Raymond's life took a turn the day he bought the hat. It was a very nice felt cowboy hat that he found while browsing in a San Antonio western wear shop. The minute he put it on his head and looked in the mirror, Raymond was a changed man.
The time between the end of high school and the twenty-first birthday often sees some of the biggest changes in a person's life, and that was certainly the case for Raymond Garza. In school, Ray had been on the fringes of everything. He was undistinguished in all areas and went largely unnoticed by teachers and classmates. His inexperience with women and shyness with both sexes kept him locked away in his room much of the time, where he learned to play guitar, sing, and masturbate. He was pretty good at all three.
Near the end of high school, Ray went through a late growth spurt, putting on a couple of inches in height and filling out his previously skinny frame. In his very last semester, he took a fluff course called "Elements of Acting" just for the easy "A". Surprisingly, Ray excelled at the role-playing and simple acting parts required by the course, and for the first time in his life, he became the center of attention for the small group that was his acting class. For his final exam, he incorporated his guitar and singing into a scene he had written for a character he dubbed Reymundo. He found it was easy to fake self-confidence within the confines of the acting class. As a side benefit, a couple of his acting class buddies had a band, and Ray got to sit in with them for a couple of songs at the Junior/Senior prom. That gave him a taste of performing that made Ray want to do more.
Ray continued his high school job when he graduated, and he used his new acting talent to move up a little in the small local company. It wasn't much of a job, really, and he longed for all the excitement he had missed in his life. He was barely making enough to move into a ratty apartment of his own, and that was very important to him. Conflict with his overbearing dad had been nearly constant for years. Ray's mom, an attractive but rather beaten down woman, was the object of both his admiration and scorn. Admiration for her charms and scorn for the fact that she had endured so many years with his unlikable father.
So, when he put that Stetson on his head and looked in the mirror that day, Ray saw Reymundo fully realized for the first time. The hat was all he needed to pull off the transformation. Ray bought the hat and hardly took is off for weeks. During that time, he would glance in the mirror and try out new facial expressions to match the hat. He hit on several that worked, but his favorite one was a slight turn of his head to the right coupled with a raised left eyebrow and a tight-lipped smile. It was the "Reymundo Look".
As the months passed, Ray planned his next life steps. He practiced his singing and guitar playing in front of a mirror, the hat on his head. He fabricated a resume of musical experience. At the local music store, he began reading the ads that bands had placed there in search of musicians. The one that caught his eye was for a lead singer and guitar player for a western swing band. With a deep breath and his hat pulled down just so, Ray called the number on the ad and talked to the lead guitar player, Frank.
In a week, Ray had quit his job and was playing his first gig with the Bluebonnet Plague. The group already had a circuit, playing 4 or 5 nights a week for pretty good money at roadhouses and bars from Austin to the Rio Grande valley. Their previous singer had gone back to school, and though Ray was a bit young, his enthusiasm and talent, along with a decent fake ID, got him the job. Ray wasted little time putting Reymundo to work on the chicks hanging out and dancing at their gigs. After a couple of weeks of giving the girls the "Reymundo Look" from the stage, only to have the girls disappear by closing time, Ray was ready for a new tack. One night in the middle of a set, when Frank began his solo on "San Antonio Rose", Ray put his guitar on the stand, climbed off the stage, walked up to a cute little thing standing by herself, gave her the Look, and began two-stepping with her around the floor. Frank liked to solo, and when he was finished, Art the steel player jumped in, so that by the time Ray got back to the stage, he fell in on the final chorus and finished the tune to rousing applause. That night, Ray took his dance partner back to the motel with him.
The Reymundo dance became a regular feature. Once a set, Ray would leave the stage, grab one of the chicks hovering nearby, and take a turn around the floor, finishing with a more-than-brotherly kiss on the mouth. More often than not, Ray got lucky with one of his dance partners. He thought he was doing pretty well until Frank casually pointed out that the girls rarely came back for seconds.
It was the first night of a two-night stand in a bar near Harlingen. Sophia de la Luz was sitting with a couple of friends at a table to the side of the bandstand. When she got up to go to the ladies room, she had to make her way through the herd of dancers and the knot of younger girls in front of the band who were waiting for Ray to come down. From his perch two feet above the dance floor, Ray surveyed the night's pickings, spied Sophia's long straight black hair, and pulled his Stetson down as he hopped off the stage. As Ray got closer, he realized that Sophia was much older than he had thought. Up close, he could tell she was in her forties, although she was well preserved.
When Reymundo gave Sophia the Look, she almost cracked up. When he took her in his arms and began dancing, she almost pushed him away, and when he tried the big kiss at the end, she'd had enough and turned her head to avoid him.
"What's wrong, babe? I thought you wanted to dance."
"I'm not one of your babes, and when I want to dance with you, I'll be sure to tell you," she said.
"Forget it," Ray thought. "She's some uptight lesbo or something." But her put-down had caught him off guard, and he mulled it over the rest of the set. By the time the band took a break, Ray was determined to get to know this tough Chicana better. He found her at the bar.
"Ma'am, I'm sorry if I offended you while ago", Ray said, still in "Reymundo mode". "Lemme buy you a drink."
"No offense taken. I'm sure those young chippies eat it up when you come on with that cowboy routine. I just happen to like a little more substance than that. But, hey, it's your thing, as the song says."
Once again, Ray wasn't quite ready for her. He felt like he'd left his zipper down. Doing his best imitation of himself as Reymundo, he said, "Ma'am, I don't have no routine. What you see here is just who I am."
Sophia looked him up and down, and then, boring into his eyes, she said calmly, "We don't believe that, do we?" Then she turned back to her drink. Ray felt like the proverbial deer in the headlights. Boy, did she have him pegged. Ray started to say something, then turned and headed back to the stage for the last set. When he finished, the room was pretty cleared out, and Sophia was gone.
Ray slept alone that night and thought about the pretty Chicana with the long black hair as he went to sleep. The next night, his eyes searched the bar for her and found her dancing with an old coot who looked like his best days were over. Sophia gave the guy a hug and a smile at the end of the dance, and that just about toasted Ray's chestnuts. Ray's fake confidence was shaken by this lady. He was out of his league with her. But none of that stopped him from wanting to talk to her again. He was ready for a desperate act. He was ready to drop Reymundo and be Ray, if it would get him closer to her.
After the first set, Ray found Sophia at the bar, alone as before. Approaching her slowly, Ray pulled off the Stetson, gently tapped her on the shoulder, and asked quietly if he could sit down next to her. Sophia glanced his way, took in the subtle change, and said, "Sure."
"So, you're dropping the rock-star act, huh? How come?"
"Jesus, is it that transparent?" Ray replied.
