Dead or Alive

Had the opportunity to spend a few nights near Tombstone, Arizona, last week. There are four bars in Tombstone but I only made it to three. The story goes something like this here ...

When I entered Allen Street from the north, I almost walked in at the fourth bar. But something told me to go on down the road. The place was too quiet. I could see it had perfectly good porch, an excellent view of the center of town, but nobody was there and it was too well lit up. Not my kind of place, I decided.

A few more steps and I saw one of the authentic stagecoaches was sitting idly on the other side of the street. The tired, dry horses still hitched up and shivering quietly, heads down. A grizzled old driver sat on top of the coach, leaning over to the edge while holding the motionless reins in his left hand, his gray-bearded chin resting uneasily in the cup of his right palm. He stared straight ahead and ignored my approach, looking like the most pitiful, forlorn cowboy I had ever seen. Somewhat chilled by this cold welcome, I moved on and felt a gust of wind suddenly whistle up across the the wooden boardwalk but noticed the flattened brown dirt in the road lay curiously unmoved.

After testing the other two bars in town, feeling that the sun would soon make its departure, I eventually pulled into Big Nose Kate's on the west side of the street and was introduced to a tall, dusty fellow in the front corner named Billy.

Lean and strong, with a full reddish-brown mustache crudely hiding his mouth, Billy said he had been a real Cowboy most of his life. He told bold stories of rounding up the wild cattle that roamed the deserted area between Bisbee and Albuquerque. I did not know there were wild cattle out there but he claimed it was true and at one time there had been quite a large herd running free, damn near begging to be gathered up and sold by smart men like him.

“Oh, man,” he exclaimed while reminiscing, “on those long drives we'd have three boys, each towing as many as ten horses a piece 'cuz we'd ride 'em all so hard.”

Billy wore a cowboy hat with what is called an Arizona Rancher's crunch recessed in the front. If you recall what Gus wore in Lonesome Dove, then you know what I mean.

At some point along the trail, Billy said the wild cattle herds started drying up. “Goddamn fences on the free range,” he moaned. “Might as well be a penitentiary out there today!” He spat out the word “penitentiary” several times that evening, as though it might be the only honest word which expressed his full contempt for fences of any kind.

I had driven over to Tombstone from Sierra Vista that afternoon with friends, Chicago Slim and Texas Tom. The sun was setting quickly outside and about this time a karaoke man arrived and started his show at Big Nose Kate's. After a short consideration, I chose the song that I thought Slim should sing, “Wanted: Dead or Alive” by Bon Jovi. I'd heard Slim sing this song before in some bars further east and I knew he could handle it. It was the perfect song for Tombstone, I figured. But Slim was pouting since he was our designated driver so he refused to sing for us right away while he pondered the predictable, annoying loneliness of a sober evening in a wild west karaoke bar.

Tom, who wore his own cowboy hat that night, was enthralled with Billy's stories of true western adventure. Tom lives on a small spread north of San Angelo, up near Grape Creek, and enjoys wandering around his property shooting snakes, raccoons and other little critters with his handgun. Had he not settled down and married a stern Korean woman years ago, Tom would have probably ended up a roustabout just like Billy. And he knew that deep inside, I suppose.

As the night and the cowboy stories wore on, Tom tapped me on the shoulder and stated quietly that he believed Billy may represent the last real cowboy in the west.

I disagreed and firmly replied that modern long-haul truck drivers still had my vote.

Somebody at the bar then jokingly suggested Tom's hat looked like he might be from Little Rock, Arkansas. A proud Texan, that perception made Tom shiver a bit and internally question his own appearance. Billy leaned closer to us and confided that the drunken gentleman who raised that silly point was a dumbass who had never been north of Louisiana so how the hell would he know. That made Tom feel a little better but, still, he Googled his hat the next day and was relieved to learn that his style was correctly known as “The Amarillo” instead.

Besides the existence of wild cattle wandering freely between Arizona and New Mexico, I had no idea that every cowboy hat told a story by itself or enjoyed such geographic distinction. But it makes sense to me now.

The bartender was a young dandily dressed fellow named Bret who wore a more sporty cowboy hat and carried two toy pistols in his belt. He came over to our end of the large bar and began to show off, laughing and spinning his pistols as best he could.

“That ain't no way to do it,” Billy yelled. He reached over the bar with his long arms, grabbed one of the pistols in mid-spin and began to instruct young Bret on the fine art of twirling a gun. After the eastern Arizona-western New Mexico wild cattle industry had soured, Billy had taken up a gunfighting act for tourists near the OK Corral in order to pay his few bills. Once domesticated to some degree by a less rugged form of capitalism, he had quickly learned the best way to turn a handgun around his thick fingers even though he'd never had the need to do so out on the free range. And he was quite proud of his newfound professional skill.

While spinning the gun vertically with great speed, he showed how he taught himself to push his arm forward to cause a momentary horizontal spin where the pistol seemed to hover precariously before he deftly brought his hand back in for the terminal slam into his imaginary holster.

“Whoa!” he bellowed with glee. “That there's how ya do it!”

Dandy Brett, unimpressed, twisted a half smile on his face and sulked back to bartending.

“Dumbass pansy,” Billy said, not so much under his breath, before taking a deep swallow from his long-neck bottle of original Coors beer.

Feeling a bit flushed by that display, perhaps, the drinkers at that corner of the bar silently followed Billy's lead and took a healthy sip, too.

In no time at all, Slim had recovered his confidence and agreed to sing the song. His name was finally called and as he walked to the stage a short man in a black suit, sporting a lengthy western tie and flat black hat, strolled into Big Nose Kate's through the open door behind us. The man's thin mustache was as black as his long rider's coat and it was waxed to a stiff point on each end.

He was the town's Doc Holiday reenactor who wandered around all day graciously taking pictures with the unending throng of shorts-and-sandals tourists. Doc, entirely true to his character that night, was obviously bobbing with the sluggish gate of an inebriated Faro player and carried a certain foul odor of mixed sweat and alcohol with him that confronted us all at the same time when he saddled up at the bar next to Billy.

“Hey, Don,” Billy drawled cautiously, lifting up his reddened stubby nose at the unwelcome stench.

Don/Doc Holiday, lurched a bit as if he hadn't noticed the towering, tanned cowpoke standing next to him.

“Well, well, how was your day, William?” Doc gurgled profusely with a grand wave of his hand.

“Cut the shit, Don,” snapped Billy.

Bret the dandy bartender must have sensed an urgent need as he quickly produced another Coors for Billy and a Miller Lite for Doc. “From the ladies at the table,” he lied.

Doc turned and bowed dramatically to no one person in particular.

Billy tugged the last drop of beer out of his old bottle and, in a single motion, without the slightest look in the proper direction, sent the empty one sliding off the bar top towards a hidden trash can he thought to exist in the corner. The rest of us at the bar watched as the speeding bottle passed us by, missed its target and splashed down hard on the floor.

Overcoming the din of a crashing bottle, Slim was on stage and growling the crucial verse.

“I'm a cowboy ... on a STEEL horse I ride! I'm wanted ... WANTED ... dead or alive!”

Oblivious to his sliding-empty-bottle misfire, Billy turned towards the stage and nodded his approval.

Doc slurred, “Now, William, you know you'll be talking differently to me one day soon.”

Billy straightened up from his bent lean on the bar and talked down to the small man, “I told you not to role play with me. You stay in character with me while I'm drinkin' at this bar and I'll kick your motherfuckin' ass.”

Apparently unconcerned, Doc smiled without a sound.

“You know I will,” Billy added needlessly.

Tom nudged me and quietly advised that Doc Holiday had previously voiced plans to become the new, real mayor of Tombstone. Now, that got my attention and I suddenly felt emboldened to beckon Mr. Holiday from my corner post.

“So, what's this about you running for mayor?”

Doc cemented his polished grin, turned his head to see if anyone else at the bar was listening, and confidently announced, “I am not running for mayor at this moment. But I will if need be. The current mayor is verifiable prick. He's corrupt and everyone here agrees. He even had the gall to have me arrested in the middle of the street for no good reason the other day.”

Doc finished his summary with an audible burp.

Tom poked me again and whispered, “Doc's been in contact with the Stephen Colbert show.”

“So, you're getting some national attention over this,” I offered loudly as if jolted from a sound sleep.

In a very self-assured way, Doc maintained his tight smile.

“If it brings good advertisement to this fine town, then I am very happy to support that.”

“Christ,” Billy muttered as he sucked some more Coors from his bottle.

Ignoring Billy for a moment, I drew closer to someone who seemed more familiar to me than I had first believed.

“Say, where are you from originally?”

“Kansas, sir,” came Doc's answer, his words dripping with haughty eloquence.

“Really?” I said knowingly. “I come from the Missouri side.”

“Perhaps you've attended the Renaissance Fair in Kansas?” asked Doc, suddenly transforming himself into some sort of court jester, waving his arms wide and speaking in a fake British accent. “I was the emcee there for several years. My wife is from the same area,” he added turning around again with a confused look towards the uninterested customers in the room. “She was just here, I thought. Where on earth did she go?”

“Honestly, I didn't spend much time at that place,” I answered dryly. “How did you end up here?”

Doc stiffened, “Well, I bought the theater here in town a few years ago. It was in terrible shape. I've turned it around completely now. It is doing quite well thanks to my efforts.”

Tom whispered again, “He's supposedly trying to start a recall of the current mayor.”

So much new information, and all on the record, of course. I couldn't have been more thrilled to finally be getting somewhere on a quiet night in Tombstone. I searched my mind for some balance to the scene but I couldn't control myself while the beer and the noisy karaoke must have started to drown my typically good senses. I knew I had to get to the bottom line quickly. But, in retrospect, the next question was not well thought out, aimed like one of Billy's empty bottles, more of a blurted shot somewhere over the bow, another untrained volley fading fast into life's container for missed intention and lost opportunity.

Still, taking Billy's cue, I steadied myself and fired anyway, “So, do you think you can do it?”

Twisting like a snake, Doc smiled even wider and delivered his lines slowly, at last not so much for anyone else to hear but in a way to make sure that he said exactly what he wanted the answer to be.

“I have not been asked to be mayor. But if asked to serve, I will gladly do so.”

Billy sniffed at his nearly empty bottle, kept his eyes on the stage where Slim was driving Bon Jovi home, and mumbled to himself, “... fuck me.”

As if he needed to quickly smother Billy's rude rebuke, Doc visibly lowered his chin and raised a steady forefinger before repeating himself with a slightly more serious tone.

“If asked to serve, I will gladly do so.”

With that pronouncement complete, Slim slowed the tempo up on the stage and rode the last verse like a champion.

“...Wanted! ... Dead-or-alive! Dead or Ali-i-ive! Dead or Alive ....”

“WHOA!” Billy hollered and pounded his flat hand on the bar at the last note. “Now, that was a good job!”

Without warning, the next empty Coors bottle went sliding past me in blur but again missed its target with a crash.

“Shit!” Billy realized. “I need a smoke.”

Tom and I followed Billy outside like two motherless calves and leaned up against the wooden hitching posts to light up under a cloudless night sky. I offered my Zippo to Billy but he couldn't get his lit.

It was a very cool evening in Tombstone. In fact, the whole time I was there the weather and the scenery did not exactly jive with the commonly accepted caricature of a one-horse town in the sweltering Arizona desert. I had to remind myself that the picture and the theme had been so carefully rigged to satisfy the tourist trade. Even the main street, I was told, is not what it seemed, covered as it was with Hollywood-fake dirt, some sort of chemical dry sludge that won't dust up in the ever present wind. Dressed up and remodeled to remove any historically accurate layers of grime, everything appeared very tidy for what one would call an otherwise perfectly restored wild west town. Until you kicked it around a little and saw it for what it really was, of course.

Frustrated with his cigarette, Billy pulled off the filter and tossed it to the ground. Judging by how well the local Chamber of Commerce maintained Allen Street, I imagined that was the only grounded cigarette butt for miles around and it wouldn't be long before a feverish night crew came storming in to sweep it up and carry it away from view.

Finally getting a good, straight pull from his skillfully shortened smoke, remarking that he really didn't need the filter anyway, Billy was happy. But from inside Big Nose Kate's, we could hear Doc Holiday entertaining the small crowd with his forged frontier version of “She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain” and Billy's mood turned sour again.

“You know,” I began, stirring the pot in my own way, “where I grew up, people from Doc's neck of the woods are all known to be dicks. In fact, when he said where he was from, I immediately thought, here's just another Kansas asshole.”

“Clearly,” added Tom.

“Well, you Arkansas boys got that right,” said Billy.

“Uhh, Texas ... we're from Texas,” Tom corrected.

“Yeah, well,” Billy said without pausing to reflect on Tom's sensitivity, “either way, I oughta beat the shit out of him right now.”

Tom looked soberly at me and I looked back at him. We both took deep breaths, pondering how quickly Billy's bluster could turn skinny little Doc into a small pile of bloody pulp. Together, we'd been around some and might have witnessed something like that a time or two before.

“He's not what he seems!” Billy blurted. “He's not Doc Holiday and I can't stand it when he stays in character around me. I know what he really is. I saw him slap his wife once ... I should have whipped him right then and there.”

Hearing that, I coolly agreed, saying, “Things are rarely what they seem but I didn't notice anything like that. Still ... probably nobody would blame you on that account if you did.”

Tom's eyes caught mine again, growing wide with a “what the hell are you doing?” stare.

“Well, maybe I oughta just kill him and get it over with. I could kill him,” Billy nodded and looked at us straight with eyes as blank as the dark Arizona night. He stubbed his short cigarette out with the toe of his boot, suggesting this plan to us as he might offer to watch our houses or lend us his car, while numbly repeating, “maybe I oughta just kill him.”

“Hey, uh,” Tom started with a cheery smile, “I don't know about that. If you did, you'd never get to go back out there like you want and round up the rest of those wild cattle. Right?”

“Aw, hell!” Billy hooted, his small teeth barely visible under his drooping mustache. “ Cowboying is done; them cattle's all been took up. Besides, you can't go for a hund'erd miles on the range in any direction without running into a damn fence.” Returning to previous form, he coughed and stammered, “It's like a goddamn peni-ten-tiary out there!”

I took a long drag on my cigarette, trying to think of a way out for Billy while Doc, from inside the bar, was still loudly warning us that she'd be coming around the mountain sooner or later.

“Maybe,” I said, “maybe you could go up to Montana. I bet they still have wild cattle running free up there somewhere.”

“No, no! You're right they do have wild cattle up there but, man, you don't understand at all,” Billy pleaded

“I couldn't show my face up in Montana,” he continued. “There's a Cowboy .... uh, um, ... there's a Cowboy Code, don't ya know? That's their territory and I would not be welcome at all. They'd as soon kill me as look at me.”

He stood for a moment, then rested his butt back on the hitching post in front of the bar. I could sense his rapid agitation at the casual idea of trespassing in Montana was now resolving its way all down his spine, leaving him fatigued like a spent prize fighter. I quietly marveled at the thought that murdering Doc was an option here but a Montana trip was not in the cards.

“Them boys up there'd kill me,” Billy's explained with tired eyes, “flat-out kill me.”

Still desperately trying to change the subject, Tom pointed to a couple young trees on the other side of the street. “Do you think those were here back in the old days?” he asked.

“Naw,” Billy answered softly. “Town Council had 'em planted a few months ago. Don't know why, never no trees on Allen Street before. But I guess they look OK.”

I sighed and realized we had no good way out of this mess. Billy was stuck in an unreal world that he hated, working beside charlatans and hucksters that he despised. But he had bought into the charade, owed his existence to it now, and whether his dreams were fabricated or once a true reflection of his actual experience didn't matter. Chances are, either way, in spite of its glorified motto as a town too tough to die, he knew the Tombstone that he remembered had in fact perished a long time ago and the modern barriers of expedience and comfort would not allow the dirty truth to come to life ever again.

I dropped my cigarette into a large planter on the boardwalk and smiled at Billy.

“You know, Billy, I'm starting to feel like you now,” I said. “Everywhere we go, seems like the fences are all getting nearer, closing in on us or something. Not too sure who I'm sorrier for, the wild cattle or us. But, to be honest, all this talk about killin' and cowpokin' is startin' to make me feel sorta tuckered out.”

Billy folded his arms and passed a toothy grin at Tom. Tom looked at me. Then we all started laughing. Drunken, big belly laughs of relief that probably hadn't echoed authentically down Allen Street in a hundred years.

Since whoever she was had probably long since come around the mountain, Chicago Slim walked out of the bar and shook his head in disgust at three happy drunks whooping it up on the boardwalk in Tombstone, Arizona.

Intuitively knowing it was time, he put both hands on his hips and barked his orders.

“We're done! Let's go home!”

Without complaint, we shook hands with Billy and made our goodbyes.

Walking north out of town, not really trying to keep up with Slim who raced ahead to the rental car, Tom and I moseyed along about as slow as we could go, like we didn't really want to leave. I lit a pre-ride cigarette to get me home and, as we passed the fourth bar again, Tom read the name on the sign out loud but I still can't remember what he said. He mentioned that it looked clean and inviting, though. Maybe we'd have to stop in there next time, he advised.

Tom then nudged me with his elbow like he always does and asked, “So, what'd ya think? Wasn't that fun? I love this place! Probably a good thing my wife won't let me live here, I guess. I'd be in those bars all the time! Did ya think Billy was for real or what? Wasn't he the last of the real cowboys?”

“Hmm ... maybe,” I said, answering everything with one honest word as I tossed my still burning cigarette down into the virgin, fake dirt of Allen Street.

“Then again, maybe not.”

Cheers,
Mb