When cows fly.

One afternoon, I was at the Gateway Plaza food court with my friend Dawn and her two kids. It was the Days of ’47 celebration and the rodeo was in town. The big show was being held at the Delta Center arena about a block away.

As the four of us sat eating our Panda-on-a-Stick, I caught something flash out of the corner of my eye. It was a man on a horse galloping full speed along the walkway. Maybe not so odd given the events of the week, but we were on the second level. All of a sudden a portly cowboy threw open the food court doors like it was a saloon. “There’s a loose bull out here!” he crowed in an Andy Devine beller. “A loose bull! He came up on the escalator!” We were ordered to stay inside and not venture out to the plaza. 

We ventured out to the plaza.

We looked to the right and saw a bunch of cowboys leaning over the second floor wall. I was hoping to see the bull on the downward escalator looking like Ferdinand —one hand on the rail, the other clutching a Bath and Bodyworks bag. 

But no, this bull took a more dramatic exit from Level Two. He jumped over the concrete wall landing squarely in the middle of Happy Sumo a floor below. Tables and topiaries were strewn in bits and pieces all the way to the jellybean kiosk. Security guards ran this way and that. Babies were crying. One woman lie sobbing on a bench trying to recover from the sight of the hulking bovine as it descended like a bomb onto her and her Sunshine Roll.

There was no sign of the bull, though. The patio umbrellas broke his fall and he surprisingly made a break for it down 300 South where he was eventually tranquilized and taken back to the rodeo where things were a bit less rowdy. 

Yee-Haw.

I can’t walk through The Gateway anymore without remembering that afternoon. I also can’t eat teriyaki beef.