Fried Twinkies, Buckle Bunnies, & Bull Riders Read online

  Moraes was hard on himself and just as hard on Crimber, because he knew the young Brazilian had enormous talent. Ceaselessly, the mentor had ordered his pupil to lean over the bull.

  It took courage.

  Leaning over a bull put a rider dangerously close to the horns. But it also put a rider in ideal position if a bull made a quick turn out of the chute. Lean over the bull! Crimber had heard Moraes’s instructions so many times the move had become as routine as rosining his bull rope.

  As happy as Moraes had been for Crimber after the first weekend at the finals, Moraes felt ashamed that a young rider he’d helped groom had surpassed him during his own slump. In the hotel room that night with the VCR whirring, Moraes studied replays of Crimber just as closely as he studied his own rides.

  “That’s it!” he shouted.

  Startled, the four Brazilians looked at Moraes.

  “That’s it!” he shouted again.

  The pupil had mastered what the mentor had forgotten: Lean over the bull!

  More than forgetting the technique, Moraes suspected that fear was at work. Three months since he had collided with Smokeless Wardance’s right horn and broken his left cheekbone, Moraes feared its happening again. He’d begun to straighten his torso in the chutes, which kept him at a safer distance from the bull’s horns but made it harder to stay centered on the bull after a quick first turn out of the chutes.

  “That’s it,” Moraes repeated.

  The next day, the five Brazilians met in the hotel gym, Moraes leading them through a series of simulated bull riding moves. Seated on the floor, they visualized sitting in the chute and leaning over the bull as they prepared for the gate to open. Again and again, eyes closed, Moraes leaned forward and visualized the perfect ride—the kind of ride he needed to hold off Justin McBride, Mike White, and Mike Lee for the world championship.

  By that morning, one championship had already been decided. Those who entered the PBR’s Fan Zone and walked directly across the 400,000-square-foot exhibition hall to a small merchandise booth discovered the news on embossed T-shirts and embroidered caps that read, “Little Yellow Jacket. Three-Time PBR Bucking Bull of the Year.”

  “It’s official,” crowed Darlene Berger of Mandan, North Dakota, home of Little Yellow Jacket and her family’s Berger Bucking Bulls.

  In the annual vote by riders, Little Yellow Jacket had edged Pandora’s Box. The announcement had come 2 days earlier, at a banquet for the stock contractors. Later in the week, Cody Lambert, who picked the bulls used by the PBR, declared the Bergers’ star bull the greatest in rodeo history. But no one knew where the four-legged champion was headed after Vegas.

  For the right price, Joe Berger was ready to sell. So Tom Teague, the co-owner of Little Yellow Jacket, sent word to Joe’s ex-wife, Darlene, that he wanted to buy the Bergers’ 50 percent share of Little Yellow Jacket and take full control of the bull. Darlene Berger dispatched her son, Chad, to negotiate, but she said nothing about it to her youngest son, Nevada, fearing how he might react to losing his beloved bull. Teague offered $100,000. Chad Berger wasn’t sure whether to laugh or spit in Teague’s face.

  No deal, said Chad, and he thought more seriously about a plan to buy out Teague and Teague’s partner, Bernie Taupin, and syndicate Little Yellow Jacket. By offering shares in Little Yellow Jacket to a limited number of buyers, Chad and Darlene Berger thought they could raise $1 million. So even if they agreed to sell their 50 percent interest, Darlene and Chad Berger calculated it was worth $500,000. The negotiations grew almost as intense as the bull riders’ race for the championship. But by then the word had gotten back to Nevada Berger, and he wasn’t happy to hear about any of it.

  “It’d be like selling your own kid, you know?” Nevada said. “We’ve been around him since he was a baby and grown up around him every day. If I don’t see him every day, I’m wondering how he’s doing. I can’t imagine somebody else being able to haul him. That really bothers me.

  “He’s not going anywhere.”

  The autograph seekers arrived in waves, and Mike White greeted them all with a friendly hello. But each time the crowd cleared, his scowl returned. The previous day, he’d shown up at a press conference for the five leading riders and seen a press release that read: “Lee and McBride Gain Ground in the PBR’s Million-Dollar World Title Race.”

  Never mind that during the season’s homestretch, White had been the hottest rider on tour. Never mind that during the first weekend of competition at the finals, White, Lee, and Crimber had been the only riders to cover all three of their bulls. Never mind that while White and Crimber were tied for second in the finals standings, trailing only Mike Lee, McBride was fourth. Leaving the press conference, White passed Denise Abbott, vice president of public relations and marketing for the PBR, and sniffed, “Don’t ever ask me to do any more press stuff.”

  Abbott looked puzzled.

  “Why?”

  “Because of that press release.”

  “Your name’s in there.”

  “Yeah, at the very bottom in fine print.”

  What was it going to take for him to get the respect he thought he deserved? Of course White knew the answer: win the damn championship. But he continued to carp about the press release until a tall, middle-aged brunette approached the autograph table. It was the mother of rider Cory Melton, who, like White, had been born and raised in Louisiana. She was a welcome sight in the sea of strangers. Melton’s mother made small talk, then asked White to sign pictures for a couple of her nephews.

  “They’ll be tickled to death to have an autograph from the next PBR champion,” she said.

  White grinned. “I hope,” he said, referring to her prediction about his becoming the next PBR champion.

  World champion Mike White. He liked the sound of that and imagined those words in bold letters across a PBR press release.

  Gleaming in her signature red and gray, there she stood at the corner of Tropicana and Swenson streets—the Thomas & Mack Center. One hundred four feet tall. Forty-two thousand square feet large. From the cozy Mandalay Bay Events Center, the finals moved to a building with the look and lore worthy of the final 4 days of the season. The escalators carried men and women wearing Western shirts and cowboy hats up to the well-lit entrance of Thomas & Mack. Inside, the basketball floor sat underneath 3 million pounds of dirt freshly leveled for the world’s best bull riders and the world’s best bulls. It was the grand stage of bull riding, and the stage on which Adriano Moraes intended to finish the season as the PBR’s three-time world champion.

  That night before the introductions to round four, OLN reporter Leah Garcia walked in and saw Bobby “Jinx” Clower, the guy in charge of opening the chute gates. “What do you think about Adriano and his bull tonight?” she asked.

  Moraes had drawn Crossfire Hurricane, which during the 2004 season had bucked off all 16 riders, including Moraes. “He can tape it all he wants to,” Clower said, referring to Moraes’s bandaged torn biceps. “He’s out.”

  Clower was betting against Moraes, and so was almost everybody else who’d seen Moraes fall off his third-round bull in less than 2 seconds. Two and a half hours later, when Moraes climbed aboard Crossfire Hurricane for the last ride of round four, the crowd grew hushed. McBride had gotten bucked off Hotel California, and Lee had fallen off Sudden Impact, but White had kept the pressure on Moraes by riding his fourth straight bull of the finals.

  Lean over the bull. Lean over the bull. It’d become a silent mantra for Moraes.

  As he’d visualized and practiced during simulated exercises, Moraes was leaning forward over Crossfire Hurricane when the gate opened. In proper position, Moraes survived the first hard turn to the right and, free arm at a 90-degree angle from his body in textbook fashion, he bore down for the ensuing assault. Four hard jumps to the right. An abrupt turn back to the left. Five more hard jumps. Then came the buzzer and . . . Yes. Moraes had made it! Dismounting to his right, Moraes took a few steps, then dropped to hi
s knees. He clutched his left arm. He gazed heavenward. The fans erupted in cheers.

  Well, most of them.

  “Oh, boy. The Brazilian’s coming out in him,” cracked one spectator.

  With Moraes’s theatrics over, the fans went silent. They were waiting on Moraes’s score.

  A minute passed.

  No score.

  Another minute passed.

  Still no score.

  Suddenly, over the PA system came an announcement: Jody Newberry’s score of 91.25 had been readjusted to 92.5.

  Murmurs spread through the arena.

  Another 30 seconds passed. Finally, the announcement for which everybody had been waiting, Adriano Moraes’s score.

  Ninety-three points!

  He’d won the round with the highest score yet at the finals. Again, the crowd erupted.

  Clutching his injured left arm, Moraes wore a look of ecstasy and relief.“Holy macaroni,” he boomed when he entered the sports medicine room. “It really hurts when you’re riding. But when you win a round, it cures anything.”

  J.W.Hart, hobbling on his broken left ankle, later stopped Moraes in the hallway. “Hey, way to bear down,” Hart said. “That’s what it takes.”

  With one miraculous ride, Moraes had bumped his lead to 1,969.25 points, climbed to ninth in the cumulative standings, and reemerged as the odds-on favorite to win the gold buckle and $1 million.

  While Moraes fielded questions at the press conference, Lee, who’d dropped from first to fourth in the all-important cumulative standings, took a call from his father. Dennis Lee had stayed in Texas because he worried his presence might put unneeded pressure on his son. But after watching his son’s ride that night, he couldn’t help pointing out a mistake: At the end of the ride, Lee had looked down, looking for a place to bail out, rather than keeping his eye on the bull and refusing to let go of the bull rope.

  Gutless, Mike Lee called it, and he vowed not to let it happen again.

  The next night, during round five, McBride rode Toy Tiger for 89.25 points, keeping alive his outside chances of catching Moraes, who rode King’s Court for a respectable 85.25 points. But it was Lee, never so much as glancing at the ground while aboard a bull named McNasty, who scored 89.75 points and won the round. Just like that, Lee was back in the picture, closing the gap on Moraes to 1,564 points, inching up to third in the finals’ cumulative standings, one spot behind contender White and three spots ahead of McBride.

  Abbott brought Lee and Moraes to the postevent press conference. Moraes headed straight for the podium; Lee sat down in the back row.

  “Up in the front,” Abbott said, waving Lee to the podium.

  Even while in striking distance of a world championship, Lee took pains to avoid the spotlight. In fact, Lee was so averse to the extra attention, he had entered small rodeos under an assumed name. It all made Moraes think Lee might actually fear winning the championship because of the spotlight that came with it—the spotlight under which Moraes naturally basked. Their relationship still appeared strained, with Lee referring to Moraes as a “pretty good” friend.

  Each night, the winner of the round was required to attend the after-event party and accept a buckle. Reluctantly Lee headed to the ballroom with his wife, mother, and brother and drifted into his own world. A world without spittoons or spit cups. With a pinch of snuff in his mouth, Lee walked across the hall and squirted tobacco juice into some potted plants. Then he walked to the back of the ballroom and behind the stage, where he got directions for the buckle ceremony. With no potted plants in sight, Lee squirted his tobacco juice on the floor. After the presentation, he rejoined his family members and headed across the street for dinner at McDonald’s.

  Some PBR executives who watched Lee’s behavior feared his being in the spotlight as much as Lee did. But 24 hours later, Lee rode into it yet again. He scored 90 points on Paleface, taking the lead in round six. The pressure was back on Moraes.

  In the chute, he contorted his face as he fought Milk Man, who squatted on his front quarters. The bull refused to budge. Lee hustled over to the chute and jabbed at the bull with his boot, trying to bring Milk Man to a standing position and give Moraes a fair shot to ride the recalcitrant bull. “Nod your head!” Lee shouted to Moraes. “You can ride him.”

  Here they were, battling each other for the championship, and Lee was trying to help his chief rival and offering encouraging words.

  Moraes nodded. The chute gate opened. Out they went. Just as Lee had predicted, Moraes rode the bull, scoring 87.25 points.

  Though Lee won the round, Moraes took another step toward winning the championship. His lead over Lee had shrunk to 1,212.25 points, but he’d climbed to fifth in the cumulative standings, three spots behind Lee. If the competition had ended and the bonus points had been awarded that night, Moraes would have won the championship over Lee by 462.25 points, with McBride and White finishing more than 1,600 points behind.

  White, who rode his sixth straight bull that night, approached Moraes in the tunnel leading to the locker room with a look of resignation. “I can’t win it,” he said.

  “Mathematically—”Moraes began, about to point out that White would have a shot if Moraes failed to cover his next bull.

  White shook his head and cut him off. “I know,” he said, “but you’re not going to fall off.”

  Moraes paused. Then he broke into a huge grin. “You’re right,” he said.

  After all the number crunching and calculations, it was clear: Lee was the only rider with a legitimate shot at catching Moraes. At the press conference Saturday night, Lee sounded spookier than ever.

  “When I ride, I have to be ready to die that day,” he said. “That’s the way I have to ride, just to be free.”

  Later that night George Michael, lead commentator for NBC’s Sunday broadcast, ran into Lee. “How are you handling the pressure?” he asked.

  Replied Lee: “I’m not in this world right now.”

  Lee’s vacant but calm look contrasted with Moraes’s anxious enthusiasm. That was only one of the contrasts. Lee was humble to a fault. Moraes struggled to contain his confidence. Lee hardly thought about winning the world title. Moraes expected it, now more than ever.

  For the seventh round on Sunday, Moraes had drawn Easy Money, considered one of the most rider-friendly bulls in the round because he was a rideable bull who produced high scores. The bull would turn to the right and spin flat, the kind of bull Moraes could ride in his sleep. In Easy Money’s last five trips, White and Ned Cross, a second-year pro who hadn’t even qualified for the finals, had successfully ridden the bull. Moraes was thrilled with the draw.

  When the press conference ended Saturday night, Moraes left the arena with his onetime mentor, Charlie Sampson. They hadn’t seen each other in years. Earlier Saturday, Sampson had flown in to Las Vegas for his induction into the PBR’s Ring of Honor, and the timing was impeccable: Sampson’s receiving the PBR’s highest honor on the night Moraes moved closer to an unprecedented third PBR championship.

  Under the dark, cloudless sky, the two men laughed and reminisced about how Sampson had discovered Moraes in Brazil more than 15 years earlier. Sampson recalled having told Moraes that he was good enough to compete against the top riders in the United States. “That’s why I came,” Moraes said.

  Driving back to Mandalay Bay with Moraes’s family, Sampson pulled out his cell phone and called his son. “I’m here with Adriano,” he said. “Did you watch tonight? Well, you got to watch tomorrow, because tomorrow is the championship and Adriano is going to win.”

  With Sampson having to catch a flight out early that next morning, the men said their good-byes inside the hotel.

  “Ride the front end,” Sampson reminded Moraes as Moraes had reminded Crimber countless times and earlier that week reminded himself.

  “I did it tonight, so we do it again,” Moraes said. “I love you, Champ.”

  Sunlight flooded through the large glass windows of the 28th-flo
or suite in Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino. It was eight o’clock Sunday morning, and next to the two priests stood Adriano Moraes, translating the Sunday Mass for more than a dozen Brazilians and others squeezed into the hotel suite. The picture windows to the priests’ backs afforded a spectacular view of Sunrise Mountain in the distance, with the pyramid-shaped Luxor Hotel to the north and the Thomas & Mack Center to the east.

  For the past 2 days, Moraes and his wife had knelt and recited afternoon prayers in the direction of Thomas & Mack. Before leaving for the arena Sunday, Flavia gazed at the building one last time and offered another silent prayer.

  Midway through the Mass in Moraes’s room,Mike Lee slipped into the South Pacific Ballroom on the bottom floor of Mandalay Bay for the Cowboy Church service. More than 2,000 people crowded into the ballroom and listened as Lee’s wife, Jamie, fighting through her shyness, belted out “Amazing Grace.” Then she headed toward the back of the room and rejoined her husband, still doing his best to blend in with the crowd.

  Over at the Thomas & Mack Center, the bartender at the Jack Daniel’s tent served the first Jack and cocoa, Bloody Mary, and Bud Light by 9:30 in the morning. Fans began forming a line outside the arena’s front entrance more than an hour before the gates opened. Among the early arrivals were Bill and Peggy Duvall, who, instead of their matching PBR jackets, were wearing their Sunday best—Bill in a Western-style formal jacket, a beige cowboy hat, and polished brown cowboy boots, and Peggy in a black jean jacket with pink rhinestones over a black T-shirt with more pink rhinestones and beige cowboy boots. After having attended 15 regular-season events, they weren’t about to miss the finals. In fact, they’d stayed all 10 days at Mandalay Bay, eager to see how it would end after having seen the 2004 season begin 10 months earlier in Jacksonville.