn blows.
The bull throws its weight into another spin, bucking, reaching a horn back, trying to catch the cowboy’s leg. Then one huge leap upward. Mark pulls his torso up straight, his whole body is tensed, waiting for the bull’s front hooves to hit the ground, sending its ass high into the air. Mark leans back, anticipating. But the bull slips in the mud, slides to the side, sending Mark flying through the air.
The horn sounds before he hits the ground. It counts! The ride counts! Jules is elated. Sends a fist skyward.
Except Mark hits the ground headfirst.
His body bends at the waist then flops over onto the ground like a rag doll.
Four clowns appear out of nowhere, all suspenders and baggy shorts. They circle the bull; they clap, they hoot and holler, wave hats in the bull’s face, dance backward toward the break in the fence. Leading the bull away.
Away from the still, still figure on the ground.
Jules turns his back and covers his face with both hands.