Extra in a B-Movie Western

That summer we were extras

in a B-movie western.

 

I was an unshaven minor ranch hand.

You were the rancher’s youngest daughter.

 

Bottles of inky water masqueraded

as liquor in the dirty saloon where we met.

 

A padre stood at the bar wearing

a long black gown, dusty as high noon.

 

His face was familiar to me:

‘Maybe the daytime soaps’ you said,

 

and smiled your exquisite smile

and caught the director’s eye.

 

He framed your face with his fingers

with the promise of a speaking role.

 

I knew then how things would end –

it’s a story as old as the hills.

 

The leading man was a veteran

of Hollywood’s threadbare casting couch

 

and I know being an extra in a B-movie western

ain’t much of a life, locked in a story

 

not of your own making, weaslin’ your way

through a long day’s shoot.

 

They say that God looks like John Wayne.

(It’s a joke amongst the crew.)

 

When they told me you’d snuck

into the leading man’s trailer

 

one of the James boys took my arm.

Fame is an aphrodisiac for sure, he said.

 

So don’t go holding it against her.

Everyone has a right to grab their one and only chance.

 

They told me he kissed you outside

the dried goods store. The runner saw it,

 

along with the guy who paints the horses.

A ‘leading man kiss’, they said,

 

though the cameras were’nt rollin’.

A smooth operator, they said, who had the studio’s ear.

 

I’ve watched that shmuck’s films a hundred times;

observed the way he smiles, tips his ten gallon hat.

 

They go wild in the city for his amorous suavette.

He always gets the girl in the end.

 

I guess love don’t come natural

to men like me – the unshaven ranch hands

 

without a dumb-ass line to speak.

‘It’s a wise child, sir, that knows its own mother.’

 

That was the line they gave you. You spoke it well,

on the prairie, beneath a pale yellow sky.

 

Maybe God don’t look much

like John Wayne anyways.

 

Maybe God too is locked

in a story not of His own making.

 

I watch the rancher’s daughter

as she sashays down the aisle –

 

point my loaded Colt

at the leading man’s head.