The Mare

by Mary Gaitskill

  I wanted to ask what happened to the boy, but I didn’t say nothin’. Because I didn’t know what to say. I kept my head down and cleaned extra hard.

  “I see you got something going with Fugly Girl. I notice she’s a lot quieter when you’re around.”

  She didn’t sound mad.

  “I’d almost say she likes you.”

  “She’s nice,” I said.

  “She is nice. She’s also dangerous. Do you understand that?”

  “Miss Pat, she’s not dangerous, she—”

  “Look at me, girl. Put that thing down and look at me when I’m talking to you.”

  I dropped the fork in the dirty sand.

  “Fugly Girl is not a person. She’s an animal. She’s not a kitty or a doggie. She’s a thousand-pound horse. That is one thousand pounds of unpredictable power. That right away means handle with care. And in this case, ‘care’ isn’t enough. Don’t look away from me! You never noticed the scars on her face? How her one ear looks twisted? That horse has been abused. Do you know what that means?”

  I didn’t just look at her then, I stared. Because she was mad. But not at me. She was mad at something else, really mad.

  “That means she can hurt you, even if you’re nice to her. She can lash out at anybody just because something made her nervous. Like a person can do or say something crappy because they’re in a bad mood, and they’re in a bad mood a lot. Except most people, what they do, it won’t kill you. She could kill you, like you or me would swat a fly.”

  I looked down. “You mean I can’t feed her no more.”

  Pat didn’t answer. I waited. On the other side of the barn, Rocki whinnied and started hitting his food bucket. I looked up. Pat was looking at me with a face I didn’t understand. “I didn’t say that,” she said. She turned, turned back. “I think you remind her of somebody.”

  “Who?”

  “The person who had her before. Not the abuser, the one before that. She was a girl about your age. She had a little body, big eyes, and curly black hair. The only time I saw her, she was feeding the horse an apple.”

  “Where is the girl now?”

  “Her parents live up in Pine Bush. I guess they don’t feel like making the drive to see the horse. The poor kid probably doesn’t even know where she is.”

  We worked quietly for a while. Then I said, “Miss Pat, what happened to that boy who was here?”

  “Oh,” she said, “Joseph? I had a talk with him too, and it didn’t go so well, so, welp—we deported him for a few weeks.”

  —

  When I got back to the house, Ginger asked me what happened, and when I told her, she said we should eat out to celebrate. I asked if we could have dinner at the pizza place we went to once before and she said yes.

  I wanted to go there because the last time seemed like a long time ago and I wanted to feel how different things were now. Because of that, I noticed things more. I noticed how the boy behind the counter tried to do everything right, how he asked people what they wanted like he really cared a lot. People were like that here; I saw it before. But now it was annoying me. Do you want it like this? Do you want a little more like that? Then we sat down and I saw there was an African-American girl about my age with a white family. I tried to get her to look at me, but she wouldn’t. The white mother was smiling and passing the girl food, but the white kids weren’t really talking to her and the air around her was alone. I thought, She is here like me; she came up on the later bus. And suddenly I didn’t want to be there. My pizza came, broccoli and bacon like I had it before. But even though it was good and I ate it, I couldn’t taste it all the way. I felt like one of my arms and one leg and half my head was there at the table and the other half—I didn’t know where it was. Which didn’t make sense. I should’ve felt good.

  When we got back to the house it was barely light, but I had to go see my horse. The moon was big and it made the path to the barn shiny. Inside the barn was dark, but I wasn’t scared; I could hear and feel the horses around me, recognizing me. I could hear Fugly Girl kicking her stall like she was mad as hell. I heard her kick before, but tonight was different: Tonight she kicked like she hated everything. Like there was nothing else.

  “Hey,” I said. “It’s me.”

  She kicked harder, even more hating, and also something else, something I could feel coming out from my own body, coming hard. I CAN’T GET OUT I CAN’T GET OUT LET ME OUT I NEED TO GET OUT I CAN’T GET OUT. The other horses made noises: We hear.

  I’m sorry, I thought. I want to, but I can’t.

  She whinnied and spun in a circle, and bucked, her jerking darkness like my mother’s fists when she was so mad she’d walk up and down just beating at the air. The hate had gone out of her. Now it was just the something else. It was just me in the dark and her hard, jumping body making pain in the air.

  I CAN’T GET OUT. I thought of the girl who looked like me who would never see her horse again. I thought of lying in the bed in the foster home where they put us that time my mom beat me with a belt and it got infected and I showed the social worker and they took us, me to a place in New York and Dante to New Jersey. I NEED TO GET OUT. I lay on the bed in the dark listening to girls laughing at me because I threw up the lady’s dinner as soon as I ate it. Cars came by outside and lit up the poster of Destiny’s Child on the wall. The smell of air freshener was making me want to vomit again. But I didn’t and I didn’t cry either. Because half of me was there and the other half was nowhere and you can’t cry in nowhere.

  Fugly Girl was quiet now. I could smell her sweat and feel her heavy breath. She was listening to me crying. They all were.

  When I walked back it was all the way dark and there were noises from frogs and crickets. But the path was still lit enough for me to walk on. Ginger was waiting for me on the porch. She said to come inside and get ready to sleep. I asked her if she would sing to me. And later that night she did.

  Paul

  I heard it from our bedroom, Ginger’s singing. My heart sank a little and first I thought, Oh no, not again. But her voice was so sweet I thought, Paul, don’t be this way. And I came out in the hall to hear her. But when I understood her words, my heart sank again; it was too sad: Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry. Go to sleep, my little baby. When you wake, you shall have cake. And all the pretty little horses.

  Velvet

  On my last day, Pat said she would have a surprise for me if I did a super-good job on my stalls. And I did. I worked really hard, mostly knowing I wouldn’t be back for a long time, maybe not ever. It was only me and Gare that day and I even didn’t mind her because she was quiet when Beth and Retard weren’t around. I almost liked her a little because her eyes weren’t fake nice, even when Pat told her to hand me the mucking fork and she did. She just looked at me the same way the fork touched my hand.

  And then it was the end of the day and Pat said to me all normal: “So, you want to help me groom Fugly Girl?” And I said, “Yeah,” as normal as I could. And she told Gare to go clean up Officer Murphy’s stall, which was always the nastiest because he was a draft horse and made huge poops. And then she took me down and she handed me the halter. “Here,” she said. “You try putting it on her.” She opened Fugly’s stall and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Because all of a sudden my horse looked different, like she didn’t even know me.

  I went to put the halter on; she moved away from me. I tried again; she turned her body. “No,” said Pat. “Not so direct with this horse.”

  I said, “What do you mean?”

  She made us step outside the stall and half closed the door. She said, “The way you’re coming right at her, looking right in her eye? It’s like you’re saying, I’m the biggest B here, and we’re gonna do it my way or not at all.”

  I said, “But I don’t mean it that way.”

  She said, “I know that, and the other horses know that. But you’ve got a powerful eye, did you know that?”

  I looked down. “My mom tells m
e to stop looking at her sometimes.”

  “I’ll bet she does! You have got a powerful eye. And this horse can get nervous. You look at her like that, she might decide to turn and kick you into your next life. You want to deal with her, put your head down and talk to her soft. Like she’s a kitten. So she knows you won’t hurt her.”

  “But she knows I won’t hurt her. She lets me touch her.”

  “She lets you touch her when there’s a door between you and her. That’s different.”

  I understood. We went back in the stall, and I did like Pat said. Fugly Girl stood quiet for me this time, but when I went to put the halter on, she jerked away.

  “Head-shy,” said Pat. “Remember, that’s where she got hurt. Be kind, but be in charge.”

  I touched Fugly’s neck and then rubbed it and waited till I felt her muscle relax. I slipped my arm around her nose and guided it down. She followed me. I put the halter on and Pat clipped on the lead rope. She handed it to me and asked if I wanted to lead her. I did; I felt her through the rope. I felt her giant heart with thorns wrapped around it like Jesus in the picture, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. Fugly Girl in the stall was not the same as Fugly Girl out, with me holding the rope. She was scared, scared like broke to pieces, but she was other things, too, big things. I held her. Pat got her on the cross-ties fast, reminding me to stay close to the horse so that if she kicked, the damage would be small. Fugly Girl pawed with her foot and move sideways. Pat said, “Knock it off!” I put my hand on the horse. I noticed her eye was looking at me, thinking, not sure. I tried to tell her it was sure. Pat gave me the round curry comb. I rubbed the thick muscles of Fugly Girl’s shoulders, working on the dirty knots in her coat. Her skin got softer as I brushed. I thought of the song Ginger sang to me. Fugly Girl pawed and moved sideways again. “Did I ever tell you about Scorpio?” asked Pat. “The first horse I bonded with?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Well, he was not only the first, he was the only one, really. I was fifteen, and it was my first job. He was just a yearling. He came running up to me the first day, right up to the fence.”

  Fugly Girl cut mad nasty gas. It stank and it made me smile. I rubbed the sweet spot between her shoulders. She turned her head and I saw the beautiful long hairs she had under her eye, like horse eyelashes. She blinked and put her head down a little.

  “I was the only one who could ride Scorpio, and still we almost killed each other. He kicked me, I kicked him. Which I do not recommend, by the way, if this one ever kicks you, because even though I got away with it the first time, Scorpio remembered. And the next time he had the chance, he kicked me so I saw both back feet coming right for my face. I saw the nails on the bottom of his shoes and I thought, I hope there’s a doctor here who can put my face back together. And the feet went right past my head on either side. After that, we were good. He’d made his point.”

  “Miss Pat,” I said. “If it wasn’t the little girl that abused Fugly Girl, who did? Was it the girl’s parents?”

  “I’d call it more neglect than abuse on their part. They took her off the bush track circuit and were racing her as a quarter horse. They had her in a trailer with some other horses on the way back from a race. It was a long trip and one of her back shoes came halfway off, and she somehow stepped on a nail. And they didn’t have money for the vet. I guess she hadn’t won nothin’ for ’em in a while, so they just kept her in her stall and hoped it would get better. Instead it got infected. They wound up selling her cheap to some freak, a doctor who treated the infection half-assed, then starved her and beat her when she didn’t ‘perform.’ Those scars on her face? Those are from a halter he strapped to her face too tight and never took off. It was months before I could get a halter on her. She was a real big B and you know what, that’s great. Being like that was the only way she stopped him from breaking her spirit.”

  “Miss Pat, when she kicks and bites her stall, is she lashing out like you said, like a bad mood?”

  “Oh no, that—well, kind of. The biting is a nervous habit. It’s called ‘cribbing’ and it’s like some people biting their nails. The kicking, some of that is hormone issues. She’s feeling uncomfortable because—well, basically, she’s just being a girl. Here, watch me do her feet.”

  She leaned in and stroked her hand down Fugly’s leg, pinching when she reached a special place; the foot came up like a button got pushed. Pat took a sharp thing and dug dirt out of the hooves. Fugly Girl made her lips like a camel’s!

  “So how’d you get her?”

  “The freak’s neighbor knew about me. I’d given lessons to his daughter. He told the freak that he’d call the cops if he kept up the abuse. He gave him my number and the doctor called me. I met the child when I went to pick up the horse. For some weird reason, the doctor called her to say good-bye to her horse. When I got there she was feeding Fugly Girl an apple out of her hand. Her mother didn’t even get out of the car. The girl walked the mare into the trailer for me. I’m not sure I could’ve gotten that horse in without her, even with Beth. Here, you want to pick up her foot?”

  Her leg when I slid my hand on it was like something with roots in the ground. Then I got to the spot; it was like butterfly bones, between the body and the wing. Her leg bent into my arm, and her heavy hoof came up.

  “The kid held it together until the door to the trailer closed. Then she cried her guts out.”

  I held Fugly Girl’s wing-hoof and thought about the girl who would never see this horse again. I cleaned the dirt out of the foot.

  Ginger

  When we drove to the train station, she cried. She seemed okay that morning; she smiled and said she wanted to see her little brother. She went to visit the horses one last time and came back with a big rusty horseshoe that she wrapped carefully in one of her shirts.

  But on the way to the station I turned around in my seat and saw her face withdrawn and her body slumped like it had no feeling. Then when we got out of the car, she dropped her suitcase—it seemed like on purpose—and it popped open and she began to quietly cry.

  “Don’t cry,” said Paul. “You’ll be back.”

  “When?” she asked.

  He paused uneasily and then said, “Next year.”

  But she heard his unease louder than his words. She stopped crying and withdrew again. She stayed withdrawn for most of the train trip, staring out the window at the bright river with her lips parted and her eyes a thousand miles away.

  —

  Her mother and little brother met us at the station. The woman surprised me by kissing me on both cheeks; Paul she merely approved with her measuring eyes. The boy eye-checked us and pretended to ignore his sister. He was beautiful too—lighter-skinned than Velvet, more inward, more visibly intense, eyes flashing privately.

  “I’ll call tonight,” I said to Velvet. “Don’t forget about the homework.”

  And it happened again; she put her head down and quietly began to cry. Her mother’s eyes darkened powerfully. Her brother began whispering to himself with his face turned away.

  “Here!” I said, my voice too bright. “Here’s some pictures of Velvet’s trip.” Small-voiced, Velvet translated. I handed Mrs. Vargas a carefully edited envelope. She took it angrily, stuffing it into her purse. She took Velvet by the arm and headed toward the subway.

  Velvet

  “Those people weird,” said Dante. “That ugly man and that lady like a cat food and sugar sandwich.”

  “They’re not weird,” I said. “They’re like people are supposed to be. They’re nice and they don’t yell, not even when they’re mad.”

  “That lady is nice because she’s in the sky,” said my mom.

  “Her name is Ginger.”

  “Whatever her name is, she lives in the sky. She’s nice like a little girl is nice.”

  “The people I stayed with were fucked up,” said Dante. “The food they ate was crap.”

  “Mami,” I said. “The place I worked? There wa
s a horse who really liked me because the little girl who owned her before looked like me. I was the only person there that she liked.”

  “What happened to the little girl who owned her before?”

  “Her parents wouldn’t let her see the horse anymore because—”

  “Because they didn’t want their daughter to get killed. Listen, you think I don’t know? Where I grew up, horses used to walk in the street. Now stop talking before you give me a headache.”

  Ginger

  I called her that night. Not right after we got home, but during the soft time before bed. She picked up the phone eagerly. She asked what we had for dinner and if I went for a walk. She asked if there were any fireflies.

  And then there was screaming in the background, vicious, hateful. Velvet screamed back, wild strings of Spanish words, raging but imploring too—and then she dropped the phone and the scream went raw. I shouted her name, almost hung up to call the cops when somebody else picked up the phone and said “Cat food!” at me like a curse; the brother. Then Velvet had the phone again, yelling sideways off it before sobbing to me that her mom had told her she was no good all night even though she didn’t do anything bad and now she called the horseshoe dirty and threw it out the window.

  I talked to her; I called her honey, darling. I said if she was with me, I’d hold her in my arms like she was a little girl. I said it would be all right. The words came out of me—desolate, helpless, and real. She got quiet; her silence felt a little incredulous, embarrassed even. I told her she could find the shoe tomorrow, sneak it back in and hide it. I told her we would do homework together and she could come to see us soon, on the weekend. The yelling in the background became angry talking, then normal talking between the mother and little boy. Velvet said, “I just decided something.”