this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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I look him up and down. I've seen it a thousand times. He is all bravado and boot jingles. Dressed like he stepped straight out of a Western Warehouse. I could tell those shiny boots had never stepped foot on a ranch. Just puffed-up pride wrapped in a cowboy hat, trying to mask the desperation of someone who’s never been anywhere else. And doesn’t realize he is the one getting fucked by the system.
"You’ll be seeing me soon, huh?" I say, watching his eyes flicker. "Let me tell you something, partner. If you don’t straighten out that attitude of yours—if you don’t drop this little act and do your job like a professional—I’ll find someone else to sell this house." I let the words sink in before delivering the knife twist. "Maybe a dame."
His mouth opens, then shuts.
"Oh yeah," I continue, my voice smooth as the whiskey he probably pretends to drink neat. "I’ll bring in one of those ‘progressive libs’ you despise so much. Maybe someone fresh out of California, with a Prius and pronouns in her email signature. Someone who'll take your commission, your sale, and leave you standing in the dust."
His face twitches. The bravado cracks. He swallows hard. His grip loosens on my hand.
"Good talk," I say, finally letting go of his hand. "Now get to work."
I leave, staring at my hand like a deer stares into headlights. Something about the way he squawked rubbed me the wrong way, and somehow I didn't think we would be meeting in the park at night behind the gents. My mind raced, and so I hit the streets trying to clear the whirlwind of thoughts that were eating at me. "Ah dame...?" I mouthed, the bitter taste making me dry-heave, "from California?"
I took to the nearest bar, and spotted a gray Prius parked outside. I shook my head in disgust at the antithesis of Texan virtue; an automobile beholden to no single man nor wolf, like a cowboy without a drinking problem. What was happening to the world?
"He... he asked me to just do my job, Jim" I say to the bartender. He's supposed to be serving me a drink and listening to my troubles, but he's actually watching the Fox news report whilst polishing the same glass over and over. Jim gets it. Talking it out with Jim's dishrag, I realize that maybe I need to reclaim some of karma I lost along the way whilst doing this job. I need to restore my honor.
I stumble out into the street, grab a jerrycan of premium Texan gasoline, and pour it into the inlet socket of the Prius. Karma restored, I whistle a merry tune and do a cowboy strut over to the bus since I live one state over.