The Dusk Cowboy
picturing the americana aesthetic of repression and restraint
Shiny eggplant-tinted walls pulsed from the bruising flow of frustration, and reddish hues threatened to burst from the heat. Clad in the soft white cotton of tailored clothing, a family sat within its perimeter. The edges of their pristine and stiff attire became stained by mulberry as rich as blood and as bright as raspberry pulp; the cuffs of the Patriarch were the most stained, although his hands remained scrubbed clean and his nails clipped. The Mother, whose title and identity were forever dependent upon the positioning of the Patriarch, walked across the same colored floors of the room, the bottom hemming of her dress leeching the red from each step. She had, however, long since the closing in of the walls, lost the gleam of warmth in her eye or the soft hum of a true Mother, and her hands had grown almost as cold as the Patriarch’s.
She sat next to him at the rectangular table in the center of the room and clasped her hand within his, giving him a smile that returned the warmth to her eyes briefly, the flickering exhale of an old fire that burned its embers a little brighter. The Girl sat opposite the Patriarch and watched this, her skin and clothing not the creamy, milky white of the other’s appearances but stained head to toe in taffy pink. A powder blue heart encased her face in perpetual melancholy, and an expression of longing pointed downward toward the ceramic plate before her.
The plate was monochrome with the table and matched everything else. It made them glow—the Patriarch and the Mother—while it only made her match the shades of raw meat piercing her fork. She pressed the metal into the pile of liver, hearts, and muscle tissue before her eyes redirected to the Patriarch and Mother, who waited for her to reach forward and take their hands, the satin of her gloves soft and smooth against the calloused, aged hold of the others. Once she conformed, the Patriarch bowed his head and spoke words that made the Girl’s intestines coil and knot protectively around the emptiness of her Godlessness, her stomach.
While the others’ plates held the gentle glow of other colors, the Girl dug her teeth between stringy tendons. She separated the film of the connective tissue she brought to her lips, letting it melt against her tongue and imagining what it would be like to do the same to the Cowboy. She felt the coolness of the air and glanced toward the darkening sky from the single window, gazing out into the pink and purple clouds that swelled with the looming storm. The sun burned its final rays through the trees, which dampened its amber saturation in their green needles, and set with the ticking of a steady clock that told her he’d be riding into town again soon. And with pink tissue clotting like frayed strings of cotton candy through her teeth, she began to tremble from the anticipation.
Nighttime these days held no calm from the fire within her, no release from the tension he caused. Instead, it only pulled the coiling tightness of her desires until she took another hurried bite, swallowing the fat and meat together so her throat spasmed around the side. For a small moment, it stilled in her esophagus, her hunger threatening to choke her until, with a swift gulp of the pale cup of whole milk that sat to her right, the meat plopped into the bubbling acidity of her stomach. Now, she quivered as a plucked bowstring would, slicing into the fingers that tapped it. Once the last of the myoglobin and oil had been licked from her plate and the most temporary, superficial of her hunger seemingly satiated for the others’ eyes to witness, she excused herself quietly from the table, washed her plate, cup, fork, and knife, then escaped into the hazy twinkle of a rosy dusk, heading toward where she knew he would be.
Dust powdered like a spray of fine flour behind each of the trotting steps of his horse; from a distance, she instantly recognized his silhouette, the sway of sturdy hips and broad shoulders. The bend of his elbow and the flex of roping muscles that bulged from his forearm. Wide, hard knuckles that wrapped long fingers around the warmed leather of the reigns that tightened when he wanted to steer his ride or slow it.
The Girl stood not so in his path but to the side, half-hidden by the buildings along it at the edge of the town where she watched him, but he knew this was where she watched him and where she, too, would be at this hour. The glossy chocolate pits of his espresso eyes scanned for her amidst this area with the same anticipation that made her avert her gaze as soon as they threatened to meet his. With plump, blushing cheeks and a nervous twitch of his lips into a smirk that contradicted the burly stature of his body, its boyishness, her heart squeezed, and skin stung under his attention, even if the next she looked to him, his Adam’s apple jumped with a hurried swallow. He was the next to copy her shy aversion.
The Cowboy swung his leg from the saddle and stepped off a few feet away from the Girl, keeping his head down while passing and leading his horse—a white mare with a long blonde tail and mane—the same buttery shade as the Girl’s—toward the front of the Butcher’s shop. The girl pretended for only a little while longer to be eyeing the plucked swollen fruit that had collected a swarm of flies around them during the day, listening to the crunch of the gravel beneath his heels before trailing after the Cowboy once he’d entered the front of the shop with a delightfully light chime of the bell to signal his arrival.
Blue light shone down on the marbling patterns of fat in the meat. Reflecting against the girl’s matching pink and red hues, she suddenly felt sickenly green standing beside the cowboy. The color sept over her features while they turned downward toward the array of cuts in front of them, and she watched a fly land on one of the thicker roasts, rubbing its barbed arms together before suckling at the frayed red. She couldn’t tell whether she identified with the fly or with the meat—and which, beside her, as he watched the fly as well, the cowboy identified with… she noticed his eyes flicker toward her from his peripheral, attempting to steal a glance with only the slightest turning of his chin before the butcher arrived from the back; where cold steel glowed and met flesh willingly, excitedly.
The girl could hear the machinery in use, the wet spray of blood, and an occasional moan. She looked down at the dusting of dirt against the cowboy’s tightly fitted, washed-out jeans, the crusting of old leather and rusted gold, and the grime stuck beneath his nails and began imagining how he’d look when scrubbed clean, his black hair gelled and misted, skin glowy and creamy white, visible veins stretching along the tension of his muscles as he fought against tightened restraints. She felt her hunger return. It began to press its edge against blotches of pink where the blood had risen to the surface. How that pink would become bright cherry red, purple, then black, she was afraid to see and only kept her head down while spinning back around and fleeing from the Butcher’s shop.
The Cowboy kept his head still despite wanting to turn toward this frantic movement and halt her like a horse spooked. His frame stiffened, and he pressed his mouth to a fine line but didn’t make an attempt. After a few heavy beats of his heart telling the passage of time, all he could do was give the butcher an apologetic nod, turn slowly, and melt back into the night, too, despite the tender growling of his stomach.