by K. M. McKinney
The incinerating heat grew cold and desolate as night claimed the desert. He fell backwards into the sand. His face weathered from years of fruitless effort. His eyes a deep honey brown when reflecting moonlight. He squinted at the tangoing flames of fire. How long had he been on the run? Could’ve been three days, could’ve been three weeks, months, or years. Time lengthened back, vacant and free as far as the eye could see. He didn’t care. This cowboy’s only companions were the Winchester strapped to his hip and his flask, which often filled with rum. He took a swig and leaned backwards, attempting to remember what his life was like before. The stars in the sky coerced the tired man into a dream.
A dreamworld materialized and he found himself in a place he knew all too well. A town containing a round-a-bout of structural anomalies that was built like a set from a Spaghetti western. It had a typical Main Street, complete with an almost cartoonish saloon. He looked around, attempting to gather his bearings. Yelling echoed in the distance. Far off in the desert landscape, two men stood abreast; A bearded man brandishing a large pistol towered over a formally dressed man who was cowering.
“I’m gonna give you ten seconds before I shoot.”
“You don’t have to do this. It wasn’t my fault!”
The bearded man cocked his pistol. “Ten.”
“C’mon Jake ya’ know me, ya’ know I wouldn’t do this!”
“Nine.”
“Please, please, please! I have a wife, I have children! We can work this out!”
“Eight.”
Bang. The shot pierced the silence violently. The formal man melted slowly into the ground.
Shocked, the weathered man bolted toward the saloon, shoving the French doors aside; The dense panic he felt only likened to a war veteran during a PTSD episode. The scene inside was as stereotypical as a saloon could be.
Patrons sat stationed along the bar, sipping from the sides of stained glasses. Ragtime music twanged in the background. Wasted men dressed in their dirtiest work clothes lounged around round tables, holding playing cards close to their chests. Harlots lined the outer corners of the bar, waiting for customers drunk enough to follow them upstairs.
… and there he stood, just inside the doorway, shaking like an addict going through withdrawal. Light from the outside world formed a stoic outline around him. The bar-goers stared at him blankly, narrowing their eyes with pure judgement.
“Howdy, Mac.”
He turned to find a tall farm hand, with features sharper than the end of a bayonet, his face complete with untrustworthy blue eyes.
He didn’t respond.
“Why don’t you sit down and have a drink?” The farmworker lisped with a stilted tone. The weathered man stood petrified. This is not a man he recognized nor did he recognize the name he was called. Mac?
“C’mon now. Come sit down.”
The farmworker took a step forward and he took a step back, swaying on his feet. The room became hushed. The man inhaled the deadly silence. He turned and dashed for the door, not missing a beat with his step.
The sharp-faced farm worker called out after him, but he didn’t acknowledge the man’s plea.
The rush of blistering heat took his breath away. Dizzy, he paused. The man once again stood listless in the old western town. Why was he here? Should he run? Should he hide? He twisted and turned. He drew quick breaths. He panicked. He should run. He should hide.
The man bolted toward the nearest open building. His legs moving faster than his mind. He flew up the front steps, past the front door- and belly flopped into a stand of sagebrush. His face slammed into the searing sand. He came up spitting and swearing and flipped over on his back. From his new perspective he could see he had just run through a fake building. A cardboard cutout disguised as a humble abode.
Unable to get his mind around what was real and what was a dream, he lay there in silence and let this version of reality fade away.
He came to only to find the bearded man’s terrified eyes hovering over his. He was lying in a pool of dark liquid. Frightened, he squirmed backwards and drew the gun from his holster. He pointed it at the face of the bearded man.
“What in the hell is going on here, huh!? Who the hell are you!? Why am I here!?” he hissed.
“Mac, calm down it’s just me.”
The brunette man looked frightened at the appearance of “Mac”.
“You shot a man earlier! You shot him! I saw you! I don’t know who the hell you are, but you best stay back!”, the weathered man returned.
It was then that the universe curved around and smacked Mac in the ass. Just at that very moment, the blond, previously very dead guy, appeared from behind the cutout.
Dead was walking- followed by the sharp-faced farmhand. The weathered man sat up in shock. He felt a substance soaking his back. Was this blood? No. The dark liquid settling into the sand beneath him was rum. His eyes welled with tears.
“I don’t understand. Where am I?”
The bearded man sighed.
“You were fired from the cast a week ago Mac, remember?”
“We’re- you mean we’re on a movie set?”
“Yes you damn drunken shit. If you hadn’t noticed, this’a movie set. What, did you actually think you were in the Wild West?,” the farmhand sneered, “Shit, bet you thought someone got shot too.”
“I watched him die!”
“Like hell you did. We were filming a scene.”
“Fuck, Jimmy, he don’t remember. Give him a break.”
“Break? He’s a grown ass man. I ain’t gonna give him no break,” The tall farmhand, Jimmy jabbed, “He doesn’t deserve one, he’s a damn alcoholic. It wouldn’t be so damn mad except for the little fact that he ran away from me. The fucker ran away from me! Screw em’.”
“What the hell did I do? Would someone please tell me?”, he sat in a pool of his rum and wished he could drown in it. Nothing was making sense to him.
“I don’t think anyone here really knows how to describe what you did,” the bearded man began, “shit I dunno’ one day you just went apeshit on us, talking bout’ how ya’ didn’t know where you was and how you were gonna blow our heads off if we didn’t tell ya’. It really don’t make much sense. We figured that you were, what them fancy folks call.. “Intoxicated”.” The bearded man concluded his mini speech with air quotes.
“Not me. I wouldn’t do nothin like that!”
“Mac, you did the same thing last week.. And the week before that. We keep trying to send you off, but you keep on coming back. It’s the cold, hard truth bud.”
Like a flash flood, his memories all came at once. He wasn’t some “weathered man”. He was Mac Jackson, the world’s newest western star. Correction, he was the newest western movie star. Now he’s Mac Jackson the drunkard maniac from Salinas. It was 1954 and he was in Albuquerque on the set of a film ‘Tumbleweed’.
Had it been the heat and the alcohol? Or was he pure crazy?
It shamed him when he realized what he had done. The same thing had happened before. He remembered. In a drunken daze, he had wondered onset and regained semi-consciousness. Then, he freaked out, simultaneously freaking out the rest of the cast. They found him behind the gun store cutout. He was passed out for hours. The crew argued for days and days about whether or not they should let Mac back on set. In the end, as you can imagine, their verdict was a straight and strict “no”.
“I’m the main character- and the star! Good god you guys, you gotta let me back in! You gotta!”, Mac pleaded with the cast, “Please, please..”
The words of the producer resurfaced as a distant memory. “There are other actors, more reliable and ten times as talented. I mean, shit, we made you! We sure as hell can make another you.”
“It’s no use pleading,” the farmworker lisped, “you had your chance. If you wanted the job then ya’ shoulda’ acted like ya’ did.”
“But I do want the job! I do! I swear! Please, you gotta believe me!”
“That’s enough, Mac.” A deep, familiar voice resonated behind Mac. Mac swiveled and felt the sand rip deeper into his palms.
“Now get off the set, before I call the police to drag your drunk ass out.”
It was the director.
“Please sir, please! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do it! It won’t happen again. Please.. Plea-”
“Save it.” The expressive director shot his hands up to silence Mac, “If I gave ya’ a second chance, I know what you would do with it. You would be all fine and dandy for a couple of days, hell maybe not even that long, and then, you would get all floozy and pull the same bullshit you did today,” the director growled, “Get off my set, before I call the police. Don’t make me say it again.”
“But, bu-,” Mac began.
“Shut up. Get off the set. Don’t make me drag you myself. You know I won’t be as nice to ya’ as a police officer.”
Jimmy and the other men drew back until they stood next to the director. Mac sat dumbfounded. These guys were once his friends.
“Did I stutter? Get up, Jackson!”
The men circled menacingly around Mac.
“I’m sorry Mac, but this is the way its gotta be,” the bearded man began, “I wish it different, but it can’t be how it should.”
Without a single utter of goodbye, the tearful cowboy dragged himself up, dusted his pants free from sand and started walking into the desert.
The world had officially broken Mac Jackson.
Katherine McKinney is a writer and filmmaker from Half Moon Bay, California. Currently a student, a photographer and an avid believer in the paranormal, Katie enjoys most artistic media. She believes firmly that fictional ideas blossom into our reality through the screen and through words. Hence, her deep interest in filmmaking. She currently lives at home with her family and their three rowdy dogs.