Me and Buzz and the Cowboy Hat

I think it started with the hat. Buzz had found this old cowboy hat in the attic of his house. He’d been up there looking for a souvenir of his father’s (the one who had run away with the exotic dancer a few winters before). Anyhoo, he finds this old cowboy hat which legend says belonged to his great granddaddy who used to run with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 

That morning he was wearing the hat when me and Buzz were walkin’ to school. He kept tipping his hat at everyone we passed.

“Howdee, Mam,” he said to one person, who then punched him straight in the face.

Of course, it was Andrew Clarke, who had a girly complexion but a real strong right hand.

“Oww!” Was all my bud would say as the blood ran down his nose.

We got him all cleaned up and arrived at class just as Miss Shenandoah was takin’ attendance.

She called my name, ‘here’, I shouts, then Buzz’s name. No reply.

“Buzz take off that stupid hat and shout ‘here’.”

“You can see me, Miss Shenandoah, so why do I need to shout ‘here’?”

“Why do we have to do anythin’? Just stick your hand up.”

“I ain’t Buzz, I’m Break McClure the fastest gun in the West.”

Everyone in the class started laughin’, including Becky White (who would laugh at anything real loud – she’d been kicked in the head by a horse when she was four years old and tended to see the funny side of everything. I heard her laughin’ once at her Grandma’s funeral).

“You’re breakin’ my heart (I saw Teach chucklin’ to herself over that one), is what you’re doin’. Now just stick your hand up and say here’.”

“Shan’t.”

So Break McClure, the fastest gun in the West ended up moppin’ the floors of the boys’ toilets.”

At recess, I went in for a pee and sure enough Break Buzz McClure was drawin’ his mop against the critter in the mirror.

“Stick ‘em up,” he shouted.

And for some reason unknown to his stupid self, he felt that if he could only draw the mop faster than his reflection his day would be complete.

Buzz was waitin’ on me outside school when the good ol’ bell rang.

“How’s Break” I asked, innocently.

“Who?” Said Buzz.

He was wearing a patch over his right eye and using a part of the school fence as a sword.

“Avast, me hardies”, he shouted all the way up Main Street.

I heard laughter across the way, but it was only Becky White laughing at a dead cat.  

bobby stevenson 2019