Cowboy, Circa 1982

I thought he was masquerading, even though it was morning and too early for a costume. In my mind, I wondered if he had dressed up the night before, if he went to a costume party where he decided to don the clothes of a cowboy. The bandana looked like he recently pulled it from being wrapped around his neck to cover his nose and mouth, to make him only partially recognizable. It was the early eighties after all, and Village People costumes, the policeman, the construction worker, and the cowboy were still the rage. The thought of this made me want to laugh, to think that this guy hadn't been home since he dressed like the cowboy in the Village People, on his way home from wherever he had spent the night and wanted to pick up a pack of cigarettes. I kept staring at him from behind the register, smiling at him, with his faded blue jeans, plaid shirt untucked, and the bright bandana no longer around his neck but now covering him so that I only could see his dark eyes. They were the color of the river and just as watery. It didn't strike me that he was missing the one essential item to make the costume complete—his hat. This thought coincided perfectly with the appearance of the gun he pulled from his pocket. This Village People guy on his way home from the night before was now going entirely too far. I continued to stare at him, noticing that his hair, minus a Stetson, was shockingly wavy and unrestrained. And I kept searching for some sign of the hat so the costume could be complete and rationalized. I wanted nothing better than to laugh, to see him grandly gesticulate the letters Y, M, C, A.

Because it was chrome, the gun readily captured the store’s fluorescent lighting. I noticed great globs of light on the gun that made it look like some stellar, spotted cowhide. The reflected light dripped over the chrome in messy puddles. As he held it, I wondered if the chrome gun caught his reflection, maybe warping it somehow. If he glanced down, certainly he would notice himself, distorted, with wily hair and a plaid shirt, sans hat, the bandana covering his lips and nose. Would he see himself looking like the cowboy from the Village People? Would the distortion make him stop? Was his date waiting in the car? Was the construction worker or fireman—some other Village Person passed out in the back seat? Had he stood before a mirror affixing a fake mustache then later peeling it off, failing to realize that it gave him more authenticity? Was it now on the dashboard of the car collecting particles of lint, looking at first glance like a tarantula? No doubt, he needed a hat for full effect. Would he put the gun away like it was a joke and then make me laugh? Making me laugh was now bordering somewhere between the imperative and the impossible. He read my mind.

“You might think that I am joking, but this is not a joke.”

The bandana muffled his voice. Now, both hands were on the gun that held bullets and small ponds of light. It was no longer touching his own body; it was getting closer to mine. The dark barrel reminded me of a bull’s nostril minus a ring. He stepped forward, dumped all the receipts from the bag, where they fluttered to the floor like large pieces of non-celebratory ticker tape, yellow, white receipts, dark slips of carbon, and then demanded that I pile the money in the brown bag. When I finished, he made me put my hands up just like a referee signaling the field goal or point after is good. I walked like that from behind the register to where he was standing. He told me to turn around. It was then that I noticed his shoes, not leather boots but tennis shoes that were white and worn/ The epiphany came a minute too late and what I should have known long before: masked, yes, but definitely not in costume. His hands quivered, making him look capable of committing the accidental or intentional. Nothing would be spelled out, no cheery belting of that disco tune. He shoved the shiny chrome gun into my back between my kidneys where it pressed, un-fired, cool upon contact but capable of branding me with a newfound fear, this cowboy, this robber whose face I couldn't see or forget.

-Gina Ferrara

Gina Ferrara lives in New Orleans. She has five poetry collections, including her latest, Amiss, published by Dos Madres Press in 2023. Her poetry and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications including Tar River Poetry, The Southern Review and The Citron Review. She teaches at Delgado Community College and is editor of the New Orleans Poetry Journal Press.