The Ride of His Life

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Even at five, my son wanted to be a professional bull-rider. He wasn’t interested in cars or Spiderman or Legos like all the other little boys on our block. He hated all the modern-day superheroes with a passion; he said if they couldn’t ride a bull, they weren’t worth anything. Where he’d gotten the idea of bull-riding, I knew without a doubt. His father, my deceased husband, had been a professional bull-rider. He died of a heart puncture caused by a bull after his tenth official ride, although even by then everyone knew him as Wild Willie. It was exactly one week after Billy, our son, was born.

Since he didn’t know his father and didn’t have the same connection with him that I’d had, Billy thought the story of his father’s death was fascinating. He always told everyone his father had been a bucking bronco cowboy, and he was repeatedly regarded as a little boy with a big imagination. He pleaded for me to tell him the story of my husband’s final ride almost every night. Rarely did he hear it, as I was barely over the loss of William myself. Billy didn’t understand why this bothered me so. As you can imagine, my husband’s death combined with Billy’s wonderment of him was a constant plague to my heart.

However, my second husband Robbie tried to convince me that it was just a childhood phase. We bought Billy a horse when he was nine, hoping to deter his bull-riding dreams. Eager at first, he began taking lessons from a friend of Robbie’s. After learning that horses – especially tamed ones – rarely bucked, he lost interest and began searching for a more dangerous hobby. I was crestfallen by this turnabout. A caring yet worried mother, I had just gotten used to seeing my precious little baby atop a huge horse

Robbie and I decided that maybe if we bought a younger, more energetic horse, which was somewhat wilder and needed more attention, Billy would forget about his dangerous hobby. At twelve, we made the trade, and the prospect of owning a new horse, one that lacked proper equestrian etiquette, excited our Billy. This excitement fizzled out all too soon, in my opinion. It was discovered less than two years later that Billy made no effort to train the horse. Instead, he attempted to jump on Sally and let her take off, determined to stay on. As soon as I found this out, I banned Billy from the horse and Robbie sold it to a friend.

Though Billy was angry with Robbie and I, he didn’t let it stop him from asking us if he could attend a local rodeo. We decided to let him, after Billy had given us his word that he would stay outside of the corral. Maybe, after seeing how it dangerous it really was, he would lose interest or become frightened. Of course, he was not to be hindered, and Robbie and I were convinced that his bull-mania wasn’t just a phase. How could it be, after nearly ten years?

Once again, our efforts to diminish his interest were futile. Billy had, if anything, gained interest in bull riding. Not sure of where to turn next, I bought him a mechanical bull to put in our yard. When he was thrown off the first time, and only yelled yee-haw, I knew I had lost him. But I also knew from watching him day after day, month after month, and year after year in the back yard, growing more comfortable with the machine, that he had it in him. I knew from watching my first husband ride that Billy, while having no past experience with bulls, could become a pro.

At hearing Robbie suggest that ‘maybe we should let him try’, I flew into a frenzy. However, I couldn’t explain why 18 year-old Billy shouldn’t be allowed to ride. He had grown up so quickly; I couldn’t use the excuse that he was under my care – though he lived with us, he was legally an adult. I couldn’t hold him back anymore. It was a dreaded day in my life. So I gave in, but not far enough to satisfy Robbie or Billy. I refused to go to any event in which Billy participated.

This refusal did not last long. On Billy’s first ride, he made the bell without sustaining the slightest injury. He had been on an easy bull, but Robbie and Billy overlooked that tiny detail. Though I remained emotionless when he proudly told me this, I was at the gate of his next event 45 minutes early. Though giving me a somewhat surprised, raised-eyebrow look, Billy grinned. “I’ll win it for you, Mom,” he promised, squeezing my hand. He looked so grown-up in his cowboy hat and chaps and boots with spurs. My eyes filled up with tears and my throat constricted; I was filled with pride.

That is, until the first ride of the night. A boy about Billy’s age went out on a bull named Tough Luck. The bull unseated its rider and swung him around by the horns. It punctured the boy’s lungs, and I ached with sympathy as a woman, obviously his wife, ran out into the middle of the arena, screaming, “My baby, my baby!” And her husband wasn’t her only baby. The woman’s swollen midsection showed that there was another on the way.

Only a mother or wife of a bull-rider could understand. Bull-riding wasn’t just about the fame and the glory, the thrills men got from putting their lives in danger. All of that would disappear in a split-second accident such as the one taking place in front of me. While William was alive, people spoke of him as brave and daring. At his funeral, behind my back, they called him crazy and reckless. Nobody wanted that for their loved ones, and I was no exception. Billy wasn’t crazy. But he was just like his father; I couldn’t figure out how to explain to him that he didn’t have to ride wild bulls to prove he was brave. There were others ways to show people what an amazing person he was.

At each event, I could be found sitting in the row closest to the metal gates, wringing a Dodge Ram handkerchief. Dodge Ram sponsored our local rodeos, and the rodeo clowns gave them away for free during intermission to gain publicity. The handkerchief, which always ended up wrinkled and soaked with sweat at the end of every rodeo, clearly displayed how tense and worried I was. The grinding of teeth, shaking of shoulders, and jumbled speech told anyone sitting near me that I was a rodeo mom.

Billy was always filled with joy the night of a rodeo, and this blew me away. His face never even held a sliver of fear. Out there on Big Kitty, or Splat, or Muddy Millions, Billy looked at home. He gripped the strap with one hand, his muscles bulging as he struggled to stay on, and with the other, waved his daddy’s cowboy hat with pride. Upon being bucked off, he rolled away from the bull and hurried to the nearest gate. He would climb up on the top and wait until the bull was safely back in the corral, showing respect for the monstrous creatures.

I argued with him about it every chance I got, but the night of his tenth official ride, I nearly lost it. It was the Junior Rodeo National Championship, and Billy was the last to ride. I knew he could win; but that’s what I was afraid of. If he beat everyone, he would be the best out there, and the rest of his life would be spent riding. Everything would be centered on getting out there and fighting the bull, increasing the risk of an accident

“What if that had been you?” I yelled at my son before he went to the corral to get seated up. After getting his foot caught in the stirrup, a man with three daughters had met his death. “I couldn’t afford to lose someone else! Your father meant so much to me; you mean too much to me! You have no idea how much I worry about you. Why do you do it? Is it the money or the fame? Or are you out of your mind and just doing it for the thrill?”

Billy was shocked. “Mom,” he said in a strained tone, “it’s not about any of those things. I do it because I love it.” He acted like those seven words explained everything, and strode away from me angrily.

I felt a gut-wrenching sob coming from deep within me. I gritted my teeth, determined not to let it escape. Billy climbed atop the bull behind Gate Six, and every muscle in my body tensed when the announcer introduced Billy and shared the name of the bull: Death Wish. The rodeo clown pulled the latch on the gate and jerked it open.

The bull flew out of the pen and immediately kicked his legs up into the air, jolting Billy forward and then yanking him back to his original seat. I pulled out the handkerchief and began twisting it furiously, creating folds in the silk. The bull reared again, but Billy held on tight. After Death Wish bucked a few more times, he settled for running, trying to unseat his rider. In these quick sprints, I saw the look of determination on his face, the lines that creased his forehead as he concentrated on nothing but staying on the bull.

I heaved a huge sigh of relief when the time bell rang and Billy jumped off of Death Wish, unharmed and triumphant. The judges gave their scores, and Billy ran to me when they announced he had a ninety out of a possible one hundred, the highest score reached in the championship. He didn’t even stay in the ring long enough to receive his trophy. When he reached me, he picked me up and swung me around with one arm, waving the red, wrinkled handkerchief with the other. I had never been happier for Billy.

“That was the ride of my life!” He exclaimed, using the sweaty Dodge Ram handkerchief to wipe the tears from my face. “I did it!” He let go long enough to run back into the ring and grab his trophy, but he came right back to my side, ignoring the pleas for autographs from young, single women.

“Mom,” he asked me later that night, “do you still not want me to ride?”

I sighed, not sure how to answer. “Yes, I still don’t want you to ride. But you aren’t going to stop riding just because I don’t want you to, right?”

Billy shook his head sadly. “I can’t stop riding, Mom, just like Dad couldn’t. Leaving the sport would hurt as much as it hurts not to have your blessing with me when I ride.”

Billy had a way with words, and they hit home with me. I thought about our earlier argument. I do it because I love it, Billy had said. In a way, those seven words had explained everything perfectly.

Why had I raised Billy? Why did I give up everything for him? Why was I trying to stop him from doing something he loved? Because I loved him. And because I loved him and wanted him to be happy, I had to let go and I had to let him ride. My Billy was grabbing life by the horns, but he wasn’t a Dodge Ram. He was my son, my pride and joy, and a spitting image of his father.

“In riding bulls, you are just like your father, and I don’t ever want you to change,” I told him, and in saying that, Billy had my blessing. No matter how many bulls he rode, how many injuries he sustained, my blessing would always be with him. It was tucked in a special place, a place so deep inside of him that no bull could ever reach it: his heart.

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