Roy used to ride broncs and bulls and team rope and drink too much.
His was a life worth remembering, though maybe not worth recording in excruciating detail. The jolting landings when all four hooves of a fourteen-hundred-pound bull returned to earth after fruitlessly trying to toss its rider. The satisfaction of neatly dropping the loop of a lasso over a steer’s head and quickly wrapping the other end around the saddle horn so the rope twanged when the steer came to the end of it. Rodeo sensations.
“I suppose the most money I made in a season was twelve hundred bucks or so. I competed a bunch that year.” Roy raised his head from his chest and smiled slightly, remembering his “big” year on the circuit. “Dad was pretty proud of me winning like that.” Then his head sagged back to his chest.
As a young man, he had traveled the region as a rodeo regular, San Antonio to Cheyenne and all around, competitors from south Texas riding the circuit. When he won, he posed with rodeo queens and other royalty. Some of his winnings went to paying his share of drinks and buying gasoline for the pickup that carried them to the next arena. When he lost, the routine was about the same except there was no royalty in the picture and no picture.
He had played football in high school, a bruising running back not unlike the bulls he later rode, big strong legs powering him downfield, knocking aside would-be tacklers. He had some hope of going to college on the strength of those legs, but in a late-season game his senior year, a knee buckled sideways after a tackler banged against it while his foot was firmly planted, the hit forever leaving him less mobile.
That’s when Roy had learned to love whiskey and beer.
Now he rolled down the hallway of a senior rehab center in a wheelchair. An aide pulled the chair backwards because it had no footrests and Roy didn’t have the strength to hold up his feet. Moving backwards, his slippered feet dragged harmlessly along the hallway floor and he enjoyed the smooth ride.
In the game room, the aide rolled him to a small table where three residents waited to play dominoes. Roy was good at double-six dominoes. Real good. He could barely reach the middle of the table to play, but the aide assisted him and, move by move, the score mounted against his competitors as usual. “Dad taught me how to play. I beat him sometimes,” he confided after a scoring move.
Roy can beat just about anybody in dominoes, it seems like, but he can’t beat the cirrhosis sapping his strength. He would like to have taught children to play the board game, but he never had children. No wife, for that matter. Not much time left now to teach the game to friends.
Anyway, Roy had a dad who was proud of him. He remembers that. Dads matter.
Very poignant!
LB
Yea, this is a real story. Has weight