honky tonk

Rocky is a tall drink of water from Texas, a 21-year-old construction worker who says “Ma’am” and “please”, who shyly moves his barstool closer to yours at the Mexican cantina while sipping on his Dos Equis and making small talk. He wants to come out to the honky-tonk bar you’ll be meeting your friends at later, but he’s embarrassed to come because he’s wearing his tennis shoes instead of his cowboy boots.

The parking lot for the Stagecoach Lounge looks like a mega-truck sales lot. Inside, a band plays country while couples glide around the dance floor, cowboy hats boppin’ and cigarettes burnin’. You join the line dancing, learning the steps to scoot and shuffle in unison with a couple dozen other pairs of tight jeans and lipstick smiles. Kathryn from Connecticut is turning 23 today, so everyone is buying her drinks, making her dance and snapping photos of her attempting to whistle a cat-call.

Billy is a grizzled old self-described redneck, and he makes sure you know you’re invited anytime for barbecued ribs out behind his trailer, way out in the Mississippi countryside. Evan sits with downcast eyes in silence at the next table for an hour or so before he gets up the nerve to bring you a rose in a plastic wrapper and say hi. David, with a handlebar mustache and a wide-brimmed cowboy hat, is the one the busboys at the Mexican place warned you about, and you politely decline his offer of a beer.

In the bathroom, the women are discussing who has cancer (three of them) and what kind (lung, breast, brain) and who has lost some hair and how they’re handling chemo. There’s no paper towels.

Rocky doesn’t show. Which is probably for the best, really.