The Red Spirited Goat

The bar was brawling with men, the cards were dealt and the results promised more than one live disappointment. The whisky was erasing reflections, the men’s faces were moustached and bearded, their scars bearing semblance to the rut of the land and the absence of silk and cognac comforts; they were all fathers of bastards and they themselves were bastards for sure.

The bartender, the fifth one this year, bartenders tended to catch bullets by accident, one thing was clear, every time one got it no one had to pay, the bartender continued to pour owing no discretion nor right to calm the ensuing aspirations being formulated by his liquor pouring arm to men with horses heads, pig headed hearts and dicks like God’s.

Maybe it was about four something in the warm afternoon, the mountains laid bare shading themselves with the aid of clouds which noted the lack of wind with their passivity. You have to want to come to this place for some other reason than the desert climate, you have to want to come here for some other reason, the love of a woman perhaps, but what woman worth loving would come this far or dare be born here, nope you had to have some other reason to come here and the other reason was always money or a date with your death.

Mickey had come here for money, a copper mining operation offered fast cash and no questions about where you came from, whom you’ve robbed or maimed, no questions just show up, hammer, blow, dig and shovel out that copper and you get enough to drink and eat and take some back to where you came from though none ever went back to where they came from; they went to many other places, but none went back to where they came from. Mickey for sure was not going back, something too neat about him for this place, and nothing assured more you’re not going back and you’re not going anywhere else, than not fitting in with this raunchy crowd. See Mickey was too clean, too nice, too honest, too well meaning, Mickey came here for the money but he never planned to rough it out with the other men, he thought if he left them alone, that reasonably, not naively thought by him, but rather that if he harmed no one and got in no man’s way, then it reasonable that he should be able to go about his business without harm or malice infringing upon him. But then the West always gets into your pants, the desert always makes feverish alterations to a man’s constitution, it must be the spines from the cactus that cut the wind down and make bullets go straight, or the tumbleweed that have no place to go to and yet diligently hurry, or maybe is the howling coyotes, inching irritations, but something about this place and crowd that it has to get into everything, and that must something be that there is not much here, everything and everyone has to fit into everyone and everything, and if you don’t fit, like Mickey, well then your inching irritations.

Rowdy Hal, they called him Rowdy Hal, had just lost a small fortune at the table, to his best buddy Joe, of all to lose to, he lost to his best buddy Joe. Rowdy Hal got up from that table mighty ready to blow something and he knew for certain that he could not blow up his best pal, he had to blow someone though, less Joe think him tolerant of losing. Joe, moved his eyes aligning them with Rowdy Hal’s path of transition, Joe probably knew that Hal wasn’t going to kill him, but in those days a pal could kill you and Joe knew it, just as well as he knew that he could not return the money to Hal because Hal would be even more insulted by the implications, Joe kept his eyes pinned down on Hal until they stumbled unto Mickey.

Mickey was drinking his liquor and daydreaming, it was the only way Mickey could be in a place like this, by dreaming of something else, you know Mickey didn’t get it, he didn’t get this place, he was the only one not wearing boots, he was the only one clean shaven, he was the only one with a gun that wasn’t loaded, Mickey was daydreaming, something; Joe searched Mickey for less than a second and darted his eyes back to catch Rowdy Hal making his way towards Mickey. Hal needed to make things fit, when something didn’t fit, Hal wasn’t comfortable, clink. The roots outside were starved for water, that fit.

Joe continued to watch intently, knowing well what was unfolding, knowing too that he could not interfere with Hal’s need to set things right, but Joe did look at the money in his hand, and almost wished he hadn’t won it, he looked at his money in his hand and thought “oh damn.” Joe wasn’t really a mean guy, oh yeah, he had killed a few men in his time but they all had it coming, but don’t think he ever killed an outsider.

“Hey boy what are you doing around these parts, lost your mother!” Mickey awoke a bit dazed from his day dreaming, he was aware that you don’t let anyone call you a mama’s boy, not around here, which was something that Hal too knew, and so had well worked his inching innerving. “I ain’t got no mother and no father just like you!” Came back the unexpected reply from daydreamer Mickey. The bar fell silent. Sure it was a reply that fit, unfortunately it was also the reply that fit too well and would cause something nascent that fit even more to be born. Faces “washed” each other with still stares. Taking his pistol out of its holster and placing the barrel directly underneath Mickey’s chin, Hal emphasizing his response, “How do you know I don’t have a mother and a father!” This was a far as an outsider like Mickey could get by with tough words. “Hey mister I didn’t mean anything by it, am sorry if I offended you, sorry…” Mickey wasn’t quite trembling yet, partly because he thought that the whole situation wasn’t reasonable and he thought that reason would eventually fall through the ceiling and clear things out; and partly because he didn’t get it, even as every time his yaw dropped to utter words, the iron barrel resisted so curling his speech.

“Hey boy, I don’t even know your name but you bother me, something about you bothers me, you’re some kind of untouchable aren’t you!” Mickey tried to climb on the bar stool to give the gun barrel the more room it was asking for, but the barrel sinisterly clung onto Mickey’s chin. “Mister I don’t know what you are saying, what do you mean outsider me?” The disarming questions brought hindered roars from the bystanders, and one even dared, “Hey come on he’s just a kid leave him alone.” Hal didn’t think, he was not going to start thinking now, that would be out of place, so he just ignored the guy, even as his now obsequious victim seemed less of a worthy target by the word. “My name is Mickey, Mickey James, from Boston, a city Northeast of here.” Hal didn’t further like the personalized introduction, fortunately he also did not take insult with the geographic clarification and its implications. But he was going to say something funny, unfortunately a drunken old man dropped his bottle, which promptly broke and broke the continuity.

“Well listen here Mickey James, you ain’t going to see tomorrow after today; I am going to make sure of that, you and I are going to step outside and your going to try to use that gun of yours, to show me how fast you are and to make those folks back home proud, you understand!” “But sir why I don’t have any bullets, and I don’t see what I have done to piss you off in such a way!” Hal pulls away the iron barrel from Mickey’s chin, he unhinges his barrel, pulls out three bullets at random, and then takes Mickey’s gun out of his holster, and loads the three bullets into it. “Now see you have three bullets in your barrel and I have three bullets in mine and sometimes one will fire and sometimes one will just click, but we won’t be bored you and I.”

It was then that the Sheriff stepped through the bar doors, Mickey and the crowd turned as if parading all in one, “What is going on here boys?” No one searched a word, not even Mickey, though Mickey was silently happy to see the undoubtedly reasonable Sheriff. Rowdy Hal, brazenly utters the first words, “Sheriff this boy here, from Boston he, comes to tell me that I ain’t got no mother or father!” “Son did you really tell Hal that he had no mother or father?” “Yes but…” Sheriff interrupts, “Don’t but me son, you ain’t got no right coming here and talking to a man like that, here things like that get fixed right.” The Sheriff was aware that he had to let this one go, else he somehow affect the balance of power in this town against himself, and so he turned around uttering “you men fix that amongst yourselves.” and walked out.

In that emotional and wholly unreasonable moment Mickey lost a couple of pounds, while Hal gained some righteousness. All this loss and gain of spirit was duly interrupted from beneath the swinging bar doors, still molested from the sheriff’s exit, as a goat, a full-sized living breathing goat, gleaming white with a red ribbon around his neck, ran into the bar, brusquely halted and turned his head every which way, as if asking “where am I, can someone tell me where I am?” And that is when both Hal and Mickey emptied every other bullet into red spirited goat.

RC