True Bull

By Colorado T. Sky and Lace Letellier

I started out as a bull.

Granted, it was among the more humble of beginnings, not exactly a log cabin, but we did have a split-rail fence around the part of the pasture. We also had an electric fence for a while… pissin’ on that, oooh! What a thrill! But that’s for another story.

As you may have guessed, being a bull is not particularly exciting. I didn’t get selected for a career in Veal, which is just as well. It’s sweet, but short. I spent most of my time frolicking around in the pastures, if you can call it frolicking. Eating grass (I would have smoked it, but matches are hard to come by when you’re a bull and hooves are no good at all for rolling), drinking from the babbling brooks, flirting with the cows. They’re cute, but all that nonsense about big udders is just, well, bullshit.

We bulls don’t have much of a life, actually. Granted, I was fairly famous in my younger days. I had a short but colorful career in the rodeo before I went into modeling, appearing in ads for a tobacco company who named a brand of cigarette after me (the “Durham” part was my North Carolina hometown), and I was the front man –uh, front “bull”-- for a high-dollar investment firm (which probably went a long way toward getting that statue of me erected down on Wall Street). It wasn’t all glory, though. I lost a truck endorsement to a goat and turned down a shot at a sports drink contract. They got Fernando to do that one. He’s a little “wingy” anyway, but such is life. I retired and went out to “stud.”

Stud duty was nice; a fresh cow every day and two on Sundays. I did pretty well until the County Extension Service started promoting their “glass tube” treatment. Then I suddenly found myself obsolete, pink-slipped, “R.I.F.’ed,” and generally out on my ass. Just as I was about to be bored to death, along came a break in the routine. Good thing, too. I was ready for just about anything to get out of the monotony. We were loaded on a truck and I thought, wow! Road trip! Finally, a night on the town!

Well, I got that part kind of wrong. Real wrong, actually. I thought I heard the driver say we were going to “Knockers” and I figured, well, I don’t mean to brag, but with horns like mine I never go lonesome. It turned out that we weren’t going to “Knockers,” but to “the knackers,” the slaughterhouse. I went from “a little disappointed” right into flat-out pissed off. I tell ya, I saw red.

They herded us off the truck. It was nice to get a little air after that stuffy ride. The yard was kind of mucky, but the building was nice and clean and bright. I started down a narrow hallway, anxious to see what they had planned for me. At the end was this guy with a big smile and an even bigger sledgehammer.

That was when all the lights went out.

My next thought was that I was floating above my body which, by then, was hanging by a chain around a rear hoof while a team of humans went at me with knives and a chainsaw. It actually took me a minute to figure out that I was dead.
Strangely enough, it didn’t seem all that bad. In fact, it was right along about then when things really started to get interesting. I’ll tell ya, folks, I never had it this good when I was alive.

Such was the beginning of a whole new chapter of my life.

By the time the guys with the knives finished, I was a stack of steaks that looked so good that even I got hungry, a freezer full of roasts and ribs and a couple hundred pounds of the most delectable burger you ever wrapped a grin around. Hey, face facts, folks: when yer good, yer good, even if yer dead.

If I do say so m’self, I left ‘em a pair of Rocky Mountain Oysters about the size of softballs, bigger than any they’d seen in years. My skull was on its way to be the hood ornament on some Texas yuppie shitkicker’s Cadillac (it’s about as close as that pointy-toed peckerwood “cowboy” will ever get to a cow), while my snout, lips and asshole were slated for Spam and my hide –my lovely hide—was off to the tanners.

To tell you the truth, I was hoping for some more fashionable color, something contemporary, y’know? Maybe some of those racing team colors that Vanson stitches up so pretty, or even something pink (hey, I’m a 21st century bull, in touch with my feminine side). I could dig snuggling up to Shirley Muldowney or Danica Patrick, y’know?

Alas an’ alack an’ shit, I was shaved, tanned and dyed gloss black. Still, ya can’t beat Basic Black and ya can’t get more basic than dead. All in all, it was pretty nice. Kinda like a spa day, y’know? Once I was skinned, my hide was off to be shaved (“exfoliated” I think they call it), tanned (totally tanned… no bikini lines, no pale spots), and dyed (not “died,” dummy, “dyed”). I’ll tell ya folks, that last oil press treatment was way better than anything Eve Arden has to offer.

So I hung out, drying and curing for a while, then I was off to one of the best leather tailors in the country, maybe even the world, to be patterned, snipped and stitched. By the time they were done with me, more than thirty pieces had gone into the finest, sharpest-looking gloss-black, knee-length, double-breasted, triple-stitched cantilevered Police Special coat you ever saw. Biggest, too: I came in at a 56-long. It wasn’t until later that I found out I’d been custom-tailored; no rack for me, bro. Out of the factory and freighted off to my new owner, a state police lieutenant who just loved to ride.

This guy patrolled his stretch of Interstate –wearing me, of course-- on that fat white FLH nine or ten months a year. He practically lived on that machine, and he took real good care of me, too! I’d get a good polishing practically every weekend. If I got caught in the rain, I’d get a mink oil rubdown when I got home. When not out cruising, I lived on a dressmaker’s dummy in the corner of his living room. No plastic hangers for me, matey. I was living the high life. After about a year I had gotten him suitably “broken in.” After two years, he was getting really comfortable.

I suppose I knew I’d wear out eventually, but the end came suddenly, as it so often does.

About ten or twelve years down the road the Lieutenant an’ I took a helluva spill. I didn’t get a good look at what was goin’ down, but he had gotten a call on the radio, then hit the lights and the whooper. We were hummin’ along at about the speed of sound when all of a sudden all hell broke loose.

I heard a crash, a bang, a crunch and a long, painful screech as that FLH went from gleaming to screaming, across four lanes of traffic, a ricochet off the guard rail and back into traffic. Next thing I knew, I was ass over epaulets along the while line and in and out of the passin’ lane. It was too tumblin’ to be a roll, too rollin’ to be a skid, and too skiddin’ to be a tumble. All in all, it sucked. There was a long patch roadrashed through my left sleeve almost all the way to the bone. One side of my collar was about ripped off, the buckle got torn off my belt, I skinned my right assflap, dinged my badge and lost an epaulet replete with a gold Lieutenant’s bar.

The “el-tee” was in even worse shape. He broke stuff that I can’t even pronounce. Regardless of what ya might think about cops, no biker –and biker he was, to the tune of ten or fifteen thousand miles a year, even if it was his “day job”-- deserves to end up under a high-speed slambang like that. He spent almost six weeks in the hospital and another six months in therapy learning how to walk again. It took him more than a year before he could ride again but by then he had retired and his fellow troopers had thrown him a racket and presented him with a brand new coat.

The following spring I was discovered in the back of the hall closet where his ol’ lady had unceremoniously tossed me after she went to visit him his first day in the hospital. Whoa, baby, was she pissed! She didn’t much like his riding anyway, and pretty much took it out on me. He found me back there and pulled me out and dusted me off and was surveying the damage when she walked in.

He had just about figured out what it would take to put me back in shape when she came in and started with the “oh, honey, I can’t bear to look at it, blah blah blah” (She never did like me all that much, probably on account of he an’ I spending all that “quality time” riding together. I suppose it’s all right… I was never all that hot on her, either). Still, I’m not the one married to her, so he had to do what he had to do to get her off it, y’know?

It was ultimate indignity: after almost a dozen years of loyal service, well over a hundred thousand miles together, and almost a year crouched in the back of a closet, I was relegated to a yard sale.

I spent my first day out of darkness hanging on that same dressmaker’s dummy parked on a hot asphalt driveway in the blazing sunshine. I spent my first night out of the closet getting’ drizzled on. The second day wasn’t lookin’ a whole helluva lot better.

It was a little after noon, and the sun, while drying me, had speckled me with rainspots, making me look more like a leopard than a bull. I was just hanging there, feeling sorry for myself, when all of a sudden I heard that familiar throaty rumble, only louder. By the end of the afternoon, I’d been bought by a local biker who bungied me to his saddlebags and drove me on home.

Such was the beginning of a whole new chapter of my death.

Once unlashed at his crib (a small garage with an even-smaller apartment over it), I was spread out across what passed for kitchen table (it had a small bar at one end and an engine rebuilding stand at the other) and saddle-soaped within an inch of my life, er… death. I could feel his callused hands loosening my creases, softening my folds, limbering me up again as he checked my skidmarks, roadrash and missing pieces. It was very therapeutic. It made me feel almost bovine again.

He opened his toolbox (prominent beside, and bigger than, his refrigerator) and rummaged around for a minute or two. He carefully inspected me and, with a tape measure in one hand, he chalked around the heaviest damage with piece of welder’s soapstone, adorning me with a veritable roadmap of lines, arrows, Xs, and other landmarks. The next day he spun me down to the local cobbler’s and, with much gesturing, detailed the upcoming restoration. They could rebuild me, they had the technology and I was in for a bunch of fairly extensive surgery.

There were sutures by the dozens, an assflap graft and a full sleeve transplant. It wasn’t easy but then again it wasn’t really painful, either (I had noticed that I’d felt a lot less pain since I’d died). I never did get that epaulet replaced, but I think it lends me a bit of style, kind of like a scar or a limp, y’know. A couple of days later, I was back at the crib for a final touch-up with boot polish and mink oil and I was ready to roll.

The following morning, I hit the road again for the first time in well over a year and I had my proverbial eyes opened big time. Going from the strictly regimented lifestyle of the State Police barracks to my new life as a biker’s constant companion was almost as big a shock as dying.

For one thing, it was practically a new road every day. The places at the “ends” of the roads were pretty weird, too (they weren’t really “ends,” actually, just kind of rest areas along the long and dusty trail). There were the pubs, saloons and poolhalls, the garages, shops and gas stations that enjoyed –and sometimes catered to—the biker trade. Establishments whose music, chrome and topless dancing provided a welcome respite from the rigors of the road. They were always glad to see us, and I was always glad to get out and about, even the times we got caught in the rain, pulled over or broke down. Not that there weren’t other rewards of being a biker; the long hours alone on empty, unmarked backroads, the fervor of the great gatherings, Daytona, Bowling Green, Sturgis, Cody, the Rendezvous. Life at its high-speed, high-mileage, caught-in-a-thunderstorm best!

Still, ya know it was too good to last.

We’d been touring for seven or eight years, good weather and bad, old roads and new, meeting folks, making friends, some of ‘em pretty off the wall, but all of ‘em solid and reliable. They came from all walks of life and all kinds of neighborhoods, but where that shithead in the Saab came from, I’ll never know. It was like he fell out of the sky and landed right there in front of us. I think he was backing out of a driveway (and right into our path) but he was movin’ so fast I don’t thing the fool even knew what kind of evasive action we had to take just to get away from him.

Yep… down again.

I took most of the damage in the right sleeve this time, and my assflap was gone completely. Still, my new riding partner had become somewhat attached to me (unlike the Lieutenant’s ol’ lady) and decided that having some of me around was better than having none of me around. He sent me back to the cobbler’s for another major operation on what was left of my right sleeve (it came with assurance that there’s be no saving it if I went down again, and the best I could hope for was to live the rest of my life… er, death, as an amputee.

Going down is always dismal, and my third time perhaps even more so than the first. Still, I had character. I ended up with my sleeves amputated just past the shoulder seam so I flared a bit over his shoulders, my one epaulet still adorned with a battered gold lieutenant’s bar. Luckily, even a double-amputee jacket can have a successful career as a vest) then he brought me home, tore out the tattered remnants of my lining, trimmed me off at the waist and riveted my belt in place, punched a set of grommet-holes up and down my sides, laced me up and took me out. It was great! I was about the only double-breasted vest around, sharp-looking and virtually theft-proof. I mean, hey, even if somebody stole me, where were they gonna hide me? And just in time for a rich, therapeutic mink-oil massage and a “hibernation hang” in the garage with the bikes, all of us together, waiting for spring.

The following year was too smooth to be trusted. I should have known when spring came early and, for the first time ever, he was ready for it. I must admit that I wasn’t as alert as I might have been, or should have been. The past few years with my new partner had lulled me into a false sense of security and I suppose I knew that I was getting too complacent for my own good. Hell, I was more than old enough to drink, I should have been payin’ attention.

Somehow, I knew my fourth crash would be my last.

Of course, we all know the old adage about there being two kinds of bikers; those who have gone down, and those who haven’t… yet. It was a sunny summer afternoon a couple or three years later when the bimbo in the Ovlov, far too busy putting on her lipstick and talking on her phone to see who else was on the road with her, punched an illegal left through a yellow light and we went down after hitting a patch of unprocessed sewage from an unclosed drain on some geriatric tourist’s RV –truly an ignominious end to so brilliant a career—I knew was going to be my long last slide. I did my duty an’ saved his hide at the expense of mine. Of course, I didn’t save him any broken bones (try as I might). He took it hard that time; no roadrash, but a half-dozen broken bones, an eye, a piece of one ear and a helluva concussion.

I was inconsolable. I was also irreparable. There was nothing left of me but a few meager scraps, a scuffed belt and, yes, one raggedy-assed epaulet with a battered gold lieutenant’s bar.

Still, as bad as it gets, it can always get worse.

My riding partner was as concerned about my injuries as he about his; the only difference being that, eventually, he’d heal.

I knew that healing was out of the question for somebody who’d been dead as long as I had, but I underestimated my partner in a couple of ways; first, in his attachment to –maybe even affection for-- me and, second, his ingenuity.

A couple of hours’ worth of work with a couple of garrison belts, a leather punch and a bag of rivets, and I was a shite-hot, brand-new-rebuilt kidney belt. He even managed to straighten that lieutenant’s bar out and mount it dead center on the back between the belts and the beltloops. Nice touch.

My damn near final demise came not in an accident, but in a garage fire.

In the wee hours of the morning, something went wrong and the whole place went up. I don’t mean to brag, but I knew how fond of me he was when, after he slammed the door up, he tossed me out onto the driveway before rolling his bike out. It was a valiant effort, but I was about gone. It was all I could do just to lay there on the asphalt and smoulder. I knew I was done for. I just hoped I’d lose consciousness before I realized I was laying in a dumpster.

Again, I underestimated my partner.

Before I knew it, I was stretched out on the kitchen table like a turkey at Thanksgiving dinner or the dearly departed at a wake.

He sat there right beside me for hours, staring at my charred carcass and idly thumbing the soot from that single gold bar. After what seemed like all night, he got up and strode over to his toolbox, coming back with the leather punch, some rawhide strips, a pair of needlenosed pliers and a hammer.

Twenty five minutes later, I had, once again, been resurrected, although this will undoubtedly be my last incarnation. As much soul as I like to think I’ve got, there’s just nothing left of the body. Nonetheless, I’m still a class act.

And now I’m going to the Rendezvous, to show off the last of my vestiges.

Maybe once they wear out, the last of me will finally be tossed away, but then again, maybe, just maybe, after this year’s event this guy will manage to save these sparse tattered remnants of a once noble bull.

Even if he doesn’t, even if I don’t make it through the weekend, I can’t think of better way for my last two remnants to go to that fabled Country Club than as a one-eyed biker’s eyepatch and his old lady’s thong.

…and you can guess where the lieutenant’s bar ended up.

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