Photo by Chor Tsang on Unsplash
Growing up in South San Jose in the early 1980s, the only thing that made life worth living was Frontier Village, a thirty-nine-acre oasis in Edenvale Garden Park.
The original brochure for the amusement park stated, “Designed as a children's dream of the Old West, where the child (and his parents) can experience the thrills and excitement of the West in an atmosphere specially created for fun and relaxation.”
When I was fifteen, my friend landed a dream job working there on the Wild Rapids canoe ride. He told me they were having trouble filling a position on the Burro Adventure ride, because they needed someone with lots of horse experience.
I immediately pedaled my puff-powder-blue Huffy ten-speed to the park, marched up the stairs to the HR office, trying my best to look like a horse person, where I was greeted by a depressed heavy-set man behind a desk. Imagine a broken-down insurance salesman, now imagine him dressed in a polyester cowboy suit.
I told him I just moved from Montana, where I worked on a horse ranch, and was looking for a job. He hired me on the spot.
My first day as a professional cowpoke, I made my mom drop me off a few blocks from the park, making sure nobody was around before I climbed out of her station wagon.
Ambling through the front gates, western music playing from speakers, sawdust in the air, the smell of corn dogs and stale popcorn, kids running around pretending to shoot each other, yellow bandana tied firmly around my neck, green studded shirt, brown trousers, brown coat, brown cowboy hat, was the proudest moment of my life.
My timecard clanged as I slid it into the machine, making it official. I now had a career.
As I marched down the employee-only path to the stables, a word was hurled behind me.
“Bullshit.”
I turned around to see the Marlboro Man leaning against a rail, eying me.
Lyle was the real deal. He had been a Vietnam Green Beret, broke wild horses in his spare time, and was one of the very few people left in the world who still knew how to drive a four-horse stagecoach. He looked me up and down. “You ain’t from Montana.”
“Yes I am.”
Lyle lunged cat-like fast, backhanding me across the face, dropping me to the dirt with an exploding headache. He stared down at me.
“We’ll get along just fine as long as you never lie to me. Got it?” “Yes, Sir,” I stammered, trying not to cry.
Lyle stretched out his leathery hand, gently helping me to my feet, using his hat to brush the dirt and twigs off my brand-new cowboy outfit. It was a much simpler life back then, workplace abuse was just another complicated part of growing up.
Lyle asked, “Ever been around a horse?”
I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice, and quickly confessed, “No sir. I’m from here. San Jose. Close by. Go to Albert Herman Junior High. Been to a zoo, but never seen a horse. And I’m not sixteen. I lied about that to get the job. I’m only fifteen.”
Lyle nodded, slid a cigarette between his lips, cupped his hand on my back, and walked me back to the stables, stopping at a horse.
“Ever watch Gunsmoke?”
“One or two times. But never a whole show,” I answered, being extra careful to be totally factual, not knowing exactly where his line for a lie was.
“This beauty here is Oakley. He is famous. Was the front-right wheeler on the TV stagecoach. Now he’s old, so he works here.” Even at fifteen, I caught the subtext.
As Lyle affectionately rubbed Oakley’s face, an exuberant scream rang out from above.
I looked up to see the top of a man poking out of a water tower. “That’s Paul,” Lyle explained. “Getting a blowjob from some lady he met at the swap meet.” I casually nodded, as if I heard that kind of talk all the time.
Lyle lit a fresh cigarette, and elbow pointed to a squat red tack room. “Go get a saddle blanket, saddle, and a brush.”
One thing you don’t learn from TV westerns is how damn heavy a saddle is.
I lugged a cracked leather saddle across the dirt to Lyle, who started off my Cowboy training with, “Don’t ever step behind a horse. If a horse kicks backward, it can kill a man. I’ve seen it happen. If a horse kicked you, you would snap in half. And always make sure you brush the horse before you put on the saddle blanket.”
An hour later I expertly knew how to securely double cinch a saddle in place, how to swing-twist my way up onto that saddle, and what to do in an emergency if you had to stop a rampaging horse when you were riding it.
I became a burro ride man, which meant spending my days strapping kids onto burros tethered together into a train, then clutching a leather strap connected to the front burro, I would vault up onto Oakley, and off we’d go, pulling the kids along a seven-and-a-half-minute ride through the back canyons and valleys of the wild west.
The only important thing I had to do was look back from time to time to make sure no brat had managed to fall off their burro. That only happened once all summer, and I still have no idea how pigtails squirmed herself free. I immediately stopped and blew a whistle, summoning security men running from all directions to make sure no one was seriously injured. The park was designed for kids to experience the thrills and excitement of the West, but not to the point of lawsuits.
A few days later, I met Frenchy.
I was taking my lunch in the Good Times Saloon. My waitress had dark hair, dark eyes, and bright red lipstick. She wore a long-flowered dress, because in the world of Frontier Village employees, boys wore cowboy outfits, girls wore floral print dresses.
I later found out ‘Frenchy’ wasn’t her real name, just the fake one she gave them when she got the job. She told me she hated the dress and tried to get them to let her wear a cowboy jacket, but they said no dice.
I ate my two corndogs, drank my coke, gave her a big tip, and went back to work.
The Good Times Saloon became my permanent lunch haunt, and I was happy to see that Frenchy always maneuvered to be the one to wait on me. After a few weeks, I finally worked up the nerve to casually ask if she had a boyfriend.
She shrugged, “Not really.”
We started seeing each other after our shifts were over. Our meeting spot was in front of the Pan for Gold Adventure, where suburban kids used real life gold pans to slice through a river of San Jose tap water in hopes of striking it rich.
We’d stroll through the park, hand in hand, discussing our futures. Frenchy might join a rock group, or maybe be a teacher like her mom. I was leaning TV actor, or scientist. Frenchy liked whales, so I told her I’d become an oceanographer.
On one of our walks, the heavens unloaded a torrential rainstorm. Once the lightening started, the park was immediately closed, and guests were told to exit the nearest gate. I took off my cowboy jacket and draped it over her as we took shelter in the back of an empty stagecoach left deserted in the mud.
We watched lightning strikes cracking across the sky, rain drumming rhythmically off the wooden roof. I leaned over for a kiss, and Frenchy kissed me back.
I am happily married and madly deeply in love with my wife, but I will never forget the magic of my first ever kiss.
But there was a cost to first love.
Frenchy kept my cowboy jacket, which meant I had to get a new one from HR. They told me it’d be a ten-dollar replacement fee, deducted from my paycheck. I scoffed, telling them I’d rather quit than pay that. I knew they’d cave, because how in the world would they find another Montana transplant with horse experience.
When I finished my shift the next day, Frenchy wasn’t at our meeting place.
I waited for her to show up, but she didn’t.
That night was rough. I sat in my room wondering what had happened, wishing I could call her, but I didn’t have her number. Nor did I know where she lived. Or even her real name, for that matter.
I showed up to work the next day to find Lyle and Paul behind the barn downing beers in a sour mood. They had been told the park was closing for good next month. According to Lyle, the lease was up, and the city clowns agreed to sell it to some real estate clowns to build some clown condos. Paul pulled out a joint, suddenly unsure what his future held. I was upset to hear it but had more pressing concerns on my mind.
At lunch that day, Frenchy served me my corndogs and coke, letting me know as nice as possible that she was now seeing a Ferris-Wheel guy. I ate in silence.
A week later, someone told me she dumped Ferris-Wheel guy for the parking lot assistant manager, who was a college freshman at San Jose State.
The last few hot days of August flew by, and before I knew it, it was the Last Roundup, the solemn day when Frontier Village would cease to exist. The place was jammed with kids wanting to get in one last day of childhood wonderment before the dream died.
I hustled that day, trying to squeeze in as many burro runs as possible, so no brats would be left out. On my late afternoon break, the last one I would ever take, I ambled back to the barn. Lyle and Paul were smoking, and downing beers. They offered me both, but I was responsible, and only accepted the drink.
Lyle said he was retiring for good, never going to work for another clown, and he would live out his life in a small ranch house he owned in Wyoming.
Paul cracked open a Lone Star, happily announcing he had managed to lock up a sweet gig as a bouncer for the Brass Rail. He asked if I wanted him to get me a job there, which I appreciated it, I really did, but told him I had to start high school on Monday.
I asked Lyle what would happen to the horses? He assured me they were too young to be sent to the glue factory.
“But what about Oakley?”
Lyle immediately shook his head. “I’m taking Oakley with me. The old boy has done his time without complaint. He now gets to live free until the day he dies”.
I nodded in relief, slurping my brew.
After another beer, it was time to get back at it. The park would remain open until dark, about an hour away.
Lyle and I walked silently together through the gathering dusk. His usual Marlboro Man mask showed a crack, a glint of something deep and sad leaking through. This was it. The end of the line. He was about to do the last ever stagecoach ride of his life.
I was about to do a burro run, the last one of my life.
Frenchy was waiting for me at the ride. She gave me a smile.
I smiled back.
She said I looked happy.
I told her I was happy.
She said, “Good. I’m glad. And here, I brought back your coat.”
She handed it to me, leaned in to give me a warm lingering kiss.
The kids in the front of the line cheered. Frenchy gave me one last kiss, then turned and sashayed away into her future.
I loaded up one last batch of brats, grabbed the lead line and gently climbed onto Oakley, whispering into his ear, “Last time, buddy. I promise. Then you’re free.”
I gave him the clicking noise and off we went into the sunset for out last ride together.
Corey Paige is a fierce Californian with an MFA from UCLA. He lives in Hermosa Beach with his poet wife and Hooligan dog.