On My Mind by Littlewing1957
Jack was drunk! He just won his third straight rodeo competition and decided to celebrate, alone, at the nearest bar: the one located just a stone’s throw from the fleabag hotel where he rented a room by the night. Jack Twist never felt so alone. He was on a winning streak, but no one approached him to ask him out for a drink, or to even congratulate him on a job well done. Jack took a seat at the bar and ordered a whiskey neat from the greasy bartender. He knocked it back in an instant, and ordered another. Jack chuckled silently as he remembered falling all over himself after clowning around for Ennis Del Mar. Ennis told him that his dad called Rodeo riders “F ups!” Jack chugged his whiskey and wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. He was alone. Jack thought perhaps he was a f up after all. There was perhaps nothing more pathetic than a young man, a Rodeo champion, alone and lonely on a Saturday night.
The juke box had been silent when Jack entered the bar, but someone placed a coin in it and now it blared a sad tune. Jack recognized the song as Glen Campbell’s “Gentle on my Mind.” He wondered what the person who requested that song was trying to do to him. Jack ordered another drink and he got it. Jack was so wasted that he saw an image right in front of him – the image of a sandy haired cowboy. Ennis Del Mar was standing right in front of him, occupying the space where the bartender once stood. “Here’s to you, Friend!” Jack stammered as he lifted his glass to an Ennis who was as real as his misery.
The song still played. Jack moved to the dance floor alone. He swayed, in time, to the music. He was oblivious to the other couples dancing silently on the floor. Jack grimaced as he sang the lyrics, held himself, thought of Ennis. He bumped into a pretty lady, and almost set her boyfriend off. But the lady pulled her man back. She saw that Jack was drunk and that he was hurting. But when Jack’s “dancing” began to get out of hand, the bouncer came over and led him off the floor. “Go home and sleep it off, bud!” The guard spoke to Jack as he pulled him outside the bar. Jack wrestled his arm from the bouncer’s grip and set off toward his room. “Who is she?” The bouncer yelled after Jack. “No one!” Jack answered as he walked away into the night.