Freedom, that terrible word inscribed on the chariot of the storm, is the motivating principle of all revolutions. Albert Camus, The Rebel
His given name was Roy Dale Billy. That’s all his mother, his wife, and his first-born son ever called him. Everyone else called him Lightning. Some say it was because he was fast, lightning fast, when it came to handling bulls and wild horses. He was a rodeo man and worked the stockyards. Some say it was because of his temper. Lightning fast and you might have a knife blade gut you, a bullet in your belly, or a fist cracking your jaw. Roy Dale was a rebel and always ready for a quick fight.
It was the summer of 1962, Harold Stevenson had left his studio flat in Paris France, stopped off to see friends in New York City, then made his way to his real home, what he would always say was home, to Idabel, Oklahoma. He was ready to paint. Harold Stevenson went big for The Eye of Lightning Billy for the Sidney Janis Gallery’s New Realists exhibit. The finished piece consisted of six conjoined panels, each 5′ x 5′ for a total of ten feet high and fifteen feet wide.
The townspeople of Idabel would watch the artist and the subject through the plate glass windows of the downtown studio. The regional newspaper came all the way from Texarkana to cover the event.
On a weekend break from posing for his friend, the artist. Billy and his new bride were driving from Idabel Oklahoma to Texas for a rodeo. Roy Dale would soon be saddling up for a bull ride. Or maybe a bronc. If it bucked, Roy Dale would ride it, hoping for eight good seconds, a little money, and a shiny belt buckle.
Their old truck had no air-conditioning. The crank-handle windows were rolled down. The hot, July air blew through. Ahead, they witnessed a family walking on the side of the road. Billy slowed down as they passed.
“They sure must be hot. Just look at her,” Mrs. Billy sighed as they passed the family, a man with his very pregnant wife and three small children.
A short distance more, the Dairyette came into view. It was the diner where Roy Dale and his bride met for the first time. She was a carhop, sixteen years old. Roy Dale squeezed her leg with a sweet grin. “Let’s get an ice cream, for old time’s sake.” He pulled up and they went inside to escape the brutal summer heat.
Not much time had gone by. The family from down the road now stood at the doorway of the Dairyette. The husband went table to table, asking the patrons to buy the match-stick purse his wife had made. The diners shook their heads, “no,” stealing embarrassed glances of the raggedy, thin children and the very pregnant wife. The room became quiet. The Great Depression might have been over, but most folks in the area remained poor farmers or laborers. The owner gave the man a bit of money and asked them to leave.
Their ice cream treat was nearly eaten, and the newlyweds were ready to resume their drive. Not unexpectedly, the family was still on the road. Still walking wearily. Roy Dale hit the brakes and pulled over.
“Get in,” was all he said, helping the family climb in the back.
“Become so very free that your whole existence is an act of rebellion.” Albert Camus, The Rebel
Back in Idabel, when not painting, Harold Stevenson was reading. A newly published edition of Albert Camus’ The Rebel. Camus was living in Paris after he won the Nobel Prize for literature. He died in a car wreck in 1960. I do not know if he and Harold met while they were both in Paris. I believe they might have, sitting at the outdoor cafe. Rebels all.
Harold Stevenson was born in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. His grandparents adopted a Choctaw child from Wheelock Orphanage. He was intimately aware of freedoms denied to men like Roy Dale Billy, whose ancestors were forced to migrate from their homelands to Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears. “In making this painting, I hope to have released the human eye from all surrealist connotations. This painting means the painting of a specific human eye with the sole purpose of representing a human eye – big enough that the viewer will not mistake it for something else.” This was The Eye of Lightning Billy, an American Indian, bronc rider, from Oklahoma.
I’m bored with the simple-sincere typical American. It is time to forget this ridiculous myth, and instead take a close-up look at exactly what we have made man into. The man-made man (the HERO) exemplified by the idol of the silver screen – bigger than life – the non-art-y personality. I’m tired of the façade of man. I want to paint man (the hero to be specific). If one sees the hero naked, then there is a chance of man seei(ng his fellow man the same way. The only gadgets that fascinate me are the gadgets of the human body. They are the ones that have been neglected, overlooked, in favor of washing machines and ballpoint pens, an air-conditioned home” (Harold Stevenson 1962).
Meanwhile, as Harold was reading and musing over Camus, Roy Dale was being a quiet hero. When they arrived at the rodeo arena, Roy Dale took the father and introduced him to the stock provider. “He needs a job,” Roy Dale implored. Mrs. Billy took the wife and children. With help from others, they stripped them, bathed them in a stock water trough, and fed them from the vendor food. After the rodeo, the family left with the stock man. They had a job. They had their pride.
Roy Dale was a hero to one man.
