The Cowboy

I don't like being judgemental of others. I believe in equality and often root for the underdog. I try hard not to compare myself to others because someone always ends up ahead.
Some days though, I'm a real bitch in my head. Like the first day I laid eyes on the guy who ended up as my partner today, I was startled, and half expected him to break out in a hillbilly version of The Village People's "YMCA." Having never seen him before, I felt totally justified in ignoring him. Until I had to work with him, I could pretend he didn't even exist.
Since then, he had said 'good morning' a couple of times and seemed friendly in a Green Acres sort of way, so when we were partnered today, I was laid back and kept an open mind. Its been an easy week, relatively speaking, and I was eager to keep it that way.
He is light-eyed and fair-skinned with a skinny bald head on top of a wirey, middle-aged man's body. Every day he wears extremely faded jeans that look like they had the help of a bottle of bleach, a buttoned shirt with the sleeves cut off, really, really, old cowboy boots and a dirty white straw cowboy hat. We refer to him as... 'the cowboy'.
He speaks with a southern accent and behaves like one might expect a middle-aged Texas man to behave - very congenial, but he is from Conneticutt(sp!). Been in Cali for a while. I'm quite sure he's gay. He is here because of a DUI that he didn't deserve...
And now he doesn't know if he wants to stay in Cali because of how tough and expensive that DUI is - insurance, SR22,the attorney he wasted money on, how is he going to get around, how can he get his Cali license back without giving up his Conn. one... I started to worry that he might start to cry as he was sounding more and more emotional, like he's still caught up in the stress of it all. I do try to stay uninvolved, but I just had to reel him back in a bit.
I told him I road my f***ing bike all over this freakishly spread out city for an entire year and yes insurance sucks but not to get too caught up in the now because it is temporary and his life will get back to something resembling normal he just has to ride it out...
Because that's what I keep telling myself.