Beatrice has an idea. “Let’s take Humbletonian,” she says, letting go of the truck’s door handle. Humbletonian is a horse. When her parents sold the farm animals they kept a few chickens for eggs and one horse named Humbletonian. Her father named the horse this because she was not a Hambletonian. A Hambletonian is a very distinguished trotting horse. A Humbletonian is nothing. It is like changing your name to Stonerfeller because you are not a Rockefeller.
“In the trailer?” her brother asks, and then answers the question himself. “No. Ride the horse into town? Right? Right. Cool,” he says, eyes glassy. They walk back to the barn, breaking ice again.
After their father stopped farming he sometimes took a sleeping bag to the loft above the horse’s stable after dinner. He’d smoke cigarettes up there and spend the night like a Boy Scout. He thought that the horse’s wild nature could make him feel better about working in an office. He thought the horse could soothe the unease in his rib cage. From the loft her father pretended he was Jerry Lee Lewis, an old table saw platform for the piano. He’d sing to the horse. “You. Leave. Me.” Pause. Pause. “Breathless.” Though her father’s odd behavior seemed exciting at the time, Beatrice now thinks that horses aren’t wild. Horses can’t soothe our unease in the world. Horses are about the most broken, unwild creatures in existence, except for maybe burros and dogs. They do exactly what humans tell them to do. So when she thinks now how her father slept in the barn, rode Humbletonian across their forty acres because he thought it would cure the unease in his chest, it only makes her sad. That wasn’t unease, Dad. It was lung cancer.
“Hello, pumpkin pie.” Clem pets Humbletonian’s nose. The barn smells yellow—urine and old pine boards.
The horse’s belly sags in a way that reminds Beatrice of a velour reclining chair. “Hello, La-Z-Boy girl.” Beatrice kisses the horse. Humbletonian does not look particularly happy to see her. Clem attaches bit and bridle. He puts a hand on the saddle straddling the stable wall, but Beatrice shakes her head no. Clem leads the horse outside by the reins and crouches down on one knee, keeping the other lifted square. Beatrice uses Clem’s knee as a boost and climbs up onto the horse’s bare back. “Whoop,” Beatrice whoops. In a moment her brother is seated behind her. Clem wraps big zucchini arms around her sides, reaching for the reins.
Brother and sister are quiet as they trot through harvested fields. The sound of dead stalks and frost crunching under Humbletonian’s hooves fills the gray quiet of the night. The video game’s theme song rattles in the back of Beatrice’s head.
“I don’t know what she’ll think of the road,” Clem says. “I don’t think she’s ever been past the far field.” Their mother only uses the horse when her car gets stuck in the muddy divots of their driveway. She harnesses Humbletonian to the bumper, pulling while she pushes.
They reach the end of the driveway. Humbletonian turns left and trots along the breakdown lane, as if she can’t wait to get down to town, as if there’s nothing to it.
On the road Humbletonian’s hooves sound like winter—metal on ice or an empty galvanized pail tossed down a stone staircase. They pass an abandoned barn that is wedged between two service stations and two narrow swaths of dried red clover. Someone has spray-painted the words LUV SHAK below a tin sign advertising the Crystal Cave tourist attraction. The land is flat and open here. The road is the straightest road there is. It runs all the way down to where the Pennsylvania Dutch people live in villages named Blue Ball, Intercourse, Paradise.
An eighteen-wheeled tanker whooshes past Humbletonian. It blows Beatrice’s body to the right. A car honks before passing. The man in the backseat does not seem surprised to see a horse and riders on the highway on Thanksgiving evening. He throws his cigarette butt toward them so it explodes against the asphalt, a bomb sized for insects.
“I’m going to puke,” she says.
“No. No, you won’t.” Clem pats her on the back one, two, three times. Beatrice leans against Humbletonian’s neck. The warmth of the horse on her stomach. They ride the rest of the way in silence except for the click of Humbletonian’s hooves and the rush of the horse’s warm pulse.
One of the myths Beatrice’s mother was responsible for developing was a fictionalized version of Montezuma meeting Cortés for the first time. Her mother’s coworkers rarely bothered to differentiate between those things that had actually happened and those things that people just used to say had happened. They’d take history and add to it and no one knew the difference anymore. For example, they might say that Montezuma could fly through the air carrying three virgins at a time to a sacrificial altar in the sky. They might say that there was bloodshed when these two men met or that Cortés was part man, part horse.
Mythologic Development sold the Montezuma-Cortés myth to an amusement park in Maryland, which used it for a roller coaster called the Aztecathon. The concept sold for a good price, but her mother was a salaried employee and so she saw very little of the money. Now the amusement park owns Montezuma. He is their intellectual property.
Beatrice’s mother keeps a painting of Montezuma over her bed. In the painting he looks more like a famous movie star than like an Aztec ruler. Beatrice’s mother likes that about him. She tells Beatrice that she is in love with Montezuma now that Beatrice’s father is gone.
“Montezuma’s also dead,” Beatrice says, and her mother smiles as if that were a really good joke.
“Who-ah.” Humbletonian turns into the Middleland Mall Complex. They pass through a large empty lot dotted with circles of light. It is freezing cold. “Who-ah.” Humbletonian clops to a halt outside the Walmart entrance. At the doors, they wait on the horse. Their breath is visible in the cold air. Humbletonian stomps her hoof as though asking, “What next?” Her motion is detected by a sensor. The door swings open to let them in. Humbletonian takes a few steps back before she steadies.
They’d have to duck their heads to make it through the entry. “I bet they’ve never had a horse inside there.” Clem tilts his neck. A security officer stationed by the theft-deterrent column stands to adjust his utility belt. He eyes their transportation with more than suspicion. He steps outside.
“I know you’re not even thinking about bringing that beast in here,” he says.
“But I was thinking of it,” Clem says. “So you’re wrong.”
The guard palms his nightstick. He looks like just the sort of security officer who would have Clem ticketed for an inane livestock violation still on the books from 1823. No Horse-Riding on Public Holidays. Clem slides off Humbletonian, leading Beatrice over to the corral for collecting shopping carts. He ties Humbletonian’s reins to the metal bar. Beatrice slides off the curve of her flank.
Few people seem to be shopping. Clem asks a young man in a Walmart smock, “Excuse me. What’s going on here?”
The young man raises his eyebrows, waiting for some clue as to how he can assist them. “Lots of things are going on here,” the boy says finally.
“Walmart’s open?” Clem asks. “It’s Thanksgiving.”
The boy stares at the dog food he’s been pricing, looking to the back of the shelf, seeing something golden but invisible to everyone else.
Clem bends to see what the boy’s looking at. Just the back of the metal shelf. Clem grabs Beatrice’s arm and leads her away.
Up front, the store is ready for Christmas. Past Christmas comes an aisle of automotive and craft/hobby supplies, then an aisle of hair products and footwear, then an aisle of watches and diamond-chip rings. All of these aisles dead-end at the wall of sporting goods/hunting gear. Ladies’ and menswear are intersected by a row of birthday cards, logic-puzzle books, scented candles, deodorant, and toothpaste. Beatrice and Clem pass the electronics division. They’re sold out of the game Clem was thinking about buying, Dead or Alive 5000. There is a paper SALE sign that Clem swipes at.
“Do you need anything?”
Beatrice detects a flashing pulse in the fluorescent lighting. “Nope. Let’s go.”
/> Clem takes a pack of gum, puts it in his pocket. “For Mom,” and they leave quickly without paying for the gum.
Outside, Humbletonian is no longer tied up. She is gone, and Beatrice bets it was the security guard. “Shit.” Clem giggles because, by the shopping-cart corral, there is a pile of horseshit that Humbletonian left behind.
Clem scans the parking lot. The circles of light underneath each lamp are still there, but no horse. “You go that way,” Clem tells Beatrice. “I’ll go this way and I’ll meet you around back. We’ll flush her out.” Clem departs around one side of the giant complex and Beatrice walks off in the other direction.
The store is so long that she feels as though she’ll never even reach the corner of it. Beatrice is an astronaut dragging a two-hundred-pound space suit. That’s why her footsteps can’t carry her forward. She stops altogether. “I wouldn’t have killed him,” Beatrice says out loud. She waits until she hears a question from the far side of her brain, from her mother. “What would you have done? Just let him suffer? Let him go on breathing that bubbly wet breath that sounded like a damn water fountain?” “Yes,” Beatrice answers. “Yes, I would have.”
The Walmart does not end. It goes on and on, windowless and solid. Beatrice thinks of the old cartoons. An illustrator draws two panels of background, a desert or a pine forest, and by bringing one panel in front of the other, he can keep it going forever, a duplicated landscape Wile E. Coyote can run through. If she had four legs like Humbletonian she’d be able to get around the back of the mall faster. She thinks to skip but after ten or eleven lengths her lungs chug and backfire on the cold air. She walks the rest of the way.
Behind the shopping center there are bulldozers, at least twenty of them huddled with their backs to Beatrice, in a private conference. It’s freezing. Apart from the dozers there’s nothing here except a gigantic hole. It is tremendous, far larger than a football field, and it is filled with water. In the dark, the hole extends beyond the limit of Beatrice’s vision. Clem is already standing at the edge, looking down into it. Humbletonian is there, too. She has climbed down into the pit and is walking across the surface of the ice formed there. It’s like a lake. Maybe one of the bulldozers broke a water pipe while digging. There’s a lot of water here, a reservoir’s worth, or, Beatrice hopes not, frozen sewage. Humbletonian is walking across the ice, bending every now and again to lick the surface.
“Woo-hoo! Humbletonian!” Clem yells. “Good horse. Good horse,” he shouts. Humbletonian turns from where she is, halfway across the ice, and when she sees Clem and Beatrice she begins to trot across the very center of the pit toward them, more like a dog than a horse. Her coat is as silver as the ice, and beautiful.
Beatrice lifts up her arms and shakes her hips. “Woo-hoo! Horsey!” she calls. Time slows to a pace where Beatrice can notice every single thing. Humbletonian’s muscles, her breath coming out of her flared nostrils, and the odd rhythm of her trot. She notices the gorgeous ice and dirt and the lovely darkness, thick as felt, existing in this ugly place. She can hear each hoof as it falls against the ice. Beauty stands nearby, a shadowy person whose exhales become Beatrice’s inhales, warming her up. This moment of warmth, this beautiful horse. A jealous hole cracks open in the ice, swallowing the back legs and hindquarters of Humbletonian faster than thought.
Humbletonian tries to clear the water, but each clop of her front hooves shatters what she’s grabbed. There can’t be that much water underneath her. But she’s not touching the bottom. Clem starts to swear, but slowly; everything is happening so slowly at first that time will come to a halt and the world behind the shopping center will be all right. It might even be possible to ignore the drowning horse. Beatrice and her brother are here only in a dream. They will both wake up soon.
Beatrice reaches her arms even higher. “Clem,” she says. Clem wrings his hands. He lowers himself into the pit, down to where the ice starts. He is moving carefully. Humbletonian is thrashing. It’s the only sound. The water must be freezing. “Clem,” Beatrice says again, and again Clem wrings his hands so hard he might tear them off by his wrists. He steps out onto the edge of the ice and creeps toward Humbletonian. She is in up to her middle. Only her front hooves and her head are above the ice. Clem stops. The horse is twisting and snorting. She screams as much as a horse can scream. Clem raises his hands to his face. He takes another step toward the horse. “Clem,” Beatrice repeats his name a third time. He turns to look at her. A seam has been cut open in Clem through the center of his face. A seam that says there is no way to stop this. No way for a man to save a horse drowning in freezing water. Clem brings his hands up to his ears and, pressing the small knobs of cartilage there, he stops listening.
Quiet moments pass. The static returns, as though it were being broadcast from nearby. Humbletonian starts giving up. The water has dropped her into shock. Beatrice can see a lot of white in the horse’s eye, as though it had been pried open. It blinks dry air once more. Humbletonian’s head goes under. Her forelegs, above the barrier of the ice, kick, emptying what’s inside them. It is a gruesome convulsion.
“She’s getting away.” Beatrice skids on her heels down to where her brother stands. She walks out onto the ice. A loud crack bellows from the frozen water, like a whip pushing Beatrice back, away from her horse. Beatrice drops to her knees and Humbletonian goes under all the way. Their horse is gone. The water flattens out over her head.
Clem lowers his hands. “Don’t.” But Beatrice doesn’t listen. She sits down on the ice and watches the hole where Humbletonian went. She slides toward it on her knees. The hole doesn’t do anything.
The silence fills in around Beatrice and Clem like insulation. The two of them look down into the black hole, waiting, maybe, for some triumphant geyser, a phoenix, or Pegasus to rise up out of the water. Fifteen minutes pass, maybe half an hour before they recognize what they are staring at: an empty black hole.
“Clem.” Beatrice has her back to him. “You know what Mom told me?”
“What?”
“She gave the doctor permission to kill Dad.”
“Yeah, I know,” Clem says.
“You know?”
“She asked me what I thought before she did it.”
No one asked Beatrice. She sat by her father’s hospital bed for days, rubbing lotion into the dry skin of his calves and feet, and no one said anything to her. “No one asked me.”
“We already knew what you’d say.”
Since her father’s death, Beatrice’s parents have been two-dimensional pieces of paper she folds up, tucks into her back pocket, and forgets about when she does her laundry, fishing them out of the lint trap later: her mother all things bad, her father all things good. But Clem ruins it every time. There’s Clem, sitting on the ice, shaking his head, saying, “It’s no one’s fault, Bea.” But Beatrice would like to find someone to blame.
Even with the static, she sees a map in front of her, a map of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. She sees that they arrived here at this future rather than a different one. One with horses. Maybe that future would have been better. But they had arrived here to a time when their farm is dead, when Beatrice has moved away to the city, when Clem is stuck in place, and when, most nights, her mother walks down to the end of the driveway, out to meet the incoming tide in Pennsylvania.
Beatrice leans forward, lowering her whole body onto the ice. She pushes herself on her stomach out to where the horse disappeared. She rests her cheek there for a long time. She pets her horse through the ice. “Don’t go any farther,” Clem says. Beatrice dips her hand inside the hole, into a land that is already lost.
THE HOUSE BEGAN TO PITCH
She’d come for plywood as the radio advised. “Ma’am, can you swipe your card again?” Mysterious forces had erased the magnetic strip on her Visa. A manager is called over. Ada keels onto one hip while the people in line behind her rot and glare, their arms loaded with jugs of water, rolls of plastic. The air-conditioning raises goosefles
h on Ada’s arms. She waits for the manager’s approval.
It isn’t until she wheels her purchases out to her car that the geometry of the situation strikes her. Her small sedan is no place for four sheets of plywood. Sweat makes dark circles on her tank top. She looks at the wood. She looks at her car. She tightens her ponytail, and rather than asking someone for help or going to get a refund, she drags her teeth across her top lip.
In a few hours this parking lot will steam as the first raindrops strike. The light fixtures will ping as the wind picks up. The orange H in the Home Depot sign might loosen from its moorings, taking flight across the state of Florida, a glorious end to a bright career.
She’s done what they asked. She’s bought plywood. She’s just not going to take it home with her. Ada leaves the wood nosed into the island between car grilles, an offering. She starts her engine and Neil Young sings, “I saw your brown eyes turning once to fire.” Signaling a right turn with her left hand crooked at the elbow, Ada pulls out of the parking lot.
* * *
When she moved here from Rhode Island, it took her three days to make the drive. She stopped at the halfway point to tell someone where she was headed. “Florida.” She smiled.
The Virginia rest area worker, positioned behind the Visitor’s Information desk, sneered. “Florida’s an old coral reef. Geologically it’s brand-new.” He passed her a brochure for Colonial Williamsburg.
Brand-new and improved. Ada left the brochure behind.
When Ada arrived she bought a tiny one-story rectangle. A square house from the seventies with tall glass windows floor to ceiling, dark wood, and the occasional odor of mold that comes with basement-free homes. The neighborhood is nothing much, some mobile houses and a family who races ATVs down the street. But Ada eats breakfast on the lanai. She sleeps with the windows open, the sound of dry vegetation brushing against the stucco. Kingbirds spear bugs and dead flowers in her yard. Lizards inflate their pink necks. It is nothing like the version of Florida Rhode Island believes. That Florida is confined to tabloid headlines: 26-FOOT PYTHON FOUND UNDERNEATH 75-YEAR-OLD WOMAN’S HOME or ALLIGATORS ON THE LOOSE IN SUBURBAN MIAMI.
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