He heard footsteps behind him, the loud clacking of high heels.
“Hey, wait!”
He turned. A blonde woman in skinny jeans, a denim jacket, and cowboy boots with a hat to match caught up to him, breathless and pink-cheeked, whether from the exercise or alcohol he couldn’t tell.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“You – you rode the bull.”
“A lot of people ride the bull.”
“You’re the guy who didn’t fall off,” the woman clarified.
“Jack,” he said, holding out a hand.
“Lauren,” she said, shaking it. “I was just wondering if I could buy you a drink.”
“I just had a drink, thanks.”
She giggled. Strange, he thought, how grown women could still manage a giggle when they wanted things from you. He wished they would just laugh outright.
“I know you had a drink,” Lauren said. “You were at Yeehaw’s, of course you had a drink. What I meant was, maybe we could go somewhere. See some stars.”
He knew what she meant. The color in her cheeks hadn’t faded. Alcohol, not exercise.
“I don’t want to take advantage,” he said.
She flushed deeper.
“I’m not some drunken slut,” she said.
He pushed up the brim of his cowboy hat to get a better look at her.
“Aren’t you?” he said.
She glared at him.
“If I’d had a few more drinks, I’d slap you,” she said. “But you’re probably not even worth the effort.”
“Probably not,” Jack agreed, and to his relief she spat at him, missed, and click-clacked away, leaving a glistening splotch of saliva on the pavement. He felt bad about it, but he’d never found alcohol-inspired sex appealing, and from experience he knew insults were the easiest way to drive off tipsy women. (Insulting a man who’d had a few drinks usually resulted in a broken nose.)
Stargazing wasn’t a bad idea, though, he thought, even if she hadn’t meant it literally. He looked up automatically, but the tireless traffic lights, headlights, neon signs, and flashing billboards of New York polluted the sky. A haze of solid gray lay overhead. So not the city. Even Central Park wouldn’t give him a view of the stars.
“Time for a drive,” he said.
He walked the three blocks to his apartment on West 55th. His Taurus sat by the curb on the opposite side of the street. His family, despite being Ford people, thought he was silly for owning such a small and (as they saw it) useless automobile, but he liked it. Aside from being a decent car, it reminded him of the rodeo, just for its name: Taurus, the bull.
He had no definite plan in mind as he got in the car. He just knew that he wanted to see the stars, and he’d have to get out of the city to do it.
He drove a long time with only the road in sight. The vents hummed warm air into the car. Jack relaxed as he drove. He hadn’t been on a long drive since his move to Manhattan. He hadn’t been on a long drive to nowhere since before gas prices hit a buck fifty.
He drove more than an hour before he found what he was looking for. A long, solitary dirt road stretched before him in the moonlight. Gravel crunched beneath his tires as he parked beside the ditch. He sat still a moment before getting out. Strange, he thought, to be on a road not teeming with cars or people, even at one thirty in the morning. Strange to see no sidewalks or parking lots, and the nearest building a weathered old barn nearly five hundred feet in from the road.
His first silly thought when he got out of the car was that the air wasn’t smelly enough. He breathed deeply. No smog here, no fumes from passing cars or semis or taxicabs in need of repair, belching smoke from their tail pipes. No smell of fried foods or baked goods. Only the warm smell of manure, the scents of dew-covered grass and clean night air. The sounds, too, were vastly different: The singing of crickets and the deep-voiced bellow of a bullfrog on the shore of some nearby pond, rather than car horns, footsteps, the singsong speech of the Koreans who owned the bakery near his apartment.
He’d forgotten why he was here. He closed the car door and started walking. The moon shone brightly enough to cast a faint shadow on the road before him. He’d forgotten moonlight could shine so bright. He’d forgotten a lot, he figured, wagging his head left and right to take in the surrounding countryside. A split-rail fence lined one side, with pasture stretched behind it and dotted with sheds. The other side was a wood with a sign that said NO TRESPASS nailed to a tree every few yards. He’d never understood that, why people who owned woods were always so worried about trespassers. He’d never seen a field with such a sign.
Suddenly he remembered why he’d driven all this way. He looked up and gaped. Stars were strewn across the blue-black sky like oats in a field, like sands in the ocean. Everywhere, billions and billions of them. Winking down at him in a friendly way. He pushed back the brim of his hat and looked for familiar constellations. There was Draco, there, the long, skinny dragon, and there was the Little Dipper. Cancer was almost invisible, so close to tonight’s bright moon, but Cassiopeia was clear further north.
He stood there a long time with his head thrown back, staring at the stars. Then he started feeling stupid. What kind of idiot was he, standing here ogling at the stars like they were a hundred million pairs of perfectly-formed breasts?
Spoiler! :
In any case, if you plan on keeping Jack somewhat civil and country with a tad of swag that makes him loose and clever then I don't see where this humor fits in - however, it's too early to tell and if he does take a few steps on the wild side, I don't mind a single bit. Just something to keep in mind but I did find the last part quite funny even though it was abrupt. 
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