Voiceover: Old, Western Male. 

Stern, raspy, trashy and all knowing.
Like a cowboy past his fighting days.
A fatherly figure watching over the land
he claimed as home in the 1900s.

Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr
was born on February 5th and died 
two days before her 41st birthday. 

(February 5, 1848 – February 3, 1889)

But her soul left long before that. 

13 years before to be exact. 

Though when you lived like Belle,
every day was like living 300. 

That Oklahoma sun sure does have 
a way of slowing down time. 

Down in the boons, you can feel the
sun’s deathly stare, breathing on ya.

From the shoreline
where there are no docks.

The only water that reaches Oklahoma
are the tears we shed before morning glow.

As I was saying... Belle’s life ended
long before she was buried. 

13 years before, to be exact. 

That’s when that yankee yanker,
Sebastian ‘O first arrived on this here, frontier.

The one laid out before you.
The place where there’s nothing to see.

Where the dust roads roll
and the cowboys stroll. 

Like tumbleweed, breezing by. 

But that was all before, Sebastian ‘O
pulled west on his horse’s stirrups.

THE SALOON
SEPTEMBER 24, 1986





FEATURING BELL STARR & SEBASTIAN ‘O




Voiceover: Bell Starr

She sounds like her image. 
But her thoughts are a young girl’s dream,
living in a grown man’s world. 



I’d been coming to the saloon every friday night since I was little. It’s how my old pa’ taught me to beat the boys. To protect myself from the wicked ways of boys who have spent too much time in the day.

In the light, laws were anyone’s game. But when the shadows took over - only the lawless would survive. Keepin’ your head is hard when the sun’s making things feel light. But keeping a hold on your horse at night takes guts. Swindle and swoon with your dicks hanging, but the moon’s shine was my time to earn what could be made into me and mine. Yours truly, yourself type of hustling. The kind of secrets the preachers only tell the young boys that have the depth of dark spaces.

When that damn near yankee yanker chit chattin’ Sebastian ‘O knocked on our swinging doors... I was the town’s ruling reign. The priestess with the mostess. Hostess to felons and felines. What I’m saying is.. by the time Sebastian ‘O came trottin’ into town on his one-eyed jack of a horse, I had already earned every block of gold you could find in the god foresaken town of Bishop’s Bay, Oklahoma.

The only thing that happens to someone
who’s already earned their worth -
is to start losin. 

I knew what I had coming. I knew what tried and true, test of testimonial faiths god sent Sebastian ‘O to Bishop’s Bay to prove. Power is what’s in question when your shooting your shot and playing pool every Friday night. Hoping you rob the townspeople of their city’s glory. 

The east side finally made
its way west.




And we wasn’t just shootin’ hard balls into sockets with sticks - we was testin’ each other’s nerve. Gotta have guts to make a gutter ball smash without breaking your stick or neck. Gotta keep your cool or end up a loser. 

In mind games and playing pool.




Like my old pa’ said - out there in the fields it was anyone’s game but keepin’ your head about ya’ in the battlefield of mine’s - was a testament of nerves.

You could feel the wood floors rattlin’ when Sebastion ‘O of Hill Rod, New Mexico came through, swangin. Two boot taps and a jacket pull, he finally showed us his deathly sun’s stare. Looking right at me and my pa’ when he raised his cowboy hat to show us his pearly white eyes.

The space between the blackened waters of time.
The portal of pupils.
The eyes only your own can
recognise.


Kin akin.




The dust sprinkled off the rim

like glitter against the dusk sky.

He was deadly gorgeous.

The new cowboy in town.

His freckles gleamed in the light of the setting sun. He was gorgeous and that made me want to shoot him in the space between eyes. He wasn’t gonna be safe around these parts.


Deadly.


Not if I wanted to keep my reign and I wouldn’t be havin no rubies of mine, stolen before I die.


Gorgeous.


I thought he better get to steppin’ if he wanted to see the light of tomorrow’s setting sun. He had until dusk the following day to pass on by.

That’s when I looked around the pub.

Time had stood still.
For a moment I thought we might be the only two outlaws left on earth. That’s when Jacob Goodmans pool stick hit the ground like a gun misfiring in someone’s pocket, the noise of rattle snakes swinging their tails on wood planks like a ropes hittin’ the back of our neck. It woke the place up.

I didn’t know what to do.
But I knew I had to make a move.

One foot out, I took a step forward.

The words fell out of my mouth like
bricks
of dominoes.


I said.

“Scuse me sir.

Where do you think
you are right now?”

A moments breath.

Long enough to pause.
Too short to reply.



“Cuz, I reckon you’ve lost your way.

All that dust in the desert
will have you thinkin’ a god exists.

But we ain’t seen him
since the bombs blew.” 

I had to get his feet moving.

He stood there, like a fallen angel,



silhouetted.



By the light he was getting in the way of, 
a shadow stands before the sun.




He cracks a smile, wise-ass.

He says-

“Well, I reckon this is the place for me then.”

I turned to my pa’ and asked -

Daddy?

Would you mind if your sweet lil’ girl
borrowed your pool stick?

and I broke it on my knee.

I said - 

“Let’s put money on it then.” 

---

Tune in next month to see what happens when
saloon doors are swung and balls get knocked,




rocked.

+

rolled.

❌ 🅾️