INTRODUCTION

Last Friday night was the best and the worst night of my life. The worst because I got stuck in a thunderstorm from hell. There’s a plethora of things I hate about Florida, and hurricane season is at the top of the list. Just when I thought things could not get any crappier, my older-than-Jesus SUV blew a tire when I swerved to keep from hitting a deer that was standing in the middle of the road. The deer survived but my car didn’t fare so well. Luckily, I came out unscathed but with a flat. I knew the spare was back at my house in the garage along with the jack. It didn’t matter anyway. I didn’t know a thing about changing a busted tire. I reached behind my seat to grab an umbrella, but there wasn’t one. I was screwed from both ends. I realized that I had passed a country-western bar a half a mile back, but with the way the rain was coming down, I decided to wait for the storm to let up. It seemed like the more I waited, the harder the downpour. I tried to call my dad, but due to the storm and that I was stuck out in the sticks, I wasn’t able to get a signal. My luck was for shit so far. I had to get to my aunt’s and couldn’t sit there all night not knowing how long the storm would last. I pulled my jacket over my head, got out, and made a run toward the bar. I hate getting wet, but I didn’t have a choice.

By the time I reached the bar, I was soaked. I could barely make out my hand in front of my face, since my glasses were peppered with drops of rain. Country music blasted from inside the bar as I dried the lenses of my glasses with my shirttail. The minute I walked inside, all eyes were on me like I had just stepped off a spaceship from Uranus. I figured there must be a phone I could use. I was shivering with cold from the rain and I was soaked from head to toe. This silver daddy of a guy walked over to me with slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair and a thick handlebar moustache, wearing a black T-shirt. He was the type I usually went for, but I was nowhere in the mood to even think about some sexy beer-belly bear when my SUV was stranded in the rain on the side of the road. The cotton top barkeep asked what he could get for me. A hot cup of cocoa with marshmallows was what I wanted, but I knew my chances of getting something like that in the hole-in-the-wall hick bar was about as likely as my going down on Zac Efron, so I told him a beer would suffice. I could feel the stares on me like hot rays. They looked like they had never seen a black man before, and shoot, maybe some of them never had. I was too wet and annoyed to care.

The bartender set a glass of beer in front of me. I fished a wet ten dollar bill out of the front pocket of my jeans and handed him the money. He wasn’t very happy, but money was money. He cracked wise about my getting caught in the rain. I told him that I’d had an accident up the road, but he didn’t seem concerned. When I asked him if there was a phone I could use, he pointed to a pay phone at the other end of the bar. “How retro,” I told him, though I doubted he heard me over the Kenny Chesney twang coming from the speakers in the ceiling caked with dust and grease. I drank about half a glass worth of the swill that passed for beer before I made my way to the rear of the bar. I slipped a quarter in the slot and dialed my daddy’s cell phone number. It rang four times before it went to voice mail. It was typical of him. What’s the point of having a phone if you ignore the calls? I made a mental note to never call him if I’m knocking on death’s door. I would have better luck reaching E.T.

I was about to call my cousin when I felt someone shove me in my back. I turned around to find this jerk-off of a hick standing before me wearing a dirty cap, a blue T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, and dirt-filthy tattered jeans with snakeskin boots caked with mud. I’ll never forget him, seeing as how his teeth were rotting from dipping snuff, and the fact that he smelled like a wet dead dog. “Can’t you read, boy? That phone says whites only.” He and his two other rough-looking buddies laughed at his joke that I didn’t find at all funny. I told them that I didn’t want any mess, but looking at them, I could see that trouble was exactly what I was about to get.

When I tried to walk back to the other end of the bar to avoid a fight, the leader of the pack shoved me again. “Ya gotta pay if you want to use that phone.” His breath smelled like a hog’s ass. I didn’t like fighting, but I wasn’t the type to sit there and take an ass-whipping either. I knew that I couldn’t take on all three, just the toothless, hog-breath-smelling leader. The tension in the air was thicker than the cigarette smoke. I dropped an f-bomb in his face like a fart, which only made the hick and his opossum pack madder. He was about to draw back and hit me when this cowboy wearing a Stetson, a plaid shirt, jeans, and black boots appeared almost out of nowhere. He obstructed the hick’s punch, yanking his arm back behind him. Before long there was pure chaos. The cowboy that had come to my rescue had single-handedly taken on all three men. Two of them were lying on the floor in the fetal position while the leader struggled to pick up the few teeth that had just been knocked out of his fool head.

The cowboy asked me if I was okay. I stood there in complete shock and amazement at what I had witnessed. This stud was like Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, and Chuck Norris rolled into one.

He asked me if the SUV in the ditch up the road was mine. “Yeah, I ran here to call for help. My phone won’t get a signal down here in the boonies.” Pearls of rainwater trickled down his face, dripping from the rim of his hat. He said his name was Doug. He asked me where I was headed and if I needed a lift. It was probably a crime in ten counties for a man like him to be so sexy. I thanked him for his help and walked with him out of the bar. I noticed his knuckles were scuffed, smudged with blood from the brawl. I didn’t say anything. I figured a guy like that was used to kicking ass. My heart was still racing from what had happened. When we pulled up in front of my place, I took out my wallet to pay him for his hospitality. Doug placed his hand over mine. “No need for that. Forget about it,” he said.

“You gotta let me give you something for saving my butt back there.” I probably would have been the one picking up my teeth if he hadn’t come along.

“Isn’t there anything I can do?”

We stared a long time at each other in the truck that smelled faintly of cologne and cigarettes, wondering who was going to make the next move.

If you’re eager to find out what might have happened next, dip into the stories ahead. Cowboy Up is my new, naughty creation brimming with both modern-day and Old West stories from raunchy ranch hands to horned-up all-American cowboys. May you enjoy these tales as much as I have.

Shane Allison

Tallahassee, Florida