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.

The Cowboy Bar

There is a small town in the southwest corner of Wyoming that has a bar. Actually, almost every small town in Wyoming has a bar, and this one is fairly typical. It’s been a local watering hole for 75 years or so, and looks just like it did when it was built, except older and droopier. Oh yeah, now it has a new, neon Budweiser sign in the window.

Now, I’ll grant you that 75 Wyoming summers and winters have aged the bar a bit, but no more so than the people that frequent the place. They (the bar and the people) look like they belong together.

The bar was built on Main Street in the little town, and was conveniently located adjacent to the feed supply store, the bank, and the hardware store. You could run your in-town errands and grab a quick beer with the boys, all without moving your pickup truck (or horse. There was a hitching rail outside, just in case.).

I suspect the builder assumed the Cowboy Bar would burn down from time to time, so it was sort of thrown together. Heck, whole towns used to burn down, so what chance did a bar with a bunch of drunks rolling their own cigarettes in front of a wood stove have? But fate was kind to the Cowboy bar, and it still stood proud and original, if crooked. There was not a single level surface, or square corner anywhere in the place. The imitation oak bar may have been square and level when it arrived from Denver, but the warped floor didn’t allow it to stay that way.

Everything slanted off to the northeast, floor, bar, and tables- the whole works. You could drop a marble on any surface in the place, and know exactly where to go to find it. That is, if it didn’t get hung up on one of the warped floorboards on the way.

Shaky as they may have been on building standards, the builders sure did know what a proper bar ought to contain, and the Cowboy Bar had it all:

· A long wooden bar with a brass foot rail the length of the bar, with a big oak framed mirror behind the bar.

· Bar stools tall enough to reach the bar, and steady enough not to drop a customer, and chairs with arm rests to help the customers stay in the saddle.

· Steady, solid tables not likely to tip over or collapse if sat on or fallen on, and furniture too heavy to be conveniently used as a club.

· A pool table heavy enough not to get knocked around by unruly patrons, and too hard to sleep on.

And lastly:

· A big wood stove in the corner of the room, sitting on a big metal plate, with a metal stovepipe wandering crookedly up and out of the room.

Oh, there is one last thing any good bar MUST have- a bartender.

Good bartenders should boast of being equal parts priest, psychologist, bouncer, accountant, and salesman. That being the ideal, bartenders in the Cowboy Bar were short on one or two of the primary qualifications, usually determined by how much the bartender drank, and how early in his shift it was.

The bartender is such an integral part of the life of the bar, the bartender’s state of well being often sets the mood. If the bartender tells a new joke and everyone laughs, good times for all. Perhaps even a free drink. The downside was listening to that one new joke over and over until somebody comes up with a new one, or the place closes for the night. Even with a few beers to ease the pain, the same old joke could wear on the nerves. On the other hand, a churlish barkeep would almost assure that the mood of the bar would follow suit, and SOMBODY would get punched during a long evening.

Most bartenders at the Cowboy had to be imported from somewhere else. It’s OK if the owner was local, but he’s got to have the good sense to bring in a bartender from the outside. Outside bartenders brought new stories, and tended to be more impartial when there was a dustup.

The bartender at the Cowboy Bar was from the city. Green River, Wyoming to be exact, a real city right on the freeway with the railroad running right through.

Even with the occasional temper flare up, the Cowboy Bar was about as safe as anywhere in the world. Mostly, the patrons and the bartender took care of one another. It was, after all, in the bartender’s best interest to keep as many friends as possible, and the patrons knew they would be doing business with one another for the rest of their lives. When tempers flared, a punch might be thrown, but apologies and free beer followed within a day or two.

I can only remember the local deputy sheriff going to the Cowboy bar once. He had a beer and left. The reason for the deputy’s visit was to find out why the bartender sometimes left beer on the back steps of the bar at night. The bartender told the deputy that occasionally the beer cooler got too full. That seemed reasonable to the deputy, so off he went. In reality, the back step was the pickup point for local high school boys looking for a 6 pack of Bud Tall boys. I’ve always wondered why the deputy didn’t figure out that the cooler would be less full at closing than after the beer delivery. No Sherlock Holmes here.

Most in town figured it was safer to keep the boys in town than have them drive into Evanston or Green River, (a 60 or 70 mile round trip) to get and consume a beer or two. They were mostly right, except for an unplanned pregnancy or two. Besides, the bartender made a bunch more money in bribes off the kids that way.

Welcome to the Cowboy bar. If you’d like, next time you’re here I’ll introduce you to some of the patrons.

I’m afraid you’ll need to buy your own beer.