Chapter 18
Blake
Management went ahead and ordered an autopsy on Chaos. They didn’t want to share the outcome with me, but I pretty much elbowed my way in, made some idle threats, and eventually they let me see it. Just as I had suspected, his blood analysis showed he been given a high dose of amphetamines. I knew these things happened. They were part of the industry. The question in my mind came and what I considered whether this was a deliberately timed act in order to ruin my reputation just that last little bit, as if there was much left to ruin in the first place.
It was times like these that I questioned what I was doing in the industry at all. I knew the answer; it was essentially because it’s all I knew how to do. I think that was what lay behind the drinking. I had so few options and so little time to redeem myself. It was one of those moments when a man must confront himself in the mirror and realize there is only himself looking back.
At the same time, I was in love with a woman who went to great lengths to disappear. Trying to reconcile the collapse of my career, and the idea that she did not love me in the way that I loved her, was more than I could handle at that moment. If I had known why she left, it might have been easier. Did I say the wrong thing? Did I overpower her needs? Did I make decisions on her behalf when she wanted to make them on her own? Had I, in some strange way, used her to make myself feel better? The answers may never come; and yet they may come in a way I refuse to acknowledge them.
Talking to her on the telephone had brought back a flood of memories. Even though she hadn’t been in my world very long, the imprint she left behind was massive. Perhaps it was because I felt I failed at a relationship, and at my profession simultaneously. I had never placed great value on relationships before. The women my life came and left with irregular regularity, if such a thing was possible.
This was the one woman I wanted to keep in my life. I guess I never learned how to do that properly. I believed that women love to receive gifts, so I bought her a car. She seemed pleased enough, but perhaps her enough was not the same as mine. I thought women loved attention. Yet her involvement was all about bringing attention toward me and away from herself. There was, I suppose, a certain nobility in that, but I had to remember that I placed her in that position. I thought women liked to be admired for their beauty. There was no question she was a beautiful woman; perhaps the most beautiful I had ever known in my entire life. Yet, when I called attention to it, she seemed uncomfortable. She was a beautiful woman who didn’t want to admit it. There was something there she was hiding, I knew it. I was hoping Jill would open that door for me so that I would understand Silver better. I would do anything to have her return again.
That was when it struck me. Perhaps she saw what I had not. My life was an assembly of paper dolls and ludicrous dreams. The women had been shallow, but numerous. The wins had mattered more than the ethics of the industry or my value as a human being. I had let the fame take over and drive for me. I wasn’t even able to handle that well. There was so much to look back upon and see as mistakes. I wanted very badly to somehow justify all that had happened: the drinking, the women, the late nights, the things I knew went on in the background and did nothing about.
Silver had me convinced for a while that I might be part of the solution. Her risky scheme of making the industry look worse than me personally, could have paid off in the long run. I would have been the equivalent of an industry whistleblower. I would’ve lost my friends, the only people I knew, and my way of life.
Then there always was that chance that it could have all turned out well. Perhaps I would have been seen as the savior of the industry. My fans may have identified with me as wanting to reduce the cruelty to the animals, the fixed winds, the backslapping machinations of crooked money. I could’ve also ended up dead, at the receiving end of a bullet or knife while walking in a crowd of people. All things were possible when Silver was with me. I wanted her back, but I also wanted out of bull riding. The question became whether I could have both, and if I could not, which one did I want more?
I thought it would make Silver happy if I took her sister in and gave her a real home. It may not be forever, and it may not even be pleasant, but at least I’m making an effort to see beyond my own needs. That, in itself, was a major change in attitude. I wished with all my heart that it was Silver who was moving back in, instead of her sister.
I began to consider other things that I could do to make a living. Everything centered on the rodeo industry. Or did it? Silver had asked me if I had any hobbies. At the time I thought that a rather ridiculous question. Who could afford a hobby when your life was consumed with breaking bones, a multitude of women, and gallons of whiskey? I see now she was trying to make a point.
I tried to imagine what Silver would tell me to do with my life. Although she was not as worldly as one might think, coming from a big city, she did seem to understand what it felt like to be at the bottom. I had to admire her for clawing her way through a profession that was filled with far more competition than I ever come across. Her words were judged not by reviewing stands of loving fans, but by critics and competitors who were out to prove her wrong. That took guts to stand up to. Did I have that kind of guts?
I did own a ranch. There was that. It wasn’t large enough to hold enough livestock to really compete. Cattle ranching was big business now and there was no place for a little guy like me. There was a question whether there might be oil beneath my property. I really wasn’t bankrolled to go looking for it, and my place wasn’t big enough to hold too much even if there was. Better move to Plan B.
I considered that many of my fans were young boys. Just as I had been at their age, I looked up to the cowboys. He represented a man’s man. He represented courage and strength and endurance. My fans looked up at me and thought these things, or at least they used to. I wondered if I might offer some sort of day camp for kids, perhaps those who were underprivileged. There wouldn’t be much money in it, I’d probably have to scout out a few sponsors to even break even. There was no question, however, that it would be a rewarding career, if you could call it that.
I thought about working the rodeo circuit in a different capacity. Could the world’s leader in bull riding see himself in a clown suit wrestling the bull away from his former competitors? I didn’t think so. All of this thinking was depressing me I felt the urge to find a bottle. I knew if I did that, it would be the beginning of my end, and I wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.
I decided that for once in my life, just perhaps I would ask the advice of others. Silver had promised to come by and visit soon. Could I wait that long? Could I humble myself before her and ask her opinion and her help? I knew I could. It was what she offered all along. It was me who had taken more.
So for now, I would wait.