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By chris Date: 2007 May 26 Comment on this Work [[2007.05.26.00.48.21811]] |
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A few things have changed. For starters, take Bud's taste in music. He's driving down Fourth Street in Albuquerque, New Mexico, singing along to the chorus of Weezer's "The Good Life" (exclamation points entirely his) - "I don't wanna be an old man anymore! It's been a year or two since I was out on the floor!" Oh, it's been more than a year or two. Same truck, though (albeit a few overhauls later); same black Stetson. Different woman. It's a complicated story, not at all pleasant. A few months after Bud won the rodeo at Gilley's, the bottom dropped out of the oil business. Hard times came to southeast Texas just as fast as the ridiculously-good times had come. There were layoffs at the plant; having no real seniority, Bud's job was history. He was downsized before the word even existed. "Shaking booty, making sweet love all the night! It's time I got back to the good life!" All the windows are rolled down in the truck. April 15th. 85 degrees and rising. A man on the sidewalk stares at Bud. Bud stares back, but smiles for a change. Soon there are smiles all around. Rock on, Weezer. "And I don't even know how I got off the track... I wanna go back, yeah!" It didn't take long for Bud and Sissy to realize there was no real future for them in Pasadena, Texas. Sissy grew more resentful, and Bud worked an embarrassing stint at the Dollar Store before having an epiphany one day on a smoke break. "F--- this shit!" He exclaimed, throwing his apron on the counter ("Yes, everything's really a dollar," was boldly emblazoned on the front). He stormed out the door, nearly running down a customer and her daughter. Sissy was less than enthusiastic about his sudden plans. "We're a-goin' where?! Mexico? We don't even have no Passports, Bud." "N-E-W Mexico, Sissy. It's a state, old girl. Your Uncle Bubba goes skiing there. 'Sides, this cowboy needs some of the open range in his life!" "This cowboy needs to be a M-A-N and git him a decent J-O-B..." Things went downhill from there. Long story short: Twenty-seven years and three marriages later, Bud's driving down Fourth, the bulk of the Sandia Mountains over his left should like the Great Wall of China on steroids, downtown growing ever closer. He passes Candelaria and sees what he's come for: the flower shop. Spring is the best time to be in love. This time it will be different, Bud reasons. Hell, he KNOWS. He may have traded in his snap-button shirts for a lab coat and microchip manufacturing, but he hasn't lost his horse sense. And Consuelo loves horses. Once he learns a little more Spanish (so he can propose to her properly), he'll look into that land in the South Valley his friend had told him about. There'd be room there for the both of them, for a family - even a horse or two. Twenty-seven years is a hell of a long time to finally find the breathing room he came here for in the first place. Then again, Bud thinks, it ain't never too late to stop holding your breath. |