(WESTERN THEME, CATTLE, HORSES, WHOOPS)
TR: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS.....brought to you by Odessa Vacation Homes and Condos......if you're looking for sunshine and inexpensive real estate, you almost can't do better than West Texas......and now as we rejoin Dusty and Lefty (OUTDOOR AMBIENCE, CA TTLE IN DISTANCE), we find them making camp for the night at Yellow Springs on the Lonesome Trail south of Amarillo....
(OUTDOOR AMBIENCE, CATTLE. THEN THE RATTLE OF COOKWARE)
GK: Supper be ready in a while. I'm making poached eggs tonight.
TR: Poached eggs! Where'd you get poached eggs?
GK: I traded for em.
TR: Traded what?
GK: Traded something you're not going to miss for a long time. If ever.
TR: What did you trade? You didn't trade my lucky tooth, did you?
GK: Nobody wants your lucky tooth, Dusty. All they have to do is look at you and see how lucky it is.
TR: Or my Dean Martin ashtray?
GK: Don't get all worked up about it. You'll never notice it's gone. Believe me. Did you take a head count on them cattle?
TR: I did and we're six head to the good.
GK: We got six more than we had yesterday?
TR: That's right.
GK: We better be careful or we could get strung up for stealin cattle. We're in Texas, pardner. These are serious people down here.
TR: It ain't rustling, it's political asylum --- these are cattle from this ranch over west of here. You heard about it. Everybody in the family had a different idea what the ranch should be called and they couldn't agree so they compromised and called it the Bar-J-Double-Q-Flying-W-Lazy-Y, and every year at branding time, the calves make a run for it.
GK: A calf would be about half-roasted with a brand like that.
TR: Well, in a week or two, when we hit Austin, these fellers are going to become chili rellenos.
GK: How long we going to stay in Austin?
TR: Long as it takes me to spend all my money on liquor and women and high-living. Couple days, I'd say.
GK: I was hoping to stay put a little longer, pardner. I'm expecting phone calls. Faxes. I'm trying to get this organization off the ground. Cowboys United To Promote Personal Thrift.
TR: Lefty----- cowboys are not a uniting type of individual. I told you that a hundred times.
GK: I just think that we cowboys oughta have some cause of our own. Like theater people raise money to fight AIDS. And musicians do benefits to combat hunger and homelessness.
TR: Lefty, the way musicians combat hunger and homelessness is they get girlfriends.
GK: But I have a dream, Dusty.
TR: Well, wake up and get over it.
GK: I just think there's a need for people to learn good habits of personal thrift. Did you know that if an 18-year-old kid set aside $20 a week, by the time he or she is 55 years old --- there'd be a half a million dollars in the bank?
TR: If an 18-year-old kid set aside $20 a week and at the end of the year he or she took it and had the most fun he or she could have, by the time he or she turned 55 there'd be some wonderful memories.
GK: Anyway, I'm thinking of putting on a benefit concert (HE STARTS TUNING HIS GUITAR) for Cowboys United to Promote Personal Thrift----
TR: I knew it!
GK: We're going to raise money to raise public consciousness.
TR: Why do I need to hear a song right now? I'm depressed enough.
GK: This is an old cowboy ballad (MORE TUNING) ----you'll like this. (STRUMMING)
The sun was sinking in the west, where the dying cowboy lay.
"Come closer to me comrades, and listen what I say.
Once I was young and dashing, the ladies hearts to win.
And now I lie in misery, about to cash it in."
But I remember music playing at the breakin' of the dawn
And I long to be in Austin when the party's goin on.
TR: I don't know why you couldn't sing a cheerful song once in awhile. Ain't life miserable enough without this----
GK:
He lay there soaked with blood and gore, his arms and legs were broke.
They'd tried to hang him twice that day but the old guy wouldn't croak.
And then they'd tried to shoot him, and they filled him up with lead,
And he lifted up his poor old head, and this is what he said:
I can hear the guitars ringing, I can hear the ladies sing,
And I long to be in Austin when they start in partying.
TR: This is the worst song I ever heard in my life. Absolutely the worst. I'd rather listen to sheep than listen to this.
GK:
He'd been caught that morning, with a paper shirt and vest,
He wore paper boots and spurs and pants, so they made an arrest,
And charged him with rustling, which apparently he did:
That afternoon they strung him up, the Amarillo Kid.
I can hear the people coming from every neighborhood
And I long to be in Austin when the party's getting good.
TR: I sincerely hope this is the end.
GK:
They strung him up, and shot him, and were about to give him poison,
And then one cowboy rose up in his saddle and cried, "Boys, in
All my days on lynch mobs, there was one sure way of lynchin'
That's to lock him in the outhouse with the works of Thomas Pynchon.
So they put the Amarillo Kid in the little house out back
With the works of Thomas Pynchon, a solid four-foot stack.
And he commenced to read The Crying of Lot 49,
And he groaned so loud and mournfully, they knew that he was dyin.
He finally finished that one but on Gravity's Rainbow,
They could hear him sighing and his breath was coming slow.
When they opened up the door, he had passed to his rest,
He had died of suffocation for the book lay on his chest.
He could see the ladies singing, he could smell his long-lost friends,
And his spirit went to Austin where the party never ends.
TR: Is this finally the end now?
GK: All over except for the yodel.
TR: Lord have mercy----
GK: YODELS
(THEME)
SS: THE LIVES OF THE COWBOYS....if you're looking for a place to retire, you're looking for West Texas --- the place where people go and don't come back, it's that good.(MUSIC OUT)
(c) 1998 by Garrison Keillor