The Cowboy Bible and Other Stories by Carlos Velázquez Read Free Book Online Page B

surgery the way one does with horse racing. She decided it was better to follow the example of certain ex-baseball players who become minor league coaches upon retirement. She would impose herself in stylology, specializing in the pubis. She had memorized the exact manipulation of the mini mini electric shaver they used to shave her before every catwalk competition.
    The Cowgirl Bible was a living legend. She had been inducted into the hall of fame at fifteen. She was the youngest ever to conquer the big screen. No one didn’t know who she was in the Guorl circuit®. But that didn’t keep her from signing up for the hair removers’ union under the snooty alias Ms. Las Vegas. As was tradition with novices, her first razor was a used one. A red Yamaha with white frets.
    The secret to being a virtuous master of the blade, according to the first lesson from her virtual instructor on The World’s Great Epilators DVD, not only resides in worshiping the divine mandate of shaving, but also in never forgetting the fundamental principle: that the music is in the wires. Handling an acoustic razor is not the same as handling an electric one. Check out the style. The style is the man (or, in this case, the gluttonous little girl, or whoever occurs to me). That’s the trick, the plan, the gift. It might come from heaven or as a spark of ingenuity. Some people say the key is in the tube amp, others lift the strings with their hands as they arpeggio or use a homemade instrument.
    From the Yamaha, she went on to a Fender Stratocaster, which she called Lucille. She dreamed of shaving next to the greats. On the wall above her bed she had a giant poster of her hero, her holy moly, her one and only: Jaimito Hendrics. As a pre-celebrity teen, she’d go out on the streets with her razor hanging off her back and get together with her buddies, all aspiring virtuosos, and they’d watch video clips featuring Hendrics, this dude who played the razor with his teeth, threw it against the speakers, and lit it on fire.
    Already marked as a product of the ghetto, she made her first public appearance at Cabelo do Porco, the PopSTock! interracial fair. Before, as was the case with all the aspirants, she’d taken part in small jams at highway bars and in neighborhood garages. She’d even had a small trio called Confessions of a Fried-Chicken Peddler. The power trio, rock’s analectic formation, was the gospel she needed to follow. As models there were two of the most reputable groups in history (now gone): Cream and The Experience.
    The interracial show consisted of lining up prospects before they went up onstage, as if they were waiting at a bank. On the stage, a group—razor, bass, and drums—was improvising on the pubis of a top model. The novice had to better, or at least equal, the rock and roll rapture of the stationary shaver going at another bush. Whoever managed to advance to the next phase, to be decided by the auditorium crowd, would compete in the last round for a Marshall amp, a car, two thousand pesos cash, and a Sony Ericsson cellphone.
    As if she was getting in line to cash a pension check, The Cowgirl Bible took her place in that long queue. Just before it was her turn, the girl in front of her warned her not to go onstage. She’d only make a fool of herself. But our girl didn’t give a shit. Decided, The Cowgirl Bible climbed the backstage steps.
    —What is your name? asked the house band’s razor player.
    —The Cowgirl Bible.
    —Where have you played?
    —Around.
    —Ladies and gentlemen, The Cowgirl Bible, from around.
    The competition started. First up was the local, then the visitor. The local organized her model’s pubes into a tiny pair of angel wings. The bass and drums never stopped improvising. Then The Cowgirl Bible launched into her performance.
    She started calmly, too sweet for rock and roll. But then the performance went out of control. The Cowgirl Bible was out of this world. She was operating on a whole other