THE NIGHT I WAS MAULED BY A GIANT, GAY, AMERICAN INDIAN MAIDEN IN COLBERT, OK

     I did not get into fights growing up.  We would kind of wrestle if we got angry with one another, but it was never serious.  Never balling up a fist and smacking someone on the nose.  I heard stories to that effect around Sherman, but I never witnessed it.

     I was a junior at Austin College in 1971 when I went to work at Channel 12, reading the news at 6 and 10 PM.  Usually,  I would go to the library and study after getting off the air.  Occasionally, I would join some of the staff from the station and drive the 12 miles across the Red River into Oklahoma.  One of our crew knew an old pirate near the bridge, who cooked up Chocktaw beer.  This brew was a wicked concoction, poured into quart size Pepsi bottles…not the screw on top, but the type that required an opener.  The bottle cap was removed with a bang, blue smoke curled out the top and there was about an inch of sediment in the bottom.  It was strong, potent and to be treated with great care.   

     The gatekeeper of a honkey tonk bar outside Colbert, OK, (Arnold’s) let us in for free.  We would  keep our iced down bottles of “Choc” beer in the car,  where we refilled our large plastic cups as needed.   This place was pretty rank.  Drunken fights did break out, but they were mostly shouting, wrestling and were soon broken up, with the participants being tossed out.

     On the evening which will live in infamy, I was standing at the bar drinking an illegal “Choc”,  when a lovely, ever-so-gently inebriated young maiden stumbled into my arms.  She said she watched me on TV, thought I was wonderful and her dream was to one day get to dance with me.  I waltzed her onto the dance floor, as the band played a heart felt rendition of a George Jones hymn, bemoaning betrayed love.  

     At that moment, an EXTREMELY LARGE woman who appeared to be of American-Indian descent showed up and was clearly very angry.  In a loud, quaking voice she said she was taking my dance partner home.  The young maiden on my arm said she didn’t know her and wanted to remain with me.   I asked the intruder to please leave us alone and she declared in a deadly tone, she would give me one more chance to “butt out”.

     At this point, let me explain, I was 20 years old and not very sophisticated.  I had no concept of gay love or even the conceivability of danger from the fairer sex.  I asked the intruder why she was bothering us.  “Who are you, her mother?” 

  

     The big Indian lady smacked me right between the eyes with her large, ham-bone fist.  Blood gushed out of my nose, I dropped like a rock down a well and hit the floor with a crash.  She immediately proceeded to kick me with her pointed toe western boots, as my “friends” watched in amazement and some amusement.   

     The Arnold’s crew got her off of me and threw them both out of the saloon.  They got me to my feet, while keeping me at arms length, as my life blood was spilling everywhere.  The management explained the two women were a “couple” and the young maiden did this from time to time to make her hefty companion jealous.  This was the first time they ever saw the big girl resort to violence and I was the recipient.  My associates took me to the hospital, where I was patched up, but off the air for a couple of weeks.

     I asked my “friends” how they could stand there as she was kicking me to death, in my semi-conscious state.  They said it just didn’t appear as though she was through.

     Of course, the story spread like wild fire.  “Why is Buck off the air?”  “He was beaten up by a woman in an Oklahoma cowboy bar and his face is all scuffed up and scabbed over!”  

     The sheriff’s department appeared at the TV station to mock me and said they were organizing a coordinated, all points bulletin to find this woman.  “We can’t let this renegade remain on the loose!    Who knows how many other poor men she will molest!”  “We’re behind you Buck, you poor thing!”  “It could have been a lot worse.  Instead of beating you up, what if she had forced herself upon you and had her way with you!”  “Count your blessings!”    “She might have made you her boy toy!”

     People all around me where chuckling.  I decided the best course of action was to keep a low profile, avoid red neck bars, Choctaw beer and to devote myself to the Austin College library.  I received several lessons from this experience, but most importantly…never under estimate the capabilities of angry, gay American-Indian women.