An exerpt from Chapter 2 in my book, Some People Who Wander Are Lost.
March 18 Elevation 8640; information courtesy of the Wyoming Department of Transportation. I’m driving to Laramie because it’s Saturday morning and I own a new truck. The brief and bouncy storm that bestowed rain on Cheyenne last night dropped snow in the hills twenty miles to the west. The wind picks up the crystals and makes a new squall from them. Fresh rain bangs the windshield.
We (musn’t forget the dogs) cross the looping trace of the Laramie River south of Bosler, a blip of trailers and outbuildings through which we come and go in the time it takes me to pull the cap off my pen. The wind screams along the truck’s surface and roadside reflectors send back dizzying bits of the sun. The storm ahead is smoke black, as if hell’s fires burn beyond the horizon. Clouds run down the sky like water color gone mad. At Rock River, population 415, swirling tails of snow drag along the ground like curtains, and I wonder where everyone is hiding. Big snowflakes look like locusts against the darkness.
March 19 Last night I sat on a barstool and watched the “flux and flow of humanity” as my friend here in Cheyenne says too frequently. The club itself was not fancy; a big room with an elbow bar, a few pool tables, and a dance floor. A bowling alley and laundromat, which can be accessed without going outdoors, are thoughtful additions in Cheyenne’s climate.
Around midnight I picked up my jacket and purse and set out for the door. A short man, his round face hidden beneath a bushy mustache and a black hat, tugged at my arm as I passed. He had pleasant eyes.
“Where’re you goin’?” he asked.
“I’m goin’ home,” I said.
“Why so early?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you why - I sat at this bar for two hours and not one person talked to me.”
I tried to sound a bit huffy, but friendly.
The man pulled on my arm again and said, “Well... hey, I’m Friendly, and hey, you, So-and-So, get over here. She thinks we’re unfriendly.” And to me, “What’s yer name? See that guy over there, he’s a wild horse racer.” The wild horse racer stepped over to us and sort of introduced himself. He half-smiled, then stepped away.
“See that bunch over there at that table?” Friendly shouted. “They all rodeo, except the big guy.” The big guy was a black man whose long, wild hair erupted from beneath a cowboy hat. “He’s a lawyer,” Friendly continued. “The bald guy, he’s a pick up man. Come here,” he said as he tugged me toward the table like I was a five- year-old.
The man who plucks cowboys off their rides and the arena floor, stood up and stuck out his hand to request that I dance with him. He pulled me against his hard, protruding belly before he spoke, but he slurred his words and I couldn’t understand him. I thought he might be drunk, but he didn’t wobble as he pushed me backwards taking tiny, rocking steps that I tried to match.
I guessed at his question: “I’m from Arizona, I’ve been here a month, and I don’t know how long I’ll stay.” He seemed happy with that. His only other voiced communication was to say, “Oh, I’m sorry,” when he squeezed my arm as if he’d taken a liberty. Friendly told me later that the man had been kicked into a coma by a horse and was left with brain damage.
I never did dance with Friendly, but I danced with one of his friends, a thin man with dark eyes like a Greek portrait on a late Egyptian mummy case. He laughed softly and contemptuously as we circled the dance floor.
“Lookit’ that guy.” With a slight nod of his hat he indicated a man who leaned on a post at the edge of the dance floor. “Air Force. They buy Wranglers and a hat and walk in here. Stinkin’ wannabes.” I learned later that this ‘cowboy’ works as a beautician.