I Wanted to Be a Cowboy

by Stevie Williams

On a Saturday in hot mid-summer, my parents load everyone into the car to drive to a real old west town. I’m eager to see a ghost town where crowned wooden buildings frame a stretch of dirt that used to be the main road. Instead, my dad drives us into a little town in the mountains where there’s pavement and brick buildings. My dad explains trappers built the town, and people traveling west in search of gold used it as a rest stop. I know about prospectors, and I am not impressed.

Image credit: Dan Cutler on Unsplash

The old buildings house art galleries and t-shirt shops. all selling the same screen-printed tops and more taffy shops than should exist in any one place. Even when my parents buy a bag of candy for everyone to share, I drag my feet, disappointed. I know what a real old west town looks like because I’ve watched every Western movie available at Blockbuster and the library since spring break, and this is not a real old west town. This is no place to be a cowboy.

Or so I think, until I see a man dressed in Western wear in a rocking chair, tapping his worn-in boots on the boardwalk. As I pick the strawberry taffy from my molars, I take in the wood-clad building behind him. Its hand-painted sign swings so the golden letters shimmer in the sunlight. An antique photo parlor.

My sister runs past me to press against the window. Not about to have my discovery stolen, I shoulder Jenna out of the way to look through the dirty glass. We stand together, peering into a room darkened by heavy velvet curtains. Racks of dresses and suits line the sides of the space, and in the middle, stand two mannequins. One wears a brown suit and suspenders, while the other wears a dress, billowing out at the bottom. Between them sits a collection of vintage trunks, open and overflowing with feathers and scarves and cowboy hats.

I’ve spent hours practicing Clint Eastwood’s long strides and how John Wayne draws a gun in our wood-paneled basement to distract from the conversation my mom had with me about growing into a woman after I found streaks of red in my underwear. Now my rehearsals can come together with an outfit with suspenders and a coat to make me a real cowboy.

“I want to wear that dress. It’s so pretty.” Jenna points at the mannequin.

I’ve hardly taken in the purple monstrosity until now. Black lace lines the sleeves and neck, and I know well enough that a hoop and layers upon layers of fabric sit together to create the restricting volume. “That looks awful.”

“You’re such a tomboy, Alice.” Jenna elbows me in the ribs. I elbow her back, even though she’s right.

“Fancy getting your pictures done, folks?” The photographer asks in a fake drawl as my parents and brother catch up to us.

“It looks like fun,” my mom says. “We can use it as a Christmas card since we don’t have anything planned this year.”

“Alright, fine.” My dad gestures at the door while shaking his head.

Jenna scrambles inside, and I follow right behind. Inside the wide boards creak under our feet, and in the back of the store, lights gleam on a wobbly-looking staircase, an upright piano, and a staged bar with wrought iron details weaving along the side. Jenna strokes the skirt of the dress she admired outside, and I hear the stiffness of the fabric at her touch. This doesn’t seem to discourage her from loving the dress as she says again, “how pretty.”

My brother picks a cowboy hat from the haphazard stack and puts it on. “What do you think?”

“Makes your ears look big,” Jenna says.

The hats don’t sit well together, being all different sizes and styles. My eye catches on a black cattleman hat with a cow-print band that I will absolutely wear as a cowboy. Before I can dig it out of the stack, the photographer calls us over.

“Alright, folks,” the photographer continues his drawl, “Y’all will get dressed up in one of our fine outfits here, and then we’ll get to taking pictures. Ladies, your options are on this side of the room, and gentlemen on the other. Everything is organized by set and size.”

My mom guides Jenna and me over to the racks of dresses. As I pull dresses across the rail to look at my options, they all feel as horrible as the purple one on the mannequin sounded. Jenna holds up dress after dress with a big smile on her face, and when she finds one she likes more than the others, she lays it along her body to look in the mirror.

“That’s really nice, Jenna. A lovely color for your eyes,” my mom says. “What are you thinking, Alice?”

There are two options in my size, one a rust red and the other, a deep, dusty blue. The colors are fine, but women who wear these kinds of dresses in Westerns almost always end up in some trouble, waiting to be rescued. A laugh from Max pulls my attention away to where he and my dad are playing with toy guns and wearing cowboy hats, lopsided on their heads.

“Can I be a cowboy instead?” I ask. I can’t explain why my heart jumps at this, but one lesson almost every Western movie focuses on is bravery. Despite Max always telling me I have to be a scaredy cat because I’m a girl, I’m not afraid of anything.

“Well…” My mom follows my gaze and then looks back at me. “I’ll go ask.”

The photographer shrugs when she asks. “Not really any of my business so long as she finds something in her size. Some of it might not look as good in the photo since it’s not made for, well, it just might not fit quite right.”

“What are you asking about?” My dad walks over, almost dressed already in a borrowed outfit. He’s clipping on a pair of suspenders.

“Alice wants to be a cowboy instead of a saloon girl.”

I pluck a feather from a boa spilling out of the trunk next to me and crush it in my palm so tight I feel the pulse in my fingers as my parents look at me.

“What, do none of the dresses fit her?”

“No, I’m sure they would. She just wants to dress differently.”

“I mean,” my dad adjusts the suspenders over his broad shoulders. “Don’t you think it will look a little silly?”

“I don’t see why it matters, really. None of us are what we’re dressing up as.”

“Okay, if that’s what you want to send out to the family this year.”

Jenna walks out of a dressing room wearing a lilac dress that fits as though it were made for her. Lace coats the bib, and a big bow accents the back. She twirls to show off.

“That looks very nice, honey,” my dad says. He turns his attention to buttoning the cuffs of the dress shirt.

“Come on, Alice.” My mom waves me over to the section filled with trousers and jackets. “Let’s see what might work.”

We search through costumes that should be my size. I don’t care what styles we pick so long as I’m a cowboy at the end of this. I picture myself with soft trouser fabric falling straight down my legs, the suspenders, and holster. A hero, a cowboy. Leaning against the bar with wrought iron detailing after a long, honest day of work.

In the dressing room, the shirt fits like a charm. I am surprised to find that the buttons run down the opposite side of the shirt than what I’m used to. I slide the first pair of trousers on. Pulling the waistband across my hips, I realize they won’t button. I lean back and suck in my stomach, but the waist still won’t come together. When I look up in the mirror, I see myself with hair flying away out of my ponytail and face red from hairline to chin. The exact opposite of the dignified look I had in my head.

The pants cling to my hips and stick to my thighs, accentuating the curves of my changing body instead of hiding them. My heart twitches like a hand waiting to grab a gun and fire in a duel. The pants don’t look at all the way I know they’d fit on my dad or Max. I pull the pants off and throw them in a heap in the corner. It has to be that specific pair. One of the others has to fit.

The second pair fit the exact opposite of the first, sliding down my legs. Not even suspenders can help them fit correctly. I throw them next to the first. I look at the final pair of trousers.

"It takes more than big, broad shoulders to make a man.” I whisper a line from my favorite Western to myself as I pull the pants on. I can be a man, or anyone I want to be. And right now, I want to be a cowboy. So these pants have to fit. I take a breath before I step into them.

The trousers slide up my legs without catching on my thighs, the waistband buttons, but they are too long. So long I’d need to be Max’s height for them to fit right.

“Are you almost done, slowpoke?” Max calls. “Everyone else is ready, and it’s hot with all this on.”

I fold the pant legs into uneven cuffs, shove my feet in a pair of boots that pinch my toes, and stuff the extra fabric into the space around my calves. After I snap on the suspenders and adjust the jacket, I look at myself, and I look like a cowboy. The mirror reflects back a version of me I’d only ever imagined. Because that person in the mirror isn’t a girl who is about to be a woman, with all of the associated expectations.

When I walk out of the dressing room, I don’t expect my dad to tell me how nice I look like he did with Jenna, but I also don’t expect the way his face falls. I pull at the arms of the jacket, like I’ve seen him do before, like it will make things better. Like it will soften the sting of his disappointment and discomfort.

Max laughs first. “You look ridiculous.”

“Your pants are spilling out of your boots,” Jenna adds. When I look down, I realize she’s right. Moving has undone my quick folding.

My dad releases the smallest sigh as he looks at my mom.

“It’s not that bad,” my mom tries. “But maybe it would be better for you to wear a dress, Alice.”

Everyone looks like they’ve walked out of my favorite films. My mom, the loving wife, worried about becoming a widow. Jenna, the ingénue who’s bound to be kidnapped. Max, the impulsive young cowboy who’s looking to make a name. And my dad, the wizened man ready to teach Max what honor and bravery really means.

So, who am I? What role is left for me?

Image credit: Furkan Elveren on Unsplash

I recall the rest of the line from my favorite movie. “It takes more than big, broad shoulders to make a man. And do you know what? I don’t think you’re going to make it.”

“Which dress did you want?” My mom asks.

“The blue one.”

I return to the dressing room, and after a few seconds, my mom tosses the dress over the top of the door. Once I’ve zipped the back, the dress isn’t as bad as I’d made it out to be, but the stiff bodice constricts my lungs, and the scratchy underskirts tangle my feet. When I look in the mirror, I see a dress that fits my body, but that doesn’t fit me. There’s a vision of my future self trying to solidify at the edge of my mind of someone who contains more than one thing, more than one way of being, at a time. When I come out of the dressing room again, everyone is picking out accessories.

My mom fans Jenna, flickering the feathers from a headband falling over her long hair. My dad adjusts a holster at his hip while Max browses cowboy hats.

“I don’t want to hold a fan,” I say, walking to join Jenna and my mom.

“All the girls hold fans,” says Jenna, pushing one into my hand.

“That’s a stupid rule.”

“What if you hold one of the guns?” My mom suggests. “It will make you fit in with the boys a little bit more.”

I shrug, but I do want to hold one of the guns, so I pick one up from the counter. They are all the same small pistols that shine too much to be real. “Am I brave because I carry a gun?” I think about another line from another film. Everyone will see the skirts before they see the gun and before they see me. But a gun hidden in swirling skirts has saved the hero more than once.

Max comes up next to me to take a pistol for himself. I frown when I notice he’s wearing the black cattleman hat with a cow-print band. “I wanted to wear that.”

Max shrugs. “Well, you’re not a cowboy, so no hat for you.” He taps the tip of my nose with the fake gun, and I swat the toy away from my face.

I slam my foot against the ground, but my skirts muffle the sound. “I can wear a cowboy hat if I want, and I wanted to wear that hat.”

Still, my dad notices the brewing argument. “Alice, that’s enough. Saloon girls don’t wear cowboy hats, alright? Besides, you look nice. Everyone’s ready, so let’s get these photos done.”

I trial behind, sulking, as the photographer poses us. He sits me on top of the piano because I’m the smallest. He instructs me to point my toes and presses my hands into my skirts so the gun is buried.

I want to shoot the ceiling as they do in movies to make splinters rain down on us. Max and Jenna would jump so high. Everyone would fall silent and look at me, waiting for a command. I would start with making Max give me the black cattleman hat and tell him to be brave as I tapped the still-hot gun to the tip of his nose. When he recoils, I’d tell him that he’s the scaredy cat, not me. And then I’d make everyone look through every single clothing rack to find me a pair of pants that fit. Because even though I may not be a cowboy, I’m certainly no saloon girl.

But the gun doesn’t work that way, and before I know it, the pictures are over. We stand back outside the wooden photo parlor with our regular clothes on. The entire thing is already fading into family history as a silly little adventure.

“These will make very cute Christmas photos,” my mom says, showing off the black and white prints.

Everyone else agrees. Jenna coos about how good the feathers look in her hair. My dad comments on how roguish he and Max appear. No one comments on how I don’t look as happy, despite it seeming obvious. The photos would be better if I were a cowboy. Then another line from my favorite film comes to mind. “This is just a dirty little village in the middle of nowhere. Nothing that happens here is really important.” Someday I’ll be my own kind of cowboy.

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Note: While this character uses Western films as a lens through which to explore masculinity, I want to acknowledge that this genre of films often fails to recognize the real, violent, and complex history of the American West and expansionism, instead choosing to prioritize historical inaccuracies, racist depictions, and reinforcement of gendered stereotypes. To learn about the ways in which westward expansion impacted indigenous communities, the environment, and post-Civil War society, I recommend starting with the short, four-part docu-series “The Real Wild West” released in 2023. The series explores the truthful history of massacres and land grabs, as well as the diversity of people in the American West, including Black and Hispanic cowboys, the impact of immigrants, famous female homesteaders, and tribal leaders.

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Stevie holds an MFA in Creative Writing with a focus in Fiction. She worked as a Fiction Editor for Marathon Literary Review. When she’s not editing Cosmic Double, Stevie manages a local little free library and reads almost every book she can get her hands on. Her work has been published in Unstamatic, Journal Twenty Twenty, and more.