COWBOY IN MY COFFEE continued


I looked down at the cowboy and he nodded in agreement.
 
Why can't we just gut-shoot him, I suggested.
 
My wife gave a condescending smile.
Do you have a tiny pistol? she asked.
 
I hadn't.
Well shut up then, she said.
 
Could we use the cowboy's pistol? I asked.
 
The tiny cowboy, sensing tension, said that just the other day his pistol got all gummed up while he was rustling peanut butter. Gut-shooting him was out of the question, he stammered. He thanked me for my suggestion anyway.
 
Ok, cowboy, I said. Have it your way.
 
Should we hang him with his boots on or off? she squeaked.
 
I deferred to the little cowboy on this matter.
He said that a cowboy can't get into heaven if he still had his boots on, but that it didn't really matter considering he was an agnostic cowboy.
Let's hedge our bets and take just one boot off, ok cowboy?
Ok, he twanged.
 
My wife gave up on building a proper gallows and when I said 'Ah, jeez honey, no gallows?' she told me to go fuck myself with a tiny mariachi guitar.
 
This elicited a hoot from our cowboy and then the three of us laughed for what seemed like thirty or thirty-eight seconds.
 
The cowboy said that he understood things; the quest for tiny manifest destiny has been getting little cowboys into trouble for years, and that this was his due for wandering off into the suburbs like a damn fool.
My wife nodded her head and I nodded mine.
 
Are you ready, little cowboy? asked my wife.
Yes ma'am, he reckoned.
 
I pulled him free from the rye bread pillory. It was almost noon. Conspiring in tiny murder makes me hungry, so I buttered the rye bread and began eating it.
 
My wife stood there and drummed her fingers on the sink. Looking at the clock and giving her panties a good upwards yank, she said, Christ it's almost noon, let's just hang 'em from the faucet!
 
Ok, I said.
 
I put the cowboy in the palm of my hand and held him over the sink while my wife put a dental floss noose around his neck.
The cowboy didn't say anything, but I could see his little chin quiver beneath his sugary beard. I wiped some of it off with a wet thumb and licked the glaze.
It tasted like beard and sugar.
 
I took one of his boots off and flicked it across the room.
 
My wife fashioned a makeshift kazoo using a piece of wax paper, an empty paper towel roll, and a rubber band. We both agreed that it lent a certain degree of solemnity to the ceremony.
She gave me the nod... 
 
                                 ...and I let go of that tiny cowboy.
 
My wife vibrated 'taps' through the paper tube and we watched him kick like a mustang.
He kicked so hard that his other boot came off.
 
Look, I said. He's found religion!
 
He grabbed at the floss with one hand and waved his hat with the other.
Would you look at that, she said. He is waving goodbye!

END