The Misadventures of Hevyd - Texas.

Staring out the window of a bus can get pretty boring I suppose.  My son seemed perfectly happy doing it.  I smiled proudly, not a lot of parents could brag about that.  Although, I suppose not a lot of parents probably would if they could.  I should introduce myself.  My name is Hevyd, pronounced Heavy Dee.  My son whom is enjoying the very boring view outside is named Tee.  Don’t ask me, his mother named him, I call him T-bone.  T-bone and I were looking to start a new life.  His mother and I never got along, and he’s always warmed up to me, so I left all my things with her and we hit the road to find a new life for us.  I guess I figured I’d send for my things when we left though I hadn’t really thought about it.

         After the good-byes and I’m burning all of your stuff when you get out of eye sight, we were on our way to our next destination.  The bus stop!  I really don’t know where we are right now, I’d ask the bus driver but with a name like “Surly Dave” you’re really not looking for conversation.  You’re looking to yell at people.  And right now I was in too good of a mood to get yelled at.  So I sat quietly in my seat pondering the things that mattered most in the universe.  Where the hell are we?

         “Look dad!  Dallas!”

         “Son, I don’t have time to watch television now, I’m thinking.”  Sometimes kids were just insensitive; I mean I’m sitting here thinking about something important.  What that would have to do with the Ewing family is beyond me.  I started thinking of all the fun places we could have traveled on our bus trip across the states.  Wyoming, Massachusetts, France, or even…

         “Did you say Dallas?!”

         “Yeah dad, we’re in Texas.”

         Wow, Texas, we were somewhere exciting!  A place fit for a new life!  I quickly ran to the front of the bus and told the bus driver this was our stop.  He yelled at me to sit down and said something about this being a non-stop bus trip to Florida and how we had forfeit our pit stop privileges as soon as we started singing 99 beers.  I quickly came up with this lie about having to puke, it wasn’t completely a lie, I was so excited I could almost puke, but I wasn’t dying of it, so I guess that’s how it’s a lie.

         He pulled over and opened up the door.  T-bone and I jumped out and ran as fast as we could in the opposite direction.

         “So long suckers!” I yelled, despite the fact that we had paid for the bus ticket to go all the way to Florida and we had only made it half-way.  I made a mental note to complain about that to the bus line later, but nothing ever came of it.

         We had finally made it!  Texas!  T-bone and I meandered around taking in all the sights.  All the sand, and cacti, and other stuff that’s in Texas wastelands!  Wandering around a desert wasteland can make a guy thirsty; can make his kid thirsty too.  I started to wonder if I should have waited until the bus had gone through another city or something similar to a city, a town or village or something, before I had lied about having to vomit.

        We started heading for the first thing we could see, tents.  Tents aren’t something you’d normally find out in the desert, unless you found a camp site.  Tents are something you’d normally find at a camp site.  I was no expert at desert camp sites though, but I assume you’d have a pretty even probability if tents weren’t something you’d normally find in the desert, but were something you’d normally find at a camp site.

Upon approaching the tents, we realized some sort of festival was going on here.  I was no geography buff, but I’d say it was probably Boxing Day, as there were a lot of guys walking around in tank tops and gym shorts.  T-bone and I noticed something very peculiar about this obvious Boxing Day event.  There were absolutely no women, and nobody else seemed to notice.  I suppose it was my nature to notice things like this, like the really ugly mole I noticed on T-bone’s mother on our first date, very awkward ending to a date.

I found out why nobody else seemed to notice there weren’t any women at this Boxing Day event.  It was a rodeo!  And everyone was having far too good of a time to notice anything small like that.  There were all kinds of great things going on, all sorts of hog tying and cattle wrangling, all sorts of souvenir stands with things like cowboy hats, and lassos, and tank tops with rainbows on them.  T-bone and I started to indulge and get into these Boxing Day festivities.

“Happy Boxing Day everyone!” I yelled as loud as I could.  I was so excited.

“It’s not Boxing Day, silly.” Another patron said.

“Yeah, it’s a rodeo stupid, where do you think you are?”

“Oh be nice!” another chimed in.

T-bone stared at me awkwardly.  Like he wasn’t thinking it was Boxing Day either, it was an honest mistake.  We walked around some more and saw a bunch of Cowboys that apparently had broken wrists or something, their hands went limp whenever they’d hold up their arm, and they all seemed to think everything was wonderful and silly.  I was really getting into the mood here, everyone was so happy they were at a rodeo.  Even T-bone started joining in on the festivities, he went over to some of the cowboys and started letting his hand hang and saying things were silly.  This was the second time today that I was filled with pride, something was definitely wrong here.  But I wasn’t going to be the one to point it out; it was too good of a day.

“That kid of yours is adorable!” one of the cowboys came up to me and shook my hand.  For a man with a broken wrist, he sure had a good grip.

“Thank you.  We’re traveling the country together, to find our place in the world.” I beamed.  I suppose that was the right thing to do because he smiled and walked me over to introduce me to the other cowboys.  They all had great names, like Gary and Steve, and Julian.  They thought my name was a nick name.  I suppose it was at one point until my father had it legally changed to Hevyd after my mother left him.  Things have a way of happening like that.  They also thought Tee was a nick name, but T-bone was the nickname I gave him, and they seemed happy with that.  So was I.

We spent the day with the cowboys, we showed them things like how to gawk and spit, and they taught us how to dress and dance.  One cowboy even taught me how I could turn normal jeans into shorts.  What an age we live in, I thought.  This man was quite the inventor.  I suppose that’s why he was a cowboy; they were kind of the pioneers of their time.  After all the festivities of the day the moon started rising, and we all yawned.  One of the cowboys invited us to join him in his trailer.  Said we could stay the night, or several nights if we chose.  I figured that was mighty nice of him, and since we had nowhere to go, this was the perfect solution.

His trailer was awful nice, it had all sorts of lace, and frilly things.  Gave it a nice at home with a woman that does this sort of thing feeling.  My son thought it was a little odd for a man to have all of these things, but I explained to him that a man in the absence of a woman needed to make up for her touch.  Kids don’t know this sort of thing, that’s why you need to explain things several times before they understand it.  T-bone was a quick learner though, and usually stopped listening to me after one explanation.  Kids are sometimes smart like that.  The cowboy we were staying with was named Hank.  Hank went into his room and came out in a robe, a pink robe.  I was a little put off by that, so was T-bone.

“So, what’s the deal with all this frilly stuff?” I enquired.  I was starting to get a little curious too.  I mean, as the adult I was supposed to have all the answers, and I did, but when I wasn’t satisfied with my own answer, I knew something was wrong.

“What do you mean?  You don’t like my home made drink coasters?”  Hank asked, he seemed saddened by this fact.

“No, no!  They’re great!  In fact, I’d like to sit a drink on one of them right now, but they’re not very, ya’know, gritty and manly.  Like a cowboy would have.”
Hank cocked an eyebrow at me.  He seemed confused too.  Which gave me a sense of relief knowing that I wasn’t the only confused person in the room.  All the answers would be coming to me real soon here.  T-bone felt that way too, in fact, he preemptively started packing everything we had into a sack.  I’m not sure why he did that, but I was about to find out.

“You’re not like us, are you Hevyd?”  Hank asked.  I suppose I wasn’t, in fact, I suppose I was most definitely not a cowboy, that would explain why I wasn’t wearing any boots, and I didn’t have a horse.  But neither did this guy, now I was really confused.

“Oh my god, I see it now.  T-bone is your son!”

“Well of course he is, what did you think?”

“I thought you were a…and he was a…”  Now I was getting really confused, especially since at that very moment Hank put on pants and ran out the door.  He started yelling something about us being straight.  Which was the last straw, I had absolutely no idea what was going on.  I looked at T-bone.

“Son?”

“Dad, these are gay cowboys.  Not happy gay, but homosexual gay.”

If you could capture the look of realization and horror combined, that was the look that appeared on my face.  I instinctively grabbed the sack of our things in one hand, and my son in the other and hopped out of the trailer.

“There they are!” Hank yelled.  If you’ve never seen a herd of angry gay cowboys carrying torches and whips, you haven’t ever known fear.  Unless of course you were in that mob, in which case you’d be a gay cowboy, you’d also probably have a sense of fitting in.  Good for you!  I didn’t get that feeling, I was afraid.  Like most men when they’re afraid, I ran.  T-bone and I ran as fast as we could run.  I don’t know how many stories there are about out-running gay cowboys, but I’m sure if you compare all of them, none of them would be able to say they ran faster than us.

Just as we were running out of breath, and just the cowboys had been just out of sight, we noticed a gas station in the distance.  We ran as fast as we could muster, us having already run a pretty great distance, and not being professional runners, that sort of thing can wear on you.  Stumbling upon the gas station, we saw “Surly Dave” just finishing changing a tire on the bus.  Behind his back we snuck back onto the bus and got into our seats.  Dave climbed back into the bus and looked at us in the mirror.  He grunted, shrugged, and turned the ignition.

I’m not sure if the gay cowboys kept chasing after the bus, I’m not sure if they gave up and went back home.  But what I do know is, my son and I happened upon a stroke of pure luck.  T-bone fell asleep in the bus seat, but I couldn’t sleep.  There was something bothering me about the entire day.  I was mostly wondering about T-bone fitting in so well with the gay cowboys.  He’s a good kid; I didn’t want him growing up to be like them.  What they were doing was disgusting, and I didn’t want my son growing up and becoming a bigot.  The next day I explained to him why their prejudice was wrong.  Like most times when I try to explain something to him, he usually gets it before me and ends up explaining it to me, so I was pretty happy he understood.  I guess life kind of just gives you lemonade that way.