T-Ray Deshotels

Ecclesiastes 1:2   Vanity of vanities!  All is vanity.

 

                                                       

      T-Ray wanted to be a trapeze artist when he grew up.  The goal was pure selfishness on his part, however, for his ulterior motive was to be near the scantily dressed girls on the high wire.  They were beautiful and graceful as they “flew through the air” causing his heart to skip a beat.  His mother, seeing the desire of her unusual child and not knowing his secret motive, had a custom-made trapeze built in the back yard of their home and delighted in watching her son fly.  After all, she reasoned, he had been doing such in the trees for years, swinging from branch to branch as if he were a monkey.  Why not give focus to her son’s dream? 

            When the girls paid little attention to T-Ray he soon lost interest and pursued his second dream; be a rodeo clown.  He had already proven he was fast on his feet and very agile, why he was even on the gymnastics team in high school.  Surely this would attract the girls.

            Growing up on a cotton farm in Avoyelles Parish with horses always around had prepared him for such a career. He was a country boy and horses were in his blood, in fact, he had been given a beautiful sorrel mare for his first birthday.   

T-Ray and his friends were always the first at the gate for the grand entry when the rodeo was in town.  Once he even got to carry the flag and lead the others around the arena.  T-Ray knew that people were standing in respect to the flag but in his heart, he pretended they were rising to their feet because their hero was passing before them.  He dreamed of being the star of the rodeo. “I’ll be a rodeo clown someday,” T-Ray said, out of the blue one weekend, after watching the rodeo.

“Are you crazy,” interrupted his friend, Marcello, “Since you love horses more than breathing, why not be a bareback bronco rider?”

“That’s not showy enough,” he retorted.  “You only have a few minutes in the arena before adoring fans.  If I were the clown then I would be out there the entire rodeo,” he said smugly.  “Rodeo clowns are the glue that keep everything together.  Without them there is no rodeo.  I want to be the star not just a star, besides girls admire heroes”.

His friend could not understand why he would like to live so dangerously.  “That is part of the excitement,” he told Marcello. “You get to run, jump, entertain people and save lives on occasion.”  But inside he thought, “I’ll be a girl magnet.” 

Soon the thought of people depending on him and his agility for safety became quite appealing.  He dreamed of becoming the hero, distracting the bull that was ready to gore the rider he had just thrown.  The thought of breaking bones never occurred to him. Nor did it really matter.  He had broken bones several times through the years.  In fact, nine times.  Broken bones never slowed him before, why should they now?

T-Ray, the infamous bachelor, lives next to his parents, working the farm alongside his siblings and their families. It was hard work hoeing the weeds in the cotton fields and taking care of the tractors and machinery.  On weekends he practiced trick riding on his horse, bouncing in and out of the saddle, standing on the back of his horse in full gallop or doing back flips off the horse. He loved the adrenaline rush it gave him.  He even had a costume.  But his dream of being the rodeo clown was easily forgotten after a near death experience when the girth strap broke and he ended up under his horse while in a full gallop.  He crushed his collar bone. 

Now his focus is on girls and being part of the Avoyelles Parish Courie Le Mardi Gras, riding bareback through the countryside once a year in search of chickens or other ingredients for the big gumbo celebration at the end of Fat Tuesday.  He has become “the” star of the Parish with his shenanigans on horseback. 

Bless his heart he still thinks he’s a girl magnet.  

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