Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Ummm, Sara pointed out that I never posted a formal entry announcing the Birth of Freebird. DOH! Baby Freebird was born around 6 p.m. EST on November 8, 2005. He weighed 8 lbs. 8 oz., and you can see pictures of the happy family in this entry on Sarah’s blog.

And speaking of Sara: she has a pretty interesting conversation going on about her aesthetic sensibility when it came to romance novels. Check it. Yo.

I’m still working on the review for It Happened One Autumn and my Stupid-Ass Serial Story, so to tide you over because I have nothing much of interest to say today, please enjoy this silly little tidbit I wrote today while trying to avoid doing Real Work. It was inspired by a brief e-mail exchange that discussed, among other things, internet advertising, targeted marketing, computers, prescience, and cellphone ring tones.

So, I present before you:

Ballad of the Ring Tone Cowboy

(Copyright 2005 Candy Tan)

He walked the crowds, couched in loneliness that was almost palpable. Motes of dust kicked up around his boots and settled in fractal patterns in his wake. He moved without sound, the sharp lines of his pants and the crispness of his shirt and vest cutting the air in front of him.

Those who saw his holster slinked out of his way. Those who caught the look in his eyes slinked away even faster. His were the eyes of an oracle, of a man who saw too much, knew too much, and the canny ones who knew who he was and what he did prayed that today was not the day they would be touched by the Cowboy.

His holster rang. The chorus for “Evil Woman” filled the hot, heavy air, faithfully rendered in flat MIDI tones. A few men blanched and stopped in their tracks; one particularly well-dressed man touched his wedding band, then gripped it with painful tightness.

The Cowboy passed him by, and instead stepped up briskly to a young couple who were walking along hand-in-hand, infatuation insulating them from the world, the woman’s shiny brown hair bouncing with every step she took.

The Cowboy clapped his hand on the man’s shoulder, “Evil Woman” growing louder in the air. The man whirled around, face slack with surprise.

“It’s for you.” The Cowboy reached into his holster, and handed his tiny Motorola to the man. The man took it, flipped it open and read the screen, forehead creased with puzzlement.

The woman knew, though. She stared at the Cowboy, a deer stopped on the railroad tracks and seeing a light-spangled metal monster bearing down on her, the thought of jumping out of the way not an option. She merely squeezed her man’s hand tighter and turned pale. The Cowboy’s expression never changed.

“What the fuck?”

The woman switched her gaze back to her man. He was clutching the phone, face frozen, eyes blazing. “What the fuck?” he asked again. “You promised...” He stumbled, drunk with pain. He shook his hand free from the woman. Her face crumbled.

“Josh, listen...”

“No. No. You promised. You lying...” He let out a loud grunt, rage distilled in an exhalation, and pushed her, shoved her so hard she fell down and cracked her head sharply against the pavement. People cried out, some moving out of the way, others rushing towards the woman.

The Cowboy walked away, job done. He tucked the Motorola back into the holster. Nobody had seen him taking it back from the man. Nobody ever saw him taking the phone back.

He made his rounds that day in a town drowning in its own heat and stench and sweat. He walked up to a quiet, plump woman sitting at a bus stop, her oversized purse tucked by her feet like an obedient dog, and handed her a phone playing “Everybody Hurts.” She cried, sobbed as hard as on the day she’d found out her sister had died in a three-car pileup on I-5, and by the time she’d turned around to thank the Cowboy and hand back his phone, both were gone.

Another woman, tall and spare and neatly dressed, was handed the phone while it played “Eleanor Rigby.” She had looked at the phone’s screen and nodded, unsurprised.

The phone played “Lola,” and he handed it to a college boy, swaggering with a group of other college boys. The boy had turned pale.

So it went. Old and young, male and female, each with their song handed to them.

It was near the end of the day, midnight just minutes away, but the streets still swarmed with life. It had cooled, though not much, and the air tasted like brimstone and dark fruit. The Cowboy’s holster rang, the tinny sounds of “Enter Sandman” pouring into the thick atmosphere. The Cowboy took the phone out, and glanced at the screen.

He looked up just in time to see the number 20 bus bearing down on him.

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