Wisconsin Cowboy Lullaby (1989)
There’s almost nothing to this very short story. But I’m telling it because it led me to write a piece of music I’ve grown quite fond of over the years.
It was October 1989 and I was at a sparsely attended Homecoming game at Camp Randall, the stadium in Madison where the Badgers football team played. Back then, the Wisconsin Badgers were a lost cause, an embarrassment with a 5-year losing streak capping off a previous 10-year losing streak. The next year, Barry Alvarez would be appointed and he’d coach the team to its historic formidable status and most number of wins in Wisconsin football history. But back in 1989 that was still the unforeseeable.
I was sitting in the bleachers, Section P it was I believe, along with the smattering of other students who bothered to come. I had no real interest in the game, but I lived close by on Lathrop Street and I thought being in the Homecoming crowd was a sort of fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Right off, this young man with a cowboy hat, twinkling eyes, brown hair and boy-next-door good looks came up and sat next to me. He said his name was Brian, pleased to meet you.
Here’s the thing about late fall in Wisconsin. The temperature can change 20 degrees in either direction before you can finish your bratwurst. It was during Wisconsin winters that I learned that if you looked out the window and it was snowing, you knew it was nice and warm. If you saw bright clear skies, chances are it’s too cold to snow. “It’s been trying to snow all day,” people would say, “but it’s just too darn cold”.
My seat was in the sun most of the time, and life was perfect. Watching a game where I’d be equally happy which side won, I was feeling that lazy, optimistic freedom of a Saturday, the kind you know to bask in before it gives way to the dull dread of a Sunday afternoon.
Then sometime in the game, our spot went into the shade, and the temperature dropped a good 10 degrees. Pretty soon, a wind picked up. Right away I felt cold. I was wearing a heavy sweatshirt over a longsleeved t-shirt, which was just snug and toasty with the sun on you but nothing that stood up to any wind. And then it got really, really cold.
Brian turned to me and said, I can hear your teeth chattering. I thought that only happened in Tom and Jerry cartoons.
I said, I’m fine.
He said, I can hear your teeth chattering. It’s real funny. And he laughed, as if he were really delighted.
Then he took off his jacket and said, here put this on.
I said I’m fine, I said.
Before I knew it, he grabbed my arm up and pulled a sleeve on, then the other arm, and by then it made more sense to finish the job than to try and take it off.
Then he said,”Feel better, eh-na”.
I’ll always remember that. Suddenly I liked him a lot.
But I laughed, and he asked, What’s funny?
I grinned back at him and said, “eh-na”. And he turned away, sheepish. I felt bad.
He thought I was making fun of him, whereas I only laughed because it caught me by surprise. Only people from certain parts of Wisconsin, like Sheboygan or Fond du Lac, say that. These days when I hear the English say “init”, it reminds me of this.
I sure felt warmer but it wasn’t because of the jacket. I was flushed from the embarrassment of wearing a jacket off someone I had caused to feel shame, someone kind enough in the first place to offer it to a stranger too dumb to bring his own on a late fall day.
But Brian’s good nature sprang back immediately. We half-watched the game, half-talked. I can’t recall anything I said but I mostly recall what he said. He said the thing he liked most was being a rodeo cowboy. I said I didn’t know nothing about rodeo except maybe Aaron Copland’s ballet music. He raised an eyebrow at me, like I wasn’t making any sense. Which, really, I wasn’t. He said there was some rodeo around New Year’s Eve he couldn’t wait for, and he maybe would ride his first bull there instead of a bronc. He was already an old hand at all kinds of roping. You never been to a rodeo, maybe you wanna come with.
During one of the timeouts, or maybe it was the third quarter field change, I wanted to buy him beer so we went out. Though some people snuck it in, beer wasn’t allowed in the bleachers and we drank it at someone’s tailgate on the streets, where there were possibly just as many people as in the stadium on account of it being Homecoming weekend.
He was only in Madison for the day, and had to head back up north soon. I didn’t catch the name of the town, but it was near Fond du Lac. He said he couldn’t stay for the end of the game. Then he pushed up his hat and gave me a quick kiss on the mouth. Right out there in the open. He turned up the fleecy collar of the jacket on me, as if my neck needed some looking after. He flashed a smile that came through his eyes more than his mouth, and left like he was in a hurry.
It was so quick. I only remembered after several moments that I was still wearing his jacket. That was the last I saw of him.
For a couple of years I kept the jacket, a rough blue denim with a white fake fur fleece lining. Then during one of the many house moves I made, I gave it to a young man I liked and who reminded me of Brian. I didn’t tell him how I got it. I was learning that true kindness is unconditional, freely given with nothing expected in return, and tacitly you understand it’s something you pay forward.
Some memories are perfect. Still, I have a rule now that I always ask for someone’s phone number, whether or not I have the intention of calling. You never know how you’ll feel in twenty years.
I wrote this piano piece as a lullaby because Brian was so hang-loose and carefree and peaceful. Like a lullaby.
The Badgers won that day, by the way. It was a day for rare things.
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