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| Talking Story with Arlo The Ballad of Honey Hot Sauce and the Wanderer. By Arlo Agogo Let me tell you about the woman who nearly ended my lifelong love affair with the open road. Her name is Honey Hot Sauce. Yup, that’s the name on her truck, her barrel-racing registration, and probably the custom engraving on the pistol she keeps strap to her hip. Honey Hot Sauce. Say it slow and you can taste the cayenne and heartbreak. I’m just a long-haired, middle-aged beatnik in a Fleetwood Providece RV trying to reach the Million Mile club. With a bumper sticker that reads “I Don't Brake.” Cowboys call me “Dude.” Beatniks call me “Sir.” I exist in the no-man’s-land between bandannas and Stetsons, rolling from rodeo to rodeo like a tumbleweed with trust issues. I like Rodeos. That’s where I kept running into Honey Hot Sauce. First time was Cheyenne Frontier Days. She exploded out of the chute on a black demon of a horse named Diablo’s Divorce Lawyer, roping a calf so fast the poor thing filed paperwork before it hit the dirt. The crowd lost its ever-loving mind. Me? I was eating a $14 Smoked Brisket and wearing a Grateful Dead shirt that said “Steal Your Calf.” She spotted me from horseback, pointed her glittery finger right at me and yelled over the loudspeaker, “I see you again, Longhair!” Ten thousand cowboys turned to stare at the only guy in the stands who looked like he’d wandered in from a Jefferson Airplane concert. Second time: Pendleton Round-Up. Same story. She vaulted the fence after her run, boots sparkling like a disco ball had exploded on her feet, and marched straight up the bleachers. “Well, well, if it ain’t my favorite non-cowboy,” she drawled, plopping down beside me. “You followin’ me, Wanderer?” “Ma’am—Honey Hot Sauce, ma’am—our paths just keep crossin’ like "twin compasses" .” She laughed, and smiled like a rodeo clown, so hard her hat nearly fell off. “I can pick you outta ten thousand people, sugar. You’re the only man here whose hair is longer than mine and whose belt buckle says ‘Peace, Love & Tacos. ’”By the third rodeo—some dusty nowhere in southern Colorado—she didn’t even pretend it was coincidence. She finished her run, flung herself onto the top rail like a panther wearing fringe, locked those dangerous blue eyes on me and hollered, “You! Steakhouse. Seven o’clock. Don’t you dare ghost me or I’ll track you by the smell of regret. ”So there I was, 6:59 p.m., sitting in a booth at the Longhorn Steakhouse wearing my least offensive Hawaiian shirt, sweating like a sinner in church. In walks Honey Hot Sauce—golden hair glowing under the neon Lone Star sign, biceps that could crack walnuts, legs that went all the way to tomorrow, and a smile sharp enough to trim a cactus. She had a big iron strapped to her hips. "Is that pistol to keep men at a distance or keep them from running"? Her reply "Let's wonder". Every cowboy in the place forgot how to chew. Conversation went like this: Honey Hot Sauce (leaning in, voice like whiskey and honey—obviously): “So tell me, Wanderer, what’s it like havin’ nowhere to be and everywhere to go?” Me: “It’s… liberating and terrifying." "Like dating yourself but with worse hygiene.” She threw her head back and laughed so hard the waitress dropped a tray of rolls. Turns out cowboys and wanderers are opposite sides of the same coin. Cowboys have cattle to move, prize money to win, a rig to load at dawn. Wanderers? We’ve got a half tank of gas, a ukulele, and an irrational fear of commitment stronger than our fear of dying alone in a Walmart parking lot. Honey Hot Sauce was fascinated. “You got nothin’ holdin’ you,” she whispered, tracing the rim of her sweet tea like it was a crystal ball. “That neutralizes me. Cowboys are all throttle. You’re all… breeze.” Reader, the woman who can tie down a steer in 6.8 seconds looked at me—ME, a man whose greatest athletic achievement is parallel parking a 40-foot RV—and said I made her feel calm. I nearly choked on my baked potato. We paid the bill and walked out under a harvest moon so fat and orange it looked like God had spilled a pumpkin spice latte across the sky. Somewhere between the steakhouse and the fairgrounds we ended up slow-dancing in a field while crickets played backup. She smelled like leather, Tabasco, and danger. I’m fairly certain my soul left my body and applied for a Texas driver’s license. Eventually she rested her head on my chest. “Stay till tomorrow,” she murmured. I wanted to. Lord help me, I wanted to sell the RV, buy a cowboy hat, and learn how to two-step without embarrassing the entire bloodline. But the open road is a jealous mistress, and Honey Hot Sauce belongs to the rodeo the way thunder belongs to lightning. Morning came. The grounds were empty—nothing but hoofprints, ticket stubs, and the ghost of glitter. My phone buzzed. One new message from “Honey Hot Sauce". Photo: her in the rearview mirror of a dually truck pulling a four-horse trailer, hair flying, middle thumb uo to the sunrise. Caption: “I knew you’d run, Wanderer. See you down the road a piece… or maybe in another lifetime. Keep the horizon warm for me.”I stood by myself in the empty arena, heart doing the cha-cha with a side of existential dread. Abilene was 400 miles north. Houston was 400 miles south. For the first time in fifteen years I actually reached for the blinker… and turned right. Toward Houston. Toward anywhere that wasn’t her. Because here’s the awful, hilarious truth: Honey Hot Sauce and I are the same kind of coward. She can’t leave the rodeo any more than I can leave the road. We’re both married to motion. We just wear different hats. So somewhere out there Honey Hot Sauce is still roping glory under the lights, and I’m still chasing sunsets in a rattling box on wheels. Every once in a while I’ll pull into a rodeo and scan the arena for a flash of glitter and trouble. She’ll look up from the arena and spot the only longhair in a sea of Resistol. We’ll grin like idiots who got away with something and Meet me for a dance at Midnight. And then we’ll both ride off in opposite directions—happy, heartbroken, and free. Until the next time our paths cross, Honey Hot Sauce. I’ll bring the breeze. Groove is in the Heart - Arlo Sponsored by |
