Choking on Light - Rodeo Clown Part 2

I stepped into the arena. Six months had passed since I’d been here, and nothing had changed. The sun beat down on the empty bleachers, bleaching the wood white. Just the metal groaning in the wind and the sound of my boots on hard-packed earth.

I’d told myself I was coming to check the chutes and see what needed fixing before the season started. The work still had to get done. That’s what I’d told Mama too, three days ago, when she found me in the barn doing a whole lot of nothing. “Go on, then,” she’d said. “Might do you good to see it again.” She was wrong about that. Nothing good lived here anymore.

The concession stand was boarded up. Graffiti on the gate—some kid’s name and a heart. I scraped the snow off the latch with my thumb. Cut through to the back, where the real damage was. The work list could have waited another month. I knew that. What I didn’t know was how to keep sitting still.

Colt’s trailer was still here.

I hadn’t planned to come this way. The route to Jim’s office was different, past the stock pens instead of the performer’s lot. The trailer sat where it always had, the tarnished silver, aluminum creaking in the wind. The door was locked, curtains drawn. No one had even bothered to claim it.

I put my hand on the side panel. Cold metal, thin under my palm. The rust was already worse than it had been six months ago.

The memories came anyway. The smell of his soap when he opened that door. His laugh, rough, like he hadn’t expected it himself. The way he looked without the paint. His skin under my hands. I pulled my hand back and kept walking.

Jim’s office was a small trailer near the stock pens, a heater rattling like it might give out any second. He was inside, shuffling through paperwork. Coffee cup sweating rings on his desk. He looked up when I knocked on the door frame.

“Scott. Didn’t expect to see you out here.”

“Thought I’d sign up for the season,” I said. “If you’re still hiring.”

He grinned and set down his pen. “Of course, we’re hiring. You actually know what you’re doing. Most don’t.” He started making notes on a clipboard and asked me questions about availability, dates, and the usual.

Jim didn’t ask about Colt. He’d gotten the message weeks ago, when I’d come by twice looking for any information, any forwarding address. Jim had shaken his head both times. “He didn’t leave anything behind, Scott. Just packed up and left after that last night.” I’d finally stopped asking after that.

Jim was still talking, still making notes, when his phone rang. He frowned after he answered it, then hung up and stood up fast. “Damn. An ornery bull is testing the west fence. I gotta go check it before we lose him.” He grabbed his hat. “Give me a second, I’ll get your contract.”

“No rush,” I said.

He was already halfway to the door. “Help yourself to coffee if you want. I’ll be back in a few.”

I listened to his truck start up and pull away. His desk was messy. Entry forms, invoices, manifests, bits of paper pinned to a clipboard with notes scrawled in Jim’s handwriting. I should have just waited. Should have sat in the chair, drunk the coffee, and kept my nose out of what wasn’t my business.

Instead, I saw the name.

It was on a form, buried under a stack of intake sheets. Colt’s name at the top, his social security number printed below. Under that, in different handwriting, someone from the county had a line labeled “Forwarding Address for Tax Documents.”

P.O. Box 1776, Roswell, New Mexico.

My hands moved before I thought about it. I grabbed a scrap of paper from the desk, then set it back down. Stood there. Picked it up again. My writing was shaky. I forced myself to slow down, write it clear, so I wouldn’t misread it later. P.O. Box 1776. Roswell, New Mexico.

I folded the paper and put it in my pocket. I sat back down before I could second-guess the whole thing.

Roswell. I couldn’t have pointed at it on a map. It was south, I knew that much. Just south. New Mexico. Desert country. Flat, empty, nothing like Wyoming.

I imagined him there and what he’d be doing, what work he’d find, whether he was still performing or if he’d quit that too. The P.O. Box meant he hadn’t put down roots, probably. Still running. The question was whether I should follow him.

I could. That was the thing that kept circling through my head as I sat in Jim’s office, listening to the rattle of that dying heating unit.

But Colt had left for a reason. He’d made his choice, and he’d made it clear. One of the last things he’d said to me, “I was wrong for the story,” because he couldn’t say what he really meant. He couldn’t say goodbye.

Jim’s truck was still rumbling in the distance,. I folded the paper in my pocket again, felt the crisp edge of it against my fingers. The P.O. Box was real. The address was real. The fact that he’d filed it meant he’d had a moment where he was thinking clearly enough to put down a forwarding address.

It didn’t mean I had to stop looking.