Life's Hard...Love Harder...Part 2 - The Marlboro Man

Part 2 .....all links are always in yellow

"There is no difficulty that enough love won't conquer, no disease that enough love won't heal; No door that enough love will not open...." ~ Emmet Fox


  "She wasn't my first choice,"he paused and gathered his words. he let out a nervous laugh and admitted "Liv I mean. Sometimes men don't think right, Cupcake. " 
He looked across the fire at me and I realized that my mouth was open in silent awe at his admission. I nodded in acknowledgement, but also found my mouth to be extremely dry. An awareness of the fire heating my face and the feeling of dirt on my tongue made me instinctively reach for the water bottle that Jesse had given me. I drank nearly half of it at once, while the boys sat in silence.

    The Marlboro Man reached for the whiskey bottle, lit a cigarette, and continued his story.

"The boys weren't even born yet when I was married to Beverly. She was their Aunt Liv's best friend.

  Liv moved to the farm next door when I was in my early twenties. A few years after that, her friend Beverly was here visiting from Southern California.

  Forgive me Cupcake if I'm being brash, but Beverly was one hot chick!
  Boys tend to follow lust  most times and that's just the real truth. I myself, was at the time, a 'boy.'

   He looked at Jesse and Wade as he spoke the next words "Confidence, in this old cowboy's opinion, is the most breath-taking thing a woman can have. Beverly may have been a beauty, but she was nothing near confident.

   Now a guy may not be concerned with that at the beginning, but I'm here to tell you that for a strong willed man, there ain't a better match than a confident woman. There's some other things that need to be considered too, like beliefs, what you are underneath at the core." He thumped on his chest with an open palm over his heart, then dug in his pocket for the pack of cigarettes that he had returned there a short time ago. He nodded at Jesse to pour another shot, then addressed me. 

"You sure you don't want one? You may hear things about me that you don't like, but I assure you, I am only being honest." He smiled and tipped his hat at me again.

"I'm ready. All ears over here Nick," I said, smiling back at him. I felt like things were about to get interesting.

"Well I gotta set you straight. I see how you look at me for wisdom. THAT is something I have, but I didn't come by it magically. I came by it, by falling down, dusting myself off, getting back up and giving it hell every time I fell, rinse and repeat.

I prayed a lot. God, is with you, even when you feel like he ain't. Otherwise I guess I woulda been a lot shorter in this world than I have been. By his grace I'm still kickin'. " He looked up towards the sky when he said 'grace.'

"Liv was a pretty girl. A fun girl." His smile then stretched from ear to ear. "She was my horse riding partner, my fishing buddy. We worked side by side. She was my best friend.
When Beverly came up to visit one summer, I started courting her." He paused and asked us all "Comprende courting? Not sure that's what you kids call it anymore. And I think maybe it's a lot different. At least I suspect with all these teen mothers and all that jazz." That was one of the very few times that I have ever seen the Marlboro Man roll his eyes.
"Liv never said a word other than wishing me and Beverly the best when we tied the knot six months later. But I seen something sad in her face. She didn't come around as much anymore and after the 'honeymoon' effect wore off within about a year, I started really missing my friend, Liv." He kicked at dirt, like a child who's been scolded.

"Beverly couldn't have kids. I'm grateful for that. Even if that's not the right thing to admit. I don't wanna go long on all the bad stuff that happened with Beverly. Just know that a loyal cowboy is always a loyal cowboy, until he can't be for reasons out of his control. 

Beverly did not like rodeo. That's what I AM. She wanted to take me out of the country and into the city and she had plans for us that I didn't want, and worse could never be or live up to for her. 

Now listen, cause this is the lesson about being who you are and your spouse or lover or whatever being okay with you being you. Make sense?

The true ones will love even the things that bother them about you..." He leaned in towards the fire and loudly whispered "THAT is true unconditional love." Then sat back on the rock and lit a smoke.

He talked for another hour or so about trying to hold the marriage together and managing to do it for about ten years, when he had a terrible accident from a bull ride gone wrong.

"Doctors said I'd never walk again, or ride, that's the part that crushed my spirit." He trailed off and yawned.

"Think we outta turn in and I will finish the story during breakfast and the ride to the lake. Anyway we came up to catch fish, not flies." 

He threw his bed roll on the dirt and made himself comfortable. His hat covered his face and a muffled "Good night" came from under it.

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Life's Hard..Love Harder Part 1 - The Marlboro Man

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Life's Hard...Love Harder Part 1 - The Marlboro Man -

2015 was a year of trials and lessons for me personally. I met some wonderful people, and learned some hard lessons from people I thought were 'friends.' The thing about life is that no matter what you do or don't do somethings will seem hard. 90% of us will make excuses for those things, the other 10% will go make things happens because they understand that 'life is hard.'

LOVE, on the other hand, is an equal playing field for those willing to experience it at it's true velocity....to which there are no boundaries.

"If only you could love enough, you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world." ~ Emmet Fox 

"Life's hard...Love harder..love is a gift, a light that each of have to share." His voice was slow and steady; his face serious and trance like. The glow from the campfire accentuated all the lines in his face. It seemed to make his blue eyes brighter. He picked up a handful of dirt and haphazardly threw it into the fire pit.
    He dragged his weathered dusty boot back and forth before stamping his foot. He was sitting on a large rock across from me and his nephews. He removed his hat and fanned the flames for a brief moment, then re-settled his hat on his head while he dug in his jacket pocket for a pack of smokes. He set them on the rock next to him. 
    He spoke again to the trance of fire  "She taught me that...Liv I mean."A tear raced down the side of his face, just one. I opened my mouth to say something and Jesse put his hand on my knee and shook his head when I looked at him.
   "All the things that you enjoy about me, all the good stuff, Cupcake, that's Liv. She's the reason I exist. I wish you could have known her. Cause I can't explain her right, not justly any how."  He was silent again. "When you look up in the sky and see the brightest shining star, that was Liv." He paused and looked at me " I sound silly, I know. I'm not the most romantic guy in the world, I suppose, but she loved me none the less.
   I been in rodeo most all my life. I been dragged, trampled, stampeded, punctured, broken, and put back together so many times, I made Humpty Dumpty look easy to all the Kings men and their horses. But none of that hurt worse then losing her...I can truly see why one spouses light wants to burn out right after the other. I wanted to, she wouldn't let me." His face was stoic, my eyes were the ones leaking now.
    I searched my pocket for tissue as I listened to the slow steady pace of his deep even voice. Wade handed me his bandanna. I wiped my face and quickly returned it to him.
" I grew up in a very different time, Cupcake." He looked through the fire at me to acknowledge me listening. I nodded.  His eyes dropped back towards his hands resting on his knees and he continued to speak 
   "It was a hard life. I was born when the stock market crashed." He stopped, chuckled, and added "Not right on the day, but you get me?" I nodded. Neither of his nephews made a sound. "Things got bad sometimes. We didn't waste nothing. There were five of us kids and we worked as soon as we could walk or talk. What's that, like three? We had a farm, so we ate. We fed most of the neighbors who grew other stuff and people passing through or lookin' for work." Marlboro Man got up and went to the wood pile, grabbed a couple of logs and threw them into the fire. The flames went briefly higher; the crackle settled down by the time he was re-seated.
    He talked for a time about how bad the economy had gotten and some things that he thought the government did that was wrong then. He stopped himself a few times from discussing his views about what the government was doing wrong now and simply said "I hope they don't make the same mistakes this time. Things repeat you know?" He didn't wait for a response. "Both good and bad things repeat." His words were slow and thoughtful. Quiet ensued. For about five minutes. me, Jesse, and Wade stared into the crackling fire. The atmosphere was us knowing that we shouldn't say a thing. We just waited until he started to speak again.
   "I was ten years old when we moved up here to California. My two oldest brothers stayed back east and kept farming there til the 80's. That's another story altogether. Mom and Dad took me and my two older sisters and settled part of this ranch. I got the rest of it years later." 
   He stopped and told Jesse to get the whiskey from the saddle bags. "Get this young lady a water too." He called after him. Marlboro Man winked and tipped his hat to me. 
   He took the pack of smokes from the rock, hiked one up to his lips, retrieved a stick from the fire, lit the cigarette with it and tossed the stick back into the fire pit. He dragged on it to get it going.
    Jesse returned with a bottle of Jack Daniels, a bottle of water, and a large shot glass. He walked to me and handed me the water bottle. Then went back to the Marlboro Man. He poured to the top of the glass and handed it to his uncle. Marlboro Man drank it fast and handed the glass back to Jesse. Jesse refilled it and handed it back to Marlboro Man. He drank the second shot and signaled Jesse to take it away.
     Jesse moved to the side of fire near me and Wade, poured a shot for Wade, offered me one to which I declined and drank two himself before settling back in next to me.
"I'm just warming up , Cupcake. You like good stories. I reckon you'll like this one."

To be Continued....


Copyright 2015 - Noelle Sangster/Sangster Entertainment LLC - All rights reserved

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Life's Hard Love Harder Part 2 - The Marlboro Man

Life's Hard Love Harder Part 3 - The Marlboro Man