by Sean RUANE

A cow­boy fell in­to my cof­fee dur­ing break­fast. He was as dirty as a flop-house mattress. 

Shit! Get out, cow­boy, I said. Are you fix­ing to drown?

I cra­dled him with my spoon and set him on a stick of but­ter so that he could catch his breath. 

Now that’s bet­ter isn’t it, cow­boy? I said. 

The cow­boy was the height of a dill pick­le and wore a scrag­gle of beard that twin­kled with undi­lut­ed grains of sug­ar. He shook the cof­fee from his per­son like a wet dog and wrung out his hat. He then set up­on me an ornery squint. His two eyes strug­gled to re­tain their own iden­ti­ty on a face clut­tered by wrin­kles and sun­burn, and the tip of his nose was miss­ing, maybe shot off in a quar­rel dur­ing a spir­it­ed game of Faro, or clipped and lost, as I pre­ferred to imag­ine, along the edge of a slammed broth­el door. 

I told you we had cow­boys, said my wife, strolling in­to the kitchen in tat­tered grey sweat­pants and an un­sup­port­ive beige bra. Didn’t I? 

You’re right, I replied. I near­ly drank him up in my cof­fee, too. 

Still, I said, cow­boys aren’t that bad, are they? Have you seen any In­di­ans around here late­ly? No! This is far bet­ter than the plague of mari­achi gui­tarists Mr. Eli­zon­do found be­hind his wa­ter heater.

It’d serve you right, too, she said, chok­ing to death on a lit­tle cow­boy. I’ve been say­ing we had cow­boys for weeks now, lazy ass. 

I didn’t know what more she ex­pect­ed me to do about it. Last Tues­day I nailed down a patch of fly­pa­per along the edge of the kitchen door, and af­ter sev­er­al days I had noth­ing to show for it but a mean col­lec­tion of lit­tle boots and gloves and a gnawed limb. She stood there with her thumbs tucked in­side the elas­tic of her pants, stretched the waist­band in and out. Some­how, they are mul­ti­ply­ing, she said, and winked at the lit­tle cow­boy. Then she scratched at a sprawl of eczema on her left breast that some­times gives her a fit; she closed one eye, looked some­where else with the oth­er, un­til she worked it in­to sub­mis­sion. Then she grabbed both breasts as if to re-ori­ent them to se­ri­ous work. The cow­boy coughed out a grav­el­ly “ma’am” and turned away in a clas­sic dis­play of fron­tier modesty. 

You might as well look, lit­tle cow­boy, said my wife. You’ll be dead by lunch. 

How do you want it? she con­tin­ued. Gar­rot­ed with den­tal floss? Flogged to death with a left­over noo­dle? Pound­ed in­to flit­ters with a crab mal­let? Scotch-taped to a bi­cy­cle tire? 

I think he wants to be drowned in cof­fee, I interrupted. 

Shut up, she said. That isn’t very cin­e­mat­ic at all.

Fine, I said. Sor­ry lit­tle cow­boy. The cow­boy pushed the brim of his hat up with what looked like a cher­ry stem, shrugged, and then be­gan a twee lit­tle shuf­fle as if he were about to wet him­self, or maybe be­gin a big dance num­ber. The for­mer, at least, seemed ap­pro­pri­ate. I snapped my fin­gers at him in that ‘knock it off’ way you do to a pet that won’t dis­en­gage from its privates.

You know, hon­ey, I bet he’d like to be hanged. Wouldn’t you? I hoot­ed, peer­ing in­to his lit­tle cow­boy face.

The cow­boy gave a cou­ple ‘Aww-shucks’ kicks at the but­ter and said that if it weren’t much both­er, of course, that he would pre­fer to be hanged. Some­what cliché, he ad­mit­ted, but nev­er­the­less, a re­al classic.

You got it, lit­tle bucka­roo, said my wife. You’ll swing at noon from a pop­si­cle gib­bet! I wish she wouldn’t talk like that. At theme parks, she’s even worse, ap­ing the speech of pi­rates or colonists or a re­nais­sance wench, while I stand around in my Tech­ni­col­or short-pants, com­mit­ting to the present, snap­ping pho­tos. My wife, quite ex­cit­ed, pil­lo­ried him on a stale piece of rye bread and then set about mak­ing the tiny gal­lows with mis­cel­la­nies from our un­kempt and of­ten stuck knife and fork draw­er. She rum­maged. Pop­si­cle sticks and tape, bot­tle caps for col­or, and for the longest time she en­ter­tained be­tween her thumb and in­dex fin­ger one of those small green pi­rate swords you usu­al­ly see run through olives in a cock­tail. She held it out against the bright kitchen win­dow, maybe skew­er­ing in her mind the neighbor’s dog, Tosh, a re­al shit­bird in his own right. 

I looked to see if the cow­boy was watch­ing, and he was. His eye­brows were huge. They were plain­tive thick­ets of sage­brush steeped in French Roast. He be­gan to make me feel guilty, so I held my news­pa­per up re­al high, shook it to make that se­ri­ous sound news­pa­pers make in the hands of im­por­tant men. Where along the size con­tin­uüm does re­spon­si­ble house­keep­ing be­gin to go side­ways? I’d doubt­less blanch at skew­er­ing a toast­er-sized mouse, or any spi­der larg­er than a ham­burg­er, but what about this cow­boy? Is per­son­hood size-de­pen­dent, or pure­ly rel­a­tive to the be­hold­er? My wife has a cou­ple of inch­es on me, sure, but we are mar­ried, and so ren­dered equal in the eyes of the State. I heard her whis­tle a sly ca­vati­na be­yond the front page and then curse as she re­al­ized she had taped her thumb to her hum­ble art-class scaffold. 

Years ago, old Zeke grabbed a bird from a bush ad­ja­cent to where he had fi­nal­ly de­cid­ed was the per­fect place for a shit. He cut a gen­tle­man­ly form there on the pa­tio, fin­ish­ing his busi­ness with the bird pro­trud­ing from his mouth like a cig­ar. When I yelled, he dropped the bird. I went over to look at it, and it rest­ed tweet-less in a patch of clover, left leg keep­ing time to some in­vis­i­ble beat. But that was a dog un­do­ing a bird and so who cared? I shuf­fled some leaves over it with my foot. All back-page hair-split­ting, I de­cid­ed. An­oth­er rus­tle of the paper. 

I tried read­ing an ar­ti­cle about a lo­cal man, a full-sized man, a fam­i­ly man they said, swept from the deck of his yacht and lost to the sea just mo­ments af­ter the start of a re­gat­ta, but I kept think­ing of lit­tle cow­boys, home on some range, read­ing tiny news­pa­pers and avoid­ing the pre-mortem gaze of an even tinier cow­boy. Think­ing about this in­fi­nite re­gres­sion of ever small­er cow­boys made me dizzy and blue. I al­so won­dered what a re­gat­ta was, how quick­ly a man could sink. I de­cid­ed to put my news­pa­per down and ground my thoughts on this re­al cow­boy at the ta­ble, a pest re­al­ly. I stood and then sat and wished that I had a har­mon­i­ca to play or a small sun­set to throw him against. 

My wife was get­ting frus­trat­ed with the trap-door for the gal­lows. She used too much tape and could­n’t get the trap-door to fall on cue. She is bad at crafts. She had a nice rib­bon on it, though, which made the thing look like it was ei­ther meant as a gift for a men­tal pa­tient, or a plat­form up­on which a small may­or might bro­ker amnesty. There is noth­ing more em­bar­rass­ing, she said, than hold­ing a kitchen ex­e­cu­tion and hav­ing the trap­door fail to open. Then your cow­boy just stands there, per­haps hav­ing cleared his bow­els too soon, shoul­ders scrunched up to the ears, eyes shut. That’s cru­el, she said. 

I looked down at the cow­boy and he agreed. 

If we are go­ing to hang this cow­boy, and we are, she said, then we must do it right, ef­fort be­ing the fine glaze on a care­worn soul, or some­thing to that ef­fect. Again, she took up whistling.

Why can’t we just gut-shoot him, I suggested. 

My wife’s smile thinned and crept off-cen­ter. Do you have a tiny pis­tol? she asked. 

I did not.

Well knock it off then, she said. She grabbed her chin and tapped at her bot­tom lip with a forefinger. 

Hey, we can use your pis­tol, cow­boy, I said. Give it.

The tiny cow­boy sensed ten­sion, said that just the oth­er day his pis­tol got all gummed up while he was rustling peanut but­ter. Gut-shoot­ing him was out of the ques­tion, he stam­mered. He thanked me for my sug­ges­tion anyway. 

OK, cow­boy, I said. Have it your way. 

Should we hang him with his boots on or off? she said.

I de­ferred to the lit­tle cow­boy on this mat­ter. He said that a cow­boy can’t get in­to heav­en if he still had his boots on, but that it didn’t re­al­ly mat­ter in his case, as he was an agnostic. 

What­ev­er. Let’s hedge our bets and take just one boot off, al­right, cowboy? 

Al­right, he said. 

My wife gave up on build­ing a prop­er gal­lows, and when I said, ‘Ah, jeez hon­ey, no gal­lows?’ she told me to go fuck my­self with one of Mr. Elizondo’s tiny mari­achi guitars.

This elicit­ed a man-sized laugh from our cow­boy and then the three of us sat in si­lence for what seemed like an en­tire minute. The cow­boy said that he un­der­stood things; the quest for per­son­al free­dom, un­fet­tered ac­cess to des­tiny, ad­ven­ture, big­ger-than-life women, had been get­ting tiny cow­boys such as him­self in­to trou­ble for years, and that this was his due for wan­der­ing off in­to the sub­urbs like a damn fool. Well, that and you tried steal­ing my cof­fee, I joked. He once had a life in the city, did I know, he asked. I told him I didn’t. Had him a set of aus­tere chil­dren, a reg­u­lar sized dog, a rheumy wife. No more, he said. No more.

Prob­a­bly a dog’s lunch, I de­cid­ed. I kept that to my­self. I re­fold­ed, smoothed out the news­pa­per on the ta­ble in a re­spect­ful way. I smiled at the thought of their great re­union in some shim­mer­ing far-off di­men­sion. Yes, this would be for the best. We are all just ghosts in the making.

My wife knocked her wrist­watch against the fridge be­cause it had stopped, but I knew what she meant. Near­ly noon. It was time. My cheeks re­laxed, my smile re­ced­ed. A dry patch on a front tooth clung to my up­per lip.

Are you ready, lit­tle cow­boy? asked my wife. 

Yes ma’am, he said. Or did he reck­on? He didn’t yam­mer or mum­ble. No, he owned the mo­ment with plain talk. 

I pulled him free from the rye bread. Con­spir­ing in house­hold mur­der made me hun­gry, so I but­tered the rye bread and be­gan eat­ing it. This is so good, I said. My sens­es seemed sharp­er. My wife stood there and drummed her fin­gers on the sink. Of course, she said, it is or­gan­ic but­ter. My wife looked at the clock and gave her sweat­pants a good up­wards yank. They sat omi­nous­ly high across her hips. 

Christ, she said. Let’s just hang him from the faucet! 

OK, I said. 

I put the cow­boy in the palm of my hand and held him over the sink while my wife put a den­tal floss noose around his neck. This took some time due to the floss be­ing a sono­fabitch to knot. The cow­boy did­n’t say any­thing, but I could see his lit­tle chin quiver be­neath his sug­ary beard. I wiped some of it off with a wet thumb and licked the glaze. It tast­ed like sug­ar, most­ly, mixed with an­oth­er fla­vor, prob­a­bly beard. Next, I had him sit so that I could take off one of his boots, and while I did that my wife fash­ioned a makeshift ka­zoo us­ing wax pa­per, an emp­ty pa­per tow­el roll, and a rub­ber band. We both agreed that it lent a cer­tain de­gree of solem­ni­ty to the cer­e­mo­ny. I flicked the boot across the room. The cow­boy rose, tucked his shirt­tails deep, sighed. At any size, I thought, a man with the where­with­al to push a shirt in­to a pair of trousers ought to have a belt. Very crass.

What did you say, cowboy?

Noth­ing, he said. 

OK, then, I said.

My wife and I looked at the clock. It had come with the house. It was one of those damnable elec­tric clocks shaped like a cat whose tail moves in the op­po­site di­rec­tion of its eyes, for­ev­er. That day Zeke got the bird, lat­er that af­ter­noon, I went out to check to see if there was a nest in the bush. There was, a calami­tous writhing of feath­ers, peals of hunger — ug­ly lit­tle things. All I ever heard was bird­song, all day, birds every­where. And what do they even eat? Su­per­flu­ous things, noth­ing use­ful. I put on my gar­den­ing gloves and gen­tly re­moved the nest, placed it in the small can near the garage. I sat the lid askew, al­low­ing day­light in, air, a thin line of hope. They would be fine, I was sure of it. Safe from cats, cer­tain­ly, and that fuck­ing dog.

Wake up, space-case, my wife said. She had been try­ing to give me the sign, a brush of her nose. 

Oh, sor­ry, I said. 

She gave it once more.

And I let go of the cow­boy, not sud­den­ly, no, but slow­ly, un­til, leav­ing on tip­toe, he float­ed above my palm. But he wasn’t floating.

My wife vi­brat­ed ‘taps’ through the pa­per tube and we watched him kick like a mus­tang. He wrig­gled. His face took on the hue of an in­jured toe. He kicked so hard that his oth­er boot came off. 

Look, I said. He’s found religion!

He grabbed at the floss with one hand and waved his hat with the oth­er. Would you look at that, she said. He is wav­ing goodbye.

Filed under Fiction on March 10th, 2023

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