"Whatcha want?" the woman asked.
"Whiskey," I decided, then turned to Renato. "So, sounds like I've been replaced."
"You got replaced a long time ago," he reminded me. "Tulsa with Tanner, St. Louis with J.D., and Cheyenne with peace and quiet."
He wasn't wrong. "Add Nashville with Jake to that," I told him. Then dropped my head and groaned. "The worst thing? I'm happy for him. I know he'll be good to her, and I'm not. I also know that shit today?" I gestured back to Jaxon to show what I meant. "It's not about to stop."
Renato turned on his stool to look at me. "So?" he asked.
"Huh?" I wasn't following.
"Well, if I remember right, in North Carolina, you started a strike because shit wasn't fair. This? It doesn't sound fair."
"Jake started that," I reminded him.
"Now Jake's fucking 'your' girl, andyou'reseeing the inequality. Maybe the roles have reversed?"
I stared, dumbfounded, at him until the bartender slid a whiskey over to me. That snapped me out of it, but now the wheels were churning. Renato had a point, but Jake had said something too. He'd mentioned he couldn't rally the riders the way I could. My bad reputation made me an icon to them.
And didn't ‘being a good man’ mean using that? This crap they'd been doing to Cody for weeks now, and had just begundoing to J.D.? It was bullshit. It was wrong for more than merely the discrimination.
So I tossed back the entire glass and decided I had nothing left to lose. "Listen up!" I bellowed, pushing to my feet.
It took a moment, but the chatter stopped. Since most everyone in here was tied to the PBR somehow, I didn't feel bad about it either. Slowly, table by table, these men all turned in their chairs to find me in the crowd.
"All right!" I said. "Let's just get it out there. J.D. is bisexual. He's dating both Tanner and Cody. Yeah, she's got both of them in her bed, and pretty sure none of us have any room to talk, right?"
"Not gay?" that Australian rookie asked.
I pointed at him, dredging up his name. "Sonny, right?"
"Yep!"
"Not gay," I said for about the millionth time this month. "He also got a rider score of twenty-three today."
"What?!" Djalu hissed, shoving to his feet.
I nodded. "He's sitting in something like twenty-eighth."
"Twenty-ninth," Jackson corrected. "Only people who scored worse were the buck-offs."
"Fuck!" Kaleb groaned. "Because he's not straight?"
"And Cody's been getting that shit because she's not a man!" I yelled, slicing my hand through the air. "So what comes next, huh?" I gestured at Djalu. "Not being scored fairly because you're not white?" Then to Sonny. "Not being scored well because you're young?" Then to the American Jaxon. "Not being scored well because you don't have the right sponsors?"
"That's bullshit!" said the Canadian Jackson. "C'mon. We all knew it was happening to Cody. She can outride most of us. I mean, maybe the top five have a chance, but still. And she's not even bitchy about it. She just accepts it because she'sused toit!"
I found that new rookie from Guatemala, Rodrigo, at the back of the room and flicked a finger at him. "Gonna guess some of the riders in the PBR are used to the same shit for different reasons, huh?"
"I got it often enough," Renato said. "Most of us from Brazil have too, unless we're real light-skinned."
"Which is why I'm doing ok," Gustavo said. "I also spoke English better than most of us when I got here."
"Which means," I went on, "it's all about bigots. The PBR is turning into them, and we're sitting by silently, letting it happen. Slowly, bit by bit, they have pushed the limits of the rules this year to become something I can't respect, and I am not going to ignore it anymore!"
"So what are we doing?" Sonny asked. "More strikes?"
"But that'll fuck the bullfighters!" Jackson called out.
