Dream of The Broken Horses, The

by Bayer-William

  ‘Yeah, darling — meow to you, too.’

  Correlating this delicious entry to other dateable ones, I understand it refers to events that took place on Wednesday, August 13 — the same day Dad cancelled his afternoon appointment and staked out the Flamingo to determine whether Barbara's affair with Tom Jessup was fact or fantasy.

  The thought of him spying on her there raises the hairs on my neck. From what vantage point, I wonder, did he observe the arrivals of their cars, their separate entries to the balcony and room 201, Barbara's post-lovemaking descent to purchase cigarettes, and finally their separate exits?

  From his car parked in the Flamingo lot? Too dangerous, I think. From Moe's Burgers across the street? The windows at Moe's were too large, creating danger if Barbara should suddenly turn and stare. Another possibility is the Shanghai Sapphire, the greasy-spoon Chinese restaurant on the other side of the lot. But the windows there were small and draped, which would have made it hard for him to see. Also, since Barbara reports she phoned Waldo as late as five, it's hard to imagine him sitting there a full three hours.

  Then it occurs to me: What if Dad also checked into the Flamingo that afternoon; got himself a room on the second level overlooking the courtyard and pool; pulled a chair up to his window; drew the blinds just the right amount; and thus created a viewing post from which to observe the comings and goings of the respective parties?

  This notion's so intriguing I put down the diary and call Kate Evans. When Johnny puts me through, I ask if she still has the registry ledgers from that year.

  "Sorry," Kate says, "when we switched to computers I threw the old handwritten ones out."

  "Kate, about that drawing—"

  "Yes?" I feel her growing tense.

  "The man you described looked so nice, so kindly, did you think about what I asked you the other day — whether you might have gotten two different people confused?"

  A long pause. "Yes, I did think about it. Like I told you, I think that must have been what happened."

  "But who, Kate? Who might you have gotten mixed up?"

  "I remember there was another man who care around that time."

  "The day of the shootings?"

  "Maybe not that day exactly."

  "Well, think more about it, will you, Kate? Try to remember, okay?"

  "Yes," she promises. "I'll try."

  Putting down the phone, I hope against hope that she decides she saw Dad when he came snooping around the motel, and, so frightened by the shooter, transposed Dad's kindly features upon his.

  I pick up the diary again. On Monday, August 18, the proverbial shit hits the fan:

  Monday

  W's column: This morning he as much as says a certain member of his Happy Few is shagging her shrink on the old analytic couch!

  Furious, I phone him up.

  ‘Oh, hi there, love,’ he says, all prissy and smug. ‘I wonder what's on your cute little mind this lovely sunny Monday morning.’

  ‘How could you write something so vile?’

  ‘Is it, love?’

  ‘You bet it is! Listen, W—’

  ‘No, you listen, bitch! That's just a taste — do you hear me? — the merest whiff of what I can do. So mind your manners and I'll mind mine, and get over this nonsensical notion that I sent you those nasty items in the post. That's not my style. My style of waging war is the same as yours — total! Hear what I'm saying, love?’

  ‘Yeah, I hear you. Sounds like you're making threats.’

  ‘Not threats, darling. Statements of fact. This isn't a big town, at least not our set. We don't have to adore one another, but it's better to live in peace than war. Now the good news — right after Labor Day I'm off to Europe, my usual haunts... Venice, Paris, Cap d'Antibes. As I recall, there's a certain Parisian saddlery shop you like. My intention is to stop at Hermès and pick you up a nice piece of tack, say a saddle and bridle set. Call it a peace offering, my way of saying that for all the harsh words between us, it's my profound hope that we can remain friends. So, love, what do you say?’

  I ignored his peace offering, changed the subject.

  ‘What am I going to tell my shrink? I'm seeing him in an hour.’

  ‘Tell him “all's fair.” He'll understand.’

  ‘Tell me something, W?’

  ‘Anything, love.’

  ‘How many people have you gone after like this? How many have you tried to destroy?’

  ‘What a question!’

  ‘Since you don't care to answer, I'll have to rely on what I know. Since Max and I became friends, he's told me a few things. And then there's the matter of your rentboy, facts your Happy Few may not be fully acquainted with.’ I'm sure that chilled him! ‘Oh, and there's one other thing — don't bother getting me any tack.’

  ‘You'd like that too much!’

  ‘Well, next move's yours, love. Of course, I'm hoping there won't be one.’

  ‘You'll just have to wait and see, won't you?’

  ‘I guess I will. Toodleloo, love.’

  God, what a fiend!

  Later

  ‘Where does he get an item like that? How dare he publish such a thing!’

  ‘W thinks he's God around here. He publishes whatever he likes.’

  ‘I've got a call in to my lawyer.’

  ‘He'll tell you to ignore it.’

  ‘Tell that to my wife!’

  ‘What he wrote was for my eyes, his way of saying “Don't mess with me,” I haven't decided yet whether to heed his warning or take him on.’

  ‘Please listen to me,’ R said, sincere and sweet and grave. ‘You have serious problems — a kidnapped daughter, a pending custody battle, a terrifying recurring dream. I rarely give advice to patients, that's not an analyst's role, but this feud with Channing's a sideshow compared with what's really important in your life. My suggestion is to concentrate on the important stuff and let this sideshow pass.’

  God, he can be such a good fatherly analyst when he wants to be! It made me feel great that he cared so much.

  ‘You're right,’ I told him. ‘W's not important. This morning's column is tomorrow's fishwrap. Trash!’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘So let's get back to work on the dream.’

  He was so pleased. He came up with another brilliant spiel about Mom and Blackjack and breakage and how I must have seen something traumatic when I was little and froze the moment like a mental photograph and when it was frozen it became something that could shatter, and that's what the broken horses are all about.

  He was brilliant and I was dazzled. When he was done, I told him I adored when he spoke like that, and I wished I could adore him in body because that's my way of adoring a man.

  ‘It always comes back to that, doesn't it?’ he said.

  ‘I guess with me it always does.’

  ‘I told you — assume you've seduced me, assume we've made love, then move on from there.’

  ‘How can I believe something like that when I know we haven't?’

  ‘We can't.’

  ‘Because it would break the rules? Are you so bound by rules you'd deny yourself what you so clearly want and need?’

  ‘Listen, Barbara—’

  ‘Do you know, Tom, that's the first time you've called me by my first name since I started coming here?’

  I turned to look at him, caught him mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.

  ‘Now that we're on a first-name basis—’

  He laughed.

  ‘See how much you enjoy my company? Thing is, Tom, I just don't see the difference between ‘assuming’ we've made love and actually doing it. Because if for therapeutic purposes we're to ‘assume’ we have, then seems to me we might just as well do it — for therapeutic reasons too, of course.’

  ‘That's impossible.’

  ‘I know you want to.’

  ‘If I did, I'd consult a colleague. That's how we handle those matters.’

  ‘Oh, goody! Bring in a third party! S
pread the word around! Play right into W's hands!’

  ‘Know something? I think you liked his column this morning. I think now you want to make it all come true.’

  Guess what, Dr. R? You're probably right!

  Later

  As promised, T brought pot to the F. We smoked it together then made love. I felt I was moving on another level in a mysterious hazy world where everything was right, every move slow and perfect and complete. It was as good sex as I've had in years. When we were done, I started to sob. T couldn't believe it, kept asking ‘What's the matter? What did I do? Did I do something wrong?’

  ‘No, darling, it's just the beauty of what we did that makes me cry, this incredible floating feeling I'm left with. Guess I'm crazy, huh? How do you like being involved with such a crazy lady?’

  ‘I like it just fine,’ he said.

  When we were dressed, ready to leave, I told him I couldn’t meet him day after tomorrow, but that Friday would be fine.

  ‘How can I bear to wait so long?’ he asked.

  Driving home, I wondered whether it was just the pot that did it to me, made me feel so lifted and clear. Is this what I've come to, I wondered — a slut who requires drugs to feel moved?

  At the thought, I started to cry again. I was so red-eyed when I got home, I put on dark glasses so Marie wouldn’t know I'd wept.

  ‘Dinner at seven, Mrs. F?’ she asked me at the door.

  ‘No, thank you, Marie. Tonight I'm dining at The Elms.’

  ‘Very good, ma’am. Thank you, ma'am.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, too, Marie.’

  After reading this entry, I feel for her again. So many emotional vectors in her life appear, in hindsight, to be heading toward a tragic intersection. But I think even if I weren't aware of the August 27 denouement, I'd feel, reading this material, that some kind of major crisis was in the offing.

  She's concluded rightly that her old confidante, Waldo Channing, has not only been a false friend but is pathologically malicious besides. Now she must choose between her natural instinct to try to vanquish him in a social war or deny herself the pleasures of a fight for fear of furthering her former husband's goal of taking away her sons. The reference to Max intrigues me. Could Max have told her about Waldo's and Maritz's blackmail schemes? And is that reference to the ‘rentboy’ the then-scandalous fact that Waldo had originally found Deval on the porn shop-prostitute-hustler DaVinci strip?

  Meantime, she's embarked upon her final siege of her shrink, attempting to lure Dad into bed. And then there are the conflicting feelings engendered by her two lovers, Jack Cody and Tom Jessup — a mellowing out, perhaps even a tenderizing of her relations with Cody, while she and Tom appear to have entered a baroque phase in which Tom has rebelled against continuing to play a role in the risky child-porn penetration project to which she and Cody have assigned him.

  Finally, there's her existential crisis — her awareness and fear of personal emptiness, her pain as she struggles to decipher her strange recurring dream, and a looming sense that she has lost her bearings in the privileged, rarefied, and terribly lonely world she's created for herself.

  I'm also impressed by Dad's various stabs at interpreting her dream. Compared with the sum of all his efforts in this regard, I find Izzy Mendoza's interpretation glib and tepid.

  On Tuesday, August 19, she makes a series of remarkable decisions:

  Tuesday

  Woke up with a sense of mission. No more feeling sorry for myself. Time to take vigorous measures.

  Phoned W, told him in no uncertain terms there will be no détente.

  ‘You committed vicious and unpardonable acts. Now you'll pay the piper. And be very careful how you retaliate, W. Go too far and some of Jack's friends might... well, you know how they handle things. Also I know what you've been doing on the side, your venomous little schemes. Say one nasty word about me that'll hurt my case with Andy, and, I promise you, all that will come out.’

  I hung up before he could reply. The old left eyeball must have been twitching up a storm.

  Phoned Jack, thanked him for last night, told him T wants out of the Steadman deal, so if he's going to make a move on them it should be soon. He said he understood and will make arrangements. ‘When am I going to see you again?’ he asked. I told him I'll be busy the next few days, but maybe Sunday night.

  Phoned R, left a message on his machine, said I won't be coming in tomorrow or for that matter ever again unless we can resolve the tensions between us. Told him I'll be in room 201 at the F at three tomorrow afternoon, that I'm inviting him to join me there, that he can come or not as he pleases, but whatever his decision to please not call to discuss the matter as I won't be taking calls.

  Phoned Hansen, told him I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to combat A's custody claims. ‘Tell his attorney my most vital interests are at stake. Tell him I have knowledge of things that could be ruinous to A, certain sexual episodes and peccadilloes. Tell him that though it isn't my style to stoop so low, the stakes are so high for me that if he doesn't withdraw his claim he can expect a no-holds-barred battle to the death.’

  Saying that felt good!

  Having completed a good day's work in just half an hour, I treated myself to a two-hour canter through Maple Hills, showered, then drove over to the club, where I played a fierce singles match with Tess.

  After I lost the first set, quite a crowd gathered, all the girls eager to see nasty Barb dethroned. Somehow I managed to pull it out, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. Afterwards, Tess and I hugged to great applause. She whispered, ‘Will you be my doubles partner if I dump Elaine?’ ‘Great idea! Give me the weekend to get rid of Jane. Then it's you and me all the way to club finals!’ She kissed my sweaty cheek. ‘I'm thrilled. I've had a crush on you for years!’

  God! Well, I guess that'll be interesting — if we ever get around to consummating it!

  Certain sexual episodes and peccadilloes! Does this mean Waldo was telling the truth when he told the cops Barbara had been looking for proof Andrew was fooling around with men?

  I hold my breath before reading on, for the next entry concerns Wednesday, August 20, one week to the day before the slaughter and the second Wednesday in a row that Dad cancelled his afternoon appointments:

  Wednesday

  R arrived precisely on time. I opened the door wearing a robe.

  ‘You came.’

  ‘Not for the reason you think.’

  ‘I didn't ask you here for that reason.’

  ‘I find that laughable.’

  ‘Then go ahead — laugh!’

  ‘We're not going to make love.’

  ‘I know that, I'm not a fool.’

  ‘Then why—?’

  ‘Why did I summon you? Because it was necessary that you come. Otherwise all our ‘assumptions’ are just so much garbage.’

  ‘You play a dangerous game, Mrs. F.’

  ‘Now you're back to calling me Mrs. F.’

  ‘Now you're back to calling me “Mrs. F”? Isn't professionality kind of silly here in this sleazy motel room where I regularly have sex with your namesake?’

  Finally, he smiled. I invited him to sit on the bed.

  ‘Don't worry, I won't attack you. Please make yourself comfortable so we can talk.’

  I told him I didn't think formal analysis was working for me, that I needed something more warm-blooded, something that will make me feel as though I'm connecting with a real human being. I told him how much I've been moved when he's shown concern for me, and how awful I feel when he coldly applies more formal methods. I told him that if he can't modify his treatment I'll have to quit therapy, and that I don't want to do that because I desperately need his help.

  ‘But real help," I told him. ‘Compassionate help. And no more games.’

  I told him I feel he's played me as much as I've played him, that his counter-seductions are seductions in themselves, and that I feel he shares as much of the blame as I for what's gone wrong between us.

 
I told him: ‘When you told me I should assume we've made love, assume my seduction of you has been successful, and that I should share my sexual fantasies about you, you show me the weakness at the core of your cool stance. I can't abide that pose. I need a friend, a brilliant friend who can really help me — because I need help, tons of it. This is why I invited you to this sordid place, to tell you all this so we can decide where we go from here. I couldn't tell you any of this from the couch in your office. Maybe that's part of my neurosis, that I needed to tell it to you here in this awful room face to face.’

  I started to cry. I sobbed. He moved to me, held me in his arms. Then I could feel him sobbing, too. We wept together.

  ‘I care for you,’ he told me.

  ‘I know you do. Please know I feel the same way.’

  ‘But it's impossible. You understand?’

  ‘Yes. But maybe that's the best part of it somehow.’

  We hugged each other, wept upon each other, and I felt so close to him then, so fine and close. It was the most moving experience I've had in a long time. And the strangest part was I hadn't planned it this way. I told him that, too.’

  ‘Truth is I don't know what was in my mind when I asked you here. I didn't know myself till I opened the door and saw you standing there so fearful and grave.’

  ‘This is wrong yet it feels so right. That's what I don't understand.’

  ‘Don't' try to understand it, Doctor,’ I urged. ‘Just keep feeling it the way we're doing.’

  And at that we hugged and sobbed some more.

  When we finally let each other go, our eyes clear and smiles on our lips, he said he owed me an apology. I told him he didn't, but he insisted.

  ‘When you first came to me, I recognized you were an extraordinary woman, but then I got bogged down thinking of you as a fascinating case rather than as a deeply troubled person in need of help. I thought too much about how I was going to write up your case, well-disguised of course, and that led me astray. I forgot that I'm a healer first of all, that feelings and compassion are my most effective tools, not theory and technique. I put personal ambition ahead of my oath to heal. I want you to know I'm not going to write up your case, rather I'm going to put all my efforts into working with you to solve your dream and free you of its tyranny.’