A Connecticut Yankee in a Utah Rodeo

“Anyone want to ride the bull?” My family and I all looked at our tour guide as if he had asked us if we’d like to go swimming with sharks. He had to be kidding. This had to be his go-to joke when guiding yuppie tourists from New England. A way to make fun of us because it was clear this was our first time riding horses, let alone a bull. But he was serious. “Anyone can join the rodeo, you just gotta sign up at the pavilion, sign a few waivers, and since it's a competition we’ll even pay you five dollars for partaking.” He licked sweat from his dirty blonde mustache and leered at me through his cheap sunglasses.

“There’s no way you’re getting me to ride a bull!” I laughed and my family joined in the laughter. I was having trouble enough riding the peaceful horse between my legs down a simple dirt path in Bryce Canyon. Nothing could possibly possess me to enter a rodeo and possibly die the death of being skewered or trampled on public display in dusty arena.

“We give you a helmet.”

A helmet? I thought back to a documentary I saw when I was maybe thirteen about Evel Knievel and how during a failed jump at Caesar’s Palace it was his Bell helmet that saved his life. A helmet? Why did the idea of a simple helmet make me feel suddenly invincible? Why did it make the whole thing now seem like a logical thing to do?

When we finished our horseback tour I told my father that I wanted to do it. I wanted to ride the bull. He laughed and said okay. My father was still convinced that the tour guide had been jerking our chain. He assumed that if anything they’d make me ride a baby cow and all have a good laugh at the Connecticut yankee in the Utah rodeo.

“This kid wants to ride the bull!” He told a new cowboy whose job it was to sign people up at the pavilion. Unlike our tour guide this cowboy was unconvinced. He looked me up and down and then looked back to my father.

“You’re serious?”

“Yup! He wants to do it.”

“Does he want to die?”

I let that question sink in. No. No, I don’t want to die. So I’m signing up for this rodeo. I’m signing up because otherwise I’ll die a death far worse than being skewered or trampled. This day was made for me to spit in the eye of death. This day was made for me to ride the bull.

I didn’t need my father’s legal permission because I was nineteen but it was nice that he was still there. I signed maybe seven or eight pages that each came with an accompanying twenty that I didn’t read. I knew what it all said. If I got skewered or trampled it’s not the rodeo’s fault. Classic “you can’t sue us” jargon.

When we finished with that my father was giddy and still convinced that there was no real danger. My mother however was beside herself. She knew, as I did, that these people were serious and that this wasn’t like Connecticut. A different state can very quickly feel like a different country once you take the time to look closely.

We got a late lunch that was also an early dinner at a Waffle House. I got an order of scrambled eggs and toast. I picked at it quietly. My poor mother was trying to calm down my youngest brother. He was having a child’s tantrum over something trivial because he was eleven years old and tired. My twelve year old brother decided to get into it and started yelling that everyone should stop yelling and my sister yelled at him saying the only one yelling was him! My stoic father kept saying “Alright, alright”, over and over in an attempt to calm down everyone. What a sight we were. A family of six New Englanders in a Waffle House yelling about who was yelling.

This could be my last meal. My last meal with my family and also just my last meal in general. Scrambled eggs and toast in a Waffle House. Not bad.

We paid our bill and began our drive to the rodeo. I rested my head against the passenger window and watched the blue sky begin to take on a yellowish tone. Soon it’d be orange. I’ve always found serenity in the color of sunsets. They’ve always been proof to me that this world is a work of art. Divine art by a seemingly absent artist. An artist that I might see by the end of today.

I really didn’t want to die. I wanted to conquer this day and survive to tell the story. But the reality had to be faced. Death is always certain but the day of death rarely is. Then there are days like this where the certainty and uncertainty hang together like two shiny ornaments on the same fragile Christmas tree branch. Days like this where you just got to breathe. So that’s what I kept doing. Breathing and seeing. Seeing the yellow sky begin to give way to orange and seeing the tired sun joyfully make it’s slow descent to bed. An inexplicable joy seized me and I thought why not? Why not today? I’d rather it happen when I’m a hundred years old laying in a comfy bed but if it should be today, well then alright. But the orange sky looked so beautiful and I couldn’t help but wonder what it’d look like once it turned red then finally purple.

We reached the rodeo and my family got tickets to view the spectacle. I found an attendant who took me away to be in the back with the other cowboys. I crossed the threshold into the smell of manure and the sounds of arrogant men.

All the cowboys were gathered in their tacky gorgeous outfits. I stood awkwardly in my green American Eagle t-shirt as the attendant handed me off. It was the same cowboy who’d been my tour guide. The very man who had roped me into this. He greeted me with a warm smile that I didn’t quite trust. It was too similar to the smiles I’d seen in high school on upperclassmen who liked to prank freshmen. It made me ill at ease.

“That’s your bull over there!” He pointed toward a pen set up so that the bulls could only move in a single file. There were so many large magnificent beasts crammed atop one another but I followed the path of his finger to one particularly fat looking animal. “That there’s Muffintop.”

Muffintop? The harbinger of my destruction would be named Muffintop? What a delightfully cruel thing to know in my final moments. “Here’s yer helmet.” He handed me something similar to a hockey player’s helmet but with a face guard like what a catcher in baseball would wear. With reverence I held the blessed object in my hands for one long quiet moment. None of the other cowboys had helmets. They all wore gorgeous hats because this was their world. I was an oddity brought in for a bit of fun. Well I hoped to give them a good show.

There were a few events before the bull riding. First the bucking broncos that seemed to dance with their riders. Then some clowning followed by the mutton busters. The mutton busters were sheep ridden by toddlers. The toddlers all wore helmets like mine. Finally the announcement came: “And now for the most dangerous event in rodeo!”

I was surprised to learn that the riders only needed to last six seconds in order to advance to the next round. The competition was a tournament with some big prize money for the top riders. But I wasn’t interested in that. All I wanted was five dollars. Five dollars and the rest of my life.

Finally it came time for me to ride. Muffintop was herded into the cage that opened up into the dusty stadium. I climbed to the platform above the cage listening to my heartbeat in my ear. Silhouetted against the now red sky was a crowd of flamboyantly dressed cowboys atop the platform all eager to greet me. They helped me secure my helmet which added to the adrenaline. I was armored up for battle.

“Alright, you ready?” asked the tour guide cowboy. I nodded then slowly turned towards the cage. Muffintop had earlier seemed still but now he was beating the cage with his horns. “You’re going to jump on his back. Do not put your feet in the bars of the cage!”

“Okay”, I said.

I went for the jump but still instinctively put my feet on the lateral cage bars like climbing down a ladder. The cowboys all yelled at me. It was clear they were afraid Muffintop would lean a little one way and then snap my leg. I quickly got my foot out of the cage and saddled up on Muffintop. I could feel the proud beast breathing between my legs. One last moment to regard each other as man and beast before the showdown.

“LOOK THERE! LOOK THERE!” All the cowboys shouted at once frantically pointing at the nape of the bull’s neck.

“OKAY!” I shouted, fixing my eyes on the nape.

“Grab the ropes with your right hand!”

“Okay!”

“Raise your left hand!”

“Okay!”

“Alright. You all good?”

“Yeah!” I said looking up.

“LOOK THERE! LOOK THERE!”

I quickly looked back at the nape feeling embarrassed that I’d forgotten. How silly to be feeling embarrassed in front of strangers in what could be my last moments on Earth. I heard the creaking sound of the cage opening and then one deep southern voice ringing in my ear.

“LOOOOKK DERRR.”

A gorgeous glob of tobacco spit landed perfectly on the nape. I focused on the glistening spit and saw the eye of death look back at me. The cage opened up. Muffintop wasted no time. I broke the one rule and looked up. Though the bars of my helmet I saw the large crowd gathered in the stands framed by Muffintops horns. I screamed a four letter word. Not out of fear or regret. No, this was some other rare emotion that went beyond fear or adrenaline. This was the profound experience of being intensely alive and in that microsecond I was no longer a Connecticut Yankee in a Utah rodeo. I was the center of existence. The hub of the wheel of reality. The great pinpoint of the Universe! I was everything and everything was me.

Then came the crash of dirt. I didn’t remember falling but I remembered the crash. The crash was instant and spread through my back like when heat lightning fills a humid sky. I was off the center of the universe and back in Utah. My back was in pain but my head was good. The helmet did its job.

Quickly I stood up with both arms raised. I was alive! My triumph was complete. Two cowboys in the stadium ran towards Muffintop to calm him down and herd him out. A third ran towards me to do the same thing. He high fived me but then quickly turned me around. He led me towards a wall then hoisted me over. I came crashing down a second time.

I was greeted by the same attendant. She seemed terribly uninterested in my ordeal and flatly congratulated me on lasting four seconds. I removed my wonderful sweaty helmet then I followed her towards a room where they kept the prize money. I was dismissively paid my five dollars and ushered out the back. Outside the stadium I found my family anxiously ready to greet me. Hail the conquering hero! I was home safe. I held my five dollar bill towards the now dark red sky. My poor father’s face was a mix of emotions.

“I didn’t think they were going to actually make you do that. I thought they’d put you on a calf and laugh at the tourist from New England. I didn’t think you’d be riding a real bull!”

“Eh, I knew they meant it.” We all laughed and made our way to the car. The next stop on our cross country trip was Las Vegas and then eventually the Grand Canyon. I looked up at the dark red sky and watched it give way to purple.