In Yuma, it’s rodeo night. And dinner comes late on rodeonight. Cows ain’t pets, girl. The hands chase me out of thepens. Get lost. Unless ya wanna—tonguetonguetonguetonguethey waggle at me. Eyebrows, among other things.It’s two o’clock, and it smells like Coors in red cups,summer sausage breath, and the reek of ranch handsturned out to prowl for a night getting too close.You wanna play a game? They demand kissesfor luck. Take them if I don’t acquiesce. Sudden tongue inmy mouth. Whoops, they laugh. The four o’clock breeze hitsbriefly, carrying the waft of hotdogs, warm ketchup, dip spiton leather, saddle soap. By eight the air coming infrom the desert tastes of alfalfa wet with eveningirrigation from algae-slick ditches, manure, and sweaton salt-chapped lips. Girls don’t always scream.Here comes the night. Rodeo night tastes like cussing,shit, for the first time when you can’t be heard, like the waysalt makes watermelon sweeter. I want to wrap my tenderfeet in steel-toed boots. I want to feel safe. But I wear ThriftyDrug flip-flops with holes in the soles. Under the standsat the rodeo, under the people, I’ve walked away frommewling calves caught by ropes—can’t stand theircries. Or the cows bleating for their babies, teats overfull.There I’m hidden from hoots and catcalls, the thrown rocksof the boys. I climb under, then peerout through the gaps of the bleacher pipes at the daggered eyesof a steer. It glowers through the cracks in a culture that twospecies make when they gaze into each otherfrom the edges. We stare. A kestrel criesoverhead. I lick my fingers, then the trail of watermelon juicefrom near my elbow to my wrist. The steer huffs, paws thecrusty dirt in his pen. I ain’t afraid of you. Where’s yourmother? He wants to feel safe. The crackle of the prod makeshim look away, swish his tail, turn toward the sound. As thecurrent connects with his anus, he bolts toward the gate. Drafted.He’s six hundred pounds of muscle and horns in a game madeby men who wear belts made of the slaughter and wrangle.Buckles of silver pride. A kestrel’s striped feather lays onthe ground in the fluff of bleacher dust. I stick the feather inmy hair. The plume juts out awkwardly from the Leia bunsI made of the braids I was given. I chase stray cats fromlickable candy wrappers, suck melted chocolate fromremainders, chew sandy popcorn, hunt for Red Vine dropsies andpocket treasures, ground scores of old lighters, coins, and lonelyearrings. All of these land in the Holly Hobbie pocketsof my pillowcase dress with rickrack edging and fuzzy redyarn straps beside stones I’ve sucked until they are wet andcolorful. Through the gaps in the lowest bleacher treads, I cansee the rodeo ring. The cowboy chases the steerfrom his saddle, pulls the horse this way and that, leans outwith a hand on the saddle horn. He’s far from center, butthe horse bears his weight, pounds the face of the sand,throwing stress. The steer veers, thundering toward the edgesof the ring; foam lathers his lips. They all—the horse, the cowboy,and the steer—reek of fear. The cowboy, bulldogger, is 6’4″ tall and240 pounds. He looks sharp. A rancher should on rodeo night,hanging as he does in the breadthof air when he has thrown himself from the running horseand toward the fleeing steer. Caught in photographs foreverin midair, legs one way and arms the other. American cowboy,leaping, suspended, defiant. The bull, the horse, gravity—everything belongs to him. The hat is either on, the modelof cowboy willpower, or a flying blur, an examinationof the way that even cowboys are subject to the forcesof nature. Viewers will admire his humanity in this moment.But the cowboy’s head without his hat is a lie.The steer, wrenched by his horn, with one angling towardthe dirt and the bulk of him forcibly twisted toward the fall,howls. Above his dress-Wranglers, which are held on by hisbest tooled belt, with his name on the back and his brass andsilver buckle from his last win, the cowboy wears his besthat and a clean shirt with pearlized snaps, hand-set by his newwife with a setting pin, a tiny hammer, and a steel bar. Thepockets and cuffs are edged in navy blue piping and, in theseam, three drops of her blood to keep him safe. Thisis a thing my mama never did for him. She wasa woman who didn’t use her magic on men. The shirt wasn’tamong the fanciest there that night, but it was clean andpressed, starched. The plaid of it marked this cowboy asa little bit old-timey. The kind of man who admires JohnWayne over Clint Eastwood and eventually Clint Eastwoodover Bruce Willis. The kind of man whoinsists that it’s just a joke, while telling you in the next breathhow many Black people work for him or are his friends.The steer bellows, squalls No. No, in vibrato, he’s a tenor; heyowls hell into the hum of the stands, addresses his horn to thecowboy. No, you there. Maybe hopes for spatchcock whenthe hip of the bulldogger comes down on his side,misses the horn, hip to neck, and ranch-made handsgrab his horns, wrench his head to the side. The horsehas gone on to wait by the gate. A witness. There are a thousandpopping flashbulbs as the flail of dirt clears. The cowboy walkstoward the horse. I see myselfin the bull, the horse, not the cowboy—who’s proven something,he thinks. The fans all think about his prowess. People yell, cheer,hooray the cowboy. Beer splashes down from above,into my hair. The sign flashes his time. He doesn’t look.Cowboy confidence is his primary objective. Instead, hewinks at his wife and a few others. She’s watching theclock so he doesn’t have to. The scent of Irish Spring and OldSpice are gone. He’s all beer and steer foam over horse latherin the truck on the way home down two-lane roadsdriving where he sees fit, right down the middle. A newbelt buckle rests in a box on the seat. He beat his best time.He’s grinning at me bouncing along on the madras seat coverin the middle of the bench seat, but I won’t look at himand instead watch the window, tracing the ditches withmy eyes, imagining dolphins, moths, mercy. I’m dustedsuch that my eyelashes are gray. Streaks of skin peekthrough dirt in sweat trails that hide my freckles. Thedriveway cuts around the field and scatters into the yard beforethe barn. Sheep and grapefruit trees make spectersin the twilight. Rabbit, my favorite rabbit, hangsby one foot in the tree, draining out, ready for stew. I start to crybut he taps his belt and looks at me.Dinner comes late on rodeo night.