Tossing Bucky

Reluctant to toss his first dwarf in a Las Vegas dive bar, a man has an epiphany about the girl he is promised to marry.

Gritting my teeth in frustration, I grab the little guy’s elbow and yank him close. Jeff clutch's one of his shoulder stirrup's and I grab the other with my free hand. Together, we raise the little guy up and into his harness like an eighty-pound pillow into its case. Jeff looks at me over Bucky’s tiny red cowboy hat, which is secured with a little bow knot under his tiny, beard-stubbled chin. 

"Screw it," Jeff slurs, "Let’s do this.”

Wuuusssyy! Wuuusssyy! the crowd still chants, more at me than Jeff. I try to ignore the mob and focus on getting this ordeal over with. My sympathy for the little guy has expired, and now I’m consumed with revenge. The little dwarf-jerk had taunted us. He’d humiliated me personally and he deserves to get thrown. If it were up to me I’d sling him even farther, beyond the teddy bear landing pile. In fact, I wish I could throw the MC too. He’s the one who started this whole ugly scene.

I had never been to Las Vegas before, and had never heard of dwarf tossing until thirty minutes ago. One minute Jeff and I are walking down the Vegas strip and the next thing I know we are in this whole other world, surrounded by mini-waiters in various costumes. There's a little Michael Jackson wearing a surgical mask, break dancing in the corner. A mini Judge Judy dances on top of a podium, hitting herself on the head with an inflatable gavel. It was just a few minutes ago that we were ushered in by a dwarf bartender dressed as Mr. T. He sports a fine mohawk, at least a dozen metal necklaces, and a sleeveless t-shirt that reads “I pity da fool” in blue iron-on letters and is finished in black marker with the words “That don’t tip.”

An obnoxious MC in a 70’s light blue prom tuxedo, wearing an over-the-ear microphone, ShamWow-style, strutted across the stage like a fairground carney strumming up business. He looked out of place, more so than Little T anyway. The bar is a peanut-shells-on-the-floor faux cowboy bar, with horse saddles for barstools, and I knew that if this place were a real cowboy bar this guy would’ve received a rear-kicking instead of a microphone and stage lights.

The MC appeared shocked and offended when I emphatically waved my hands No when he lit me up with the spotlight. He encouraged Jeff and me to dole out twenty bucks to take our turn tossing the dwarf. “No thanks”, I said with a fake smile and turned to the bartender, hoping that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t. The MC stood on the small stage in front of about a dozen or so red and white checkered table-clothed tables, each with candle lanterns minus the candles. Bucky, the dwarf on stage, seemed to take particular offense to my discomfort and jumped off the stage to approach us. He trotted toward us, his legs stiff, as if he had no knees. Over his cowboy getup he wore a black vinyl parachute-type harness that had a padded chest guard like something a baseball catcher would wear. It had two hard plastic hand grips on the shoulders and two rope handles drooping at his thighs. When he approached us, Bucky removed his childlike red cowboy had from his head and let it dangle behind his back by its string.

I looked at Jeff, who smirked as he pulled his baseball cap down over his eyes and drank from his beer. Into his own little wireless microphone Bucky confronted me and faced the crowd with animated arms: “Whatsa matter wussy, you don’t wanna play?” The crowd of mostly frat boys in Greek-lettered shirts roared in support of him.

“Nothing’s the matter with me,” I said, “I just don’t want to throw you.”

“Why not? You think it’s a free peepshow? Pony up, let’s go.” In one fluid motion he tugged at my shirt sleeve and attempted to walk me to the stage. I pulled back and assumed my position at the bar.

“Sorry, I just don’t want to. It’s just not my thing, that’s all.”

“Look here everybody!” Bucky said to the crowd, “We got ourselves a self-loathing dwarf lover. Danny Do Good here wants to play but don’t wanna pay!” The crowd rumbled with drunken cheers and boos. A bluegrass version of an AC/DC song played in the background. It sounds like Hale’s Bales.

“Look, little guy,” I said, “I don’t have anything against what you guys are doing here. I’ve just never been to a place like this before.”

The MC introduced the next toss. “Next up on the main stage, the young squire that’s a dire flyer. Everybody get ready for Tigger!” Another dwarf ran out from behind the stage curtain, dressed in a lion suit, and began pawing his arms at the crowd. Eye of the Tiger blasted from the loudspeakers.

“So you think you’re better than me, is that it?” Bucky asked. Better than me. It was not a question, but a comment. Where had I heard that before?

Instinctively I responded, “No. But don’t you think you’re being exploited by doing this? Are you not degrading yourself?” As soon as I spoke I felt déjà vu or something like it.

“Exploited?” he said. He lowered his voice and his eyes, “I’m putting myself through school. I’m a student you know.”

Student? I was a student until I graduated until I graduated a year ago. Day after tomorrow I marry Celeste, who is also a student. A theater and voice student. Beautiful, built Celeste with perfect porcelain veneers on her teeth. I bought them for her; she said they were an investment. She told me she was a student the first time I met her - she'd yelled it over her shoulder while giving me a lapdance at Maverick’s Star Studded Honky-tonk.

I studied Bucky’s eyes. His head was tilted to the side and he looked up at me through his eyelashes. Quite pitiful, but his breathing was still quick. He reminded me of Celeste when she told me she'd wrecked my Buick.

“What do you want to be when you grow " uh, graduate?” I asked. Little Mr. T asked me if I’d like to buy Bucky a mini-bottle of champagne, which I declined. Jeff accepted another bottle of beer.

“Ma’aan, I’m telling ya’s,” he said with a sudden urban tone. He crossed his arms, spread his feet wide apart and leaned back, looking me square in the eye. “I’m gonna be a rapper, ya heard?”

Going to school to study rapping? Rapping is like singing I guess. But still, something just doesn’t make sense here. Celeste sings around her apartment sometimes but she isn’t very good. And shouldn’t she be performing in school productions or have tapes of herself or something? Shouldn't she be throwing around terms like audition or face shot? Suddenly the big picture came into focus and everything made perfect sense.

“So you’re getting a degree in Rapping,” I said flatly. “Where do you go to school?”

“Look here man,” Bucky said, suddenly becoming more irritated. “Am I gonna get tossedor are you gonna get lost?”

I turned to the main stage where Tigger was in a floating Superman pose, being rocked back and forth by two guys in Kappa Sigma T-shirts. I thought of Celeste the Stripper and Bucky the Cowboy Dwarf simultaneously. My face grew warm as thick, quick-flowing blood circulated around my eyes and through my cheeks. In two days I am going to marry Celeste, that beautifully built, muscle-legged trophy. She’s going to marry me and not have to work and she’ll drive my car and run up my credit cards while I work fourteen-hour days. She can’t cook so I’ll have to bring home takeout and she’ll be sleeping in my bed and expecting me to serve her once the food is unboxed and on a bed tray.

“So, what’s it gonna be?” Bucky asked me with finality.

“Okay, fine,” I said, grabbing his wrist and marching toward the stage. “Tie your harness to your chaps and let’s go " you little s**t.”

The crowd went ballistic. I grabbed him by his little cowboy-gloved hand and led him to the stage. As I strode with long, quick steps I could feel him bouncing behind me. It was like dragging a wobbly desk. Jeff chugged his beer, dropped his fresh cigarette into the bottle and joined behind us.

The MC had just finished resetting the teddy bear pile after digging Tigger from its belly, and then he met Jeff and me center stage. Judge Judy tapped her squeeky gavel to gather attention, yelling Hear Ye! Hear Ye! The MC prompted the audience, “Looks like Wussy McDoo-Good is gonna give it a shot. What do you think? Can he do it?” Again, the crowd roared and began their single-word song of Wussy. I looked at Jeff, who was wobbling drunk and glazed-over. I then looked out at the bar and saw at least eight beer bottles where we had been standing. I had only drunk one, and we’d only been here less than an hour.

Secured in his harness, Bucky stepped in front of the MC and twirled a little plastic lasso over his head. The MC moved behind me as he gave us quick instructions, “Just pick him up and throw him. Wussy.” Kid Rock begins singing I wanna be a cowboy, baybee, and the crowd tries to drown it out with their own song of Wussy directed at me.

As we stand here on stage, under the spotlights and engulfed in an ocean of repugnance, the disgust inflames me. I try to read Jeff’s expression, to see if he’s as contemptuous as I am, but his drunkenness has given him pokerface. We lift Bucky by his harness handles and begin to rock him back and forth. One! Jeff stumbles and I tighten my grip. Two! The MC is yelling so loudly into my ear that I can hear him over the loudspeaker noise. As we prepare for launch, everything goes into slow motion. Jeff turns pale and falls to the stage floor, letting go of his harness handles. With the full force of my internal angst, and only my side of Bucky, I swing him as hard as I can.Threeee! With the hate-laden strength of a crazed drug addict, I lose my balance and swing Bucky around like a human golf club, colliding him headfirst into the microphoned face of the MC. Over the loud speakers the crash sounds like a homerun from the catcher’s perspective. KaPoww!

For a brief moment it is silent. Then hell breaks loose. A roar of laughter from the crowd gives way to apparent support of me, now chanting a quicker version of the only name they know me by: WuSee! WuSee! As I bend to wake Jeff, a slight weight falls with a thud on my back, and then a pressure tight on my ankle. The little lion is latched to my neck, holding me in a sort of headlock. Another dwarf dressed as a clown begins biting the side of my calf. As I slap Jeff to get his attention, I begin to hear a loud, dull moan. “What’s going on?” Jeff asks. Then I hear the moan again.

I scan around and see the MC listing on his side and holding his face, moaning into the bloody microphone drooping from his broken headset. Bucky sits up and holds his head and appears to gather his consciousness. “Come on, Jeff,” I say, “let’s get the hell out of here!” With that, Jeff tries to stand on his wobbly legs but quickly buckles to his knees and grabs my shoulder for stability.

“What the…get off him,” Jeff says as he begins prying Tigger off my back. I jump off the stage, trying to shake the clown off my ankle, and carrying Jeff under his belly, while he is yanking on Tigger’s tail.

“Bartender, lock the door!” Bucky instructs, leaning down and speaking into the MC’s mouthpiece. The four of us are rolling toward the door as the crowd splits like the Red Sea, still chanting my new name. I only have about twenty-five feet to go, and I see Mr. T’s little mohawk bouncing behind the bar, about sixty feet from the door, racing to beat me to our escape hatch. Jeff finally gets Tigger off my back as I limp toward freedom, still anchored by a biting clown. At the last table, the group of college guys all stand and scurry to get to me, one holding an empty beer bottle in his fist. About five feet from the door, the largest guy, the one with an empty Heineken, raises his arm and comes down directly on the curly red wig of my detractor, knocking him even sillier. Mr. T is right behind us to our left, still trying to unravel the metal chains around his neck, looking for the right key for the door. But it was too late. With a sudden thrust, I push Jeff into the door pane, opening the way to the sanity of the Las Vegas strip.