volume one IN THE D U D L E Y C L A R K - Ohio Vine Tours

“When we gonna watch that?”
“Watch what?”
Pete turns from his popcorning labors.
“That.”
“Oh—that.”
Pete returns to his labors.
“You ain’t ready.”
“I ain’t?”
Pete shakes his head.
“You ain’t.”
He pours some chilled kernels into a pot of hot oil and settles
the lid on top.
“Dunson’s th’ first character Wayne played where ’is mean
side showed. Hawks hadda age him for th’ part.”
Exploding kernels, desperate to escape the heat, clunk against
the lid.
Popcorn aroma invades the room.
“Th’ young buck was played by Montgomery Cliff, a fruit
who couldn’t fight worth beans, he was so gay.”
Pete grabs a rag, wraps the pot’s hot handles, and gives it a
few shakes.
“It’s Mutiny on th’ Bounty, with cattle.”
Roy wonders what Mutiny on the Bounty, without cattle, is.
Pete removes the pot from the burner and lifts off its lid. A
celebratory cloud of steam arises, commemorated by a few corn
cannonballs.
“It was ’48, an’ Wayne came out in three pitchers that year—
two by Ford, and this one. Th’ others were Fort Apache an’ Three
Godfathers.”
He salts, peppers, spices and sifts brewer’s yeast onto the
popped corn.
“Ford helped Hawks edit Red River, which was made in ’46.
It was th’ first time Ford realized how good Wayne was, so he
grabbed ’im for Fort Apache.”
He pours his mixture into a metal bowl, snags two stemmed
glasses from a shelf of such things, exits the kitchenette, switches
off lights, and returns to his wingèd throne.
ROY ROGERS IN THE 21ST CENTURY 2