The Time I Fell In Love With Three People, A Calf, A Horse, and A Flock of Pigs on the Same Afternoon in Texas in the Summer of 2011

I spent three summers as a door to door salesman.

Those three summers, split between Southeastern Texas and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, provided me with a lot of great things, not the least of which is a virtually endless supply of great stories to tell myself and other people for the rest of my life. 

This story was recently adapted and performed in a Directing class I took. As part of the class, I had to promise that I would let my authorship of the story remain anonymous. But that's ridiculous. This is my story. I earned it.

I let the story be bastardized in the class. A lot of it wasn't true. I owe it an apology.

Here is the story in it's true form. The title for it in the class was "Count 'em out, ride 'em in," but that name is also ridiculous. The real title of the story is

"The Time I Fell In Love With Three People, A Calf, A Horse, and A Flock of Pigs on the Same Afternoon in Texas in the Summer of 2011"

by Joseph W. Rebrovick

(I always include my middle initial to distinguish me from other Joseph Rebrovicks, which abound.)

This story, technically, takes place in the very small town of Hockley, Texas. That is to say, these people write Hockley, Texas on their mail. There should be no misconception, though, that this takes place in any sort of town. That would ruin the story. This takes place on a prairie in Middleofnowhere, Texas to be precise.

I don't remember how the rest of the day had gone up until this point. I remember that it was very hot. This house has a cluster of big trees in the front yard and green grass growing underneath them.

During the summer of 2011, the greater Houston area experienced one of the worst droughts in its history, going months without any rain.

This little patch of green underneath the trees, immaculately watered and maintained, rose like an oasis from the miles upon miles of dead grass and dust in any direction.
Also there was a big spider on her door. I think it took me a minute to muster up the dash to even knock, but I did. I treated her house like any of the other thousands I had knocked on before.

At the door was Oleta. That was the first time I fell in love that day. Oleta was fierce, as fierce as the best of Texas women. There were storms in her eyes. She was beautiful. She was wearing scrubs, plain hospital green. None of that cutesy dentist office stuff for her. Her hair was piled on top of her head so that it would would stay out of her way. Her arms were crossed, and she wasn't listening to a word I was saying. I rambled on, trying to get her in to a conversation. I wanted to sit down with her and give her a sales pitch. It was my job.

Peeking out from behind her knees was Maci. I fell in love again. This blue-eyed, towheaded little firecracker was no more interested in what I had to say than her mother; her sights were set on freedom. My knocking had gotten her mom to open the door to her prison cell, and like a shot she was off to play in the sprinkler maintaining the oasis of their front yard. Oleta was even more upset; not only had her work been disrupted, but now she had a muddy 5 year old to capture and wash off. She walked past me mid-sentence to try to catch her daughter, but stopped only a few steps into the yard. In the field next to the house was a year-old dairy calf running and bucking like mad. Oleta muttered a curse word. She yelled for her husband. "JEFF! THE CALF IS OUT!"

If you know me, you've probably heard me talk about Texans. I am mystified by them. There is a certain set of properties that comes with being a Texan unlike any other people I've ever met. And I'm not talking about people born and raised in a subdivision in a suburb of Houston or Dallas. (From my experience, subdivision stock are the same world over. They get a certain conflicted mind set from living in such close quarters with other people, yet trying subconsciously to pretend that since they live in a stand-alone structure that they are somehow not associated with their neighbors.) I'm talking about people who live in the great romantic openness of the Texas country. There's a storybook quality to them.

Like lightning, out of the gate from the pasture behind their house came Jeff. I fell in love again. Jeff was a real deal cowboy, the kind you find in books about the Old West. His boots had spurs, his gun carried six bullets, his shirt was flannel, and he was carrying a lasso. A real lasso. A real lasso he intended to rope a calf with.


Jeff and Oleta were professionals. Oleta ran towards the road to the far side of the calf, while Jeff spun his lasso and repeatedly jumped in toward it trying to catch it around the neck. I was completely at a loss for what to do. After staring in amazement at the situation for a few minutes, I figured it couldn't hurt if I joined in. I dropped my bag and my notebook, and started to half-run over to the other end of yard, the idea being that I would create a triangle with the other two and slowly close in on the calf, finally capture it, then maybe all give high-fives to each other, lean on a fence and watch the sun go down. 

I didn't make it very far into my triangle plan, though, because before I even got out of the oasis I felt two little hands attach themselves to the tail of my shirt. I looked down and there was Maci, terrified. Jeff and Oleta were yelling at the calf, scaring it toward the lasso and the fence, yelling at each other about who the hell left the gate open, and the calf was shrieking in its deep bovine baritone, its hooves making thunder as it bounded around the yard. I looked back up at this scene, then back to Maci. She was about to cry. My dreams of being a cowboy were out in that field, but Maci needed a friend. I knelt down and held her hand. I told her everything was going to be fine. She smiled.

Jeff finally roped the calf. (In all honesty, I can at least take some credit. When the calf would gallop itself in the direction of me and Maci, I'd yell at it. Sometimes Maci would yell with me.) He wrangled the defeated animal back through the gate and into the pasture, smacking it on the butt on the way in. He wiped his hands on his jeans, shook his head and cursed under his heavy breath, and walked back behind the house to continue whatever it was he was doing. (That's very Texan. He didn't ask who I was or what I was doing. He had work to do.)

Oleta, also cursing, walked back over and invited me in the house. "Ok, so, what are you doing?"

I told her what I was selling, which happened to be books for my friend Maci. She bought some. Oleta had been cooking dinner when I knocked, and she offered for me to stay and eat. We had tomato and onion salad, fried squash and zucchini, and fried ham. The tomatoes, onions, squash, and zucchinis had all come out of the garden behind their house shortly before dinner. The pig had been raised in their barn.

Jeff came in while I was eating and I introduced myself. We talked for a while, and I told him I was going to school to be an actor. He loved that. Jeff loved watching Westerns, and said that he had always wanted to be an extra in one as a cowboy. (He had the chops. Trust me, I saw firsthand.) He made me promise him that if I ever got cast in a big Hollywood cowboy movie I had to call him up and put him in it. I promised I would.

After dinner, Oleta took me out back to show me their barn. I met their horse, who their oldest son rode for calf-roping tournaments in the rodeo. (He must take after his father.) Then she introduced me to the pigs, all of them sleeping in the hay. I reached in, at Oleta's insistence, and petted one of them on the belly. He oinked. Or grunted. I don't know, I'm not a farmer.

I thanked Oleta and Jeff again and again for such a great dinner, and headed out. Oleta hooked me up with an armful of zucchini, squash and ham. Maci gave me a big hug, and I've never been happier.

A few months later I returned to deliver the books she had bought. They weren't at home the first day, nor the second. The third day a neighbor told me they might be out of town. I was bummed, because I didn't think I would get to see them again. The last day I was delivering, on my way home that night I turned off the highway and drove out toward their house at about 10:00, just hoping that by some chance I might be able to catch them. As I pulled up, I saw Oleta's car parked in the driveway, right by the Oasis. I knocked, and Oleta, who was only maybe 1/3 as excited as I was, let me in. I sat down on the couch and started to unpack their books. A very sleepy Maci came out from the hallway and smiled at me in between yawns. I told her I had brought her all the cool books her mom had bought for her. She lit up and ran right over, unable to take her eyes off of all the colorful pictures strewn throughout the books.

Oleta wrote me a check, and I thanked her again for the food and hospitality earlier in the summer. I told Maci goodbye and to enjoy her books, but her senses were all pointed toward her books. I started to leave. Oleta said "Maci, tell him thank you." Maci looked back, finally aware of her surroundings, and saw me standing by the door. She jumped up from the couch and ran around toward me with her arms wide. I knelt down and she gave me one of the biggest hugs I've ever gotten right around my neck. I patted her on the back and stood up, thanked Oleta again, and walked out.

I had tears in my eyes all the way back to my car.