Character introduction in Chabon’s Style

Seasonal tourists arrive punctually every skiing season in intimate gaggles, on small chartered flights, and pass through the expansive one-roomed lodge that constitutes the airport for the small mountain town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Outside, they usually load unchristened patent leather suitcases into the back of Ron Wilson’s car. The first thing most people usually notice about Ron Wilson is his bushy handlebar mustache, which is a shocking dash of black compared to the cropped salt-and-pepper of his crown. His fair, leathery skin hinted that he lived and worked in cold, thin air all his life, and the rough jeans, woolen and tasteless shirts, and leather hats Ron wore made him the mirror image of other local cowboy relics who preserved the “western feel” of the midwestern town. 

Ron Wilson is the antithesis of fidgety. Some describe him using stoic, settled, or assured. Every move he makes is done with straightforward purpose, and so it is not unusual for him to be standing quite still, occasionally crunching the heels of his boots into the ice on the road, in his own personal salute as he waits for another influx of travelers. Ron already misses the musky atmosphere and handsome warmth of the Million Dollar Cowboy bar. Not yet an hour ago, Ron was inside the bar, counting out exact change from the ones and tens creased in his pockets, and tossed the sad pile onto the sticky, polished bar surface. He shifted off the barstool that was once a real leather saddle, leaving behind almost a dozen sea-green bottles of Heineken, three receipts, a coupon strip, and his chapstick missing a cap. The usual bartender has known Ron Wilson for over twenty years, and did not look surprised at his sudden departure or the mess left behind. The bartender only looks up when Ron turns back around to save the old chapstick from oblivion, since, in Ron’s opinion, it was mostly still good. 

Wilson believes that he is quite conscious and aware of what most of his costumers thought of him. These costumers—woman especially—pities his role in life while harboring a secret superiority complex, convinced that their meaningless chatter impressed him in some way. The airheads he has to handle on a weekly or daily basis, depending on how much he chooses or needs to work, generalize him as an old-fashioned, midwestern cowboy type with a deadbeat job and no retirement plan. In return, Ron Wilson assesses all of his passengers along similar stereotypes, which he subconsciously applies to every traveler who crosses his path and carries material possessions that hints at wealth. He survives the bitter and dreary days by stubbornly refusing to change either his attitudes or his routines, and is mentally prepared to spend the rest of his life monotonously migrating to and fro through the mountainous roads in four-wheel drive. 

Ron's life is spent in inconsistent stretches of time at the Million Dollar Cowboy dive bar, and when he isn’t at the bar, locals know that he can be found taking a shift at the airport, transporting uber-wealthy vacationers in his old SUV to their residences, to save enough to buy another tank of gas, packs of Red Vines, and as many rounds of Heinekens that the bar will supply him.