Childlike

Chapter 27 The Cowboys Ride Again

Chapter 27

The Cowboys Ride Again

            I awoke to the clicking of the wall heater, the morning light already streaming in through the parted curtains. I could see frost on the windowpane, reminding me of the cold last night and the thawing of my heart. I thought of Yvonne, and wondered if the evening was all an evil plan on her part, or would it have ended differently if her mother had not shown up. But then again, her mother was going to show up sometime that evening and Yvonne knew it. I guess she wanted to be caught.

            I looked over at Mick’s sleeping form. Part of me wanted to wake him and tell him about my new relationship with God. The other part was afraid that I’d come off insincerely, as if it was a new fad that I was going through. But that’s not how I was feeling. At the moment I wanted to learn more about the Lord; how I could get him to be a bigger part of my life.

            I got up and stared out of the frosted window and down upon the snow laced parking lot. Highway 50 was already cleared of snow and I could see casino patrons walking out of one casino and into another. A few sport utility vehicles crept by as if their drivers were looking for a certain address or trying to spot a celebrity or two.

            “Thank you God,” I whispered. “Thank you for this life you’ve given me.” I then turned and went and put my clothes on, then stood by the clicking wall heater letting it radiate against me, feeling the dry heat nearly scorching my back down to my calves. I moved a few inches away from the heater as I noticed Mick was awake staring up at the ceiling as if counting the holes in the acoustic tiles above him.

“Hey, what happened to your gloves?” I asked Mick, as I looked at the top of the heater vents.

“What do you mean what happened to them?” He asked getting up and coming round to where I was looking. On top of the vent laid his pair of leather gloves where he had put them the night before; the only difference being their size.

“They shrunk!” He exclaimed.

“They certainly did,” I agreed, laughing. “Maybe you could give them to a little kid.”

“What, a one-year-old? These things are small.”

“One-year-olds need gloves too!” I said, trying to be serious.

“Ah Sil-vah! A real wiseguy,” he muttered, then grabbed his clothes and went to the bathroom. He immerged a minute later dressed in the jeans that he had gotten soaked yesterday.

“At least your pants didn’t shrink,” I commented.

“Let’s just go,” Mick commanded, looking over at the shrunken gloves. “The best parts of this whole trip are the 99 cent meals.”

“It beats building a snowman?”

Mick sneezed, then answered. “It beats even that.”

The snow had stopped falling as we made our way across the street to Nevada. The memories of last night stoked my fears of running into Yvonne and her mother and brought back a feeling of shame burning across my cheeks. I felt a sense of responsibility towards Yvonne and her mother.

Our tennis shoes were already wet by the time we made it to the 99-cent breakfast. But the coffee was hot and the steak and eggs filling and the room warm enough. “I can see why the Casinos attract so many people,” I said to Mick. “The whole atmosphere is like one big party.” I scanned the restaurant looking for Yvonne’s red head and felt relieved when I was unable to spot it.

“Cheap food, flashing lights, girls walking around in negligees.”

“Not to mention the chance of big money.”