Amarillo by Morning and my bull-riding fantasy by Tom Thrun

I’ll wait to ride the mechanical Black Angus bull at 

Gilley's, the cowboy saloon in Vegas, and I’ll drawl (karaoke) 

George Strait's Amarillo by morning, up from San Antone...

I’ll tip the young bartender a $10 note to borrow his black 

cowboy hat, for just the short duration of my historic night.  

I’ll set the brim just so, tip it with my trigger finger and say,

"Howdy, Ma'am," to my waitress striding over in a not-a-hell- 

of-a-lot-of-nothing-more-than her own cowgirl hat, cowgirl boots

and her butt-hugging pair of black-spandex, panty-shorts over 

sheer stockings with dark seams up the back, topped off 

with a push-up bra under a cowgirl shirt cinched high and tight

above her bare waists, three buttons open.  She asks, “Your poison?”

“Double Jack and a beer,” I’ll swagger.  “And keep ‘em coming!" 

I watch her bottom wiggle its way back through the throng of other

tourists and want-to-be cowboys, looking for signs of a thong.

Hemingway would understand, The Sun Also Rises and all that.  

But he'd have me fighting a real black Spanish bull with sharp horns 

somewhere in Barcelona or Buenos Aires, Argentina.  I’ll be wearing

tight Matador pants, because I can.  With my still-tight-old-man butt,  

I will turn heads of women desperate to clutch it and hold on!  Oley!

But the mechanical bull will wreak its havoc.  My old arm will suffer.

I though... I will outride them all!  All the young guns, drunks 

and middle-age businessmen who did not grow up respecting real 

bulls, like I did.  Bulls that would kill, give ‘em half a chance.

My almost-70s-something grey hair will recall the youth in me and 

speak of my courage.  I’ll have only to stare, as if say, “Make My Day!”

And my waitress will watch me breathlessly.  She will smile kindly 

because I will be "that old man”, still pulling off tight black jeans.  

She will pray for me.  She does not like calling for the EMT's, nor the 

coroner.  And, when my ride is over, when I have slid off sidewise

somewhat unceremoniously from the thick, hard-plastic back of

that mechanical Black Angus bull, I will gather up what dignity I 

may have left and walk away, tipping my hat to acknowledge any 

applause there may be ...and then search for my waitress’ dark eyes 

and tip again the brim of my hat, ‘cause that’s what real cowboys do.  

I'll politely ask her, “Ma'am, can I sing you some Georgia Straight?”

She'll know, by then, I've ridden real bulls and shot wild coyotes

stealing off with young calves.  She will feel satisfied and safe in the 

company of this old, mechanical-Black-Angus-bull-riding cowboy.

I ain’t got a dime, but what I’ve got is mine; I ain’t rich, but 

Lord, I’m free… Amarillo by mornin’, Amarillo’s where I’ll be.

…if only for a night, before my morning flight back to my reality.

om Thrun, retired in Oconomowoc, WI, has meandered the same mile and a half along the wooded drive over hundreds of times, now, these last two pandemic years, but always going to a different place in his head. Places her been to once, like Galway, Ireland, and others made up, like a street festival in Barcelona, Spain. An English major an a weekly newspaper editor in Wisconsin and Washington State way back when, he’s since lived more than nine lives. His writing is influenced by his Wisconsin farming heritage and Robert Frost’s melancholy. He has been published in recent years in a few anthologies and on-line, with one poem in the 2022 Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar. He hopes Rye Whiskey Review will be a home for a few of his poems that others have refused to touch with their 10-foot poles. His children and grand boys mean the world