Setting her tray on the bedside table, Sissy interrupted. “No, I'm afraid that part isn't true. Jack was in awe of me and tracked me down. We spent a night talking and hugging in a corn field, but he was hardly my lover. He was a sweet man and a more honest writer than his critics, including the Countess's little playmate Truman, who said such bitchy things about him. But he was strictly a primitive as a hitchhiker. Besides, I always traveled alone.”
“Well, that doesn't matter; that part never interested me anyway. The beatniks were before my time, and I never got anything outta the hippies but bad dope, clichés and the clap. But you, even though you weren't a cowgirl, you were sort of an inspiration to me. The example of your life helped me in my struggle to be a cowgirl.”
New York City keeps its allotment of sunshine in a Swiss bank account and tries to get by on the interest, which is compounded quarterly. In contrast, the Dakota sun is as open as the books of a village church steward, and even in September, after summer's big bucks have all been spent, it is so charitable no one would think of demanding an audit. Sunlight streaked into the credits column of the Rubber Rose, making a series of warm entries upon the bare legs of Bonanza Jellybean and upon the upraised legs of Sissy H. Gitche, bare, too, beneath the quilt. During a sunlit pause in conversation, the puffs and huffs of the guests at their early exercises were heard, and for no good reason, the two women giggled.
“Tell me about it,” said Sissy.
“About . . .”
“About being a cowgirl. What's it all about? When you say the word you make it sound like it was painted in radium on the side of a pearl.”
Jelly drew her feet up on the bed, not minding that her boots bore testimony to the digestive facility of the equine species. “I saw my first cowgirl in a Sears catalogue. I was three. Up until then I had heard only of cowboys. I said, 'Mama, Daddy, that's what I want Santa Claus to bring me.' And I got a cowgirl outfit that Christmas. Next Christmas I got another one because I'd worn that first one to shreds. I asked for a cowgirl suit, as we called 'em, every Christmas until I was ten, and then my folks told me, 'You're too big now; Santa doesn't have any cowgirl suits that'll fit you. How'd you like a Barbie doll with her own fashion wardrobe?' 'Bullshit,' I said. 'Dale Evans wears cowgirl suits and she's way bigger than me. I want new cowgirl clothes and a gun that shoots.' I'd been teased by my classmates for some time because of my particular fantasy, but that year was when my real struggle began.”
As if prodded by a hard memory of childhood, Jelly sat up straight, making the bed creak. Sissy realigned her own posture, and another creak was issued. Sissy's creak followed Jelly's creak down the hall of sonar eternity. Sounds travel through space long after their wave patterns have ceased to be detectable by the human ear; some cut right through the ionosphere and barrel on out into the cosmic heartland, while others bounce around, eventually being absorbed into the vibratory fields of earthly barriers, but in neither case does the energy succumb; it goes on forever—which is why we, each of us, should take pains to make sweet notes.
“I just said 'fantasy' and 'struggle' in the same sentence, and on one level, at least, I guess that's what it's about. That's what it's about for cowgirls, and maybe everybody else. A lot of life boils down to the question of whether a person is going to be able to realize his fantasies, or else end up surviving only through compromises he can't face up to. The way I figure it, Heaven and Hell are right here on Earth. Heaven is living in your hopes and Hell is living in your fears. It's up to each individual which one he chooses.” Jelly paused. “I told that to the Chink once and he said, 'Every fear is part hope and every hope is part fear—quit dividing things up and taking sides.' Well, that's the Chink for you. What do you think?”
“I'd like to hear more,” said Sissy. She was feeling a certain kinship with this duded-up bundle of wild muscle and baby fat. “Can you be more specific?”
“Specific. Okay. I'm talking about our fantasies. You know the difference between fantasy and reality, don't you? Fantasy is when you wake up at four o'clock on Christmas morning and you're so crazy excited you can't possibly go back to sleep. But when you go downstairs and look under the tree—podner, that's reality.
“They teach us to believe in Santa Claus, right? And the Easter Bunny. Wondrous critters, both of 'em. Then one day they tell us, 'Well, there really isn't any Santa Claus or Easter Bunny, it was Mama and Daddy all along.' So we feel a bit cheated, but we accept it because, after all, we got the goodies, no matter where they came from, and the Tooth Fairy never had much credibility to begin with. Okay. So they let you dress up like a cowgirl, and when you say, 'I'm gonna be a cowgirl when I grow up,' they laugh and say, 'Ain't she cute.' Then one day they tell you, 'Look, honey, cowgirls are only play. You can't really be one.' And that's when I holler, 'Wait a minute! Hold on! Santa and the Easter Bunny, I understand; they were nice lies and I don't blame you for them. But now you're screwing around with my personal identity, with my plans for the future. What do you mean I can't be a cowgirl?' When I got the answer, I began to realize there was a lot bigger difference between me and my brother than what I could see in the bathtub.
“You dig me, don't you? A little boy, he can play like he's a fireman or a cop—although fewer and fewer are pretending to be cops, thank God—or a deep-sea diver or a quarterback or a spaceman or a rock 'n roll star or a cowboy, or anything else glamorous and exciting (Author's note: What about a novelist, Jellybean?), and although chances are by the time he's in high school he'll get channeled into safer, duller ambitions, the great truth is, he can be any of those things, realize any of those fantasies, if he has the strength, nerve and sincere desire. Yep, it's true; any boy anywhere can grow up to be a cowpoke even today if he wants to bad enough. One of the top wranglers on the circuit right now was born and raised in the Bronx. Little boys may be discouraged from adventurous yearnings by parents and teachers, but their dreams are indulged, nevertheless, and the possibilities of fulfilling their childhood expectations do exist. But little girls? Podner, you know that story as well as me. Give 'em doll babies, tea sets and toy stoves. And if they show a hankering for more bodacious playthings, call 'em tomboy, humor 'em for a few years and then slip 'em the bad news. If you've got a girl who persists in fantasizing a more exciting future for herself than housewifery, desk-jobbing or motherhood, better hustle her off to a child psychologist. Force her to face up to reality. And the reality is, we got about as much chance of growing up to be cowgirls as Eskimos have got being vegetarians. I'll tell you.”
Sissy's right thumb, which she'd been hesitant to move lest it disturb Jelly's oration, had gone to sleep—and when a Sissy thumb sleeps it SNORES! She massaged it vigorously. “What about in movies or rodeos?” she inquired.
“Ha!” said Jelly with dramatic disdain. “Movies. There hasn't been a cowgirl in Hollywood since the days of the musical Westerns. The last movie cowgirl disappeared when Roy and Gene got fat and fifty. And there's never been a movie about cowgirls. Delores del Ruby, she's really down on Dale Evans. Says she was just an accessory for the good guy in the white hat, a weakling to be protected, a piece of sex interest who never got laid. I don't know. I thought ol' Dale looked mighty fine up there on that screen. But she did ride second saddle, all right. Well, galloping your pretty ass off trying to escape the hoss thieves was better than nothing. Today, we got nothing.”
As Sissy kneaded circulation back into her thumb, it took on a rosy glow, like the Renaissance cherub that sneaked a bite out of a madonna's halo. Jelly was astonished, but she continued talking.
“Let me tell you about rodeos.” she said. “In the Rodeo Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City there are just two cowgirls. Two. The Rodeo Cowboys Association has more than three thousand members. How many do you suppose are women? You could count 'em on your fingers, thumbs excluded. And all of 'em are trick-riders. Trick-riding is what cowgirls have almost always done in rodeos. Our society sure likes to see its unconventional women do tricks. That's what
prostitutes call it, you know: 'tricking.'
“For nine years, from nineteen twenty-four through nineteen thirty-three, females were allowed to enter events just the same as the cowboys: putting up entrance fees, riding bucking broncs, wrestling bulls, roping calves, doing all the things men did. They did okay, too. Tad Lucas, the greatest cowgirl who ever lived, earned ten thousand dollars a year in prize money, and that was at a time when six or seven thousand was a hell of a good season for a rodeo cowboy. But the RCA cut women off in thirty-three. Said it was too dangerous. Well, it was dangerous. Tad Lucas broke nearly every bone in her body at one time or another. The Brahma bulls damn near made chop suey of her. But the men got hurt, too. They were wired together like birdcages, most of 'em. Ah, but it wasn't so brutal when it happened to a man. Why is it men are allowed to do dangerous things and hurt themselves and women aren't? I don't know. But I do know that they outlawed cowgirls, except for trick-riders and parade queens. A woman has not been permitted to compete for prize money in a rodeo in forty years. Say, podner, that's really something the way your thumb kinda shines when you rub it. How do you do that?”
The digit in question was now wide awake. It has been said that consciousness of light is light, which would explain the luminous doughnuts that rolled 'round the heads of Buddhas and Christs, but can thumbflesh have consciousness, have speed, have spirit? “I think it's the blood,” said Sissy. “There're large veins in there, close to the surface.” Although, energized as it was, she would have preferred to stick it in the air by some road where traffic was flying, Sissy stuck the thumb under the quilt. Jelly watched it go with eyes that suggested she would have liked to follow it. “Apparently,” ventured Sissy, “there just isn't any demand for cowgirls.”
“That's not exactly true,” said Jelly, slowly, forcefully. “That's not exactly true. The System has no demand for them; you're right about that. But there is a demand—and that demand comes from the hearts of little girls.
“Cowgirls exist as an image. A fairly common image. The idea of cowgirls prevails in our culture. Therefore, it seems to me, the fact of cowgirls should prevail. Otherwise, we're being ripped off again. I mean, isn't that the way religions mess people's heads around: beautiful concepts without anything factual to back 'em up? When I was a kid and I was told that this role I'd been allowed to love so much was impossible to attain, wow, did I get mad! And I've been mad ever since. So I decided to try to do something about it—to satisfy my own inner needs and to show society it couldn't get away with making me love something that didn't exist.”
Unable to restrain herself, Jelly lay her hand atop the ovoid mound Sissy's thumb made under the cover. It was warm. “How about you, Sissy? Did you want to be a cowgirl when you were small?”
“Can't say as I did. But you have to understand, I was rather a special case.” What would Bonanza Jellybean think were Sissy to disclose that she had wanted to grow up to be an Indian? Take um heap many scalps beside um sky-blue waters. “It's funny. I once hitched a ride on a camel in Afghanistan, but I've never been on a horse in my life.”
“We'll take care of that. You're at the Rubber Rose now. But let me confess something to you before you start thinking I'm another Tad Lucas. Until last year, the only thing I'd ever straddled was the Shetland ponies at the Kansas City Zoo. And a man or two, of course. But I'm a cowgirl. I've always been a cowgirl. Caught a silver bullet when I was only twelve. Now I'm in a position where I can help others become cowgirls, too. If a child wants to grow up to be a cowgirl, she ought to be able to do it, or else this world ain't worth living in. I want every little girl—and every boy, for that matter—to be free to realize their fantasies. Anything less than that is unacceptable to me.”
“You're political, then?” Sissy had been learning about politics from Julian.
“No ma'am” said Jelly. “No way. There's girls on the Rubber Rose who are political, but I don't share their views. I got no cowgirl ideology to expound. I'm not recruiting and I'm not converting. Whether or not another girl chooses the cowgirl path is immaterial to me. It's a personal matter. I'm willing to help other cowgirls; to make it easier for them than it was for me. But don't get the notion I'm trying to create a movement or contribute to one. Delores del Ruby makes a big fuss about cowgirlism being a force to combat cowboyism, but I'm too happy just being a cowgirl to worry about stuff like that. Politics is for people who have a passion for changing life but lack a passion for living it.”
Beneath Jelly's dollbaby grip, the Sissy plasma, like a swarm of red bees, followed its charted currents in the thumb's interior passageways. Jelly pressed lightly upon this hive, in which such quantities of blood were buzzing, and gave its owner a look that even upon the countenance of a cowpoke could only be called sheepish. “Did that last comment sound too profound to be coming outta my mouth? It's not original. It's something I picked up from the Chink.”
“Really? The Chink, huh? I've gathered that you sometimes speak with him. What else have you learned from the Chink?”
“Learned from the Chink? Oh my. Ha ha. That's hard to say. We mostly . . . Uh, a lot of his talk is pretty goofy.” Jelly paused. “Oh yeah, now that I think of it, the Chink taught me something about cowgirls. Did you realize that cowgirls have been around for many centuries? Long before America. In ancient India the care of the cattle was always left up to young women. The Indian cowgirls were called gopis. Being alone with the cows all the time, the gopis got awfully horny, just like we do here. Every gopi was in love with Krishna, a good-looking young god who played the flute like it was going outta style. When the moon was full, this Krishna would play his flute by a river and call the gopis to him. Then he would multiply himself sixteen thousand times—one for each gopi—and make love to each one the way she most desired. There they were, sixteen thousand gopis balling Krishna on the river bank, and the energy of their merging was so great that it created a huge oneness, a total union of love, and it was God. Wow! Quite a picture, huh? When I repeated this story to Debbie, she got so enthused she wanted us to call ourselves gopis from then on. We discussed it at a bunkhouse meeting, though, and decided 'gopis' sounded too much like 'groupies.' Well, we don't need that. We got enough static, with the folks around Mottburg calling us sluts. And lesbians.”
Sissy's thumb twitched. Jelly swallowed hard. They gazed into each other's eyes, Sissy trying to tell how Jelly felt saying the word, Jelly trying to ascertain how Sissy felt hearing it, and as they gazed, soft little shocks danced between them, like drunken oysters strutting along a harp string.
They might have gazed until the cows came home, except that, in addition to the cows' being lately deceased, a whistle pierced the sunlight just outside the window.
“That couldn't be Krishna, could it?” smiled Jelly. “A bit shrill for a flute. Just our rotten luck.”
She walked to the window and exchanged hand signals with someone outside. Turning to Sissy, she said, “Gotta run now. Delores says I'm needed. Somebody's here. Maybe it's the Countess.” She fast-drew her six-shooter, spinning it expertly in her kewpie fingers. “Sissy, cowgirl history is about to be made. I'm damn glad you're here to witness it.” With her gun-spinning pinkies, she tossed a kiss and was gone.
A sneeze travels at a peak velocity of two hundred miles per hour. A burp, more slowly; a fart, slower yet. But a kiss thrown by fingers—its departure is sudden, its arrival ambiguous, and there is no source that can state with authority what speeds are reached in its flight.
44.
WHEN HER SWALLOWS HAD FINISHED Capistranoing, Sissy hopped out of bed. From the window, she could see cowgirls gathering in a circle. Someone or something was in the center of the circle. Sissy performed an abbreviated toilet, zipped herself into a red jumpsuit and hurried outside. It didn't bother her much that she didn't know what to expect. She never had.
What was in the center of the circle was a goat. Billy West, Mottburg's three-hundred-pound midnight rambler, had dropped it off as a sample. There wer
e plenty more goats where that one came from, said Billy West. For the cowgirls, a discount price of twenty dollars a goat.
Debbie was scratching the animal's ears. She was hugging it. “I'm like Mahatma Gandhi,” she said. “I'll never be without a goat again.”
“It's cute,” said Kym. “Way cuter than a cow.”
“Goats are always testing you,” said Debbie. “They're like Zen masters. They can tell instantly if you're faking your feelings. So they play games with you to keep you true. People should go to goats instead of psychiatrists.”
“It's so loving,” said Gloria. She cut in on Debbie, gave the beast a hug.
“Goats are the ultimate male and female,” said Debbie. “Watching a pair of goats is understanding what the male-female trip is all about. Every couple ought to be given a pair of goats when they get married. There'd be no more need for marriage counselors.”
“Look at those playfully wise eyes,” cooed Heather.
“When can we get more?” inquired Elaine.
“Oooo! It licked me!” squealed Gloria.
When she tired of watching the goat, Sissy started back to her room. She thought she might hitchhike the wallpaper or something. But Jelly caught up with her. “Looks like we're gonna become goatgirls,” she said.
“Will that make a difference?” asked Sissy. “A difference to your fantasy, I mean.”
“Not a speck,” said Jelly. “It's like the gourmet the Chink told me about who gave up everything, traveled thousands of miles and spent his last dime to get to the highest lamasery in the Himalayas to taste the dish he'd longed for his whole life, Tibetan peach pie. When he got there, frostbitten, exhausted and ruined, the lamas said they were all out of peach. 'Okay,' said the gourmet, 'make it apple.' Peach, apple; cows, goats. You understand?”