my first rodeo

what used to serve as a parking lot for the county fair has been converted into a residential block made of rows of identical blue and white houses, fresh paint job striking even in the dark. j drops us off at the door and m pays for our admission. tickets are $5 per person, and anyone above 62 gets in for free. glowing ferris wheel turns slowly in the distance. a large boat with egyptian death masks carved on either end swings in pendulous semicircles. a gator-shaped rollercoaster gleams, stall closed for the night. dunghill scents waft across the muggy summer eve.

they’ve stopped selling tickets to the rodeo and nobody lets any of us asian girls into the stadium. j comes in from the parking lot and easily cajoles our way in — he insists it’s because he had the gall to do the cajoling, m thinks it’s because we’re dressed like city kids, and s insists it’s because he’s a big-bellied white man. we sit among the wooden bleachers and look upon the wide patch of dirt, lit like a stadium. a girl rides her horse into the ring from stage left. they run tight circles around two laterally placed barrels, and a loop around a third one at the end of the arena. the horse speeds up on the way back out. the girl’s hat falls off, blonde braids flapping behind her head like little flags. another girl&horse shoot out a few seconds later. then another, and another, all running the same pattern, announcer calling out their times to audience applause.

then come the boys on their bulls. boy&bull explode from the stalls on stage right, boy’s hand raised, spine arching and snapping. boy falls off, rolling and sprinting away from the ferociously bucking bull. in between acts, the rodeo clown dons a fat chicken suit and dances to the black eyed peas. each round takes a lot of setup and no one lasts very long. later j notes that the bulls seemed seasoned and the boys still green. he also notes that the navy kung fu shirt i wore with the mandarin buttons “looks like what the coolies used to wear in chinatown.” he’s tickled to think city kids now find it cool. i’m making it cool, i think loudly in his general direction. but the next day m tells me not to wear the shirt, and i obey.