Will Musgrove: HEADED OUT WEST • Cleaver Magazine

Will Musgrove
HEADED OUT WEST

The movers spoke like cowboys. “Tarnation,” said Butch, middle-aged and owner of Old West Movers LLC, as he lifted my dresser. “This varmint weighs as much as my horse.” Butch Junior, his son, whistled one of those whistles that says I’m glad it’s you and not me. They were wearing ten-gallon hats, which kept sliding down over their eyes and smelled like burnt wood. I hired them because they offered a twenty percent discount if you were headed out west.

How west?

The west side of town.

After a few months of looking for work, I was moving back in with my parents, back into my old bedroom covered in Steve McQueen posters. I wanted to be Steve McQueen, movie star. In high school, I wrecked my dad’s motorcycle reenacting the King of Cool’s iconic scene from The Great Escape. What did I become? A social media manager cultivating a brand of men’s waist cinchers, but I’d gotten laid off, was told, “These things sell themselves.”

Back bent like a lawn chair, Butch carried my dresser outside. The spurs attached to his cowboy boots jingled like sleigh bells. He loaded my dresser into his truck, which had the face of a horse painted on the hood.

“Whoa there, Betsy,” Butch said, petting one of the truck’s side mirrors. “We’re almost done.”

I didn’t realize how dedicated they were going to be to the bit. I thought about how fun it must be acting like a cowboy all day. Sure, they had to haul people’s heavy crap, but they also got to lasso furniture and drink from flasks.

Butch Junior strutted up to us. He drew two six-shooters from holsters dangling at his belt. They weren’t real guns. They were plastic, had orange tips at the end of their barrels, but I pretended they were real.

“To get your discount,” Butch Junior said, handing me one of the guns, “you have to beat my pa in a duel. Ten paces.”

Butch and I went back-to-back, our trigger fingers twitching. Butch Junior counted, and we started walking. One, two, I was back in time on my dad’s motorcycle, revving the engine and heading for imaginary Switzerland, for freedom. Three, four, my made-up Germans spotted me dreaming and gave chase. Five, six, I crashed into a barbed wire fence but looked great doing it. Seven, eight, I was recaptured and sent back to work another job marketing junk. Nine, ten, trapped again, trapped again.

“This town isn’t big enough for the two of us,” Butch said, and I hoped he was right.

“Draw.”

I spun around and fired. Butch seized his chest and dropped to his knees, gurgling. Butch Junior rushed to his pa’s aid. Victory claimed, I climbed onto his horse and galloped away. They chased after me, waving their arms and shouting how it wasn’t real, but it was real. Or maybe I just wanted it to be real. Either way, I made my great escape and drove westward.

Will Musgrove is a writer and journalist from Northwest Iowa. He received an MFA from Minnesota State University, Mankato. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Penn Review, X-R-A-Y, Sundog Lit, Tampa Review, and elsewhere. Connect with Will Musgrove on Twitter at @Will_Musgrove or at williammusgrove.com.