Loretta moves to a roulette table, asks the man in the white shirt and black vest what to do and he explains it to her, but she doesn’t understand. She puts chips on thirteen. She thinks that everything is reversed now, opposite, so thirteen is her lucky number, but she doesn’t win. The man in the black vest gathers in the money. Boyd says, “This is fucked up.” The roulette wheel spins and flashes, the ball bounces and lands in a black chute, and the man in the vest sweeps Loretta’s chips toward himself across the felt table. Boyd leaves and returns. Loretta hears him telling Jason, “I hurled like a motherfucker in there. All over the seat.”
A different song comes on. Slower. Sadder. “And it’s one more beer / and I don’t hear you anymore…”
Loretta puts chips on black thirteen. Boyd says to Jason, “What are we doing, exactly? I mean, what are you doing?”
Loretta loses. The chips slide away. Jason says something she can’t hear.
“What I mean,” Boyd says, belching, “is, I can see why she would want to leave. And I can see why I would want to leave. But I can’t see why you would want to leave.”
“Well.”
The singer sings, “And someone saved my life tonight sugar bear…”
Boyd says, “I mean, you had it pretty good.”
Something wordless is happening between the two of them behind her back. Loretta wins, and cheers, and Boyd says, “Dude, I used to think you were smart.”
They go to eat in the bar. Loretta shows the key, and everything is fine, everything is good, they order drinks and cheeseburgers deluxe. On the wall are photos of cattle drives and cowboys. Longhorns everywhere. Knotty-wood paneling and red vinyl seats. Red glass candleholders glow on each table, little bowls of fire. A bartender in an ornate Western shirt and bolo tie, hair wet and tight against his head. There are just the three of them and one other group of customers — four men. Every so often, one of the men lets out a whoop, or a cloudburst of laughter erupts.
Jason says, “We probably should be careful with money.”
Loretta says, “Don’t worry about money.”
One of the guys from the other table gets up and begins walking across the bar, toward the bathroom past where the three of them sit. Loretta sees something happen to Jason — something freezes his attention. His head pivots, following the man.
“Holy shit,” Jason says.
Loretta turns to the man now. He’s a hitch-gaited walker, a bit bowlegged like Bradshaw, with a thieving look. Jason says it again, whispers to himself, as if he were praying. “Holy shit.”
“What?” Loretta says, and Jason says, “I don’t think I can believe this,” and she says again, “What, Jason?” and he says, “Watch this guy when he comes out of the john,” and she says, “What about him?” and he says, “Just watch,” and he takes a trembling sip of beer and nods toward the man now returning from the restroom and says, “See?” and she says, “What?” and Boyd says, “What, already?” and Jason says, “Stop saying that,” and then the man notices them, notices them noticing him, and he stops, smiles a head-cocked smile, the smile of an explorer spying a new path through the jungle, and the man says, “What?” and Jason asks, “Are you who I think you are?” and the man says, “That depends, buddy. Who do you think I am?”
Jason
“Grab life, I guess is what I’m saying,” Evel Knievel is telling them. “You kids need to take life by the balls, if you’ll pardon my French, just grab it by the sack and give it a big squeeze. ’Cause that’s what it’s all about — just how much of life you can hold on to. Jobs, families, reputations — fuck all that. What it comes down to, at the end of the day when the horses are back in the barn, is just taking things, taking life, taking what-have-you, whatever, and just holding it. Just… seizing it.”
He is holding both hands before him and squeezing his fists like he’s draining lemons, and the look on his face tightens in conjunction with his hands. He has joined them here at their table, a round of golden beers arrayed before them. Boyd acts half amused, and Loretta seems intrigued, but Jason is awestruck, and full of the sense that this is life as it is supposed to be, right here, this exact moment, and that he must pay strict attention.
“You know?” Evel says. “You know what I’m saying? Of course, you don’t. How could you? I’m not saying I did it all right or anything, not saying I’m some kind of hero, but I did try to grab life. I do try to grab it. You gotta say that for me, whatever else kind of slander and bullshit you want to peddle, at least give me that. Huh?”
He has been sitting at their table in the Stockmen’s lounge for ten minutes or so, and he hasn’t stopped talking. He’s left his table of buddies across the bar, and seems to be settling in.
“That’s just what we’re trying to do, Mr. Knievel,” Jason says. “We’re trying to grab life, just like you say.”
“What did I say about Mr. Knievel?”
Evel Knievel’s words are thick, stuck to his tongue. When he isn’t speaking, he breathes heavily through his mouth.
“Evel,” Jason says. “Sorry.”
“I mean, look around you. Look at people.”
There are not many other people in the bar to look at, but for a couple of small groups and the bartender watching an episode of Emergency! on TV. Sirens sound; someone is being saved.
“All around you. Just look at them,” he says, leaning forward and hissing in a hostile whisper. “It is flat pathetic. People living puny lives, never trying for anything real. Anything authentic. Anything that might give ’em a little goose, a little pucker in the hoo-ha. Let me tell you — when I land that bike, it’s real. When I’m up there in the air, and the sound of all those people just vanishes — just disappears — that’s real as a motherfucker.” He looks at Loretta. “Pardon my French, hon. When I land and break those bones, you can bet your ass that’s real. I’m not perfect. I’m not saying I’m perfect. Who’s perfect? Nobody’s perfect. I’m not some kind of, whaddya call, example and whatnot. I’m not saying you should be like me, necessarily. Not everyone’s cut out for this.”
He says this in a minor key, as though it were a simple, painful truth. Now he has ordered a round of Wild Turkey. The colors in his glass are beautiful, the amber glow and the angles off the cut glass and the ice cubes. Jason is trying his damnedest not to sip too slowly, but it’s burning his throat. Acid is trying to crawl out of his stomach. The room tilts and reels, and Jason closes his eyes and places a hand on the table.
“He’s a lightweight,” he hears Loretta tell Evel Knievel, who answers, “Nothing wrong with that, kiddo.”
Jason opens his eyes. Loretta sips and watches Evel Knievel, a flame on her cheeks and neck. Boyd reclines against the seat, drink cupped in his hand. Everything in his skeptical aspect angers Jason.
“You know, people always think it must be something else to be me, just something else. But what you forget is that most of those people who come to my shows, most of those adoring crowds, only show up to see me die. That’s right”—he holds up a hand to ward off their protests—“they want to see me die. They want to see me crash, break my bones, die. I mean, that’s a great story to tell your friends, right? I was there the night Evel Knievel ran up against the thing he couldn’t do.”
He empties his glass and raises his hand like a bull rider signaling to open the chute. The bartender starts pouring. Evel leans onto his elbows.
“Look, kids, I’m tired. I’m sore. Some days I think I might just cash it all in.” Jason wants to say no, you can’t, but he sees Loretta nodding empathetically. “I am only human. Only human. There are things that I cannot do, try as I might. And I might die out there some night. It could happen. It could very well happen.”