Oklahoma: Home on the Range

Eight stools line the L-shaped counter of the Manchester Bar & Social Club, a small room set behind a wild west facade on a tired street in the wide prairie of Oklahoma.

On a recent Tuesday just after twilight, one stool was open. I took it, set a $5 bill on the table and asked the young blonde woman in front of me for a Budweiser. She set down a cold can, took my money and gave me $3.50 back.

The seven people around me - two women and five men, some gray, some not - picked back up their conversation: Something about a chemical that is used in grain silos, stuff so strong you can smell it when sweeping out the silos in the fresh dew of morning.

I looked at the wall in front of me. A bumper sticker read: "I wonder if you'd drive any better if that cell phone was up your ---- ." Er, you get the idea.

Anyway, one of the regulars, an older guy, was talking about how a friend saw a skunk in a ditch. So the friend took three pellets of the chemical, set them in the ditch and the next day, well, that skunk was dead. Three pellets, the guy said again. Dead as a doornail. The guy lifted his arms up, hands hanging like paws, rolled his eyes and tried to look like a skunk would look if it were dead.

The guy to my right was holding three photos printed from the Internet. In one, a dark cloud sat above green fields.

"That's Katrina," the man said.

Talk turned to Rita, which was brewing in the gulf. The guy to my left had friends in Galveston, and he figured by then they'd packed up and started driving north.

"I'd be for leaving," the man said.

Two young guys walked in with another older guy and they were all covered with oil and dust.

I looked at the wall in front of me. A bumper sticker read, "It ain't easy being fat and greasy."

These guys, though, were lean and greasy. Two of them anyway. Seems they wrestle irrigation pumps or oil rigs all day.

They were laughing and talking about how the one guy - the youngest, strong and silent but still the brunt of the jokes - was trying to change a hose fitting when gunk started splattering everywhere.

"You're lucky it wasn't 90 weight," the guy on my left said, and the laughter got louder.

A guy on a corner stool rigged up a loop with a plastic tie and asked the woman next to him to put her finger in it.

"No way, I've already lost the tip of one finger," she said, seriously.

Happy hour was about to end and prices would jump a quarter so all of us said, 'sure,' and the bartender popped tops on Budweisers and Coors Lights.

I looked at the wall in front of me. A bumper sticker read: "Yeah, you can have my gun. Bullets first."

Everybody was teasing the strong and silent guy about how he doesn't have a belt to hold up his pants. He sat down and tucked into a microwaved hamburger.

I finished my second Budweiser and left one of my two remaining dollars on the bar. I stood up, quietly said good-bye to the man on my right and walked for the door.

The bartender stopped me. "Thanks," she said.

No, thank you.