the rodeo king

The Rodeo King

The hat

I didn’t know what he was talking about, he had a hat on, and I hated him for it, I was being paid to attend, I was supposed to remember what happened, to report on the particulars of his speech, I had been trying for years to land such a position, but I still couldn't bear it, the thought of the money, the career, the rosy future of satisfactory employment was no balm to this man, to what he provoked in me with his hat, it was the rim that drove me over the edge, into a sort of self-destructive madness, I would have thrown up immediately if I’d eaten anything in the last ten days, but it just so happened I was on an indefinite fast, if I am honest the first and perhaps only fast of my life, and not me alone, it was a pact among my closest friends, we’d already spent ten days together, living out the meaning of our sudden decision, to stop eating, perhaps forever, all of us sitting around together, the silence gets deeper and better the more hungry you are, it de…