the men’s room three times.
Valerie was sitting with some of her 4-H friends on the other side of the arena, but I didn’t see my father. He always sat in the same places when he attended public events. He sat behind first base at baseball games; he sat in the last pew at Mass; he sat in the last seat of the row at the movie theater; he sat by the rail at horse shows; and he sat ten rows behind the chutes at any rodeo I participated in. I looked up into the stands and didn’t see him anywhere. There were only a few empty spaces in the seats, and most were taken by people who had gone to the concessions. I felt my heart go weak, my resolve begin to drain. Then I saw him escorting my mother down the steps toward two empty seats. She was wearing white gloves and a pillbox hat with the veil turned up. I waved at them, but they couldn’t see me inside the shadows.
I also saw Saber and Manny and Cholo. Saber waved at me and I waved back. His two friends were eating barbecue sandwiches, licking the sauce off their fingers. I went to the restroom. In the concourse, a black man had set up a shoeshine stand with elevated chairs, and a bunch of rodeo boys from the little town of Tomball were getting their boots shined, eyeballing the girls, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, while the shine man popped his rag to the R&B coming out of his portable radio. It should have been an idyllic scene, the kind you saw on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. It wasn’t.
A group of North Houston hoods, wearing drapes, pointy-toed stomps with taps, and greased duck-ass haircuts, sauntered by in what was called the con walk—the shoulders slouched, the length of the stride exaggerated, arms dead at their sides. I saw Loren Nichols among them, wearing cowboy boots and jeans, although low on the hips and without a belt, greaser-style. Just as they passed the shoeshine stand, one of the boys from Tomball went “Quack, quack.”
It was the kind of moment that would not pass. There was no way the insult and the challenge would be undone. The groups despised each other, worse than whites and people of color or Hispanics did, and if you asked them why, they would not be able to explain except to say, “They’re always asking for it, man.”
Loren went into the men’s room by himself. I followed him inside and stood one urinal down from him. He hadn’t noticed me and was looking back at the entrance to the room while he relieved himself.
“Hey,” I said.
“Is that you, Broussard? You look good in that hat and chaps,” he said.
“I’m riding in a few minutes. Loren, get away from those guys.”
“Which guys?”
“The hoods you’re with.”
“Those are my friends. Don’t be calling them names.”
“Okay, I won’t. I know those kids at the shoeshine stand. They’re from Tomball. They don’t mean anything. Blow it off.”
“They do mean it.”
“Don’t get into it, man,” I said. “It’s not worth it.”
“It’s not my call.”
I zipped up my pants and washed my hands and went to the lavatory where he was combing his hair in the mirror. I took out my wallet. “I have two passes, reserved seats. They were for Valerie and a friend, but she went in with her 4-H clubbers. You take them.”
“No, man.”
“Yes, man,” I said. I punched him in the sternum with my finger.
“You worry too much, Broussard.”
“Don’t call me by my last name.”
“Okay, Aaron. You’re from outer space. But you’re not a bad guy.” He took the tickets from my hand.
“I’d better see your butt in one of those seats,” I said.
“What are you riding?”
“Bulls.”
“I knew you were suicidal.” He held up the tickets. “Thanks.”
I walked out of the men’s room ahead of him and didn’t look back. His friends were gathered at a concession about twenty yards from the shoeshine stand. None of them had bought anything. They seemed to be waiting on Loren. I walked through the concourse and a security gate and past the rough-stock pen into the loading area behind the chutes. I looked up into the stands and tried to locate my parents but couldn’t see them in the glare. But I saw Manny, a smirk on his face. He stood up and shot me the bone, then cupped his phallus. Behind me, I heard one of the bulls tearing the