Cowboy Soccer II

Cody, Wyoming, on the fourth of July, is crawling with cowboys, tourists and bikers. The only place in town showing Germany-Italy is the Silver Dollar.

The Dollar has no windows, and very tough looking woman tending bar, She smokes cigarettes, eats a barbeque sandwich, and laughs in the face of anyone who asks for a blended Margarita (no frozen drinks). In the back, bikers play pool with what looks to be a fourteen year old girl. A tourist in an American flag shirt asks for a rag to wipe her table but the Dollar is out of rags (and limes, and tonic) And the guy next to me wears a Poison jacket, keeps a Discman on the bar and stares at the TV showing soccer.

I nod to him when I sit down, and a minute later he says something to me about football. It sounds like he might have an Irish accent and so I think that maybe he is talking about the World Cup. Not so, he can barely talk and his favorite player is Deon Sanders.

And then we move on to Poison. I don’t remember asking him about his favorite band, but at some point he answers me by pointing to a glossy 8x10 of one of the guys from Poison laminated to the back his jacket.

He’s seen Poison nine times. His dream is to get Poison to play the Dollar. He writes birthday and Christmas cards to every band member, always asking that they come to Cody and estimating that they would make 200,000 dollars in a night. I tell him that my uncle used to be a roadie for Alice Cooper and he says something about Poison paying him a hundred dollars a month to wear the jacket.

Around halftime, the bar back asks the bartender if she needs anything and she jokes that she needs drugs. My man is so excited that he squeals.

The way that this guy is crazy about Poison is kind of interesting, like I watched the World Cup in Wyoming with this Poison fanatic. But it is impossible to watch TV with him next to me. I try to steer conversation to the game. It kind of works for a minute; he tells me about a time that he kicked a football five feet over a ninety-foot roof and that there is some sweet pussy in Cody this weekend. But soon we are talking about Rat and Great White and he's scating guitar solos.

I lean away from him, against the bar towards the TV. He taps my arm and asks me my name. I tell him. His name is Kevin, but they call him Kid Poison.

I give up on the game and ask him why they don’t play any Poison at the Silver Dollar. He asks me to come along to Cooter Brown’s with him where, because of him, they play Poison.

I think it over in the bathroom. But when I get back to the bar he’s gone. Just in time for me to see Italy’s miraculous overtime goals.