{"id":139253,"date":"2019-09-04T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-09-04T13:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=139253"},"modified":"2019-09-04T11:29:49","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T15:29:49","slug":"the-american-rodeo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/09\/04\/the-american-rodeo\/","title":{"rendered":"The American Rodeo"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the last couple months, I\u2019ve been on a quest for the American summer<\/a>, and right now, I\u2019m on my way to the Greater Midwestern Rodeo, puttering across the interstate in search of Portage, Wisconsin. I also have non-rodeo-related reasons for venturing out to the heartland. A few weeks ago, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that, if left untreated, can result in the ossification of the spine, whereby all the spaces between one\u2019s vertebrae slowly fuse together. For the last few months, I\u2019d been waking up in the middle of the night with terrible zaps of pain surging across my sacrum, and things got so bad that I began to experience a limited range of motion. At thirty-four years old, I confess I\u2019m terrified to write a sentence concerning my \u201climited range of motion.\u201d Is it possible I\u2019ll start describing myself with adjectives like \u201cspry\u201d? Thanks to the wonky health insurance offered by my state university, I hadn\u2019t been able to find a doctor in my hometown, so I have to schlep out here, to the heart of the heart of the country, where a doctor will take stock of the disease\u2019s advance.<\/p>\n

The irony of combining a doctor\u2019s visit with a rodeo didn\u2019t hit me until I finally pulled off the exit. After all, I was about to watch a posse of cowboys and cowgirls have their spines whiplashed into oblivion, and not only did this seem like a mean parody of my new medical condition, but it also seemed like an apposite description of certain liberal voters. Indeed, over the last few years, as the very foundations of American democracy have writhed and shuddered beneath us, it\u2019s often felt like the best we can do is simply to try and hold on.<\/p>\n

The fair is located in a desolate sector of Portage where the dominant aesthetic might be best captured by Clevelander Joyce Brabner\u2019s phrase, \u201crust belt chic,\u201d a term she used to describe coastal appropriation of the heartland. Lawns have been mowed into board game rows, and American flags droop from gonfalons that have been bolted to screened-in porches. I grew up in Wisconsin, but I\u2019m suddenly worried folks out here might think me an interloper if they catch a glimpse of my backseat, which is brimming with all the accouterments of my left-leaning disposition (sushi-rolled yoga mats, weatherworn New Yorkers<\/em>). I might as well be wearing a Marianne Williamson button.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

All of the fairground\u2019s expo buildings are massive and without fenestration. I presume these facilities are used for storing root vegetables in winter, but right now, they\u2019re occupied by kiosks of local retailers. Just inside, children are playing in a sandbox filled with corn feed, which they are cupping into their hands and raining down on each other, yelling, \u201cIt\u2019s snowing!\u201d Given that I\u2019m an English professor, I\u2019m naturally drawn to an exhibition called \u201cJunior Communications Posters.\u201d All of these have been conjured and crafted by Columbia County middle schoolers, who were free to write a thesis statement on a topic of their choosing. Here\u2019s a random sample of the titles of this year\u2019s winners: \u201cHow to Field Skin a Deer in 13 Easy Steps\u201d; \u201cThe Different Breeds of Fairy Goats\u201d; \u201cWool Versus Sherpa: A Study\u201d; and, my personal favorite, \u201cYou Can Hunt Anything on the Planet with Just These Four Guns.\u201d For any weapons enthusiasts out there, this child alleges that a Ruger, an American Safari, and two different calibers of Remington can apparently be trusted to handle any beast-related assignations.<\/p>\n

The rodeo takes place in a dingy coliseum, one with rickety bleachers and a puny bandstand, all of which encircle a wide, mud-studded paddock. For the second time in as many hours, the PA system is blaring \u201cOld Town Road\u201d by Lil Nas X, and on either end of the pasture are steel barricades and a labyrinth of animal pens, from whose darkened interiors we plainly hear fractious snorts and odd, eldritch harrumphing. Every now and then what emerges through the metal latticework of the pens are the desperate, heart-melting expressions of various confined barn animals\u2014lambs and ponies, calves and stallions.<\/p>\n

Soon an announcement comes crackling over the PA: \u201cAll mutton-busters, please line up behind the bucket shoots. All mutton-busters to the bucket shoots, please.\u201d Do urban readers know anything about mutton-busting? Before coming to the rodeo, I didn\u2019t. In fact, the very onomatopoetics of \u201cmutton-busting\u201d conjured (for me, anyway) various carnal acts with barn animals. But mutton-busting is far more innocent, a time-honored rite of passage for rural youngsters. Here\u2019s how it works: a clique of adult ranch hands corral a lamb into a small metal stall called a \u201cbucket shoot.\u201d A helmeted child is then passed through said bucket shoot, where a waiting handler situates her on the animal\u2019s unsaddled back. Once the contestant is firmly barnacled to the lamb\u2019s hide, the gate gets whipped open, and the ram proceeds to hightail it across the pasture, bleating madly and hurtling like a banshee. The object of the game is to see for how long the mutton-buster can hold on. As to the possible gratification the rider might receive from this bumpy peregrination, your guess here is as good as mine.<\/p>\n

Moseying back and forth in front of the bucket shoots is tonight\u2019s rodeo\u2019s impresario, a deeply tanned man in his late forties who wears a pink polo and a sun-blanched cowboy hat. Right now, he\u2019s heckling and cajoling the audience, speaking with the unctuous, concentrated poetry of a late-career car salesmen. \u201cNow, ladies and gentlemen, before we get started, I want y\u2019all to go on ahead and give our mutton-busters a nice, warm round of applause. After all, it takes a lot of courage to cross the cold metal of those bucket shoots. Because while you might think these sheep are just some docile little creatures, let me go on ahead and disabuse you of that notion. Because these ain\u2019t your fuzzy, little, cute, cuddly type animals that you want to take into bed with you. They ain\u2019t the lambs that Mary had. So come on now and, without any further ado, let\u2019s go on ahead and get started.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, this turns out to be a head fake, because there\u2019s even more pomp and pageantry. This includes not only an ovation for our veterans, but also bagpipe renditions of the national anthem and \u201cAmazing Grace.\u201d Then the impresario asks us to \u201cgo on ahead\u201d and bow our heads. In my thirty-four years, I\u2019ve heard my fair share of invocations, but I must confess this is the first time I\u2019ve heard a Western-themed supplication. The prayer is laced with countrified motifs\u2014cacti and tumbleweeds, desolate pastures and frontier heartache\u2014and by the time the impresario rises to his heart-rustling conclusion, several men in the audience are wiping away a tear. \u201cAnd when we embark on that final ride to the great pasture in the sky, where the grass is lush and green and stirrup-high, and the water flows deep and cool, we pray that our final judgment will be: Come on in, cowboy, cowgirl, your entry ticket has been paid in full.\u201d The resultant applause is so thunderous that the horses are bucking in their stables.<\/p>\n

Onward then to mutton-busting. First up is the appropriately named Colton Young, a five-year-old child in a blue T-shirt from the hard knocks of Portage, Wisconsin. Mutton-busting rules stipulate that all participants don a grid-faced helmet, which explains why Colton Young enters the bucket shoot looking quite a bit like a gladiator. Right from the get-go, things get out of hand. An airhorn goes off somewhere in the crowd, and the noise seems to have startled the bucket shoot\u2019s ranch hand, because before Colton Young can get a proper grip on the lamb\u2019s fulsome hindquarters, the gate gets flung open, and the sad-faced ruminant commences to tear ass across the pasture. Even from this distance, the lamb\u2019s strangled exhalations are easily detected, and its spooked, white eyes seem distressingly human. Suddenly, the lamb halts and briskly reverses course, which sends young Colton flying up over the animal\u2019s hindquarters, but in a freakish act of athleticism, little Colton Young somehow manages to hold on. In midair, he readjusts his (now one-handed) grip, and dangles from the animal\u2019s neck for a few paces before his strength and mettle finally fail him. As Colton tumbles limb-sprawled toward the earth, the applause in the coliseum is monstrous and deafening. A few men have stood up from their seats to clap madly and offer gruff nods of what looks like paternal approval. Colton now rises as the ovation multiplies, and while the boy dusts himself off, I can see that his face is crumpled with tears (it\u2019s probably just easier for me to say at the outset that virtually all of the mutton-busters end their rides in tears). Soon the boy hobbles wincingly toward the exits, where the impresario offers Colton a high-five and commends him on his effort.<\/p>\n

Next up is Rainey Jones, a nine-year-old girl in drainpipe trousers and cornsilk braids. As the child gets plunked down onto her animal, the impresario yells, \u201cLadies in the audience, make some noise for Rainey Jones if you think a woman can do anything that a man can do and that a woman do it better!\u201d This ends up garnering a tsunami of applause. Soon the gate creaks open, and out trots a brisk, cheerful-faced lamb, with Rainey clutching onto its hide. Unlike Colton Young, who favored an upright, bronco-rider\u2019s position, Rainey is crouched low, as if on a road bike, which seems to better serve her balance and aerodynamics. Soon the lamb reaches the far end of the paddock, and I\u2019ll be damned if Rainey is still <\/em>holding on. Now, the women in the audience are whooping and cheering, and when Rainey finally capsizes, she turns out to be the only rider who doesn\u2019t burst into tears. \u201cMy god, Rainey!\u201d the impresario says, slapping his thigh. \u201cI feel sorry for your boyfriend. You\u2019re gonna break that dude\u2019s neck.\u201d<\/p>\n

If I told you how many children willingly subjected themselves to this spectacle, you\u2019d think I was inventing things. But the mutton-busting continues for the better portion of an hour, and by my count, some thirteen children brave the bucket shoots in front of their friends and family this evening. Sitting here in the grandstands, I try to imagine what this experience must feel like to them, how the violence of unwanted animal-riding might rest upon their nerve-endings. And yet it\u2019s only when Eli Wakeman crosses into the bucket shoots that things begin to seem criminally negligent. Wakeman is four years old (!), and even before the gate opens, he\u2019s already turned on the waterworks. It\u2019s at this point in the festivities that I finally notice the coterie of EMTs resting their elbows on the fence along the paddock, where they\u2019re clearly just waiting for tonight\u2019s inevitable injuries to call them into action. These will come later, during the bareback contest, when four adult ranch-hands attempt to break a cohort of psychotic stallions. As the horses shudder and buck, each cowboy will look like nothing so much as a mannequin falling down an escalator. One man gets a concussion. Another man shatters his collarbone. A third lands hard on his sacrum, except when I see him toodling around the fair after the rodeo, he is for some reason icing his forearm. It turns out my own spine is stiffening here in the un-ergonomic bleachers, and in light of the carnage on the paddock, I\u2019m doing my best to hide from the other spectators little winces and the occasional mewling exhalation.<\/p>\n

After little Eli Wakeman\u2019s mercifully short adventure, I\u2019m wondering why these fair goers are so keen to condone violence against their children. After all, this is a sport that ensures that a hard fall and some tears is the best<\/em> a participant can hope for. At one point, the impresario jokes, \u201cYou know, folks, I think we better change the name mutton-busting to OCA\u2014that stands for Organized Child Abuse.\u201d Responding to scattered groans, he said, \u201cOh, come on, I\u2019m just teasing.\u201d And yet, you can see the parents take great pride in their children\u2019s participation. Sometimes I watch the families watching the muttons who are getting busted, and they all have that hopeful, misty-eyed look of proud parents cheering on competitive offspring. It reminds me of a close friend of mine who was explaining to me how his four-year-old daughter had just announced her decision to become a vegetarian. \u201cWhat\u2019s weird, man, is that we didn\u2019t even coax her in any way. One day, she just shows up at the breakfast island, and says, Yeah, I\u2019m not going to eat animals anymore\u2014not today or any other day.\u201d But for all the father\u2019s claims about the child\u2019s intrinsic motivation, I couldn\u2019t help but remember that she\u2019s a product of her environment. After all, this is a child who attends Montessori art classes and whose parents take her to the public library for something called \u201cDrag Queen Story Time.\u201d It\u2019s interesting to think that she\u2019s being raised only forty minutes away from a rodeo where children her age are strapping on helmets and getting dragged by lambs across pastures. A tacit debate is taking place about child-rearing and the merits of overprotection. What attributes of citizenship\u2014what quotients of courage and forbearance\u2014might run in the veins of these children, in the veins of the adults they\u2019ll become? It reminds me of what Hannah Arendt once said about the difference between nation-states and republics. A nation-state is formed by neighbors who, sharing no ideological tenets, bind themselves together in defense of common resources. A republic, meanwhile, is something different. What unites the citizens of a republic is a willful act of imagination. And yet how can we share an act of imagination when our basic mental frameworks are so wildly divergent?<\/p>\n

As Rainey Jones is crowned mutton-busting champion and as the pasture is cleared for the barebacks, I strike up a conversation with the man sitting next to me, one of only two black people in the audience. We get to talking about the history of rodeos, and he asks me whether I\u2019ve ever heard of a man named Bill Pickett. I confess that I haven\u2019t. It turns out Bill Pickett, a descendent of Native Americans and African slaves, was essentially the godfather of the American rodeo, one of the truly great American athletes of the early twentieth century. It was Pickett who popularized the feats of bull-roping, and who had elevated the brute mechanics of ranch life to the lofty choreography of sport. Some brisk googling does yield a veritable treasure trove of interesting stories about Pickett, not least of which is that he had apparently innovated a strategy for wrangling wayward steers, which he called \u201cbulldogging.\u201d In bringing down their targets, bulldogs would leap up and sink their teeth into the upper portion of the cow\u2019s mouth, so Pickett would vault off his horse and land on the heifer\u2019s back, whereupon he\u2019d use his hand to execute the canine\u2019s maneuver. On YouTube I find a clip of Pickett accomplishing this tactic, soundtracked by old-timey music, the kind of tinkling piano melodies that make you think of spittoons and tumbleweeds. Pickett was a superstar in the rodeo circuit in the early 1900s and performed alongside the likes of Buffalo Bill, Will Rogers, and the actor Tom Mix. Every year, a Los Angeles\u2013based rodeo takes place in honor of his memory, which is the world\u2019s only African American touring rodeo and which routinely sells out arenas all across the country.<\/p>\n

Granted, it\u2019s not like Bill Pickett\u2019s legacy is free of complication (he was often forced to deny his blackness and compete as a Native American in order to enter in the white-dominated circuit). And yet this history reminds me that, whatever political assumptions one might make about a rodeo, it is not a simple, one-note signifier for the region or its politics. This message is brought home to back in the expo building, where I find myself at the table for the Columbia County Democrats, at which they\u2019re doing a bean poll\u2014like an actual<\/em> bean poll\u2014right here at the fair. For those politicos who are keeping a jeweler\u2019s eye on the democratic horse race in Wisconsin, it bears noting that in Portage, Biden is in the lead by about ten beans, while wispy-haired Bernie maintains a very close second. (All night Buttigieg, Harris, and Warren will battle it out for third). What the man at the table for the CC Democrats wants me to understand is that while a city person (he means someone like me, someone from Madison) might come to the rodeo and think this place is a deadlock for Trump, what\u2019s interesting about Columbia County is that it actually has more Democrats than Republicans. And yet, when asked which way the county voted in 2016, the man winces. \u201cLook, we went for Obama in 2012 and before that in 2008.\u201d He sighs. \u201cAnd, okay, in 2016 we made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I shuffle out of the expo building, it occurs to me that we may well have more in common than we care to realize, but so long as I bristle at mutton-busting and they sneer at me for my yoga mat, then we will be forever sequestered in the mythos of our respective market demographics, growing ever more divided in whatever\u2019s left of our republic.<\/p>\n

The rollercoasters outside the rodeo\u2019s coliseum are filling the evening sky with bleary neon light, and as I hobble toward the exits, an older couple in London Fog jackets moves briskly past me. I can\u2019t help wonder if I\u2019m experiencing a premonition of my eventual condition: my spine growing ever more rigid, my shoulders keeled over, unable to see the ground ahead of me. \u201cDoing okay?\u201d the man asks. With my hands on my knees, I unleash a pained squawk, which he apparently interprets as a meaningful rejoinder. \u201cYou gotta use it if you don\u2019t want to lose it,\u201d the woman says. This was the sort of homespun wisdom that I once took as a matter-of-fact. But as I was driving home that night, across floodplains and moonlit pastures, it began to haunt me like a rune, one that I couldn\u2019t decode no matter how hard I tried.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Barrett Swanson was the\u00a0Halls Emerging Artist Fellow at the\u00a0Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing and was the winner of a 2015 Pushcart Prize.\u00a0His work has appeared or is forthcoming in\u00a0<\/em>The New York Times Magazine,<\/em>\u00a0The Believer,<\/em>\u00a0The New Republic,<\/em>\u00a0American Short Fiction,<\/em>\u00a0The New Republic,<\/em>\u00a0The Point, and\u00a0<\/em>Best American Travel Writing 2018, among other places.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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