Free Marathon Cowboys by Sarah Black Page A

slumber party out in our own Paris on the Rio
    Grande, okay?”
    Speech was way beyond me, and he leaned over, pushed
    my foreskin back, planted a slick little kiss on the head.
    “Come on, Mary, let’s roll. We’ve got a lot to do before you
    can lay me down.”
    I wasn’t sure the couches were going to do the job. Up
    against the wall, maybe, or on the floor, or…. I buttoned my
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    jeans with some difficulty and climbed into the truck. Jesus.
    I didn’t think I could keep up with him.
    “Okay, where to first, cowboy?”

    WE PULLED the truck off the road a couple miles out of town
    toward Big Bend. The shrine was small, a glass and wooden
    case painted white, and the picture of the Virgin inside had
    been cut out of a magazine and glued to a piece of cardboard
    stuck in the back. “These are the shrines that belong to the
    poor people,” Jesse said, getting his camera ready. “They
    probably get the most work, prayer-wise.” The inside of the
    little box was filled with prayer cards, small pieces of paper
    with handwritten prayers or wishes, some soaked by the
    rain, the ink faded and the paper warped. There was a little
    graduation picture taped to the Virgin’s robe, a pretty dark-
    haired girl with her hair up and a string of pearls around her
    neck. The ground surrounding the box had glass votive
    candles and a tiny bunch of yellow plastic flowers, like
    buttercups.
    I got my camera out, took some pictures. We climbed
    back in the truck, and Jesse pointed me south and west.
    “This next one is something different.”
    It was big, for one thing, the Virgin a plaster model
    nestled inside an old, claw-foot bathtub half buried in the
    ground. “This is why they call them Bathtub Marys?”
    The votive candles were there, maybe ten pictures,
    mostly of young boys and girls, and the prayer cards and
    flowers. The Virgin was a beautiful model, with the
    traditional pale blue robes draping her shoulders and
    puddling at her bare feet. She had a beautiful, serene face,
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    her eyes turned to heaven, while the worldly flotsam and
    chaos fell away beneath her.
    Jesse put his camera away. “Okay, the next one is over
    near Terlingua. It’s the Hollywood hippie Virgin. That’s the
    one I really want to see. It’s got this big wood structure,
    painted bright pink and orange, cantaloupe orange, and it
    has ruffles around the edges.”
    “Ruffles? Are you shitting me?”
    “Nope.”
    “That’s your favorite?”
    “It’s got a weirdly quirky charm, for a piece of American
    kitsch. Like it needs to be on Route 66 with the Wigwam
    Motel and the largest ice cream cone in America. I need to
    reacquaint myself with the colors of Mexican folk art. I’m
    going to use the colors of the Bathtub Marys for the
    backgrounds of the cowboy angels. I just need to look at
    them again, remind myself how the colors look under the
    sun in the middle of the day. If I was a praying man? I would
    pray to that sweet one we looked at first. She looks like she
    knows what to do with a prayer. But if I do feel the need to
    drop to my knees and pray, I sure hope you’re standing right
    in front of me, so I can say a prayer to your pretty brown
    cock.” He grinned at the look on my face, slid his hands
    down my thigh and squeezed. “You’re so big and strong, zo-
    zo.”
    “I think you just proved that God isn’t Catholic, or we
    would have been struck down dead in the road.”
    Jesse shook his head. “No way. We’ve been under the
    protection of the Lady all morning. She appreciates boys with
    good hearts.”
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    It was an hour to Terlingua, and the road was empty,
    the land filled with cactus and the strange creosote bush
    and a few scrubby plants with thin dry leaves. “You should
    see it after it rains,” Jesse said. “It’s like the black and white
    version of the movie just got colorized. Everything turns
    bright green, and