Cowboy Soccer

Yesterday morning I wandered around Laramie, Wyoming looking for a bar with ESPN to watch the World Cup.

I end up at the Ranger--a combination motel, bar, and package store. Soccer is on and there are five guys watching, eating donuts and drinking Bloody Marys. Three of them played high school soccer in Cheyenne; one of those wears a Germany shirt.

I order an orange juice and when I go to my pocket for money the bartender tells me that if it doesn’t have booze in it, it’s on the house. This makes me feel like a pussy so when I finish the orange juice I order a Bloody Mary. He makes one for himself when he makes mine. Ten minutes later he tells me his isn’t spicy enough and adds two kinds of Tabasco to my glass, now half empty.


At halftime Dale, a plumber, never a soccer player, has a feeling that a goal is coming. He bets the guy in the Germany shirt five dollars that there will be a goal in the first ten minutes of the second half. Ayalya scores for Argentina off a corner in the 49th minute.

Dale, by all accounts, was drunk the night before. I was told that late last night a cop walked into the bar. By all accounts his presence was uncalled for because there hadn’t been a fight for months. So Dale ran up to the cop, a rookie, and says that three minors just ran into the bathroom. The rookie cop runs into the bathroom. Dale follows and sets his weight against the door. The cop tries to leave the empty bathroom but can’t because Dale is blocking it. He bangs against it a few times, but then lays off for a minute and Dale goes off to stand in a corner. The cop charges the door again and there is no resistance so he tumbles through door and onto the floor of the bar. Just then six more cops come running into the bar. The rookie had called for back up from the bathroom.

Dale is not a soccer fan, but with five bucks from Argentina’s goal, he stops belittling the sport. I think he even yelled earnestly when Klose put in the equalizer for Germany.

Everyone was upset by Argentina’s incompetence in the shoot out.

Between games I left to get lunch.

When I get back to watch Italy-Ukraine everyone is still there. They’d decided against work altogether; having progressed from Bloody Mary’s, to Coors, to Jack and Cokes, to half-Jack-half-Cuervo shots. Now, also in the bar is a baby playing with one of those tiny bottles of Schmirnoff, and two dogs.

By the time Toni puts in Italy’s second goal, the scene at the Ranger is sloppier than the Ukrainian defense; Canavaro takes a ball to the groin reminding someone of the time he hit a freshman in the nuts so hard that he pissed blood for three days and quit the team; the motel clerk hides drunk's cell phones; people are genuinely pissed that ESPN’s Shelley Smith is so fat.

I don't partake in the Cuer-Jacks but 85 cent Coors take their toll; I recollect a high school soccer practice where the coach didn't show and where I or maybe someone else dropped a bowling ball off a bridge, made a freshman go get the pieces, and then dropped the pieces of bowling ball off the bridge.

The Cheyenne guys know some Ethiopians that play pickup in the park, I'm leaving tomorrow for Cody, but we make plans to take them on next Thursday.