Tom Robbins - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Well, that development wasn't entirely unexpected. The next one was, though. The announcer informed his listeners that Rubber Rose forewoman Delores del Ruby was free on bond, her bail having been paid by the owner of the besieged ranch, Countess Products, Inc. The surprising and puzzling announcement that the Countess was going Ms. del Ruby's bail came from the tycoon's personal adviser, a certain Dr. Robbins of New York.

109.

THAT NIGHT, Sissy and Jelly lay under the same stars, under the same clouds, under the same blankets, under the same spell. Like political candidates, they frequently switched positions. In the campaign of 69, the polls didn't close until dawn.

As dawn's famous rosy fingers grasped the life preserver of the horizon, the early-rising cranes overheard Jelly say, “Every time I tell you that I love you, you flinch. But that's your problem.”

Answered Sissy, “If I flinch when you say you love me, it's both our problems. My confusion becomes your confusion. Students confuse teachers, patients confuse psychiatrists, lovers with confused hearts confuse lovers with clear hearts.” She chuckled at her awkward aphorism. “I think I need to see the Chink,” she added quietly.

“I think so, too,” said Jellybean. “We cowgirls got two days now with nothing to do but play word games with lawyers. Why don't you slip away for the ridge?”

“I will,” said Sissy. And as the new day pulled itself onto the deck of the prairie, she did.

110.

SHE HADN'T INTENDED it to go like this. When it had happened in her mind, it had happened differently. In her mind, there had been a fond embrace, a cool dipper of water to tame her thirst after the steep climb, a restful sitting in the shade of a rock and wise words filtered through a Sunday school beard, words that barked and snapped at the fleeing heels of confusion.

In her mind, he had kept his robe on, at least until bedtime. There had been no hand in her pants, not right off the bat. And certainly he had had more to say than “Ha ha ho ho and hee hee.”

Expectations v. Realizations . We all remember that old case. In truth, he had spoken more than sniggerese. Immediately upon seeing her — only the rocks know how long he had been watching her climb — he had laughed “Ha ha ho ho and hee hee,” but then he had nodded from thumb to thumb and said, “That's wonderful. I like that combination. Now you're balanced.”

“Balanced?” Sissy had asked. “Balanced? but one's short and skinny and the other long and plump.”

“Don't confuse symmetry with balance,” he had answered.

In vain, Sissy waited for an elaboration. Instead of a discourse on opposites and paradox, however, there had been another snigger. Then it was off with jumpsuit and robe. The reader can guess what followed, although the reader probably couldn't guess with what frequency and duration. Were he obliged to do so, the author could describe it: each drip of sweat, each contraction of muscle, each pant, each moan, each slish of slippery tissue. Were he of a mind to, the author could make you hear slurps as plainly as if you were the briny Popsicle that was being licked; could make you smell the rising tide of toadstool musk as sharply as if he had pulled the funky blankets over your head. However, such descriptive passages might be misconstrued to be an appeal to your prurient interest. Moreover, the author has other data to impart, and the twentieth century is running out of pages. So, let what is sufficient suffice. Until Sissy and the Chink are on their feet again, the author is going to turn his back on them and read the newspaper. Here, I'll read it aloud. On page 31, we find

HOUSEHOLD HINTS

Dear Heliose: What does one use to polish rosebuds?

G.S.

Dear G. S.: Bluebird spit and sugar should do the trick. Apply with a bee muff.

Heloise

111.

OKAY, THEY'RE THROUGH NOW. They can barely walk to the cliff edge to watch the sunset, the naughty kids. In retrospect, though, we must consider that the Chink was trying to help Sissy chase her confusion. Having spent the night making love with Jellybean, had she not then spent the day making love with the Chink there could have been no accurate comparison. And the Chink might have thought a comparison necessary, although he would not have seen any necessity for a choice.

Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need. Perhaps there are times when the contradictions of love are so intermingled that the only way to see the truth of love is to pit it against the irreducible reality of lust.

Of course, love can never be stripped bare of illusion, but simply to arrive at an awareness of illusion is to hold hands with truth — and sometimes the hard light of lust affords just such an awareness.

At any rate, it was a calm and satiated Sissy who stood on the parapets of Siwash Ridge, watching snowy specks of whooping cranes melt in the dusk. Neither Jelly nor the Chink occupied her thoughts; instead, a quiet ecstasy gathered around her immediate sense of awareness of her own illusions, and that ecstatic overview filled the spaces between her and the distant lake.

“What do you think of this business of the cowgirls and the cranes?” she asked. It no longer seemed absurd to her that it had taken an entire day for them to broach the subject.

Was that a sigh that elbowed its way through the tangles of the smoky beard, or was it the higher octaves of an exhausted snigger? “The cranes are beautiful. For that matter, so are the cowgirls. It's a shame they're relating to each other in such a compromising way.”

“I think I share your feelings,” said Sissy. “The cranes are still skittish — they insist on a certain distance and maintain some integrity — but I can't help seeing them as being rather like pets now. Domesticated. It was you who taught me. .”

“I've never taught you anything.”

“Oh, shut up, you old turkey!” Sissy laughed. It was almost a snigger. To keep the Chink from turning away and escaping the dialogue, she seized his limp member and held fast. She was learning how to deal with him. “It was you who made me aware that the domestication of animals was one of history's major mistakes, a devastating error not only in terms of ecology, but in terms of the psychological and philosophical consequences that are still being suffered. You know, I don't really hate dogs per se, or even dog owners; it's the idea of pethood that turns me off, the taming of wild things, the use of animals as surrogate children — or surrogate lovers.” She pondered a moment, without loosening a fraction her grip on the Chink's dick. “It's ironic, isn't it? All the great agrarian cultures of old Europe were matriarchal; then along came the nomadic herds-men from Central Asia with their love of the bull and their concomitant belief in penis power. The herding tribes gradually overran the feminist states, replacing the Great Mother with God the Father, substituting the Christian death trip for the pagan glorification of life, venerating beasts ahead of vegetation and oh, yeah, let's see, placing the notion of spirit ahead of the fact of matter — you first called my attention to this, you fart. The women who planted, cultivated, harvested and got high were crowded from their central position by men who drifted from worn-out pasture to virgin pasture, fighting and getting drunk. Well, it's ironic. Because cowgirls are, by their very name, herders. And these particular Rubber Rose cowgirls not only keep horses and goats, they've semidomesticated the grandest, wildest flock of birds in the world. Ironic.”