((Inspired and based upon the song "Streets of Laredo", I'm not sure who originally did the song but I was listening to Johnny Cash's version.))
The breeze chilled my face in the empty streets of Laredo, Texas. I walked along the sidewalk looking at my boots; the fresh air helped me think. As I passed a stop sign I heard a noise and looked up. In the middle of the street there was a man covered in white linen.
“I can see by your outfit, that you’re a cowboy.” His weak voice carried through the wind to me as I stopped and stared at him. He motioned with his hand for me to come closer. I was a little nervous because the situation was so strange but I obliged and walked to him and knelt down to him.
“Yeah, I can see you’re a cowboy like me.”
“A cowboy?”
“Living your life from day to day, being your own man in a world full of greed driven conformity.”
“Are you all right? What are you doing in the middle of the street?”
“Come and sit down beside me and hear my sad story, I’m shot in the breast and I know I must die.”
That was when I saw the blood on his shirt. My eyes went wide and I reached toward my pocket to get my cell phone so I could call an ambulance. With surprising speed and strength for a dying man he grabbed my wrist, and I knew by the look in his eyes that he just wanted me to listen.
“I used to walk these streets as proud of my manhood as you; this is home. It’s not that I was rich or had a big house, but I was my own man.”
He was right about me, I was the same way. I didn’t have a lot money or anything, but I had what I wanted in life, my independence.
“I always went down to the Shack to play cards, I met some of the most interesting people there. You don’t know a man until you play cards with him. Then we’d all go to Rosy’s for a drink. It sounds like a boring life, but you know what I mean when I say it’s better than having everything we are told we want to have. But now… I’ve been shot in the breast and I know I must die.”
My heart went out to this man, not just because he was dying, but more because it was
me laying there. I wanted to know so much more about him.
“I want you to help carry my coffin, because you’re a cowboy like me. Could you also get six beautiful maidens to help carry my coffin?”
I didn’t know where I would get the women but I wasn’t about to deny a dying man his wish.
“Throw bunches of roses all over my coffin; roses to deaden the clods as they fall. The sound of dirt hitting a coffin is the worst sound in the world.”
I could picture the funeral. A rain of luscious red roses covering the finely polished pine coffin while the dirt fell on top; everyone is dressed in black. His eyes lit up and I could tell he was trying to imagine the same scene.
“I want drums to be playing slow and a fife to play that funeral song.”
I paid careful attention to his needs and stopped to think about what the ‘funeral song’ could be; the Funeral Dirge probably. The more he continued with his vision the more I identified with him, he and I were the same person. I could hear the funeral song in my head as I pictured an entourage of women in black carrying the coffin down a path through the cemetery.
The passion in his eyes dimmed a little, “Then you’ve gotta go tell my mom that the cowboy she loved is gone.” He looked away to the sky for a moment.
“But please not one word about the man that killed me; don’t mention his name and his name will pass on.”
*************
So we beat the drum slowly and played the funeral song on the fife while we carried his casket to the green fields of the cemetery. When we reached the plot there were no speeches so I stepped up to the head of the casket.
“After he told me his story he died in my arms. When his eyes closed he took his warmth with him and the streets of Laredo became cold as the clay where he is now.”
I could think of nothing else to say, so we laid the sod over him and I thought about his last words.
“I’m a young cowboy and I know I've done wrong.”
Yeah, one of those days isn't it?
