Papa Was A Rodeo, But What Am I?
A Word: Avengerkink meme request. They wanted some background on Clint using Papa Was a Rodeo by the Magnetic Fields as inspiration. Mentions child abuse here.
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Clint learned to sing before he could talk and how to handle any four legged animal before he could walk.
He'd sit in splintered stands of wood or heated metal, and try not to squirm out of his brother's arms when Dad came in. A blur of white and rhinestones on a bucking bronco, or a steady stride across the arena twirling a length of rope the way most people spin their keys. Easy and unconsciously. He never missed, not once, not while he was putting on a show that made the crowd cheer and Clint laugh.
Mom was a pretty woman with big hair, cut off denims, and cowboy boots with red plastic flames on them that she had to keep regluing every week. Coaxing music from a beat up Gibson that was her first and only guitar, singing in on the chorus to a loudly appreciative audience looking for a break from the rodeo. A rambunctious crowd of half-drunk people that never seemed to mind Clint winding his way through their legs.
Clint was born in a hospital, but didn't stay there longer than it took to get checked out. He grew up in the crowded back of the band's van, and in the seat of a beat up Ford hooked up to a horse trailer. Singing with Mom's Screaming Vixens, and tying knots under Dad's occasional glance from the road while country played on the radio.
School was counting money, and reading was for liability forms or contracts. History came from the older folks who always had a story of how things used to be better. Geography was the world outside the dusty windows that never really seemed to ever point North. Gym was recess, and chores all rolled up in setting up or taking down with the occasional break for Barney to teach Clint how to do something fancier that Dad had taught him.
It was what Clint was born to, what he was raised in, and it was fine. It was perfect until he turned eight and everything changed.
Clint doesn't remember what happened exactly, and he doesn't care to look into it now. All he knows is that the van left without Mom, and the four of them crowded into the Ford without anything hitched to it for the first time. And the windows pointed North for the first time in Clint's memory.
They drove a long while until they reached a house which had a fence, bunk beds, and a real school. A school filled with kids who didn't know how to tie knots or even how to play the opening chords to Smoke on the Water. They knew how to multiply and divide, and they knew the names of countries. They already knew science and the difference between a verb and a noun. They knew a lot of things that Clint didn't, but they weren't very interested in trading tricks like some of the other rodeo kids did. They just wanted to pick fights, but it was only ever Clint that got in trouble for it when the kids found out Clint could out punch any of them.
Clint hated school, Barney did too, and they both wanted to go back. To drive from rodeo to rodeo and not have to stick around in one spot so long. Clint didn't understand why they didn't, because it was obvious to his young mind that his parents hated it.
Mom didn't wear denim anymore and her boots had been carefully packed up into the basement with her Gibson. She wore long skirts and pale shirts, and combed her hair until it was flat and long. She didn't sing or hum, and always turned the radio off when anyone turned it on. She never left the house. Always stayed home when Clint and Barney went to school and Dad to work. Cleaning and cooking until the chemicals bleached the tan from her skin and the steam clouded her eyes. Until she wasn't there even when she was looking at him.
Dad still wore his rhinestone covered shirts, but only at home with a bottle in his hand that never left. His hair, dark and always slicked back, grew longer than he'd ever let it without his hat to remind him to cut it. He worked longer than Clint was at school and came home tired and angry every day. He wore plain clothes and a tie to work, and hated every piece of it. Unlike Mom, Clint's Dad was there. Even when he was so drunk he couldn't tell the difference between an unruly horse that needed a good smack to calm down and his own sons.
Or when he was dead sober and still didn't care.
Barney was fast, he could dodge a lot, but he couldn't quit escape when the beer made Dad scream and rage. Words that blew past the ghost that was Mom and hit Barney dead center. Ripping him up until he started going mean too. Just like Dad.
Clint couldn't dodge so well, so he took a lot of the smacks. He was small though, and was very, very good at hiding. At plugging his ears so he couldn't make out any words. Just the loud scream of a voice. He started to fade though, in the end. Just like Mom.
It was a relief, and the second worst thing in his life, when Dad took Mom out and wrapped the Ford around the concrete post of an interstate bridge.
Clint sits patiently in the blind he's made in the hollow of a dilapidated billboard. Both eyes open and watching as he reflects on how very naive he used to be. Waiting for a target to enter his sights is a tedious task that always makes him stupidly introspective. All he has up here in the blind is time, and nothing to fill it except his own mind.
Dad had been the rodeo, Mom had been rock and roll, and Barney had been some frustrated thing in between them. Clint waits for his target, perfectly still and silent, and remembers the dust of the arena and the squeal of a microphone. Memories from a time so distant to him they might as well not be his anymore. He can't even remember the opening chords to Smoke on the Water, and the only animals he deals with anymore are more likely to be on two legs instead of four. He's not sure what that makes him anymore.
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