The Mare (18 page)

After just a week with us, she came back from the barn one day and asked could she please, please, please take a bareback riding class. I said, “Let's see,” and we went over to the barn. Pat introduced me to the woman who she said would be the trainer and I thought,
no.
The woman had a powerful body, a hard, blunt voice, and an
insane
face. Her eyes were simple mentally but emotionally snarled, aggressive and shrewd like an orangutan's. She looked out of her eyes so hard you couldn't look into them. She was verbally polite to me while her face dismissed me with the fast scorn of a teenager. She looked like the kind of person who could really mess up a child.

But then I saw: She respected Velvet. Or at least she was paying attention, she was interested, and I felt the woman wasn't interested in much. I could feel Velvet change around her, come to attention in a way I hadn't seen before. So I decided to risk it. It was a four-week class, just enough to take Velvet through the summer. It was a thousand dollars, which would be hard to explain to Paul. Unless I took it from the private money my mother left me. Which is where I got the money I'd started sending Velvet's mom every month. Two- or three-hundred-dollar checks that she never asked for or acknowledged but always cashed.

The bareback class started early in the morning before it was hot. I woke up even before the alarm, swimming like a fish out of sleep, making clouds of mud come up from the bottom. Clouds of dream settled down and I remembered: Shawn. I was dreaming of his hands on me even though I'd said no. Except in the dream, he turned into Dominic and I said yes. And then the alarm beat my head and I slammed my hand on it and got up to go, feeling the dream still in my body while I ate scrambled eggs.

The class met in the barn. There were six girls and they all knew each other, but except for Heather they didn't know me and she acted like she didn't know me. Then Beverly came in carrying a whip. Not a crop or a lunge whip, but a black whip so big she had it looped around her arm. My heart pounded; something swam out of dark privacy and swam away. We went outside and she said, “Meet my friend and helper,” and she cracked her whip hard, like black lightning, and the cats ran with their tails low. Everybody was very quiet when she told us to go get our horses.

I didn't have a horse so I said, “Which horse should I get, Miss Beverly?”

She said, “I think Joker.”

Which made me feel funny because…she didn't like Joker. Because he threw her high, wide, and handsome.

The bareback class was something to see, and I didn't even see all of it. That crazy woman was so completely in her element that she didn't even look crazy. They started out in the small ring I'd seen Velvet ride in; they mounted there and then walked the horses to a larger ring, where they trotted in a circle for ten minutes at a time before slowing to a walk, then picking it up again. The trainer kept them trotting with a bullwhip, which she used with gloating skill—she hit each horse precisely on the crook of its back leg with a rhythmic flick that was almost hypnotic to watch. The whole time she would bark out military-style instructions—“Sit up straight! Stay with him! Give him his head! Sit on your seat bones, Jessie; let go that mane! Seat bones, crotch, seat bones, crotch! Legs, legs, legs!”—while the girls bounced on their fannies so hard they got sores, holding on for dear life.

She did not hit the horses hard, but still you could feel how big that whip was. You could feel something else too, something big and
oily
in the air around her when she used it. I realized then what she'd meant when she talked about controlling them from inside. When I was on Joker, I could feel something
psychological
happen inside him, like he was mixed-up and didn't know which way to go. It wasn't the whip. He understood the whip. It was the
something else,
and I had to use my legs not just to stay on but to tell him,
It's okay, you're okay.
It made me feel like I was riding against Beverly, even if she was the one teaching me to ride.

Then one day we went on the trail into the green that I used to be scared of a long time ago. The bushes and plants were fat back there and
thick,
like beautiful songs are so thick in your brain sometimes you can't think. We walked until we came to a river. I thought we were going to turn around, but Beverly didn't stop, we went up to the river and I made a scared noise, and Joker slowed up, nervously. Beverly said, “Steady! They know how to swim!” And I felt Joker telling
me
to relax, and then we went into it—we went into the water. My heart hammered; the water went almost up the horses' backs, and our legs went under the water too. All the girls were screaming about the cold, but I wasn't. Not even when it got deep and I could feel Joker's legs running in the water under me, his body moving incredible, like a
snake.
I just closed my eyes and felt: cold water. Hot sun. Thick green. Shawn. His hands on me, his mouth, his voice in my ears. The snake-moving feelings of the world.
You so beautiful, I wanna kiss you all over, touch your breast, feel your legs holding me real tight.
But where was the one I wanted? We reached the other side and I held Joker with my legs as he climbed out onto shore, rocking back and forth, horse-strong and heavy under me again. Shawn's lumpy dick like a crocodile in his pants, his grandma knocking on the door—but where is the one I want?

It was later that day that I asked Pat why she said I should not hit Joker when she thought it was good that Beverly hit him. She said, “Because you don't have the authority. Not then you didn't. Beverly
does
have the authority and also that time he got loose was a particular situation.” We were grooming Joker together; she'd just been out working him, and he was all wet and peaceful. He was on cross-ties almost right in front of the mare, and she was right up against her door, watching us. Not kicking,
quiet,
almost like she was listening. “You hit only as a last resort,” Pat said. “Or at least I do. Some people do it different.”

“Beverly told me that hitting doesn't really hurt them. She said it's more psychological.”

“That's kinda true. You can make a horse crazy hitting him, especially if he can't figure out what you're hitting him for. But he
did
know in that case. It made sense.”

“So if hitting is okay sometimes, what is abuse?”

“You know Little Tina, right? She used to have this issue with cleaning her hooves. I'd pick up her hooves to clean 'em and sometimes she'd go like to kick me. That's dangerous. So I'd hit her with the crop. Once, maybe twice the next time she did it. Abuse is when you don't just hit once, but over and over. I've seen people do things like beat a yearling to the ground 'cause it reared up 'cause it was young.”

We took Joker off the cross-ties, and I led him back to the stall. As soon as he was in, my mare went to the side of her stall then and put her nose up where Joker was. He came to her; I noticed they were talking more this summer.

“You think anybody ever beat Fiery Girl that bad?”

“I don't know, but I doubt it. The thing about mares? They will always draw a line in the sand. Stallions, geldings, they can be tough. But while a mare'll take a lot of shit, eventually she will draw a line in the sand, and when she does that—cross it and she is going to take you down, even if she has to die doing it. Just like a woman. It's why some people don't like mares.”

I smiled and Pat said, “You think I'm joking? People say you can tell a gelding, discuss it with a stallion, ask a mare. I say beg a mare is more like it. Unless she likes you. And sometimes even then.”

I dreamed I went to hell, just like I told Velvet. In the dream I was little again, and again, I went looking for treasure. I found it, but in this dream I lost it; I got lost in hell. I met a naked old woman carrying love wrapped in pain. But I wasn't afraid of her. There were horrible things happening all around us, all the terrible things that can happen in the world—but most of them I didn't even notice. The old woman took me to a terrible hallway where living human heads protruded from the walls, talking incessantly in every language, unable to understand or hear each other and crying in desperation to be heard. One of them was me and one of them was a beautiful young man. The old woman said, “He is your love.” And he was. He was Michael.

I fought to wake up. I fought to run. An iron hand was holding me; there was a spider that was also a person. And then someone came to help me. An old man and someone else I couldn't see. The old man carried me in his arms over a field. But I said something he didn't like and he dropped me. And I woke up, turning violently on my side and remembering: Velvet had dreamed of going to hell too. Through a door in our backyard.

Beverly and Pat were always saying somebody didn't want to work. They said it about people and horses. They told stories that ended “he just didn't want to work for it.” It could be about a horse who didn't win a contest or a horse that didn't want to pull Beverly around in a circle while she sat in a buggy. Or a person who couldn't ride very good or somebody they knew in school who flunked like about a hundred years ago. Once Pat said it about her own father, that he didn't want to work to get a better job. Once Beverly said it to me. She put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Your trouble is, you don't like to work.”

It was the same thing my mom said to me. And I thought the same about Pat and Beverly as I thought about my mom: Look what your work got you. Shoveling shit and carrying it back and forth all day in hell-heat and half the horses standing pissed off and hot in their stalls while the other half go out and play because they can only use one paddock because they're trying to grow out the grass in the other one, and they can't all go out at once because they fight. That's why Beverly wouldn't let Diamond Chip Jim go out even though he was rearing up and wanting to be out; he'd fight in the same paddock with Rocki and Officer Murphy. And besides, there's not enough room. And Beverly's going, He don't like to work, like that's got anything to do with it.

He don't like to work.
It was like flies buzzing at you all day, like Fiery Girl banging on her door that she could not open, because they let her out hardly at all. “She has to go out by herself because she fights and there's not always time or room to let her out by herself. Besides which, listen to her.” She meant, listen to her banging and cursing, probably snaking her head around. “Do
you
want to turn that horse out right now?”

“No, but—”

“I didn't think so.”

“But it's not fair. She hasn't been out for like, days.”

“Guess what, life ain't fair. But you know that already, right?”

I looked down so she wouldn't see the expression on my face.

“Look at me,” she said. I did. She saw what I thought. We stood for a minute. And then she said it: “You're right. It has been too long. We'll take her out early evening.”

We had to argue to get the halter and the nose-chain on her, and when we did, she came out her stall feeling like a freight train running even though she just walked. Pat said, “Pull the chain if you need to.” I said, “Does it hurt?” and Pat said, “It reminds her that you're there.” We stepped outside and I saw Heather and Gare and this other girl Elizabeth were still there, hanging around in the driveway. I didn't like them being there. I especially didn't like it that when we walked out to the arena they stopped talking and stared at us. I lost my concentration; Fiery Girl picked up her pace, like she wanted to trot. Pat said, “Be in control!” I tugged the chain and the mare slowed, but her engine ran and she pushed on me with her shoulder. Pat snapped, “Cut it out!” but the horse lunged, jerking me almost off my feet. I heard somebody giggle. I remembered “Why does a Mexican kid walk around like—” and I yanked on the chain. I didn't care if it hurt. Fiery Girl rose a few inches off her front feet. Pat said, “Give me the lead.” But I did not. Fiery Girl yanked me and I yanked her, and my mom reached out of me with her fist,
she
grabbed the rope, and I swung around in front of Fiery Girl and yelled, “Oye, slow up NOW!” And she jumped back so fast, it was funny. I came back to the side, my heart pounding, and we walked, her still a bit ahead, still all fresh, but for show; I had her. There was no giggling. I didn't even have to look to know their eyes were all on me.

Pat put her hand on my shoulder. “I'd say I didn't think you had it in you, but I knew you did.”

I smiled and felt my face turn red, proud and embarrassed to be that way.

“But FYI, that's not a great idea, getting in her face like that. Next time, she could dance on your head. Next time, just use the chain.”

When we walked past, Elizabeth and Heather turned around and walked away. But Gare didn't. She stood there and she didn't talk, but her face said,
Awesome.

I thought: What if her mother could move up here? Mexicans live here; I see them, mostly working in restaurants or biking on the roads with plastic bags of groceries hanging from their handlebars. Down the block from us, in a boatlike three-story house, live a couple of Mexican families. One night, when Velvet and I walked past, we saw they were having a lawn party with colored lights and music and food. A woman looked at us and smiled as we passed. After that I noticed the Mexican grocery store in the little strip mall by the Laundromat. I went in and bought some candy, sweet red peanuts and sugar animals dyed green. I asked the guy behind the counter if he would be willing to talk to Mrs. Vargas. He looked at me like I had three heads and said sure.

I asked Velvet too: “Would your mother like to move up here?” It took her a long time to answer. When she finally said, “Yeah,” she sounded like I had three heads too. Still, I asked, “Would you talk to your mother?” and she gave me the three-headed “yeah.”

But later that night, she asked if she could see where the middle school was. So I drove her there. The school was up a hill, on a windy road. It was very visible in the moonlight. Its name was written on a stony mound thick-grown with tiger lilies that looked pale and velvet-gray in the dark. We sat in the car and looked for some minutes. I said, “Will you talk to your mom about it?” And she said, “Yes.” Different word, different tone.