The wild, wild East

Two days on New England's AllPro Bull Riders Tour, where rodeo ain't just a Western thang

by Adrian Zupp

He's about five-foot-six and maybe 150 pounds after a three-course pasta dinner. His face is honest and hard and his spurs jingle as he twitches his leg nervously. In about three minutes he will climb onto a 2000-pound bull and try to stay atop the beast for eight blasted seconds without getting his skull cracked. All things considered, it probably isn't a good time to be bothering him.

"I know how you feel," I say, clearly bothering him.

He looks at me sidelong. His spurs start jingling again. "It's all about testing your manhood and living out your most adventurous dreams, isn't it? I understand that. When I was young I had the same sort of dreams."

"You wanted to be a bull rider?" he says in a voice that could sand furniture.

"Well, no," I say, a tad ill at ease myself. "I wanted to be a pirate."

Three minutes later he is astride the ugliest, god-awfulest snot-blowing, fire-breathing animal in all of creation. And about four seconds after that he's slamming into the New Hampshire dirt like a cowboy asteroid. Welcome to the wonderful world of New England rodeo.

Bull riding in New England isn't entirely new: in the '50s and '60s, Boston Garden supposedly had one of the biggest rodeos in the world. But it had to wait for Kenny Churchill for its late-'90s renaissance. Born in Brookline, Churchill has rodeo in his blood: a former champion himself, and the son of a Massachusetts rodeo man, he is a self-confessed bull-riding addict out to spread the gospel.

"I think history is repeating itself," says Churchill. "Rodeo is becoming big again." These days he lives in South Berwick, Maine, and teaches up-and-coming bull riders. He is also the founder and president of Lightning C Bull Riding Productions, which for the past three years has mounted the AllPro Bull Riders Tour in New Hampshire and Maine and is soon headed for Massachusetts and Vermont.

The tour combines bull riding (none of that lightweight bronc-riding stuff) with a Western festival. Kenny has staged three rodeos this year -- two in South Berwick and one in Greenland, New Hampshire -- and will hold the championship finals at the Paul Tsongas Arena, in Lowell, next April 30 and May 1. The plan is to expand the tour throughout New England and build it into a weekly event.

Churchill's rodeo isn't a pale imitation of something you might see in New Mexico or Wyoming or Texas: the riders and bulls come from all over the country, and the group includes plenty of local boys as well. There are more cowboys in the Northeast than any of us ever suspected, and for most of them the road to competition goes through Kenny Churchill.

Here, at the Great Bay Farm rodeo in Greenland, 27 riders from around the country have come together to shoot for a share of $4000 in prize money and championship points. They talk the talk, walk the walk, and give new depth to the expression bite the dust. They're also giving me a healthy respect for anyone who'd throw his leg over anything more savage than a bicycle.

DAY 1

I'm standing behind the pens where all the bulls wait for their shot at some cowboy meat. The chutes, where the bulls enter the arena, are on the far side of the pens. This is the "backstage" area, the heart of the rodeo. From the bleachers you see the riders getting smashed into the dust. But back here you can see the blood congealing.

There are cowboys everywhere, their gear bags strewn across the ground. These guys are the real deal. They make John Wayne look like a fashion model.

The first thing you notice about rodeo riders is that they aren't very big. I'm 5'8", about 160 pounds, and when I used to cover football I felt like Mickey Rooney. Here I feel husky. There's a good reason for this: smaller guys tend to have the agility it takes to make the constant positional adjustments necessary to stay atop a bucking bull. "It's like a squirrel on their back," says Churchill.

The other thing that hits you is that they are all as tough as federal tax forms. Not blowhard tough, like a mass-market sports star. Quiet tough. No boasting or prancing about or finger-pointing. Just reticence and scar tissue. This is a prima-donna-free zone.

The anthem's over and the action is about to start. Cowboys with strapped arms, strapped wrists, strapped knees, strapped thighs, and strapped ribs (I notice none of the bulls are strapped) wander about bowlegged, heads down, deep in thought and anticipation. Off to one side, one guy is kneeling in prayer -- a simultaneously moving and unnerving image. Two kids in their mid-teens, riders themselves, root through their gear bags and get ready. It is a small sea of cowboy hats, spurs, chaps, boots, and tension. Bulls peer through the steel fence and do some sizing up. It's like a surrealist movie.

Then it's on! A cowboy hailstorm. The first rider goes down hard and fast, the second doesn't last much longer, the third gets tossed just after he leaves the chute. The riders are scored by two judges, who evaluate both the rider and the bull, but to register a score a rider first has to stay on his bull for eight seconds. It might as well be an hour. The bulls are having it all their own way.

Backstage, where I'm standing, the ejected riders return with a mixture of reflection and relief. After all, they aren't dead, and that's something to be happy about. Then again, this isn't like going 15 over par and losing a few bucks to some guy from the office. The stakes are higher. The riders might cuss a little, pace, think, sweat, puff on a cigarette, disperse the adrenaline, relive the ride in their minds. A few returning riders congregate to trade war stories.

And all the while, the fresh meat psyches up. "That's the one I'm ridin'," one cowboy tells his girlfriend, pointing toward the bullpen. "Oh God," says another to himself, grabbing his belly. "Fucking nerves. Woo."

Off to one side, beyond a line of tape reading RESTRICTED AREA, a couple of paramedics sit on the tailgate of their ambulance, on standby. It is a short spit from where the cowboys are, and the riders pass it when they head to the chutes. It's like walking by a funeral parlor on the way to get test results from your doctor.

The bulls continue to rack up the numbers. They pop out of the row of chutes like torpedoes being fired. And one by one they hurl, flip, trash, and bash their riders. Somebody gets stepped on; someone else is slammed into the fence. There are more people kissing the dirt than at pilgrimage time in Mecca.

I corner one of the freshly hurled riders as he comes through the gate. He looks crumpled but elated. His name is Rodney Demerchant, a bronc rider who is new to bull riding. "My first bull ride!" he exults. "Five seconds. I love it! Oh yeah, this is it! I'm staying with this. I got so excited, that's why I lost him."

Meanwhile, back in its pen, Rod's bull is telling his buddies much the same thing.

DAY 2

Around the arena, another good crowd of a few thousand soaks up the sun and waits. They are a mixed bunch: pure cowfolk and the purely curious; pseudo-cowboys and tourists passing through.

Behind the pens, the cowboys ready themselves ritualistically. They unpack their gear the way a surgeon lays out his instruments. They do enormous stretches against the bars of the pens. They crouch burlesquely, one hand in the air, and rehearse the ride on an invisible bull.

"Two minutes, guys, two minutes," shouts Kenny Churchill as he passes through again. "Fellas, be over your bulls." Then he adds, "Good luck. We'd like to see some bulls rode today."

The bulls have other plans.

Chris Freeland, from Durham, Maine, is the day's first rider, and his bull, My T Fine, keeps him aboard for all of a second and a half. That sets the pattern.

Some riders last only a split second; others last four or five and make it interesting. The crowd cheers for every rider -- they want a conquest. They want to see the human race get on the scoreboard. Back in the riders' area it is much the same: cowboys encourage each other, cheer for each other, congratulate each other for a good effort.

Most rodeos, including Lightning C's, yield more eight-second rides. The Greenland show suffers from an imbalance: top-notch bulls and second-notch cowboys. Several of the big guns were unable to make this event because it coincided with others.

Finally, Massachusetts cowboy Ken Neville fires out of his chute and stays on his bull five seconds, six seconds, seven seconds . . . then the beast twists and bucks at the same time. Neville goes over the side and gravity gets the better of him, right as the eight-second horn blares. Did he stay on for eight seconds? It looked close.

"We'll have to check with our judges," says the announcer. A moment, then: "Seven-point-nine seconds! Darn. Maybe those boys have got a slow stopwatch there."

The whole thing is intriguing in much the same way a car accident is -- except this is like a bunch of people volunteering to be in a car accident. As a card-carrying coward, I need to know more about the psychology of it all, so I corner Rod Demerchant again.

"Are you nervous just before you ride?" I ask.

"I don't get too nervous," says Rod undramatically. "Some guys do and some don't." He wipes sweat from his face with a bandanna. "When you're on the bull in the chute, everything goes quiet. The crowd can be screaming but you won't hear it. A familiar voice, like a buddy giving you advice, that's all you'll hear."

I go up front, near the chutes, for a close-up look at that moment just before all hell breaks loose. Jason Nelson, from Rochester, New Hampshire, is getting ready to cut loose on a bull called Brass Monkey. What I notice most are his teeth: they are clenched so hard his jaw muscles bunch like plums. His lips are pulled back severely, like an electrocuted ape's, and he looks ready to chomp the bull under him. Then I see his eyes. They are bugging like a madman's. It is a mask of perfectly distilled intensity. As it turns out, the intensity doesn't save him from getting thrown.

The spills continue. Some are worse than others. Bob Spellman, out of Hanson, Massachusetts, gets his hand caught up as his bull, Little Twister, tosses him. As he finally gets free, a blunted horn catches him. But he's okay. As okay as you can be after being gored, anyway.

"It is raining cowboys in Greenland," says the announcer after a while, in the most accurate weather report you're ever likely to hear.

As it becomes less and less likely that the required five riders will register scores to enter the $1000 bonus round, it is announced that the riders with the best times will get those spots. There are a sprinkling of times over seven seconds.

That's how it comes down. After two days and 54 rides, not one cowboy has held on for eight seconds.

---

The five cowboys who make the money round are Josh Hamann, Severio "Sevvy" Torturo, Mike Cintron, Justin Chaput, and Ken Neville.

Hamann rides first on his bull, Tony the Tiger. He lasts just a few seconds before getting shaken, stirred, and flipped. The crowd is edgy. They just want one victory. One champion.

Sevvy Torturo climbs on his bull, Cheyenne, and secures his grip. He is 15 years old and looks it. He should be at a mall somewhere, impressing the girls with his ability to drink Slushies, not trying to get the better of a bull. I fear for him. And yet he seems oddly calm. As though he knows something that the rest of us don't.

Then the gate swings open and Cheyenne and Sevvy fly out. Everything slows down. It is like a taped replay. I see the scrawny kid flipped and flexed like a fly swatter. The bull bucks and heaves furiously and bends young Sevvy back to the point of snapping. But he doesn't snap. And he doesn't fall. He holds on. He stays with the animal, and a 15-year-old kid becomes the first man to make it to eight seconds at the Great Bay Farm rodeo. The crowd goes nuts.

Sevvy leaps from the bull and jumps clear as the clown-garbed bullfighters shepherd the animal back to its pen. The kid points his fingers like six-shooters and starts popping shots into the air. He high-tens one of the bullfighters and leaps for joy.

None of the other riders makes eight seconds, but it hardly matters. Everybody is flying: the crowd, the riders, the organizers. They have their champion. Somebody proved what all of us, in our human frailty, need to have proven again and again: it can be done.

Behind the pens, Sevvy is high-fived and hugged by older men and more-weathered riders. He has a grin like a split watermelon.

"Swelled his head up this big," says one cowboy, gesticulating madly and laughing out loud. "Now we'll have to listen to it all the way home."

"I'm not letting him go till all that money's spent," says another.

The camaraderie is infectious.

I weasel in for an interview. "How do you feel?" I ask.

"Pretty good," he says, with typical cowboy reserve.

"You're 15, right? How long have you been doing this?"

"I been ridin' big bulls about two years, but I been on calves and steers since I was five or six."

Okay, now for my big question. "What are you thinking out there, when you're on the bull?"

He smiles. "It's really not a thinking game. It's all reactions."

I mull that over as I leave him signing autographs for a clutch of fans, and I head out of the grounds to my car. There it sits, quietly waiting, the only large object I have ever halfway mastered. It's too bad, really. I could've been a rodeo hero too. Why not? I could ride bulls and walk bowlegged and show the world I'm as tough as teak. Because this is New England, where fine and hardy men ride bulls just like in the wild, wild West. If only I were 15 again.

Adrian Zupp is a freelance writer based in Maine.