Cowboy

Cowboy was the guy that good girls’ mothers warned them about…and he was proud of that fact. Cowboy was a sight to behold…tall and rugged with dark brown hair, a thick moustache, and deep silver-blue eyes that always seemed to be smiling. He was born in the San Fernando Valley but he always carried himself like he thought a real cowboy would…with softly-faded Levis, vivid calico shirts, and hard-worn boots being his attire for almost any occasion.

Cowboy wore his cowboy hat rakishly and drove a big old Ford pickup that you could hear coming from blocks away. He smoked nothing but cheap cigars, drank nothing but beer and whiskey, and there were people who knew him for years without ever knowing what his given name was (it was Brian but nobody but his mother and his grandmother called him that.) He was a self-styled good ol’ boy before that term had been used to death and, again, he was proud of that. Still and all, his charm was such that he attracted an eclectic group of friends, lovers, and acquaintances and few folks had a cross word to say about the man.

Cowboy couldn’t carry a tune to save his life but that didn’t stop him from happily braying out his favorite Hank Williams or Willie Nelson songs when the mood struck him.

Cowboy did have his faults, of course…he did, for example, sometimes drink a wee bit too much (but, being a happy drunk, even that failed to take away from his appeal) and, though usually affable and forgiving, he had no problem coming to blows if he felt someone was slighting him or somebody he cared about (I bailed him out of jail once after he got into a row with the brother of one his former paramours outside of a bar in Hollywood one humid summer night.)

And he was not by any stretch of the imagination a faithful lover…often he would be juggling two or three (or more) girlfriends at the same time and managing, for impressive stretches of time, to keep it going without it blowing up in his face. Some women found that less easy to live with than others but, strangely enough, most of them remembered the good times more than the bad times when it was over.

Cowboy and I were not best friends or anything…we were far too different for that…but, for a brief season, we got along just fine (I occasionally got to see the quiet, reflective Cowboy that he rarely showed to most people in his ever-widening circle of acquaintance.)

Last time I saw Cowboy he was off to Texas…he had somehow gotten a job as a cop in some small town outside of San Antonio…loaded for bear and wondering out loud if the “pretty l’il Senoritas” were ready for someone like him. I imagined that they could (and did) handle him…and that Cowboy would be all right with that as well.