JC1 | "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" |

[COULSON]

Shrouded by a dark night sky that seems to stretch on into a never ending black abyss, beneath the uncountable number of stars shining, sits a man at a small campfire. A chunk of slowly browning meat sits impaled on the blade of a bowie knife. The man shifts on his canvas bedroll as he rotates the leather bound hilt, making sure each side of the meat gets cooked to perfection. A nearby horse is hitched to a tree. In fact, it is hitched to the only tree in sight. The man watches the meat as he thinks.

"It's hard to know if I made the right call. Did I? I ran away. I ran away to spare him from the path we were on. Is it even possible to come back from something like that?"

It's hard for the man to process his feelings. In spite of his efforts, it never gets him anywhere.

"It don’t go nowhere because I don't anything about it. I just let it sit. Let it eat at me. I torture myself with it."

The man withdraws the blade from the fire. He watches the meat as it sizzles still on the sharp steel. He waits as it cools. The horse stamps it's hooves into the ground and neighs as a small breeze blows in from the west.

"I ran so goddamned far from everyone. It just seemed easier that way. Get away from all of it so it doesn't affect me and yet here I am agonizing over it. Over something that I couldn't control."

Cautiously, the man pokes a finger at the chunk. Satisfied he brings the blade up to his face and takes a bite. A thought rolls around in his head:

"Am I just gonna keep sitting here?"

He takes another bite. Then another.

"God damn it."

He pulls the remaining meat off of the knife with his hand and swallows it. He clicks his tongue and then decides:

"Tomorrow I'll head into town. Maybe Cass heard back from him."

---

NEXT DAY.
8 AM.



The horse hooves clop on the pavement. The rider dismounts and ties the reins around one of the ancient hitching posts outside of an equally ancient stone post office building. The man looks around and wonders to himself:

"How many people actually live here?"

It's practically a ghost town. One of those small mountain towns that a family would forget as soon as they pass through on a road trip, or that an interstate truck driver would roll through in the dead of night trying to avoid the traffic jams on the major interstate highways.

"I swear the only people I've seen here are people who work here…"

The man's thoughts are interrupted by a small chime as he walks in through the front door.

?? -- "Jimi Coulson as I live and breathe!"

The man half smiles as he brings his gaze to meet that of the smiling clerical worker behind the wooden counter.

JIMI COULSON -- "Hey, Cass."

He replies with a small nod.

MS. CASSIDY -- "What brings you to town?"

The bubbly, auburn-haired Sharon Rose Cassidy, or Cass to her friends, lives in the next town over from this. She lives and works part time at her fathers ranch there, but during the week she will make a 45 minute drive, both ways, to sort mail.

JIMI COULSON -- "Just thought I'd check in. See if you had heard back anything from a "Mr. Long"."

She puts a finger to her chin and crouches down behind the counter.

CASS -- "Just give me a sec-- Ah, here it is!"

She stands and produces a sealed envelope. She holds it out. Jimi hesitates. He clearly wasn't expecting this and his hesitation is clear.

CASS -- "Everything okay, Jim?"

Lost for words, Jimi takes the envelope and turns it over. It's all there. The IPW Logo. The address of the IPW office. He wasn't expecting this at all.

"Why now?"

He thinks to himself quietly. He looks up at the still smiling woman.

JIMI COULSON -- "Everything is fine, Cass. It's just… Unexpected? I don’t know. Hadn't heard anything in months. I just assumed it was good as dead."

CASS -- "Dead?! Wait... do you not know?"

There is a moment of heavy silence in the old post building. She breaks it first.

CASS -- "IPW is back and they're gonna be running a show down in California!"

Coulson runs his eyes along the envelope once more as the news sinks in. After a moment, Coulson tears into the envelope and retrieves the letter. His eyes scan the page as he begins reading. A smile washes over his face for a moment as he reaches toward the end of the letter. He then looks back to the woman who matches his smile.

CASS -- "Well? What did it say?"

Coulson looks at the letter again and then back at the woman.

JIMI COULSON -- "You were right! They are starting back up…"

She says something in response but Coulson doesn't hear her.

"This is what I needed. I turned my back on the problem. I let it poison me from the inside. Let it make me think I was the one in the wrong, that it was my fault. It wasn't my fault, it was his. The only mistake I made was not smacking him upside the he--"

The thought is interrupted by the woman tapping on his shoulder.

CASS -- "So? What're you gonna do?"

An involuntary smirk crawls its way onto his face.

JIMI COULSON -- "I'm gonna do what I do best."

---

A FEW WEEKS LATER.



"The best way of dealing with something you feel like hurts ya is to face it head on. You can run if you want but it'll catch up to you. Sooner or later anyway. You'll stop moving and start thinking. You'll think about where you went wrong and the mistakes you made but at a certain point you break, unable to bear the weight of guilt on your back. That's what my mistake was. I was happy the way things were, we only changed because he wanted to change. But he was like a brother to me so I changed with him because I'd rather stand beside him than stand against him. I know what I should have done but I just couldn't bring myself to do it."

The ice rattle in the small glass as he gulps down the remaining whiskey before placing the glass back down on the folding tray. He reclines the best he can in the not so spacious economy class seat of the airplane. He turns his head to the window and looks down at the lights of Los Angeles, California poking through the clouds.

“I ain’t showed my face in so long I can’t help but think if the people’ll even care. Long seems to think they will. Guess we’ll see.”

He shrugs wordlessly as he continues his thoughts.

“What with the name change an’ all I’m worried they won’t even know who I am. Maybe they’ll want Jimi Cooldown back but Jimi Cooldown is dead. He lays dead on Boogie Street. I go into my first match in months this weekend forging a new path with a new name and as a new man! C, Bea, and Roxie aren’t people I’m all too familiar with, but I know that they’re probably in the same boat as me. The only thing I got goin’ against me is that anyone who is anyone will know exactly who my sights are set on.”

A bell chimes. An announcement is made over the speaker system. The seatbelt sign beams above his head. They’ll be landing soon.

“I ain’t lost a step though, I know that for sure.”

The seat belt clicks together in his lap. He follows the stewardesses instructions to lift the tray and position his seat upright as she takes the empty glass.

“You don’t ever forget how to fight.”

Minor turbulence as the plane begins its descent.

“Sunday night…”

He imagines it all in great detail in his head. He relishes in the sounds of the imaginary crowd, the sound the canvas makes underneath the boots of his opponents, the way it feels to be slammed to the mat.

“...Sunday night…”

He smirks.

“I’ll be back in the saddle.”