The story behind the photo:

  Billy Bob’s Bar in Fort Worth, Texas is a 270 000 square feet institution.  At one end is a mechanical bull, the other a live bull riding arena, and in the middle a massive dance floor.  Even by American standards – the set-up is outlandish.   I’m dragging my gear behind the bull riding arena when I hear someone shout “hey sully,” and I turn to see two bull fighters.

  They’re difficult to recognize with painted white faces, but on closer inspection I realize I’d met them in Stephenville.  Their names are Malcolm and Austin.

  “Ya gettin’ on?” Malcolm asks, grinning.

  I tell them I am and they wish me luck.  There are 15 bull riders in total at Billy Bob’s, but the event will have two rounds (half will ride at 9pm and the others at 10).  I’m in the 9 o clock show.  Our names are posted beside the bull we’ve drawn on a sheet of white paper in the change rooms.  My bull does not have a name but a number – 7117.  The crowd fills into the arena.  They rush the bulls into the race.  I size them up, hoping the large, spotted white bull that is first in the chutes does not have the number 7117 in its ear.

  “Who’s got number 7117?” a stock contractor shouts.

  “I do,”

  “Good, you’re up.”

  Bullocks.

  I grab my rope and make my way towards the bull.

  “Hey, you ridden much before?” another bull rider asks me. 

 He has blond hair and a cheeky smile.  I wonder the reason for the question.  Is it because I’m not wearing a cowboy hat?  Is it because I’m not wearing chaps?  Or is it because of my bright purple shirt – a gift from a closed-down thrift shop.

  “I’ve been on a few bulls,” I tell him.

  “I hope so.  He’s good,” he replies, motioning towards the bull.

  “You wanna swap?” I suggest.

  “Nah.”

  Bloody cowboys.  They’re always doing this – filling me with dread moments before the ride. I last 2.8 seconds on number 7117.  The reason I know this is because I ask an official about my time, and, rather than offering a verbal response, he gives a small flick of a digital watch, revealing the number 2.8.   I briefly wonder if the clock face is upside down and the time is actually 8.2 seconds, but decide not to seek clarification from the official – he’d already chastised me heavily earlier for being behind the arena without a cowboy hat

  After the event, while I’m removing my glove in the change rooms, Malcolm Jimenez, the fit, 18 year old bull fighter, looks at me earnestly and says: “Almost had him.”

  There was, of course, no part of the 2.8 seconds where I almost had the bull. I think back to the ride and remember someone stepping between me and the bull, and realize that person must have been Malcolm.  Malcolm had also saved me at a practice pen in Stephenville when I came down hard on a bull called Reebok.  Consider the life of a bull fighter – they not only traverse the country, throwing their bodies before 900 kilo animals, they then offer compassionate lies to boost the rider’s morale.

  “I’m gonna go.  Thanks bro.” I say to him.

  “Hey, you comin’ back out to the practice pen in Stephenville tomorrow?” he asks.

  The white paint is still on his face.  He is looking at me seriously.  He has saved me twice and wants to save me again.

  “Not sure.  Maybe.”

  “Ok. I’ll see you out there,” he says, and slaps me on the back heartily as I leave.

“Suulee” he rolls the words. “And where you from Suulee?”

“I’m Australian.”

“Really.”

This takes him by surprise. His horse trots back a few paces. He quickly pats it on the neck. He is staring at me beneath his cowboy hat. He has dark hair, a moustache and is smiling.

It is 3.30 in the afternoon. There are teenagers rustling bulls behind me. There are two old Mexican guys drinking beer fifty metres away at a makeshift bar. Behind them is a mysterious white roof-less concrete structure – built as if someone had decided on a house and then abandoned it. The arena is a forty minute drive from Stephenville, but it had taken me two hours to find it. I’d come through windy roads and then arrived at a entryway so innocuous, that, after pulling up, I had to ask two Mexican kids if I was in the right place.

“You ride Mexican or American?” Chino asks.

“American,” I reply, meaning that I hold onto the bull rope with one hand instead of two. The Mexicans ride bulls with both hands. You’d think it would be easier but it is, in fact, far more dangerous. Having been to two Mexican rodeos, I’ve witnessed a few bad wrecks. With both hands strapped, there is nothing to break the impact of crashing into the horns, or worse, being upside down, underneath the bull, while still attached to the rope.

“Do the bull riders get paid?” I ask him.

We begin a friendly tactical exchange. American rodeos employ a capitalistic structure to prize money distribution (winners take all) but Mexican rodeos prefer to be socialist; the event is considered entertainment rather than a competition and everyone gets paid a little.

“I’ll pay you $50 dollars a ride. The rodeo starts at 7.”

It seems like a good deal. I go back to Stephenville, do some stretches, feel nervous, pick up Tom Banner, and then we head back to the Mexican rodeo.

“Park your car near the road,” Tom instructs me on arrival. “I’ve been to a few of these Mexican deals. We might need to make a quick exit.”

I decide not to request an elaboration of his cryptic remark. Tom has a groin injury and is not riding but gets excitable and happy around that unmistakable energy of a rodeo and the smell of bulls.

It’s a cold night and there is a small crowd; maybe eighty in the stands. Cans of beer are sold from the bar for two dollars, and hotdogs go for two fifty. I lug my gear behind the chutes. A group of Mexican men, I guess other bull riders, are chatting in Spanish. Chino greets me.

“Which bull would you like?” he asks, pointing at a group of bulls in a pen.

“You’re giving me the choice?”

“That’s right.”

“What did the other riders choose?”

“They’re waiting for you to decide. We are courteous people.” He winks and adds “we always let the gringo go first.”

I’m staring at the bulls. There doesn’t appear to be any mellow ones. It reminds me of a story a school friend had told me about his dad making him chose the stick to be hit with when he misbehaved.

“I’ll take the white bull,” I declare.

Immediately following my decision, the white bull buries its head and rams the fence.

The first rider is a young Mexican rider who last eight seconds. The second rider gets stomped on and limps away. I’m up. I sit down on the back of my white bull in the chutes. I have a bad feeling. There is extremely loud Spanish music being played by a band dressed in red and black capes. The band takes a break momentarily to introduce me to the crowd. I can feel my heart. I can feel my lungs. I can feel a tingle in my legs. Two Mexican guys are pulling my rope in a strange way; they’re levering the rope around a metal rod rather than pulling it from above the bull. I do not have a good grip on the rope and it is in the wrong place on the bull. My instruction to loosen the rope is somehow interpreted as “please open the gate” and the gate is swung open while I’ve only one leg around the bull. Frantically, I grasp the swinging gate as the bull goes bucking out into the arena.

From the little Spanish I know, I can tell the band are heavily chastising me to the crowd. I can make out my name and the word “cohunes”

“I’ll ride the bull again,” I tell Chino,

Pride is such a silly emotion.

They run the bull through the race and back up the chutes.

“Enough of this bull shit, I‘ll pull your rope” Tom declares, as I lower myself back down again on the spotty white bull.

This time around, I tie my rope off quickly. The less thinking involved in bull riding the better. I move up on the bull and nod my head. They open the gate and, surprisingly, I find myself still centred over the bull after three or four jumps. The buck off comes unexpectedly. Perhaps I was thinking too much or not enough. Whatever the cause, it is not the ideal dismount, and my head connects with the dirt forcefully. I collect my rope, and go back behind the chutes for the rest of my stuff.

Chino pays me 25 dollars for the ride. He‘d promised 50, but there is only about 100 people in the stands and it seems like the right amount.

“Hey man, you coulda made eight,” Tom tells me in the car on the ride home.

“Yeah, how did my riding look?”

“Ok I guess.”

“How did the bull look?”

“Like a son of a bitch.”

I have a sore neck but nothing is broken. Truth is, I’m feeling pretty good, probably the happiest I’ve been since starting this ludicrous quest. In Stephenville, we pull into the car-park of a pub.

“My shout,” I declare, fingering the 25 dollars in my pocket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After arrived back from Vegas, my plan was to visit a bull riding friend called Jesse Pullman, so I jumped in the good ol’ jeep, and drove for eight hours – mostly in the wrong direction. I blame telephone reception. Hours earlier in Texas, when asking Pullman where he lived, he’d responded: “Fort Scott”, but I heard “Fort Smith.“

I drive into Fort Smith at 8pm, call Jesse and discover that I’m not only in the wrong town, I’m in the wrong state. I’m in Fort Smith (Arkansas). Reasoning that I’m still over 300 miles away from Fort Scott (Kansas), I roll into a cheap hotel in Fort Smith and book a night. Any person of reasonable intelligence would ask themselves this: why didn’t you make sure the town was called Fort Scott before leaving Texas. For those who have read Tunnel Vision, you will know that I often make these travel blunders, but it‘s been a while since I‘ve ascended to this level of stupidity, and, when crawling into the crisp white sheets of a 29 dollar motel in Fort Smith, it feels good to have the old me back.

I make it to Fort Scott the next day. Jesse is taking off for the weekend and leaves me in the hands of four young bull riders: Nick Lica, Brian Ridley, Jake Johnston and Tyler Adrian. Were the boys concerned that an unknown Aussie has joined them unexpectedly before their bull riding jaunt? It doesn’t appear so.

We drive for three hours and cross the state line into Missouri – to a town called Republic. Night falls, temperatures plummet. It’s bloody freezing. We approach the organizer of the event, pay our fees and chat with the other cowboys. My body is feeling all the usual mixture of pre-bull ride fear and doubt. The brainwashing begins: I can do this. I can surf. These guys aren’t going to paddle 300 metres offshore and drop into an eight feet peak.

My bull is grey, weighs about 1500 pounds, and is a relation of Yellow Jacket Junior, 3 time bucking bull of the year. I’m one of the last out so I watch the others – who are pretty darn good bull riders. The best seems to be Tyler – who makes it look easy on a spinning brahma.

“How do you get over the fear?” I ask Tyler behind the chutes, as he hangs his rope over a fence.

His short response is probably the most logical thing I‘ve heard in six months: “They can’t hurt ya if you stay on top of ‘em.”

I ask the stock contractor, who is standing beside the race, if he has any advice about my bull.

“He’ll blow up out of the chutes, but is pretty much just a jump kicker from there,” he replies. Verbatim, it is almost exactly the same response I was given before riding at the last rodeo.

“Just stay away from his horns and hoofs and you’ll be fine,“ and old timer tells me as I lower myself over my bull. My bull is a nightmare in the chutes. He lays down, swings his head, pins my leg against the steel girders of the chutes. My legs are shaking. Where did the confidence go? I think of everything in my life I’ve managed to do. I think of surfing. I think of standing up comedy – of holding a microphone in a spotlight and performing fearlessly. I can do this.

The bull bucks me off in about 3 seconds.

“Wow,” the announcer cries, as I lay in the dirt.

I go back and pick up my stuff but don’t feel too bad – one of these days I’m going to crack bull riding.

Later, we hide in the car park of a hotel and Nick negotiates a good price.

“How many are staying?” the receptionist asks him.

“Just myself,” he responds.

The four of us pile into the hotel room.

“I saw a twist in your bull rope,” Brian informs me. “I can try to get it out for you if you like.”

It is one o clock in the morning and we are all tired and dirty and sweaty and the one thing Brian Ridley (22 year old from Kansas) wants to do is to spend time helping me with my bull rope. I thank him and tell him it would be ok to check the rope in the morning. It’s two per bed in the hotel room. We strip down to out underwear and climb into bed. There is no laughter, no jokes, no awkwardness. I sleep beside Brian and keep him up by grinding my teeth (a habit I did not know I had) but he does not complain. In the morning, he spends 30 minutes tying my rope to a balcony railing and stretching out the kink. Unbelievable – these young cowboys.