Pieces by Chbosky Stephen

Author:Chbosky, Stephen [Chbosky, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: MTV Books
Published: 2012-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

BLACK COWBOY

Carmen Elena Mitchell

At my door is Jesse, all grown up. Six feet tall, with dark curls, wearing presents on his head.

The 1930s leather cowboy hat and lasso are from the character he’s playing in Hollywood’s latest version of American History: Black cowboy saves town, teaches White girl to love. The miniature wooden pipe on a leather string around his neck is from his costar. The diamond stud in his ear is from a forty-year-old married lady.

His dark skin glows like there’s a light underneath it. He smells like the road.

When we were young he was a spidery, long-legged boy with too much hair. We would wrestle in piles with the other kids after school. Later in high school he was a tall, looming Othello, to my quivering Desdemona. In college, he did a dog food commercial and learned to drink beer from the bottom of the can. He showed me how when he’d come back on holidays, while I wiped cinnamon roll onto my apron at the diner. Saving up for someday, I’d tell him.

But we were friends once upon a time.

And now here he is looking so tall and rich under the lonely, swinging bulb that is my trailer home. And here I am in “someday,” three states later. Different diner.

In the film he saves a white girl from drowning. The mayor’s daughter. He starts out as a bandit. But then he saves her. She saves him from banditry. Their love saves the town from ruin. One of them is going to have to die in the end, but the producers haven’t figured out which. They are shooting on location in a city just north of here.

Jesse will stay with me in this small Midwestern town for a week before he goes back to complete the shoot. He will stay with me and feed my plants and make me leave the trailer occasionally to go dancing. He will make me love the hills again. He will make my friends seem interesting. I will make him chili.

Tonight I make him chili. He thinks we should add beer to it. But, no, we must follow the recipe. I am adamant. This is the only thing I know how to make that doesn’t come in a box. That involves measuring spoons. It is the secret of a small town in the Midwest famous for its chili. A leaked recipe. Top with grated cheese and scallions. Serve over spaghetti. It is perfume. We have his beer as a side and eat on our laps.

Tonight after dinner we drive to a gay bar. A small, dark window in a quiet alley that flashes BAR in red neon. Sunflowers growing up in the garbage outside. Enter through the secret door. Inside it is all palm trees and plastic fruit. Men in dresses, men in chaps, big men in baseball caps, imprints of wedding rings on their sunburned fingers. Several women in flannel with long, tiered hair and plain faces. The only nightlife I find bearable in this small, Midwestern town.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.