SPORTS COMIC RELIEF

IN THE SPRING of 1969 I was a draft-dodging freshman at the University of Colorado who had recently fallen victim to literary epilepsy. Since my affliction was serious enough that I couldn’t even hold a book (much less actually read one) without being overcome by a twitching fit, 1 decided to quit school and become a rodeo clown or “bullfighter. ” Not just a garden-variety rodeo clown, mind you, but a genuine, bona fide, authentic, card-carrying member of the Rodeo Cowboys Association (RCA, now the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association), the National Football League of rodeo. I had to know if I had the heart to make it in the big time.

This would not be my first wade into the dung-dirt of the rodeo arena. For the previous three years I had nursed the illusion that one day I would wear a gold belt buckle with the inscription “World Champion Bull Rider. ” While living the illusion, I had climbed down into the chute and nodded for the gate at rodeos from Archer City, Texas, to Madison Square Garden. Of the 250 or so bulls I had climbed aboard, I had ridden probably only 30 or 40 to the 8-second buzzer announcing a qualified ride. My winnings might have totaled $700.

During a week I spent at the Madison Square Garden Rodeo (in the Sodom and Gomorrah of the East), a bull named Brutus threw me out of the arena and almost into orbit at a moment when others of my generation were getting high on a variety of nonprescription drugs at a place called Woodstock. Once, after having been tap-danced upon by an 1, 800-pound Charolais bull, my right leg turned as black and hard as the top of a baby grand piano and stayed that way for the better part of a month. Finally, I had to admit to myself that 1 was not destined to become rich and famous as a bull rider.

Having grown up as the son of a distinguished congressman, I wanted with all I was to escape the yoke of being “the congressman’s son. ” More than anything, I yearned to distinguish myself in an arena where the people had never heard of the congressman and his many accomplishments. I wanted to rise by my own strengths or fall by my own frailties. In those pre-Urban Cowboy days, there was nothing the least bit hip or chic about being a rodeo clown. If anything, in the eyes of most of my suburban contemporaries I had only been slumming throughout my rodeo career. But in my eyes, the challenge of rodeo clowning was as romantically alluring as unconquered European borders were to Napoleon.

The first benefactor to this ambition turned out to be a businessman in Boulder, Colorado, named Rex Walker. In the way of the moneyed, Rex Walker could spot counterfeit at a glance. But, also as the moneyed might, he sensed the urgings of outrageous ambition and in sympathy let it have its try. Walker had made an obscene pile of money in the oil “bidness” and had recently bought Rocky Mountain Rodeo Company as a sideline. He was an unabashed admirer of Sen. John Tower of Texas. From the moment he learned 1 was from Tower’s hometown of Wichita Falls, 1 could do no wrong. I didn’t mention that 1 came from a long line of Democrats who had always thought Sen. Tower was a fairly useless American.

After I introduced myself to Walker, I told him of my ambition to get my RCA clown card. He leaned back in his chair, took a deep drag off a long, nasty-looking black cigar and stared at me for a while.

“Son, what are you majoring in over at the university?” he asked. I said I didn’t have a major.

“Well, have they taught you how to read and write?” he asked, his voice gradually growing louder. I said they had.

“Then why in God’s name would you want to be a rodeo clown?” he roared. “Have you got a death wish or am I blind? If you’re tired of livin’, just call up my good friend Richard Nixon and he’ll ship your ass to Vietnam where you can die like a man ought to. How did you get it in your head you wanted to be a rodeo clown? You got any experience?”

I quickly invented out of whole cloth a career in amateur rodeos throughout Texas. I rambled on and on about all the rodeos I had worked and the bad bulls I had faced. After listening to my nonstop palaver for a while longer, Walker stood up and put both hands on his desk. “Son, that is pure-dee horseshit. You’re no more a big-time rodeo clown than Ho Chi Minh is. But I like a man who’ll take a chance. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ve got a cousin by the name of Pat Mantle. Pat runs the 7-11 Rodeo Company out of Craig, over on the western slope. It’s an amateur outfit, but he’s got some bulls that’ll mash the shit out of you if you give ’em half a chance. Pat’s got some rodeos coming up. I’ll get you some jobs with him, and if Pat says you’re all right, then I’ll let you work a couple of rodeos for me. If I like your work, I’ll let you have all my rodeos next year. How does that sound to you?”

I said it sounded all right by me. Walker got on the phone to Pat Mantle, and within a few minutes I had my first contract. At the end of the month, 7-11 Rodeo Company would be producing a high school rodeo at Canon City, Colorado, and the safety of the bull riders would be my responsibility. It would be a heavy load to tote. I knew it would be a cruel joke on the cowboys contesting at Canon City to get my on-the-job training at their expense. I had to find a fast way to get some experience.

A friend mentioned that in two weeks Quail Dobbs would be working the Colorado State High School Finals Rodeo in the nearby town of Westminster. Quail was one of the best clowns in the business. He was from Coahoma, just a few miles from the West Texas village of Big Spring, where I was born.

During my bull-riding days, I had seen Quail work several times and had been amazed that anyone so small and with such an unassuming manner could play so fast and loose with mortality. He had seemed too open and innocent to be cursed by those existential urgings that drive people to seek danger of the sort that is most certainly crippling and maybe terminal.

I spent the next two weeks gathering the tools of the clowning trade. The good folks at the Levi Strauss Company of San Francisco sent me a new pair of baggy Levi’s with a 54-inch waist and a 26-inch inseam. I found a pair of bright red fireman’s suspenders at the Salvation Army store. My mother gave me a red, white and blue Vera scarf to wear around my neck. The manager of the University of Colorado football team gave me a pair of used football shoes. I bought a wig, some makeup and a kelly-green top hat at a theatrical supplies store. The Ralston Purina people gave me several red-and-white checkerboard shirts. I bought a shotgun and a rubber chicken at a pawn shop in the skid row area of Denver. My wrestling coach at the university gave me an imitation leopard-skin sport coat formerly worn by Wahoo McDaniel, the New York Jets linebacker turned professional wrestler. Then I went to the Goodwill store and found an African pith helmet that went well with the sport coat. My true love gave me a pair of red-and-white boxer shorts covered with valentines and portraits of Romeo and Juliet. They proved to be inspiring. Lastly, I bought a steel cup to slip into my jockstrap during the bull riding. The only other thing 1 needed was the courage to face the bulls, and I didn’t know where I could buy that.

It bordered on the absurd to ask a man of Quail Dobbs’ standing in the rodeo world for free clowning and bullfighting lessons. It would be comparable to strolling into Nureyev’s dressing room about an hour before the curtain goes up and saying something like, “Rudolph, I been thinkin’ ’bout bein’ a rich, famous toe dancer myownself, and I’d be real proud if you’d show me a few steps and let me join you onstage for the second half of the show. “

Quail’s camper was parked behind the bucking chutes and he was working on his comedy car, Apollo 18 1/3, when I pulled into the parking lot. 1 climbed out of my car, walked up to him and stuck out my hand.

“My name’s Kirk Purcell, ” I said. “I was born in Big Spring and I want to learn how to fight bulls. I’ll stay out of your way if you’ll just let me work with you. “

He glanced up from his work and gave me a look of profound indifference.

“This is Walt Alsbaugh’s rodeo, ” he said. “You go talk to him. It’s all right with me if it’s all right with him. “

I found Walt Alsbaugh, the stock contractor, across the parking lot, unloading a truckload of bucking horses. I said I wanted to learn how to fight bulls and told him what Quail had said. He rolled his eyes and thought about it for a minute. Then he stuck a giant wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his cheek, hitched up his pants and thought about it some more.

Finally, he looked me in the eye and spoke. “Son, if you’re simple-minded enough to want to walk out there and face those bad fightin’ bulls and get yourself crippled, I guess I’ve got little enough sense to let you try. You just stay out of Quail’s way and do what he says. He’ll take care of you.”

I was so happy I wanted to fall back, flap my arms and strut like a peacock.

“Yes, sir, ” I said, shaking his hand like a pump handle. “I’ll sure do that. I’ll stay out of his way and I’ll do just what he says. Thank you, sir.”

When I got back to Quail’s camper with my war bag in hand, he was visibly surprised to learn that Alsbaugh had given his blessing to my foolhardy escapade. But Quail proved to be a man of his word. He quickly set about teaching me how to create a new face using red and white greasepaint and an eyebrow pencil. He showed me how to use the white makeup around my mouth and eyes to produce a look of bug-eyed wonderment. He used the eyebrow pencil to draw crow’s-feet at the corners of my mouth and eyes. He showed me how to spread the red makeup into a flesh tone to make the bald pate of my wig blend into my forehead. Then he added a final touch of talcum powder to keep the greasepaint from smearing. In a wink I was transformed into a balding, disheveled, gray-haired relation of Red Skelton’s Clem Kadiddlehopper.

The strange new aroma of greasepaint and talcum powder flooded my senses as I climbed out the back door of Quail’s camper into the dust of the parking lot. Cowboys and cowgirls were loosening up their horses, loping slowly around the arena as Ray Price’s version of The Wild Side of Life drifted out over the grandstands. I strolled over to examine Walt Alsbaugh’s renowned herd of bulls. As I stood looking at Droopy, the high-horned red Brahma the top bull riders had selected as Bucking Bull of the Year for 1968, I began to reflect on all the famous clowns who had surely gone through this same ritual, perhaps looking into this same bull’s eyes. Most of them are men you probably never heard of-Wick Peth, George Doak, Buck LeGrand, Kajun Kidd, Junior Meek, Tom Lucia, Tommy Sheffield, Larry McKinney -but, believe me, they are spoken of in tones of reverence among the inner circles of the professional bull riders.

Quail brought me back to reality:

“We’ve got three performances to work together. Don’t worry about doing too much this first night. Just stand back and listen to me. I’ll take care of the cowboys because that’s what I’m getting paid for. Once the cowboy gets away safely, you’re on your own. If you want to make a pass, make a pass. Don’t take a hookin’ just to impress me; I’ve seen fools get crippled before. And one last thing -look out for a black droop-horned bull named Teddy. He’ll camp on you if he gets you on the ground.”

With those words of encouragement, I stumbled into the arena. I began praying to Jesus, Allah, Buddha and the Wild Man from Borneo, hoping not to miss anybody with any influence. I kept hoping the police would come and arrest me for some crime that had gone undetected until that fateful moment. But there was no salvation-I had to face the bulls.

Walt Alsbaugh climbed onto the platform behind chute number one. He turned toward the cowboys and bellered, “Bull riders, git it on your mind. ” At that moment, I felt like the poor man’s Gary Gilmore. I knew I was going to die; we just couldn’t afford the bullets.

Then somebody walked up behind me and whispered, “Son, this is your big chance. I hope you’ve got your hammer cocked. You know, Teddy killed a boy last week. Broke his neck clean in two. ” I turned around and no one was there.

Somehow I managed to struggle through three performances without getting crippled or killed. In my mind’s eye I was defying death almost every moment, but, in reality, I spent most of the time climbing the fence as though I were still a bull rider who had a right to be there. More than once, Quail had to call to me from the middle of the arena, “Hey, the rodeo ain’t up there in the bleachers. It’s out here in the deep water. Come on in, the water’s fine. “

But Quail more than made up for what I lacked. He showed me how to make a bull turn back and spin. On more than one occasion, he tiptoed to the inside of a fast-spinning bull to untie a cowboy who had hung up and been rendered helpless. And, most importantly, he showed me how much heart it took to fight bulls in the RCA.

At the second performance, Teddy had quickly bucked off a cowboy and then cleared the area in front of the chutes. He chased the pickup men and their horses to the far end of the arena. Most bullfighters in Quail’s position would have been working from behind a barrel. But not Quail. Instead, he stood flatfooted in the middle of the arena and waited for the bull. The crowd got deathly quiet as Quail and Teddy eyed each other. Then Teddy got his bearings and made his charge, eyes wide open, horns trained on Quail.

With the bull only steps away, Quail began moving to his left, measuring his steps, ready to make his pass. But Quail’s calculations were off. Teddy caught Quail under his right armpit and threw him 8 or 10 feet. Quail landed on his side and struggled to regain his footing before Teddy could hit him again. But Teddy was too fast. He hit Quail in the small of his back and ground his face into the arena dirt. He smoothed him out flat and ran smack-dab over him.

Quail had to be hurt. I ran toward him, thinking he might be disoriented and want directions to the nearest gate. I knew that was where I was headed. Teddy was at the other end of the arena, fixing to arrange a two-hearse funeral.

When I got to Quail he struggled to his feet, looked at me and began adjusting his wig. “Are you all right?” I asked.

“Where’s my hat?” he asked.

“Do what?” I asked.

“My hat, ” he said. “I was wearing a hat when I came in. Where’d it go?”

I reached down and picked his hat off the ground and handed it to him. He dusted it off and put it back on. Then he reached out and pulled me to him. “You know why I need my hat?” he asked.

“No, ” I said. By now I was getting scared. I knew Teddy was going to kill us if we waited a second longer.

“The reason I need my hat is because they’re havin’ a rodeo here tonight and it’s fixin’ to start just as soon as I can find that bull. 1 always wear my hat to a rodeo.”

With that, Quail began hollering at Teddy and dancing and shadowboxing in the bull’s direction. I knew severe brain damage when I saw it. So I headed for the gate.

Quail was still dancing in the middle of the arena. Teddy was bearing down on him, shifting from a fast trot to a lope, to full throttle. Quail didn’t move left or right. He just stood his ground, dancing like a manic Watusi. Then Quail began running straight toward Teddy. Quail had taken perhaps four or five steps when Teddy lowered his head and sighted his horns, ducked his head and made his final lunge. Just as he did, Quail pushed off like a high hurdler, and all Teddy stabbed was the cool night air. Quail had jumped over Teddy’s head and horns. Not bad for a man who stands about as tall as Mickey Rooney.

The crowd went ape. Everybody was whooping and hollering and whistling and stomping his feet. I was afraid the spectators were going to tear down the bleachers. Teddy knew the score. He ducked out the catch pen gate and headed for the showers. Quail tipped his hat to the crowd and strolled down the center of the arena, as modest as if he had just bogeyed the 18th hole at the PUTT-PUTT. I had a hero for life.

After apprenticing with Quail I knew I had to get my RCA card and work all the rodeos I could. I needed a mule and a small grubstake. At the RCA convention at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, I met some of the other clowns. Buck LeGrand of Sedan, Kansas, offered to sell me a miniature mule and a miniature trailer in which to haul it.

The trailer would cost $150. The price of a mule depended on what kind of equipment I wanted. 1 had no idea what LeGrand meant. He explained that he had an economy model, one-eyed white mule that was $100, or a deluxe model, two-eyed white mule that was $125. Since I had no money and didn’t have the vaguest notion where my grubstake would be coming from, I played it conservative and bought the economy model. I named him Eugene.

After I had worked a few college rodeos for Walt Alsbaugh, Jerome Robinson, Bryan McDonald and Keith Pollet, three RCA bull riders who had become my friends and mentors attested to my bullfighting ability and helped me get my clown card. And Rex Walker agreed to give me the chance he had promised a few months earlier. 1 just hoped I was ready.

My RCA debut came in Dixon, Wyoming. 1 rode Eugene in the grand entry and did a couple of fill-in acts between the contest events, but I had hoped to save my energy and concentration for the bull riding. It’s a good thing I did.

J. J. Moon was the first cowboy up. He had drawn Donald Duck, a big, stout, yellow flat-horned bull that had been selected for the National Finals Rodeo the previous year. I had seen the Duck buck a few times before and I knew he had gone unridden for at least three or four years. He was a living legend. If the Duck stayed true to his pattern, I knew he would jump out of the gate, turn back to the right, and jump and kick in a tight, drifting spin. He normally stayed there until the cowboy went into orbit, which usually wasn’t long.

J. J. rode with his left hand and, if he was to have a chance to get past the Duck, he knew he would have to lean to the inside of the spin, or “down in the well. ” Bucking off into the well, away from his riding hand, is the greatest danger a bull rider faces. When that happens, the cowboy’s riding hand gets in a bind and he becomes a rag doll tied to the bull, vulnerable to feet and horns. J. J. stood a good chance of getting into a bad storm, and I knew this could be my first real test in front of the jury of professional cowboys.

I was right on both counts. J. J. looked good for the first three or four jumps, then the Duck took control. He jerked J. J. down onto his head right between the Duck’s horns. When the Duck’s head collided with J. J. ’s, it sounded like a sledgehammer hitting a ripe watermelon. It looked as though J. J. had been knocked as cold as a wedge, and he began flopping around like Raggedy Andy tied to a whirlwind. I had to untie him before things got worse. My training took control. I stepped in and got my hand on the Duck’s inside horn. He followed me out of the spin and turned back to the left. I stepped to the Duck’s left shoulder and was safe on the inside of the spin as long as I could stay on my feet. J. J. was now laid out horizontally on the outside of the spin, whirling like a helicopter blade. He was safe for the moment, if I could just untie him. I reached for his riding hand and made a blind grab for the tail of the bull rope. I got lucky and found it on the first try. It was J. J. ’s rip cord. He came loose and fell in a heap, blood streaming from his nose and forehead. Amazingly, he got up and stumbled back to the chutes while Donald Duck trotted triumphantly around the arena.

Standing there, looking at J. J. leaning against the chute gate, I experienced a helpless feeling that was to haunt me throughout my clowning career. I knew I had done my best, and I knew the cowboys knew I had done all anyone could have. Still, it gnawed at me that I had been unable to save J. J. from injury, even though all the damage had been done before he hit the ground.

Nobody else got in a bad storm that day, but later in that same performance I got cocky and jumped a little black fighting bull named Porky. The crowd loved it. For the first time, I learned there’s nothing like a little applause to make a man try something foolish.

Sitting on the side of my trailer that afternoon, taking off my makeup, I was a satisfied man. Several of the cowboys came by, introduced themselves and bragged on my work. Since I knew professional rodeo cowboys to be a stoic breed, their reception was not something I had expected. But I was pleased; I knew I had passed the test and was among brothers.



I GOT MY RCA card in January 1970. Eugene and I spent the next year or so traipsing back and forth across the heartland of America. I would wake up in fleabag motels with names like Ed’s Beds or the Wigwam Courts, feeling as though the Third Reich had spent the previous night goose-stepping up and down my spine. If I had taken an especially bad hooking, there were mornings when it was all I could do to crawl or stumble across the floor to the bathtub. On such days I spent the better part of the morning soaking in the tub and trying to convince myself I could stand up and walk back to the bed. Finally I would work up enough courage to go to the nearest greasy spoon for a cheeseburger or even a chicken-fried steak, if I was in a part of the country where one could find that delicacy.

I usually spent the afternoon feeding and watering Eugene and rigging up the fireworks on my feature act, The Acme Shrinking Machine. I always spent the final hour before the grand entry putting on my makeup, wrapping my left ankle and taping whatever ribs I had most recently bruised or cracked. Then came the time to walk to the pens behind the bucking chutes for a one-sided conversation with the bulls I would be facing within a couple of hours. It was my way of psyching myself and overcoming the pain still lingering from the night before or the week before or, at times, even the month before.

Talking with the bulls prepared me for the adrenaline rush that would start gushing full-force at the moment the first bull exploded from the chute, marking the beginning of the real rodeo for me. Even today, standing behind the bucking chutes, hearing the clanging of the cowbell tied to the bull rope still brings on the same hybrid feeling of nausea and euphoria.

Today, in my law practice, I know a different sort of fear. When the judge gavels the courtroom to order, right before the jury selection begins, I often sit and wonder if I am up to the task at hand. Whether I am representing a working man or woman who has been injured or a fellow citizen who stands accused of crime, sitting at the counsel table, I can still hear Walt Als-baugh’s words come fogging through my head, “Bull riders, git it on your mind.”