{"id":171478,"date":"2025-08-19T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=171478"},"modified":"2025-08-20T11:13:44","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T15:13:44","slug":"the-man-in-the-new-boots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2025\/08\/19\/the-man-in-the-new-boots\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man in the New Boots"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Photograph by David Blakeman.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was about an hour before rider check-in when I realized I didn\u2019t have a cup. This was a problem because my old buddy Joshua was fond of telling me about how he had watched a hoof strike between his legs and seen the fate of countless future generations pass before his eyes. My wife was already worried about the microplastics in my balls, so I knew I had to take precautions. The problem was that my mom had somehow forgotten to save my old jockstrap from high school.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could stop by Dick\u2019s,\u201d my sister suggested. \u201cSo you can protect your nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

But we were already several weeks deep into the local Little League season, and Dick\u2019s was fresh out. We headed instead to the Walmart off the 101 and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard. The sun hung high on a late winter afternoon in Phoenix.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, you had an uncle who was a bull rider,\u201d my mom said, staring out the windshield.<\/p>\n

Nobody knew why I was doing this, so there was a felt need to make sense of things.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich side?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mom\u2019s side.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHer father\u2019s side were all rodeo clowns,\u201d my dad said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoesn\u2019t make a difference,\u201d my sister said flatly. She looked out at the blue glow of the McDowells, still wet from the weekend rain. \u201cMom\u2019s adopted. You don\u2019t have any of those excuses in you.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one way I might explain all this: there are these cave paintings of bulls, in shades of apricot, tallow, and flint, that I look at on my phone when I have trouble falling asleep. Usually the artists gather the animals together in rows and herds, \u201cflowing in long strides down some run of time through the silence of the mountain\u2019s hollow,\u201d as Guy Davenport once described the paintings. Occasionally, though, one creature is pared off from the rest, and it is only in these situations that man enters the picture. In what is likely the earliest image of a man and a bull, in the Chauvet cave paintings, the head of a bison merges fluidly into the lower body of a woman, as though the two beings had for a moment melded wills, or come together in a perfect ride.<\/p>\n

Seventeen thousand years later, at a cave in Lascaux, France, Paleolithic man painted a bull\u2014an auroch, extinct now, that had shoulders as tall as a shooting guard\u2014with its flank speared and a gash pouring blood. Directly in front of it, lying on the ground, is a man with his arms out and his legs stiff. The man is pretty clearly dead. The angle of the spear indicates that he attacked the bull from behind, yet somehow he wound up in front of the bull\u2019s horns.<\/p>\n

How does a man who approaches a bull from behind wind up dead on the opposite side of it? Ask an archaeologist, and you\u2019re bound to get some fustian explanation of the origins of Greek fertility rituals. Ask any rodeo fan, though, and you\u2019ll get a straighter answer: Seventeen thousand years ago, man discovered bull riding. And man got bucked.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

At Walmart they were all out of cups, but they did sell adult-size jockstraps and children\u2019s shin guards, in hot pink. I took a chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut this in your purse,\u201d I told my mom, reaching toward the back seat to hand her what was in my estimation not only a passable but in fact superior model of protective equipment. She recoiled from this new perversion of all sense and meaning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to hold that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust until I get inside and can get changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you put it in your pocket?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want the bouncer to pat me down and think I\u2019m some kind of pervert.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, what\u2019s he gonna think of me<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

We drove north up Pima Road. When my grandparents moved the family here in the sixties, they lived not far from Pima\u2019s south end, which ran like a mullion between the reservation and the suburbs. In Phoenix my grandfather traded in the habits of an Indiana farm boy for pearl-snap shirts and string ties and a pair of oxblood cowboy boots, which I donned for the occasion. My dad wore green ostrich-skin boots that were still too big for me.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

On either side of Pima today, the desert tolerates hutches of country clubs built atop sagebrush and greasewood, but as we drove farther north into the small enclave of Carefree, the developments broke up and the sun came busting through through like a lost dog. At the Buffalo Chip Saloon and Steakhouse, I signed a legal waiver releasing the Mercer Rodeo Co. of any liability upon my injury or death. I was told to return to the ring in an hour, at which time I could be suited in the helmet and vest they peeled off the corpse of the previous rider. I was told I could not know my place in the lineup in advance because \u201cwe can\u2019t control what the steers do.\u201d I was told I could not drink until after my ride.<\/p>\n

I walked over to the bar and sat there with a club soda and watched a looping highlight reel of bull riders getting their shit rocked not fifty yards from where I was sitting. A man nearby saw me watching the TV and said: \u201cAre you going to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you crazy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you must be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you must be crazy to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess so.\u201d<\/p>\n

He asked if he could buy me a drink. I told him I couldn\u2019t drink right now. He said: \u201cDid you lose some kind of bet?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you trying to get laid?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou must be crazy then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t break a leg.\u201d<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The first bull riders in North America were vaqueros: mestizo ranch hands hired to work the haciendas of the Spanish aristocracy. The vaqueros transformed traditional Spanish fiestas into charreadas<\/em>, which showcased their flair in horsemanship. Among the games they played was the puerta de la muerte<\/em>, in which a rider leapt from a saddled horse onto a wild one, still celebrated in Mexico to this day; the carrera de gallos<\/em>, in which one rider lassoed a rooster, then attempted to evade other riders who chased him, now unfortunately an artifact of antiquity; and the jaripeo<\/em>, in which the vaqueros took the Spanish tradition of bullfighting and elevated it from the foreplay of teasing a bull with capes and swords to the passion of riding one bareback until it either got tired and threw you off, fainted, or died.<\/p>\n

When the American cattleman Richard King assembled his famous King Ranch in Corpus Christi, Texas, he imported vaqueros for their unmatched expertise. With them came the jaripeo<\/em>. It traveled north with the cowboys, until it reached Colonel William Frederick Cody on the North Platte River. Cody incorporated bull riding into a show he described as \u201cAmerica\u2019s National Entertainment, the Real Thing! No Imitation About It, All True! All Honest!\u201d The bucking competitions were probably the only truly authentic element of the show.<\/p>\n

For some reason the lowly jaripeo<\/em>, never the main event of Mexican roundups, became a fixation for Americans. Maybe it had something to do with a Puritan lust for self-sacrifice. Maybe it was the superego of Manifest Destiny, reminding us that we might bridle the country but will never tame it. Maybe it\u2019s that it\u2019s goddamned insane to ride a bull, and America is full of crazy people who for no earthly reason see that sort of thing and want to try it themselves.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

In the bathroom stall the sound of my belt buckle hitting the tile floor announced to all present that there was a pervert in the room. I slung on my shin guards and jockstrap and did a few squats. I gave my groin a few good knocks and was satisfied.<\/p>\n

Outside, the sun had begun to settle behind the hilltop that cradled the ring. This whole saloon burned down ten years ago in a fire that the local paper described as \u201csuspicious.\u201d The only thing that survived were the clapboard stage flats that line the south side of the ring and give the place its Old West charm. These were now slightly obscured by posters from the rodeo\u2019s sponsors: Cowboy Channel, RFD-TV (\u201cRural America\u2019s Most Important Network\u201d), and a conservative political action group with the slogan BUCK BIG GOV<\/small>. The crowd gathered on the bleachers was a mix of North Valley libertarian types\u2014less Wranglers and a Colt .45 and more stretch denim and a Glock\u2014and bachelorette parties that took costly Ubers up from Scottsdale. By nightfall all five hundred seats were filled.<\/p>\n

Behind the bucking chutes, I got acquainted with the rodeo clowns\u2014beautiful men who distract bulls with their torn denim skirts, oversize suspenders, and jeweled belts\u2014and a gruff bunch of steer handlers. The only other novice rider was a twenty-year-old from Miami named Ra\u00fal. Ra\u00fal had a thick mustache and a racing hat and looked like he knew a thing or two about cheap thrills.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say to me to tuck your chin, straight back, and just ride that thing,\u201d he told me, swirling his hips. \u201cRide it till you can\u2019t no more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other riders were all cowboys, men with the bark on. This was not a sanctioned event in the Professional Bull Riding circuit, so they were relieved from the mandate to wear protective headgear. There was $2,500 on the line and a rowdy Tennessee blonde in row no. 3, and these guys weren\u2019t trying to hide face. In Minoan society, the horns of a bull were thought to be potent reservoirs of fertility, and men and women sought favor by attempting to throw themselves between the horns of a wild bull. At the end of the festival, the king, dressed in the hide of a bull, made love to his queen in a field surrounded by his subjects. The cowboys were jonesing to know which steer they were gonna pull in the lineup. Sidewinder. Tornado. 2 Beers. Freebird. High Deductible.<\/p>\n

I was given a Bauer hockey helmet and a thick leather vest and told to suit up. When a good-hearted handler saw me struggling with my chin strap, he stepped over to give me a hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet these pussies tighten their own helmets,\u201d someone shouted from near the chute.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember when it was my first time?\u201d the handler called back. \u201cYou did it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was too nice to you,\u201d the voice said, softly.<\/p>\n

We trotted out into the ring for prayer and the national anthem. We took a knee in the freshly turned dirt. The cowboys removed their hats and bowed their heads. The preacher commended us athletes to Christ, and a woman named Jan from Wyoming sang about the land of the free and the home of the brave. Then it was rodeo time.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

At least twenty people have died in bull-riding competitions since the early twentieth century. The first man killed was in Arizona in 1922. That was back when cowboys poured a bisulfate of carbon they called High Life on their steers to elicit a good buck. When a radio announcer asked the crowd for a volunteer steer rider, twenty-five-year-old Frank Stephens of the Big Sandy River Valley raised his hand. Nobody asked him why. He shortly found his skull fractured beneath the weight of his mount and died in the ring.<\/p>\n

The most notorious incident in the history of the sport was in 1989, when the legendary Lane Frost rode Takin\u2019 Care of Business at the Cheyenne Frontier Days, the biggest stage in rodeo. Frost, twenty-five, successfully rode the bull for eight seconds, but after dismounting, the animal turned on him and drove him face down into the mud with the iron stump of its horn. Frost died of massive internal bleeding before his body left the ring. Nobody knows why the bull did that, but it earned him an early retirement. Public health researchers have since found evidence suggesting that protective equipment may mitigate the harmful effects of bull riding.<\/p>\n

As the first few riders got bucked and rolled on the ground, dodging successive mortar rounds of hooves, I reached down into my pants and tugged my sagging jock up from between my legs till it fit snug. I cinched my belt a couple of notches tighter to hold everything in place and felt a sharp pain in my abdomen, then belched.<\/p>\n

On Friday I ate a stick of beef jerky while waiting for my flight to Phoenix to take off from JFK. Saturday morning I ate a machaca<\/em> burro. Sunday I grilled six steaks at my in-laws. Monday was Saint Paddy\u2019s, so I had the obligatory corned beef, sourced from a Kroger syndicate that plastic wraps its meat on Styrofoam so it looks like an organ donation. Tuesday my dad smoked a whole brisket (beef). The average yield a butcher can expect from a well-fed steer is around five hundred pounds of boneless, trimmed beef. I had the keen realization, standing beside the cattle in the lineup, that after a lifetime of wanton consumption, it was only fair to give the victim a chance at payback.<\/p>\n

The earliest indication that man felt guilt for killing and consuming bulls is the ancient Greek ceremony known as Buphonia. The ritual involved a member of a royal family killing a bull while it fed on grain, then throwing his ax aside and fleeing the scene with a face haunted by remorse. According to the philosopher Porphyry, the ax was then carried to a court and charged with murder, whereupon it was thrown into the sea. The crowd would then consume the meat of the slain bull to absolve the murderer\u2019s conscience by taking on his guilt.<\/p>\n

My steer\u2019s name was Babyface. He was a stocky thing with gentle eyes and a hide like black velvet. A patch just above his tail was pale as charcoal ash, and his horns, blackened at the tips, looked like cauterized ivory. Despite his complexion, his sleepy features reminded me of Watteau\u2019s Pierrot<\/em>. He flipped his tail pleasantly as Ra\u00fal was thrown between his own steer\u2019s horns face-first into the mud.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t tell you why I wanted to do this, but I can tell you exactly when I made the decision to do it. I was filling up my mother-in-law\u2019s Hummer at the Shell right off the Piestewa Highway a few days after the ocotillos bloomed. My wife and I had just decided we were going to try to have kids. I know what you\u2019re thinking, but that\u2019s not exactly it. I don\u2019t want to ride a bull before I have a kid. I want to make a bunch of money and buy a house and a Subaru before I have a kid.<\/p>\n

But I was standing there pumping midgrade octane into the H3 and staring at the McDowells and thinking about how I knew the pump number where I was standing, knew the name of the mountains I was looking at, knew the hard smell of the gasoline and the flaming blue of a passing attendant\u2019s uniform\u2014knew these things exactly<\/em>, the way I had always determined to know the world\u2014and suddenly I thought I should probably ride a bull. Or, more accurately, I suddenly found that I was going to ride a bull, as I had already reached for my phone and called Buffalo Chip and got my name on the list before any normative notion of whether I should <\/em>do this crossed my mind. It was a kind of fait accompli accomplished by my unconscious, the type of action one associates with creatures of lesser intelligence. It cost forty dollars, and I signed a waiver\u2014anyone can do it. At least, anyone can try.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

I heard the loudspeakers announce that our next athlete was \u201cthe man in the new boots.\u201d I was immediately handed a frayed polypropylene rope with a bell at the end of it and hurried across a catwalk toward the opposite bucking chute. The chute boss was roughly my age and had a silky voice and glass-prism earrings and a leather rodeo jacket with white stitching over the heart that spelled out 2023 FINALIST<\/small>. I gave him my rope, and he looped it under Babyface\u2019s torso, then helped me lower myself onto the steer. Smell of pine and cedar coming off that rosin-smeared rope as the chute boss heated it up. Babyface\u2019s hide shirred where the handhold pressed into his back, and golden manure poured out of his ass. I put my gloved right hand under the stiffened lace and let it rest on the matted wool padding while the chute boss shook down the bell between the steer\u2019s legs. Smell of asafetida and ammonia rising from the floor of that chute. “Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox” (Proverbs 14:4). Babyface pinned my left leg hard against the steel cage.<\/p>\n

Announcer said, \u201cYou can always tell them new riders by their new boots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chute boss said, \u201cPut your legs under his shoulders. That\u2019s it. Boots forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

ZZ Top on the loudspeakers said, \u201cCuz every girl\u2019s crazy \u2019bout a sharp-dressed man.\u201d<\/p>\n

God to Job said, \u201cIs the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your manger?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s gonna go left, then he\u2019s gonna do a one-eighty,\u201d a cowboy said. \u201cHe does it every time<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho wants an eight-second ride?\u201d the announcer asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cWAAAAAAA!!!!\u201d the crowd said.<\/p>\n

A perversion is a turn from a previous path to meaning. It is the betrayal of an exact course.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeft, then<\/em> one-eighty,\u201d the cowboy said. He held out his hands and clenched them like, If I could bend your body to this fate, I would.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re gonna nod when you\u2019re ready, okay?\u201d the chute boss told me.<\/p>\n

Why did the hunter at Lascaux ride the bull?<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay?\u201d<\/p>\n

Why did the artist paint him?<\/p>\n

\u201cAll right, we gotta go,\u201d a clown said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTime\u2019s up,\u201d my wife said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHold it,\u201d the chute boss said, looking at my grip. \u201cMove your dick up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

He reached his hands between the steer\u2019s horns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said scoot your dick up. Closer to your hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

I shifted my groin forward, and the friction against the hide caused a telltale shine of pink to pop out of my pants. I looked at the chute boss, and his face said, Pervert. I nodded my head.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chandler Fritz is a contributing writer for <\/em>County Highway. He works at<\/em> The New York Review of Books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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