THE ROUGHNECK

He knew his way around a drill deck.
He worked the oil fields in Texas, Oklahoma, and Southern Illinois.
The strange thing about this cowboy, was he was educated...well read.
He preferred a rambling life, to the dullness of the white-collar world.

An obscure town in Texas was his last stop.
He and his crew of oil field men stayed in a ramshackle motel...
on the outskirts of this dustbowl town.
After work, they showered the sweat, grease, and oil off their bodies.
They changed in a locker room, fondly called a hog house.
This change house was located on the job site.

They jumped in their pickup trucks and head to Jake's tavern...
for Lonestar beer, Jack Daniels, country-western music on the jukebox,
and spitoons on the floor.
Immediately in sight, was a variety of lost souls occupying the tattered bar stools...This bar was the dregs...He loved all of it...It had a majesty of sorts.

He sat at the bar and threw down a twenty.
He gazed down the bar and saw a Latina princess.
She was sitting with a big, mean hombre...A Mexican man.
She was luscious. Firm breasts popped out of a skin tight red dress...and the legs!...Oh!...The legs!...She crossed them with her dress hiked way up.
To top it off, she had dark nylons and red, spiked, high-heel shoes.

He was smitten.
He kept looking at her, than furtively made eye contact. She was smiling at him...Licking her chops, showing her tongue through those luscious, lascivious, red-painted lips. She got up, and sexily fed the juke box. A slow, sad, country song came languidly through the decrepit speakers. He ordered another round and tried to ignore her. He bantered and told tall tales with his oil field pals.

He looked up again, and the big Mexican man was gone.
She was sitting all alone!
He sauntered over, and asked her if she wanted a drink.
She nodded affirmatively, smiled, took his hand, and guided him to the dance floor. She grinded her body into his.

She smelled like lilacs.
She was moving her thighs all over his.
Her ear was hot, and he was breathing heavily into it.
He started kissing her neck.
The song ended.

They went to their drinks and small talk.
She told him her name was Sophie.
The man who left, was her husband.
He went to work his night shift at the local factory.
She said her trailer was empty...
only five-minutes down the road.
They left after he bought a six-pack and a bottle.
He left the crew a twenty for drinks, and let a good tip for the bartender.
This was his lucky night!

The last thing he remembers is opening the passenger door to his pick-up truck, to let her in. His crew found him and hour later, knocked cold, walletless, with some bumps on his head. His face was lacerated and swollen. His eyes were blackened and swollen shut. He lost the pictures of his wife and children, credit cards, and cash. Everything was gone. The truck keys, and his truck were still there, by God!...Small miracles do happen.

The worked the drill deck the next day. The men laughed and joked: "Hey raccoon man", yah wanna' go lookin' for a sweet senorita tonight?" "Fuck you", he said, as he connected another section of drill steel. He showered up, and went back to Jake's tavern that night. He ordered his usual shot-and-beer. He picked up another girl.

They don't call 'em roughnecks for nothin'.
After all, he knew his way around a drill deck.
He knew how games were played, in bar rooms.
He thought to himself, "At least this beats the straight life".
"I surely don't want a slow, boring, death in some office."