The Cowboy Bar II- Duane gets some TLC

Duane, (we’ll call him Duane, because it’s a good name) was a good ‘ol boy. The local phone company employed him, so everyone knew him and his truck by sight. Having a well-known truck made it harder to get away with anything, but sure made for lots of friends. It also made it hard to get anything done. Anyone seeing his truck, whether parked next to the road working on a cable, or up in someone’s driveway working on a home connection, assumed that Duane would be offended if they didn’t stop to say hello and supervise the job for a while.

The supervision part was the worst. Most people had no idea whatever how a telephone worked, so the supervision usually consisted of several well-worn phrases: “She got power? Check them fuses yet? Prob’ly lightning. Well, gotta go, don’t get ‘lectrocuted!” The last was as much a hope as warning. No one really wanted Duane to be electrocuted, but they sure enjoyed seeing him get shocked, and getting shocked was part of the job.

Although the voltage on a phone line really wouldn’t normally shock you, the voltage used to ring the phone was more than enough to make you jump around and say some bad words. Duane knew some really colorful words, and could put them together in an almost poetic string! It was an event not to be missed, if you could help it.

Duane always suspected that people would go home and dial the phone number of the house he happened to be working on, just to keep him on his toes and see if they could get him to spout some “blue” poetry.

Duane was single, and being employed and regularly paid, he had no trouble finding an occasional date. His idea of a date (not unusual for the area) was divided into 3 phases: phase1 -feeding, phase 2 -drinking/dancing and phase 3 -necking. The amount of time dedicated to each phase depended on the girl, but Duane preferred to move right on to phase 2 and 3 whenever possible. The eating phase usually included polite conversation, and although Duane could converse very well with the boys, the refined nature of dinner talk with a female mostly eluded him. He knew that if you said the wrong thing during the eating phase, phase 3 would disappear, and then what’s the point of phase 2? Duane also knew that if you met a girl at a bar, phase 1 was already taken care of and phase 2 was probably (with luck) well underway. You did have to compete with other guys in the bar with the same plan, but if the girl selected someone else, you weren’t out a dinner, anyway.

Duane liked the women, that was for sure, and it got him in some trouble down at the Cowboy Bar.

Duane and I finished a long day of fixing stuff for other people, and Duane needed a cold Budweiser to get back to his own world. Now, a word in my own defense, I didn’t normally hang out at the Cowboy Bar, but Duane thought it would be real nice if I went with him to meet “The Boys”. He was right; they were a friendly bunch, especially if you bought them a beer. Why, they took you right in as one of their own! Took your beer too.

I was sitting at a table, and Duane went to the bar to pick up the next round (strictly a serve yourself sort of place). The bartender turned his back to make change, and in the blink of an eye this short guy with bowed legs and cowboy hat walked through the door, directly up to Duane and hit him a fearsome whack, right in the mouth.

Duane outweighed his attacker by probably 50%, so Duane took a staggered step back, gave “The Little Cowboy” a snarl, balled up his fist and decked him. From beginning to end, the whole process took maybe two seconds.

Duane stood rubbing his spit lip with sort of a hurt look on his face (that doggy “why me” look), as The Little Cowboy got to his feet. Duane collected himself and yelled, “Why the hell did you do that? Who the hell are you?” Duane was so stunned by the situation; even his usual command of colorful language had escaped him.

The Little Cowboy regained his footing next to the bar, holding his already swelling eye (looking like he had somewhat less conviction than before he got decked) and said, “You can’t steal my girl and get away with it!”

The quizzical look on Duane’s face deepened, like the look you see on a kid taking a test in school he hasn’t studied for, or a dog’s look when talked to by a drunk. He was sort of hoping someone would give away a clue without him having to say anything.

There was silence in the bar.

Duane came up blank. His brain and memory had deserted him completely. Absolutely nothing and no one came to mind. He hadn’t been out on a date for several weeks, and the date had been with an old steady girlfriend (no Phase 1 required). Duane had no idea who The Little Cowboy may have been talking about, so in desperation he blurted out the name of the last girl he had dated, followed by a somewhat righteous speech.

"Oh man, are you Ronda’s boyfriend? I had no Idea she had a boyfriend. You coulda just told me though; you didn’t have to hit me. I don’t need to date somebody else’s girl!”

The Little Cowboy looked at Duane, and said two words that made the bar go deathly still; “Who’s Ronda?”

There was a long, pregnant pause, and the Little Cowboy (not being able to stand the silence) blurted “You can’t deny you took Charlene out last week! Her best friend mentioned you by name! You can’t duck this one, Troy!”

There was another pause- 2 seconds, 3 seconds, then, as though someone had given some silent signal, everyone in the place exhaled, and began to talk at once. The bartender did what a good bartender should, and took charge. He looked The Little Cowboy straight in the eye and said (in very simple words so as not to be misunderstood; “This is not Troy, this is Duane. Duane is Troy’s LITTLE brother. If I’s you, I’d save myself another black eye, and go get a new girl friend. Now, before Duane gets mad, get the hell outa here”.

The Little Cowboy looked at the bartender, looked at Duane, then scanned the faces of other patrons in the room for confirmation. There was a silence that could only mean that the truth had just been revealed.

The Little Cowboy turned and sort of slid out of the bar, hoping not to attract any more attention. We all heard his pickup truck fire up, and roar off into the evening.

The Cowboy Bar went back to normal. The beer was again the center of attention and Duane’s good character and restraint were confirmed.

Not only did he not steal that guy’s girlfriend, he only hit him once.

That’s the kind of guy we all wanted to know.

The incident became known as “The Little Cowboy Incident” (or just TLC) to those of us that were there. Duane had to put up with a bit of ragging about being caught up with by unwanted TLC down at the Cowboy Bar.

Duane drank out of the side of his mouth for the rest of the week.