History Lesson 
Rodeo Madness
There's a new generation in this ragged sport, from champion Larry Mahan's challengers to city-folk whose new cult hero is the cowboy
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"There's less mares than there are stud horses in this business," says Faylene, a sometime barrel racer in ermine eyelashes and amazingly tight black satin jeans. "There are women that just follow rodeos around to watch the cowboys in action, not even knowing them personally. It's really romantic...it's almost like knighthood when they go out there to win their buckles. Rodeo cowboys are pretty young, you know. They wear nice shiny cowboy shirts and supertight jeans with their buns sticking out like two donuts."
Bonnie, another rodeo enthusiast, says, "Cowboys are very unusual people. They live for today. They have very little regard for tomorrow—or for taking people with them tomorrow. Sure, some of your older cowboys will settle down. Calf ropers or clowns will settle down with women. But your bronc riders and bull riders are almost suicidal in their efforts to rodeo. They travel alone, and there's not much can stop them."
With two go-rounds remaining, one Saturday night and one Sunday afternoon, Mahan has slipped to third place in bull riding. Now it's a two-man race between Bobby Steiner, the leader, and Donny Gay.
"At this point," says Mahan, "I'm just riding for the average. Like I've said all along, it's good for the sport to have these young dudes coming on. It's just another buckle to me."
Mahan is in the tack room behind the chute area, surrounded as always by writers, photographers, adventurers, and hangers-on. He works from his rigging bag and a doeskin pouch of photographs which he autographs on request. Doug Wilson of ARC's Wide World of Sports has wired him for sound. Mahan tucks his pant legs into his well-worn lizardskin boots, blousing his pants so that he has plenty of leg room. Using a piece of bent wire he locks the rowels of his spurs so they will grab the bull's side without rolling up. A yellow steerhide riding glove that smells of burnt resin is tied loosely to the strap closing the front of his psychedelic chaps—Mahan has a fetish about his riding glove; he won't slip it over his right hand until he is ready to ease down on the bull's back.
"What does this bull do?" Mahan asks another cowboy who is filling his mouth with Copenhagen chewing tobacco. Cowboys keep book on their animals and trade information worse than gossips.
"He spins flat and fast," the cowboy tells him.
Mahan makes a bad face. Spinning bulls are the toughest kind because a cowboy instinctively has to adjust his body to the motion of the animal—if he leans out the centrifugal force will sling him off, an if he leans in he will be sucked into a whirlpool of tromping hooves.
"If he spins flat," Mahan says hopefully, "he probably doesn't have all that much power. Powerful bulls jump and kick in the spin." Either way, it is not the bull he would have chosen for himself. The other cowboy says something about spurring him out of the chute, but Mahan grins; no thanks. "I'm just on this one for the average," he says.
Donny Gay has escaped the pandemonium of the tack room and is alone behind the chutes. He takes a roll of tape from his rigging bag and tightly binds his elbow which has been hyperextended by an earlier ride. It's his left elbow, his riding arm. It's going to be a difficult and dangerous trip. He won't notice the pain while he is moving and hustling to stay on the bull, but when it's time to bailout, he'll need to "get into his hand"; that is, exit to the left. If his left hand gets hung in the rope, even for a fraction of a second, he'll be upside down looking at 1,800 pounds of bad meat. "All I can do is try it," he says. "If I can't take it, I'll look for a soft spot." Seasoned riders will tell you this: if you see that you're in a bad storm out there on a horse or bull and about to get upside down, it's better to bail out. There is always another rodeo, they tell you. Only now it ain't so. This is the Finals: the End of the Accounting. Donny Gay trails Steiner by $518, which means that Gay can't afford to get thrown again.
Bobby Steiner has been doing warmup exercises behind the corral. When it is time for Donny Gay's ride, Steiner climbs the fence and drops down into the arena with the cowboys, clowns, and photographers. Gay rides his bull cleanly and aggressively, locking his bad arm to the rope while his free arm and his head jerk violently in the opposite direction of the way the beast is spinning. Gay times his escape perfectly, and Steiner is the first one over to congratulate him.
Now it is Steiner's turn. Through the slats of the chute he can see one wide pink eye and a rope of slobber. Steiner leans down and stares at the bull eyeball to eyeball, riddling the beast with a mixture of hate, fear and determination—all of which goes unappreciated but helps Steiner prepare for what is coming. The bull's name is White Lightning. Steiner has ridden him to the whistle before, he just wishes it were earlier in the week. His legs ache. His right foot is swollen. He just hopes the foot holds up for one...no, make that two more rides. If he can stay up for two more rides there is no way Gay can catch him.
Steiner lowers himself on the bull's back, taking care to keep his spurs away from the animal but pressing firmly with his knees to let the bull know he is coming. When the rope is tight against the hard palm of his glove and the arena is clear and he is sure the judges are watching, Steiner inches forward until he is almost sitting on his hand, and then he does a foolish thing: he positions his feet so that he can spur the bull as the gate opens. He licks his lips one last time and sets his teeth: a look of pure dementia passes over his face. Then he shouts: Go!
There is no rule that a bull rider has to spur his animal out of the chute, but that's what Steiner does, apparently figuring that if it is ever time to take a chance that time is now.
It is not your classic ride, but Steiner somehow stays up for the whistle. At this stage, that is all that counts.
There was an interesting story on the late news wrapup. Parties unnamed were accused of smuggling $1 million worth of bull semen from Canada to Oklahoma City. Jerry Jeff Walker and his friends speculated that they probably brought it over in a thermos bottle, sprinkled with nutmeg. After the item about the swimming meet, and the 30-second sound-on-film of the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State wrestling meet, Jerry Jeff said: "I wonder if they'll ever get around to the rodeo." They wouldn't. This particular Oklahoma City TV station either didn't know or didn't care that the rodeo championship of the whole world was taking place right under its nose.
Jerry Jeff turned the TV set to the wall.
The rodeo was over and the parties were beginning. Minutes after the Hall of Fame banquet honoring Tornado et al., the hotel came alive. Almost every door was open and men in hats and boots and boogie mamas [as rodeo groupies are called] in tight pants spilled into hallways and chocked the lobby and jammed the elevators.
The rodeo itself was almost an anticlimax. Steiner won it. He won it sitting on the fence watching his last rival, Donny Gay, get thrown. The 22-year-old from Austin reacted understandably to Gay's misfortune: he ripped off another cowboy's hat, threw it across the arena and hugged one of the clowns. Old Buck wasn't here to see it, but he would have been about half proud.
Over all the ice cubes and spilling whiskey you could hear Jerry Jeff and his pals singing: "Up against the wall, redneck mother..." A bent-nosed calf roper and his lady passed by the open door, looked in and hurried away. The room was impossibly crowded. Mahan and his wife Darlene were there, along with James Caan, the ABC crew, Dallas gourmet chef Frank (Gonzo) Bailey, Skipper Lofting of the RCA, a Las Vegas gambler, several cowboys, several boogie mamas, a wife or two, several writers, and a generous sampling of assorted riff-raff. All was cool for the moment.
In one pocket of the room a group of free-thinkers was making plans for a Neo-Rodeo. Something new. Something challenging and updated. "The Crazed Pigeon Scramble" and the "Slightly-Hobbled Horse Elimination High Jump" were rejected as being too true to life and therefore lacking the traditional, indispensable element of competition: surprise.
Finally, the group settled on an event which they called "Pigs in the Popcorn." It would work like this: First, the cowboy is pinned in the chute. Strobe lights flash around him. He is prodded and teased. Then the gate opens and the cowboy races out into the center of a brilliant spot of light and makes ready to meet whatever. The Whatever, that is the beauty of the event. He might get a rank bull, a mutated goat, a rabid wolverine, a timid armadillo, a blind goose, an egg sandwich, there's just no telling. It's the luck of the draw. The judges will take into consideration the look on the cowboy's face when he first confronts his adversary.
As a variation, Jerry Jeff suggested an event called "Boar in the Fire." It would have the same buildup, but when the cowboy raced into the arena this time he would be confronted by a 2000-pound wild boar inside a ring of fire. The cowboy's job is to wrestle the boar from the fire, and then decide: what next? This is the crucial moment.
"What would you do?" someone asked Mahan.
Mahan thought a minute, then said: "I'd put him on a bus and send him to Waco."
"Perfect," Jerry Jeff said, squirting Mahan in the mouth with the tequila watergun. "Small wonder you're the champion."
Somewhere in there Jerry Jeff and Mahan disappeared upstairs to get Mahan's bull riding rope for Jerry Jeff's museum. And somewhere in there the trouble started. With Mahan's rope coiled around his neck, never dreaming for a moment that he wasn't the champion of of the rodeo, Jerry Jeff wandered into Bobby Steiner's room and got himself tattooed by the finest bull riders in the world.
But he wasn't complaining. Mahan apologized to him on behalf of the RCA and presented Jerry Jeff with the fruit cake. Several days later Skipper Lofting telephoned and said: "I want to congratulate you. When you can win the Hotel Wrecking Event in a hotel full of rodeo cowboys you have done something."
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