Calvin's Cowboy

“Fuck!”Calvin shook his head in resignation.

Little about Parish Creek had changed.The phrase Bumfuck,Egypt,passed through Calvin’s mind as he walked towards the small grocery store just off Main Street,the once-blue paint on the window frames just a little more sun bleached and peeled than he remembered.

His classic 1982 Pontiac Firebird stood out a mile in the small parking lot among the various pickups,some of which showed gun racks through the rear window.He rolled his eyes.After all,this was Texas.

The interior of the store hadn’t changed all that much either.There was still that unique smell,a mixture of fresh vegetables,kibble and floor wax.

He pushed his cart along the aisles in search of food that didn’t require barbequing,deep frying or smoking.His choices were thus somewhat limited.

The range of beer wasn’t exactly wide,either.He scanned the shelves in the cooler;there was the expected Lone Star,San Miguel,and Budweiser.There was a brand he didn’t recognise,and judging by the price,it was probably horse piss.The shelf above the Shiner sign was empty.He was about to settle for Corona,when he spied a case of imported Czech beer tucked behind a box of Bud Light.It was on special,too.

Old Mrs.Grantly at the checkout looked at him suspiciously when she rang up the beer.He was half expecting her to ask him for ID.

“We had a man come in few months ago asking for that.We didn’t have any,so I ordered some,but folks round here don’t like anythin’that’s foreign.”

“Doesn’t suit their discerning palates?”Calvin asked as he reached for a plastic sack,only for Mrs.Grantly to wave him off and bag up the beer herself.

“They like what they like,”she said,picking up a jar of low fat mayo.

Calvin hoped this wouldn’t take forever.He wasn’t in luck.

“We haven’t seen you here in a long time.Guess you have made a life for yourself up in New York.”She managed to put a world of disapproval into the last two syllables.

“Uh,yeah.”

“Seems to suit you,though.You’ve lost weight.And you don’t need glassesany more.”

“Uh,no.”

“Seems like only yesterday since you were in here for Cokes and my homemade sugar cookies.”

The rye bread and yogurt were bagged.

Calvin felt obligated to ask if she still baked the cookies.He was relieved to find that she wasn’t allowed to sell homemade goods in the store any more.

“The government has no business poking its nose into what we sell.Why,next they’ll be—”Finally Mrs.Grantly got to her main point.“Your folks are selling up and moving to Florida.”It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.Now,how much do I owe you?”Calvin took out his wallet,needing to end the conversation.Things were so different when checking out groceries inNew York.

****

As he walked to his car,he took note of the scattering of tired-looking family sedans and SUV’s in among the pick up trucks.There was an old green Ford Taurus in the space next to his.Instinctively Calvin checked to see that the driver of the Taurus hadn’t scratched his shiny black paint job.Satisfied his pride and joy was unmolested,he popped the trunk and put in hisbags,before closing the lid gently.

Looking around,he muttered,“The town that time forgot.”Clearly the earlyemployees of Dell Computers who had made it big when their stock options went through the roof,Dellionaires as the locals termed them,hadn’t moved out from Austin as far as Parish Creek.

He ran his shirtsleeve across his forehead.He’d forgotten how bad the humidity could be this far south.Growing up,he remembered that the locals would tell any newcomer who complained about the weather that if he didn’t like it,“just wait five minutes and something else will come along.”He was amused that when he moved to New York City and made a comment about the sleet and biting winds,someone made exactly the same remark to him.

He ramped up the car’s air conditioning before peeling out of the parking lot.However,the chilled air soon made Calvin’s damp white dress shirt uncomfortable,so he turned down the fan.

Driving down Main Street at just a couple of miles above the posted limit,Calvin was forced to slam on his brakes.Some gum-popping airhead had steppedout onto the crosswalk against the light.

Calvin hit the horn.“Can’t you fucking read?”he shouted.Though,as his windows were all rolled up to keep in the cool,he wasn’t sure if the halter-topped blonde heard him.“It says‘Don’t walk’for a fucking reason!”

She continued to saunter across the road,seemingly oblivious of how narrowlyshe’d come to being splattered across his hood.

By the time she had crossed,the light had changed to red,giving Calvin a couple of seconds to calm his pulse.

Glancing to his right,he saw a parked pick-up truck.The painted sign on the side caught his attention.Brockwell Home Improvement.John Brockwell,Sr.,had been in business in the small town since Hector was a pup.Calvin smiled at the phrase he hadn’t thought of in years.John Junior had been the high school’s star pitcher,but he and Calvin had moved in very different social circles back then.Brock had been Mr.Popular with girls hanging all over him,whereas Calvin…

A horn blaring behind him brought him back to the present.Quickly memorizingthe phone number painted on the sign,Calvin let out the clutch and sped off,leaving the impatient old-timer in his beat-up Oldsmobile in his dust.

He had no doubt his return to town and the selling of his parents’house had been headline news among the local gossips.

Firmly putting aside his irritation at small-town life,Calvin fiddled with the car radio in an attempt to find something other than Christian radio,or some mournful country singer lamenting the lack of opportunity in his depressing blue-collar existence.“Yeah,bud,I can sympathize,”he said,looking round at the empty storefronts,boarded-up movie theater and derelict ice cream parlor.All of which were thriving businesses during his youth.He sighed.It was all so depressing,knowing he would be stuck in this podunk town for at least a month,so he thought he had better just make the best of it,and quit bitching.

As he continued to listen to the country singer’s crooning,he began to feel a little better.He pictured the cowboy as tall and blond,with his hat pushedhigh up on his head while he leaned against a split rail fence and…Calvin hadto admit he’d always had a thing for cowboys in old flannel shirts and skin-tight Wranglers.

Soon the old homestead came into view.Calvin drove round back and parked.He cut the engine,which in turn stilled the singing cowboy who had moved on to complaining that his dog had run away with his best friend,or whatever it was.Truth be told,he didn’t hate country music as much as he pretended;it just didn’t fit with the city-smart image he liked to project.

As soon as he opened the car door,another blast of heat and humidity hit him.His shirt,which had barely had time to dry,became moist again before Calvin had hefted his grocery sacks and gotten them into the house.At least he’d remembered to keep the air on.The window unit in the kitchen was still whining away.

As he put away his few purchases,he pondered on how he’d begged his parents to get central air,but his dad had firmly resisted.“There’s nothing wrongwith what we have.Why spend money when we don’t need to?”Calvin had offered to pay for the installation,but oh,no.So he’d dropped the subject.The argument about air conditioning was typical.His parents,while certainly not rich,could afford to make life easier for themselves,but stubbornly refused to do so if it meant spending money needlessly.It had therefore come as a major surprise when he’d gotten a phone call from his momone evening after she and his dad had returned from a bus tour of Florida that they were giving serious consideration to moving to the Sunshine State.

“The weather is better for my arthritis,”his mom had confided.

Secretly,Calvin knew the real reason.As long as they lived in Texas,his dadwould never quit his job as an assistant principal at the local middle school.The job was stressful,and Calvin had long argued that his dad should take advantage of the board of education’s fairly generous early retirement package.