Joe Grantham
They didn’t invite him, but he came anyway. Saw him sitting on a concrete bench outside the theatre next to a palm tree, cane by his side, trying to light a hand-rolled cigarette with shaky fingers and a limp matchbook. A couple of tall strangers dressed in black stood behind whispering hands. Apparently, they recognized him. I did. Had seen all his movies, many more than once, especially the Westerns, my favorites.
Not every day you get to meet a legend. I walked over to him.
“Need help?”
“Fuck no. I got this. Get outta here.” His voice sounded like it had crawled across Mojave sand on Santa Ana winds.
“Been watching you the last five minutes.” I extended my palm.
He squinted at me from his perch. The twisted cigarette stuck to his bottom lip when he spoke. “You one of them reporter fuckers?” The question lingered somewhere between irritation and hope.
“Naw, just a fan.”
He sized me up with an expression swinging from wanting to land an uppercut to offering a handshake. Hard to tell which he might deliver. In his prime, his rep as a prolific barroom brawler preceded him around town. Somewhere along the line he even toyed with entering the ring. His agent once claimed he’d been arrested more times than he had climbed into a saddle.
“Awright, you little cocksucker, give it a shot.” He placed the wilted matchbook on my palm the way a priest would communion.
I struck the match, cupped it, presented it to Baxter Bickford, king of the cowboy movies. The sad excuse for a cigarette flared immediately. You’d think he could afford a lighter and a box of Marlboros.
“Bet you’re here to see that SOB.” Bickford nodded up at the marquee with the director’s name below the film’s title, and the word Retrospective.
“No, sir. Death Rides the Lost Trail is my favorite film of all time.”
“Prone to hyperbole, are you?”
“Seriously, this film ushered in a whole new genre: the Noir Western.”
“Oh, crap, you’re a critic!” He flung his meager cigarette toward the marquee.
“Just a fan.”
“Well, ‘fan,’ help me up. I gotta piss.”
He offered his arm. I pulled him to a standing position. He couldn’t have weighed more than a bag of those Styrofoam packing peanuts. He teetered briefly on the heels of his weathered cowboy boots. I handed him his cane, and as we shuffled toward the theatre’s entrance, he kicked my ankle.
“Goddamn, son, take it easy. I ain’t Secretariat.”
“Sorry, Mr. Bickford.”
“Baxter. Call me Baxter.”
“Will do, Baxter.”
“And get a better grip, will ya. You been delivering daisies all your life?”
We tottered into the lobby. On our way to the john, a voice bellowed behind us.
“Baxter Bickford!”
We stopped, turned, and there stood the director of the film.
“Maurice Andrews,” Bickford snarled.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Said the cuckold to the king.”
“Said the has been to the honoree.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Bickford said and yanked me back on course.
“Shoot any horses lately?” Andrews barked at Bickford’s back.
The old cowboy froze, rigid as a pillar of salt, glanced over his shoulder at a grinning Andrews. The fire in Bickford’s eyes revealed the fury he was known to have unleashed in L.A. bars. He growled elegant vulgarities under his breath as we continued our trek to relieve his bladder.
By the time I situated him in front of the urinal, word had spread that Baxter Bickford was in the house. A group of ‘lookie-loos’ crowded the john hoping to get a sneak peek at the iconic cowboy. He gave his member a final shake, zipped up, thumbed me to get him out of there.
The theatre was packed. We sat in the back row, waiting for the film to start. No trailers tonight, only the feature and a Q & A with Andrews afterwards.
“What was that with Andrews?”
“He thought I banged his wife years ago. Don’t know why he ever gave a shit. He cheated on all five. Go get me a medium 7-Up and a large empty.”
“Empty cup?”
“Hell, yes, I ain’t asking for the ruby slippers. Hurry up before this thing starts.”
When I returned, Bickford was holding a pint of Old Grand-Dad. He unscrewed the lid, took a belt, paused. “For the horses I rode. Now, hand me that empty.” He dumped half the pint in and instructed me to add 7-Up. He took another snort from the bottle and said, “For the horses I didn’t ride.” He emptied the pint into the virgin 7-Up, dropped the bottle on the floor where it clanged like a broken bell, then kicked it skidding several rows ahead of us. “Here. One for you, one for me. Drink up.” He took a deep gulp followed by a belligerent belch.
A woman in front of us whipped her head around, gave Bickford the evil eye.
“Mind your business, old hag. You disremember the 21st Amendment?”
Lights went down, curtains parted, the screen lit up as a plaintive harmonica and guitar summoned The Bard of Armagh. As the opening credits faded, a man on horseback rode into an extreme close-up: Bickford overlooking Monument Valley. He didn’t utter a sound throughout the whole movie, other than grunting for my undrinkable bourbon and seven.
The final credits rolled to completion, curtains closed, house lights came up. As the program director took the stage and introduced Andrews, I noticed Bickford palming tears off his face. This caught me off-guard. Felt like Bickford had landed one of his infamous sucker punches to my gut. Where was Old Grand-Dad when I needed him?
“Get me outta here,” he snorted and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“You don’t want to stay for the Q & A?”
“I know all I need to know about Andrews.”
“Need a lift?”
“Nope. Daughter taught me how to use Uber.”
I guided him outside to the cement bench where I found him. He tapped in his rideshare request.
“You okay?”
“Fine. Go back in and listen to that jackass.”
“I’d rather listen to you.”
“About what?”
I wanted to ask him about the movie, about working with Andrews, shooting in Monument Valley, riding horses, anything; but all I could think about was the earlier exchange between him and Andrews. Then the words tumbled out of my mouth like an overturned bag of groceries. “What did Andrews mean about shooting horses?”
You’d have thought I sucker-punched Bickford.
“Son, you got balls. I’ll give you that.”
I read the hurt in his eyes, felt ashamed for asking, could see I touched a nerve. “Never mind, sir. Have a good night.” I headed for my car, any desire to listen to Andrews gone.
Two steps away I heard, “Wait.”
I turned and saw Bickford brandishing an unlit smoke in his gnarled fist.
“Got a light?” I fished the matchbook out of my pocket and lit him up.
“The horse in that movie, Blue Jack,” he began, “was a Steel Dust Quarter Horse. Best goddamn horse I ever rode. Blessed with God-given speed. You coulda bred him with a dump truck and got a Derby winner.”
I sat down next to Bickford.
“I did my own riding. Toward the end of the shoot, Andrews had me doing a chase sequence over some tricky rocks. I warned against it, but at the time he knew my reputation was shit, and I wasn’t getting many offers. So …” He paused, looked out on the street at passing cars as if he were seeing the scene play out in front of him. “I could tell Blue Jack was tired, but he had no quit in him. Musta been our eighth or ninth take. I took him around a hairpin turn too fast, he tripped, shattered his fetlock.”
“Jesus!”
“Jesus coulda been riding him that day and it wouldn’t have mattered.” He dropped his smoke, twisted it under the toe of his boot, rested elbows on his thighs, hung his head and said, “I loved that pony more than any human being.” He paused in reverie. “Aside from my wife and daughter,” he added. “Horses can hear your heartbeat four feet away. I know he heard mine racing that day. Didn’t want a wrangler coming near him. I had a loaded pearl-handled Colt 45 in my trailer. For rattlesnakes. I put him down. Couldn’t do that today. Then I walked up to Andrews and cold cocked the motherfucker. He was out before he hit the ground. I didn’t work for ten years after that.”
“Damn.”
“Yep. That’s Andrews in a nutshell.”
Bickford’s ride pulled up. I eased him. He looked up at me. “Didn’t catch your name, son?”
“Al.”
“Good to meet you, Al.” He offered his hand and we shook.
I watched him ride west down Hollywood Boulevard, my heart beating faster than usual.
Joe Grantham lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has waited tables, taught high school, worked in bookstores, sold information to bail bondsmen. He often enjoys a well-made Sazerac. Fiction has appeared in 34th Parallel, Litro, Faded-Out, and Wilderness House Literary Review; poetry in Backlash and The Nervous Breakdown. X: @JoeBGrantham.
Photo by Unsplash from Freerange Stock
