The Argelès cowboy

He wore cowboy boots and a western shirt, but he was from Argelès. We were sharing a compartment on my way home to Geneva. He had helped me lift my gift-laden suitcase onto the train (when will I learn to buy LIGHT presents?).

“I love America,” he said as soon as he pegged my accent. He showed me two language dictionaries he had bought for his planned trip to the wild west in June. They weren't the traditional, “I would like to buy a pair of size 42 shoes” dictionaries but had phrases like “Up shit creek without a paddle.”

Even if I was from the east coast and only had seen a rodeo in Boston Garden, he still had to thank me for the intervention of American troops in WWI and WWII. I wondered if he were joking, but he told me how he had an American flag in his house, and posters of the films The Magnificent Seven and High Noon. He knew more about Hollywood westerns than I did, and quoted lines from them that I could only guess were right in translation.

His girlfriend telephoned while we were talking and he happily told her about his luck in sharing the ride with an American woman. She went into jealous mode, was I prettier then she was (she had a loud voice), was I younger, ending with a plea to be faithful. He reassured her, but part of me wonders if I had cowboy boots, a Stetson and lasso what might have happened.