Escape from Rodeo Burger—Chapter 4

Where was I—I don't know. Before Barbie Swoon disappeared through the door, she gave me a nod and a wink, and that wink wallowed in my mind for what seemed like a century before anything else happened. Then the eyeball above me blinked and the light went out. And I was there alone in the cold room left to wonder about everything—mostly Esther.

In my mind, I went home to Texas—to those blue skies—those brilliant clear night skies with all those sparkling stars above me. I never thought that anything so sinister could come from something so beautiful. Not really, anyway. Though I had been told, and though I tried to warn others about our false planet, alien abduction, and Rodeo Burger, I guess I didn't actually believe it, I realized.

The door opened and in walked two men who looked like they could have been FBI agents on Pseudo. The only difference between them and humans is that they had silver skin, no nose, no ears, no hair, and translucent gold-flecked eyes. They also had five fingers on each hand, two thumbs, and no fingernails.

To my disappointment, they were not the little green men of lore—the stereotypical aliens who look like Krash at Donut World. I've never been so disappointed in my life. They were six feet tall, it appeared, and they did not wear silver jumpsuits or have suction cup fingers and tiny mouths. They didn't have the large black dull eyes I expected and they didn't try to communicate with me—didn't speak at all. They didn't touch me or do anything other than to bring me a box of clothes to wear and motion for me to get up and get dressed in such a way that I did so in strict obeyance. Surely, had I resisted, they would have forced me by inflicting excruciating pain upon me.

I opened the box which had a bronking horse and cowboy logo on it and inside was a cowboy costume. There was a hat, brown pants, thick socks, underwear, button down red flannel shirt, red bandana, belt with buckle of the same bronking horse and cowboy that was on the box lid, holster, and gun.

Then another of these strange man-like creatures came in with a pair of brown boots and spurs and they watched me get dressed and made a strange chirruping noise which I took for laughter. They seemed amused and pleased with themselves all at the same time like they were watching their favorite team win a ballgame.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the metallic wall. I looked ridiculous, but I suppose it was because I never saw myself as a cowboy. If anything, I was a natural-born Indian. They laughed and I noticed their mouths were larger than a human mouth, or was it because they had no nose and it just seemed that way? I don't know. They were sleek creatures with heads like dildos.

Then one got close to me and rubbed his finger on my upper lip and hair immediately grew which caused them to warble again. Next thing I knew I had a fantastic bushy cowboy mustache which felt like a squirrel died on my upper lip. They then ushered me out of the small room and into another which was an old west town. Only it was nighttime and clearly a large room or auditorium because there was a ceiling that was either glass or painted black and on it there were lights that resembled stars, or maybe there were stars that looked as though they were painted because they were behind thick glass. I don't know which.

There were dirt streets, lanterns burning on lamp posts, a blacksmith, cows, horses, a saloon, and girls in the upstairs of the saloon who leaned out of the windows and waived fancy handkerchiefs or some sort of lacey fabric as they snickered in alluring sorts of ways. I couldn't believe my eyes or ears. An occasional gun shot rang out and there was a lot of yelling.

There was hootin' and hollerin' and gamblers gamblin' and gunfighters gun fightin' and people drinkin' and spittin' into spittoons. The saloon was named The Golden Spittoon—the story behind it being that the town was so rich from the gold rush that even the spittoons were made of solid gold. There was a drunk leaning against a porch post with a jug of somethin' and a sheriff with a sawed-off shotgun in a rocking chair in front of the sheriff's office which was across the street from the saloon.

The three aliens escorted me into the room and when they waved their hands everyone stopped. They froze in place. Dancin' girl mid-dance. Spitter mid-spit. Gun fighter mid-draw. Then some scraggly-looking old fellow brought me a white palomino horse who he said was named Duke. The aliens helped me up on it, chirping like crickets as they did, and I settled in the saddle like Barbie Swoon settled on me on that exam table not so long ago.

I had no idea what I was doing, but the three aliens squealed in apparent delight and waved for someone to come over to take my picture. And almost as though on cue, the old fellow who said his name was Gus, let go of the bridle, and Duke, as though he knew the routine, drew back on his hind legs and whinnied, and I held on with one hand and caught my hat with another and the man took my picture. The bulb of his camera exploded, nearly blinding me. Then the horse settled down and he took several more pictures and I stared into the camera expressionless like a starving fashion model indifferent of his/her own beauty or of life in general.

The abject glum look upon my face was to be expected for someone in my unusual predicament, and the aliens didn't seem to mind. They tried to get me to pose in certain ways by waving their long noodle-like arms. Perhaps, I did or didn't do what they wanted, but then one tried to speak and all that came out were a pattern of knocking and clicking sounds and a garbled sort of bleating that I can not begin to describe with any sort of accuracy.

I soon learned that this was a promotional photo shoot for Rodeo Burger, and I was the new face of the franchise. I would be all over the billboards on Kalgon and across the universe. I know that courtesy of Gus, who spoke like a real rootin' tootin' old time 49'er who spent most of his life fending off mountain lions and engines, panning for gold in the hills, but who was very pragmatic and aware of his situation unlike the rest of them who appeared blissfully ignorant. Gus told me that he was the first person in Wildwood, which is the name of the town. He was also the first ever Rodeo Burger cowboy.

"When did you get here?"

"Oh, well, 45 ago years, I think," he recalled scratching his wiry beard. "Kind of hard to tell because, well, everyday is the same. There ain't no year and there ain't no time, really—least that you can measure. There are days and nights, but nothing really changes. I get older, that's about it."

"How'd you get here? Like me?" I asked. "I'm from Kilgore, Texas on Pseudo Earth. I was trying to warn the watchers when we all got sucked up."

"Kinda like you," he laughed. "But I was mowin' my yard on Earth. Lived in Oklahoma. I've never heard of no—Pseudo Earth. It was the summer of 1980."

"1980? But it's only 1965 on Pseudo."

"Hmmm. Well, in my estimation, it would be about 2025, or so, on Earth. I started notching days about a year or so in, but I lost count. I feel like I'm 65 and I got here at age 20—1980, like I said."

"Why don't they eat you?" I asked. "I mean— that's why we're here, isn't it."

"Hell, they got plenty of people to eat, son. Some of us they just wanna mess with. It amuses 'em to no end. They need breeders and happy lookin' folks."

"I don't understand," I sighed.

"You will. See, we all have our purpose here in Wildwood—our place. This just so happens to be mine. Stable man. Handles the horses and the cattle. I also do the butcherin'. Percival plays the piano in the saloon. Dolly dances. The girls up there, well, they got theirs, too." He spit onto the street and stared at the darkened dirt by his feet.

I got off of Duke and Gus took the reins. He told me he would stable him and rub him down for me. It was strange to me that he said he would do it for me—as though the horse was mine. I mean, I just got here. How could I possibly own a horse? I'd never even ridden a horse, even though I grew up in Texas.

Gus took me to the hotel and introduced me to everyone we met along the way. There was Bill the banker. Saul the shopkeeper. A lady named Nevada, and one named Sierra, both who sported umbrellas and bonnets in dresses with large bustles. But instead of asking me my name, he introduced me to them as Cowboy Cody.

Everyone looked at me as though I was something to behold. Like I was some kind of celebrity. The gleeful smile on their happy faces when they heard my name made me feel good. It was a terrible name, though. An absolutely hideous name. But it was my name now—Cowboy Cody—and I could not escape it.

I didn't do much in Wildwood. I was given a room in the hotel. I frequented the saloon and played cards and drank a little, although I had never drank before. I was challenged to a gunfight by Black Bart because his girl was talking to me—Willa Westcott. She worked in the saloon, and I suppose she talked to a lot of men. I was telling her all about Esther and what had happened to me. She looked at me with her big amber eyes wide-open. She had long and beautiful eyelashes.

"You musta bumped your head real good, Mr. Cody," she smiled. "That's a might interestin' story. Are you one of them penny dreadful writers or somethin'. Oh, I just love them books!"

"No. I'm not a writer. I haven't the imagination for it."

"Sounds to me you have! So what year is it—where you suppose you're from?"

"1965."

"1965!" she exclaimed. "Well, it's only 1882 here, darling."

Willa was a beautiful woman. She was hardly a woman. I figured her to be 18 at best, but didn't ask her for fear of the answer. I got the feeling she didn't care for me talking about Esther. She flirted with me, but I knew she was Black Bart's girl. The whisky, however, didn't care.

Now, there have been many Black Barts in the history of the universe—maybe dozens of them. There are probably thousands across the universe. But this Black Bart was the baddest of them all. Six and a half feet tall, round as a barrel, and mean as a wet ape. And when he got wind that his Willa, the prettiest girl in all of Wildwood, was flirting with Cowboy Cody, it could only be settled by a duel and with one of us left to rot in a pine box.

There I was on a strange planet in a strange room so large it could be mistaken for a wild west town. A glass ceiling that lit up by day and was dark by night—naturally or unnaturally—I don't know. There were birds, and rattlesnakes, and dust—even tumbleweed rolling about. But the road that led out of town only went so far and it ended in painted rocks on a wall. If you didn't know any better, or if you didn't care to know any better, you might have thought it all was real. Or maybe they all just wanted to believe it so badly that they did.

I wondered what they thought or where they came from. But when I asked Willa and the others, they all seemed convinced that they were born in the time and live naturally in Wildwood. And that Wildwood is in Arizona. And that when they die they will likely be buried on Cemetery Hill where everyone else has been buried.

When it was high noon on a Sunday and I had to face the aggrieved Black Bart, I wasn't worried. Frankly, I was pretty tired of it all and I was half drunk. I was sure I wasn't going to see Esther again, or Kilgore, Texas. No longer had I the optimism of Jay Gatsby. I was Gatsby in the pool with George Wilson's bullet in me—killing all of my hopes and dreams. I was doomed.

I wasn't a bad shot. I practiced some under the tutelage of Gus. He said it wasn't about speed so much as it was about form and accuracy. A hand that's steady beats one that's fast, he emphasized. I had never fired a gun before, but before I knew it, it was high noon and time to meet Black Bart. Time to shoot it out and get it over with. To kill or be killed.

The day came and it went. A gentle breeze blew in the street kicking up a swirling dust that appeared like effigies of the devil. A sun blazed outside of the glass ceiling and shot down upon us like rays through a child's magnifying glass. I sweat. Black Bart sweat. Everyone who lined the streets to watch us sweat. A stagecoach arrived with absurd alien tourists. They were dressed up like bedazzled bougie cowboys and cowgirls, snorting and bleating their conspicuous laughter. A lot of rhinestones and pearly snap buttons and cowboy cats embroidered on the shoulders of their gaudy rayon shirts.

They all smiled as they stepped out of the stagecoach into the heat. Their bodies made some sort of adjustment and I noticed their eyes changing color. No one but me looked at them like they were strange with their missing ears and noses, their bald heads hidden under the ostentatious ruse of garish cowboy hats, their silver peaked skin, and clear eyes. This entire charade was of their machination.

But now Black Bart was in front of me, staring at me like a grotesque black beetle. His arms bowed out to his sides like wings, staring me down. Willa appeared out of nowhere to plead to him to let me be, but he pushed her aside and she fell in the dirt street. Then she picked herself up, dusted herself off, gave me a fierce look of support, and ran away crying. I closed my eyes. Maybe I wouldn't draw at all. Maybe I'd just let him shoot me. Maybe this is the way they make rodeo burgers—out of the meat of dead gunfighters. It was all theater.

But I was guilty after all. This close to my unnatural end I must confess that I had made love to Willa in my hotel room the night we met two days earlier. I made love to her again the next day, and also the day after that in a field of prairie grass. I was insatiable and simply couldn't help myself because she reduced me to my most primal wolfish self. Barbie Swoon had corrupted me. I felt starved for love and affection, and I had given up hope that I would ever see Esther again. It was silly to think that I would when I had no control.

All I could think of was Willa's beautiful stomach—the freckles around her navel and the dragonfly that played upon her naked flesh after we made love in the lush prairie grass of a field outside of town—where she said maybe we could build our home. That dragonfly was the first insect I had seen in Wildwood. It was a curious and meticulous detail meant to fool anyone from knowing any better. Why would they create an insect of all things?

Willa was even more beautiful than Barbie Swoon, but there was an absence to her that I could not place. Perhaps, it lied in her refusal to believe my account of how I arrived in Wildwood. Or for the fact that she felt she was on Earth and not Kalgon—living in a 19th century gold rush town rather then like a mouse in a large room—and believing that there were more than just walls that surrounded her. She believed she could take a train east to St. Louis or west to San Francisco—a train that sat idle at the station blowing off steam but never going anywhere. She perfected the "ignorance is bliss" attitude. But it might have been that I simply did not know women as well as I thought. They were new to me.

Black Bart got off the first shot and I shot back, a little slower, but only a fraction of a second later. We stood there for a moment and everyone gawped at us, wondering who was hit or if we both had missed. I soon realized that I had not been shot just as Black Bart staggered forward, drooling blood. He dropped his black revolver in the dirt, then fell to his knees before falling flat upon his face. He lied there like a black puddle.

The flock of alien tourists chirped and squealed and awkwardly applauded. The townsfolk cheered as well, celebrating the death of BB—as they called him—the terror of Wildwood. I didn't know he had killed more innocent people than the plague. That he had shot down at least fifteen other gunfighters before me. I holstered my gun and went to see the dead brute who lay like a black shadow twenty paces or so away. I wanted to make sure he wasn't suffering and to finish him off if so. It was, after all, the right thing to do.

Gus called for me to stop and said that he handled all the dead in these parts. He hobbled out to take care of the body, but he didn't make it in time to cut me off. I turned Black Bart over with my boot, anxious to see where I got him. But instead of guts or blood spilled all over the dirt, there was nothing but circuits and wires and a pool of what looked like used motor oil. He had a most unnatural expression upon his contorted face. His eyes were crossed and his black tongue protruded from his clenched yellow teeth. He wasn't human at all—he was an android. Gus got to me and put his hand upon my shoulder but didn't say a thing. One day, long ago, he must have had the same realization.

The aliens packed up in their stagecoach and rolled away, probably through another door that was well-hidden from view. I had searched for the door I came through but couldn't find it. There were no exit signs in Wildwood, but there were exits and there were many eyes.

Willa came to me later that evening as I sat getting drunk at the saloon. It seemed that just about everyone came and slapped me on the back offering me congratulations and a drink. None of them were real—including Willa. I didn't have much to say. She said she loved me and wanted me to stay in Wildwood with her. She said she hoped we could raise a family and maybe have a dog. A dog that could shepherd the sheep and the children. I imagined all of Kalgon was watching through her pretty eyeballs. All I could think of were those freckles upon her stomach and that dragonfly from when we made love out on the prairie.

They expected me to give them a happy fucking ending. To say something romantic. To make love again somewhere or to ride off into the sunset. Instead, I drew my Colt .45 and leveraged it against her pretty head. She smiled at me, not understanding fear. No one in the saloon stopped to look at us. They all smiled and offered me congratulations and drinks as before. No one seemed to be bothered as I cocked the hammer back and took a long deep breath. If I pulled the trigger I would be rebelling against Rodeo Burger on behalf of humanity. I would be saying that humans and androids are not interchangeable. We are not the same. If I didn't, I'd be saying we are.

"Mr. Cody, don't you want to make love again? Wouldn't you like to make love? I would like for you to make love to me. Make love to me," she implored.

She smiled, batting her lashes over her big amber eyes that were flecked with gold. She got everything she had ever wanted in her artificial life—if she ever really wanted anything at all. It isn't easy to take a life—not even a fake one. I pulled the trigger, and she fell to the ground. She glitched as she did so, repeating the same line over and over. "Wouldn't you like to make love. Wouldn't you like to make love. Wouldn't—you—you—you like to—to—to—make—love—love—love."