Menagerie

by Bradford Morrow

  The Snow on Tompkins Square Park

  Frederic Tuten

  A MAN LIMPED into a bar. He folded his stubby hands on the counter. The bartender, Aloysius, a blue horse, said, “What will you have?”

  “A glass of water, please.”

  “We serve horses here, and people who look horsey. You aren’t and you don’t.”

  “I’m waiting for my girlfriend, she’s very horsey.”

  “Well, in that case,” the bartender said, “cool your heels.”

  The man waited a few minutes, checked his watch, looked out the window. Freezing rain fell outside. He nursed his water and then, twenty-seven minutes later, when the glass was dry, he said, “I guess she’s not coming. Or she got stuck in the rain.”

  “Wait a while longer,” the bartender said. “You don’t want her to come and find you gone.”

  He had been thinking the same thing but he also thought he would leave and give her a lesson for always being late and expecting him to be waiting. Or if she did not come at all, he could pretend he was never there. But the icy rain decided him to stay. It gave him a good excuse to tarry.

  “Thanks,” the man said. He wanted to give weight to his “thanks” and added, “Very sporting of you.”

  He moved to the edge of the bar to make space for other customers but none seemed to be coming. He looked about the room. A table of three horses. They looked at him not unfriendly but not friendly, looked at him in a dispassionate way, he thought. One horse, a red filly, gave him a warm smile, showing him all her teeth. Some were drinking a dark beer in glass buckets and there were bowls of oats set on each table but no one was eating.

  The bar had no TV and no radio. The woman he was waiting for made him unhappy. She had always made him unhappy, she would always make him unhappy. That thought made him say: “I’d like a scotch.”

  “Sure,” the bartender said.

  “And make it a double, neat.” He had heard that word “neat” in movies and liked its ring.

  “We have all kinds of scotches,” the bartender said.

  The man looked into his wallet and said, “Nothing too expensive and nothing too cheap, if you have.”

  The horse gave him a long stare with one eye. “That’s OK, you don’t need to order anything. I’ll bring you another glass of water, with a lemon twist this time if you want.”

  “Yes, I’d like that,” the man said. “And the scotch too, please.” He looked at his stubby, hairy fingers, counting each one twice. He looked in the mirror behind the rows of glowing, friendly bottles, and saw that nothing of him looked horsey but that he looked, rather, like a flounder.

  After silently counting his fingers again and letting his thoughts roam, he heard a voice from one of the tables.

  “Hey! If you’re alone, come over and join us, why don’t you,” the red filly said.

  He glanced at the bartender, who said, “That’s fine. I’ll bring over your drink.”

  The man introduced himself. The others did the same. One, who looked like he had a thoughtful life, was named “Jake.” The other, with a black patch over his eye, was named “Patch,” and the red filly said her name was “Red.”

  “Someone stand you up?” she asked.

  He stood up and sat down again. “It seems like it. Yes, someone.”

  “What brings you to these parts, Louie?”

  “I live up the street, on the park.”

  “Never seen you here,” the filly said.

  “I heard we weren’t welcome.”

  “Everyone’s welcome who looks a little horsey or is sympathetic to horses or hasn’t injured them. Have you?”

  “No, I like horses. Thought I would like to be one. But I guess I can’t because I look like a flounder.”

  They laughed. “That’s very funny,” Jake, the wise-looking horse, said. “But you don’t look like a flounder, you look more like a, like a codfish!”

  Then Patch said, “Doesn’t matter what fish you look like, you look like a fish out of water.”

  “Yes, I’m a fish out of water. I don’t know where the water is.”

  “I think you need to be cheered up a bit,” the filly said. “Have another drink.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Louie said. “One’s on the way.” He called out to the bartender.

  Two horses walked in, one very large, broad and meaty, with a cocky walk; the other lean and shy, with his head down. They came to the table. The cocky one said, “Who’s this fella?”

  “A friend,” the filly said.

  The large horse gave him an intimidating look. Then said to the filly, “Whatya doing later?”

  “I don’t know, Harry,” she said. “It’s not later yet.”

  “OK, OK,” he laughed it off. “I’ll be here a while and catch you later. You too, fella,” he said. He took his time getting to the bar, the shy one trailing behind.

  “Don’t mind him,” Red said. “He used to be a police horse. He was very proud of himself when he was younger. He was big in the Macy’s Day Parade and the Easter Day parade and the Columbus Day parade and all the important parades and now he’s retired with a nice pension.”

  “I didn’t mind him,” Louie said.

  Patch, who had been silent until then, said: “Don’t mind him but watch out when he starts backing into you because soon he’ll have you squeezed against a wall and you’ll wonder what happened to your breath. He learned lots of nasty tricks for all kinds of occasions.”

  The bartender brought over a half–filled tall glass of scotch and a glass of water with a twist of lemon. “Be anything else?”

  “Not right now,” Louie said, looking about him. He smiled and raised his glass in toast to his new companions. “To horses,” he said.

  The wise horse tapped his hoof on the table and said to the bartender: “Bring him a bag of oats—no, make it a bowl. And don’t forget a spoon.”

  A yellow horse with long eyelashes sauntered into the bar solo. She came to the table and daintily made her hellos.

  “Hello, Sally,” Red said. “Haven’t see you in a while.”

  “Well, I’ve been here and there,” she said. “Mostly there, if you get my drift.” She gave the man a long, friendly look and smiled, showing a row of large, white teeth.

  “Introduce me to your friend, why don’t ya?”

  “This is Louie,” Red said. “He owns a few banks and a string of polo ponies.”

  “Hey! That’s great,” Sally said. “See you later, Mr. Banker.”

  She left and brushed up to the police horse. They chattered amiably. Affably. The police horse said loudly, “Bring Sally a Kir Royale.”

  Red turned to the man and, sotto voce, said: “She had her teeth done, can’t you tell? Anyway, she used to be a circus horse. Very famous and loved by persons from six to sixty! She had the riders stand on her bare back, and she’d circle faster and faster but no one ever fell off.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Louie said, his thoughts traveling elsewhere. “Fish out of water,” he said dreamily. “What’s the water I belong to? The Atlantic, the Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Nile, the Amazon, the Hudson?”

  “You could swim in the East River,” Jake said. “It’s so close you could walk right over and dive in.”

  “Cod don’t swim in the East River,” Patch said.

  “Well, they used to swim in the Hudson two hundred years ago,” the wise horse said. “It’s an estuary, you know.”

  Everyone nodded. Aloysius called out, “A river drowned in an ocean.”

  “You know, the longer you sit here, the less you look like a fish and the more you look like a horse,” Red said.

  “How kind,” Louie said.

  “Yes,” the wise horse said, “that’s true. I see equine features emerging. Maybe because I see Red, our friend here, likes you.”

  “Oh! Go on,” she said, with a huff.

  “I’m sorry, think I have intruded on something here,” said Louie.

  “But noth
ing that can’t be resolved, right, Red?” the wise horse said.

  The filly tossed her head and said, “Look! It’s stopped raining.” And, turning to Louie, “Maybe you’d like to go for a walk?”

  “Think I could use one. Think I’m getting a little tipsy.” He let his head fall to one side. He laughed. He called out to the bartender, “If a woman comes in looking for me, offer her a drink and ask her to wait, OK? A Kir Royale, maybe.”

  The bartender nodded. The police horse turned swiftly and said, “That’s my signature drink. Go find another, chum.”

  “Don’t even answer him,” the filly said. “Let’s just go.”

  And they went into the day.

  The day was gray. A chilled gray. The sky was thickening with crystals of gray light. He was gray.

  Tompkins Square Park was empty but for a lone policeman, statue-like, in a glistening rain slicker.

  “Let’s cut through here,” she said, stepping into the walk on Eighth and Avenue B.

  “I never knew they let horses in the park,” he said, stopping short.

  “They don’t,” she said, “but the cop’s a friend.”

  “How ya doing, Red?” the cop said. “Still looking for work?”

  “Not anymore,” she said. “My horse came in.”

  The cop looked at the man, up and down.

  “Who’s this?”

  “A friend. He lives here.”

  The cop mused on this and said: “Never seen you before.”

  “I swim mostly in the East River, by the fire boat.”

  “That’s why,” the cop said. Then, turning to the filly, he said, “What you doing later, Red?”

  “Later than when?” she asked.

  “OK,” the cop said. “I get it. See you around.”

  They walked. Red said, “You seem to have trouble dragging that leg. Wanna sit down a minute?”

  They did, on a slatted bench still wet from the rain. After a while, he said, “I’m a dull man. I’m a very dull one.”

  “That’s true,” she said. “And colorless.”

  “I always wanted to be colorless and not bother anyone.”

  “Well, you don’t bother me!” she said, in a voice that cheered him, just as the rain began to turn to snow.

  “I used,” he said, “to love to read about famous horses. That’s how I came to like them. Like the Lone Ranger’s horse, Silver, or King Alexander’s horse, Bucephalus, or Quixote’s horse, Rocinante.”

  “I don’t read much,” she said. “I’m not for the life of the mind, like Aloysius or Jake, who’s always reading—and I don’t mean for the odds.”

  “I never knew that horses liked to read.”

  “That’s sad. Sad that you don’t know a thing!”

  He was afraid he had hurt her feelings, his not knowing this about horses, so he said, “I always wanted a life without misfortune. So it’s been a life without much range.”

  She said nothing. He the same. The snow fell on them and around them and whitened the black branches of the naked trees and the black tops of the park’s iron railings. Red said, “I always like the snow and the way it tells us new things.”

  “I like the way it makes everything quiet for awhile,” Louie said, wanting to add to the conversation.

  It was darkening, the snow deepening and swirling like little white tornadoes.

  “It’s getting cold now, I’m going back to the bar,” she said. “I can enjoy the snow through the window.”

  He was cold but didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to go home. The stairs, the climb, dragging his leg, the same door, the same key, the same turning on the hall light, the same hundred and twenty-five watts.

  “I’ll walk you back, if you like,” Louie said.

  “Don’t you have a cane?” Red asked.

  He did, but he had left his house without it, not wanting to seem old.

  “I have three for decoration but forgot them at home.”

  “Well then, get ahold of me because I don’t want you to slip and fall.”

  The pathway was heaping up with snow and the tree branches bent under its wet weight. He could hear the rumble of the snow trucks sent out to do their work, and the cries of the snowball fighters far down Avenue B. They walked cautiously, he gripping the snow-topped park rail until his hand went numb.

  Red stopped. “Louie, why don’t you climb aboard and I’ll give you a ride home. Then I can walk back to the bar myself.”

  “Not possible. I never let a lady walk alone at night.” It was not true but he felt heroic saying this and he wanted her to feel his heroism.

  She shook off the snow in gentle, slow sways. He brushed away the little white ridge left on her head and spine.

  “I could come to your place,” Red said carefully, “but I suppose you don’t have an elevator.”

  Louie imagined her standing in his living room, her hooves leaving little puddles of snow, making the fading roses on the carpet bloom, the steam from her body and breath painting the walls with tropical color.

  “No elevator,” he said, “but maybe now I’ll move where there is one.”

  They heard a voice through the snow.

  “Hey, Red, wondering if you lost your way in this blizzard.” It was the police horse.

  Then, seeing Louie, he said, “Still here, chum?”

  “Thanks for looking after me,” Red said. “But we’re copacetic.”

  The horse said, “Oh! Sure, Red,” and wedged himself between the filly and the man, shouldering him against the rail and slowly pressing the wind out of him.

  “Don’t be a jerk, Harry. Stop or you’ll never see me again.”

  “Come on, it’s just a friendly shove,” the police horse said.

  “Stop or I’ll get you eighty-sixed from the bar forever.”

  Harry stopped and in a small, childish voice said, “I’m sorry, Red, and you, too, mister.”

  He backed away into the curtaining snow and darkness and called out from a distance, “I’m not sorry at all.”

  “Louie, you don’t look so good,” Red said.

  His ribs hurt and he spoke with a wheeze. “I’m all right, Red, I just need to catch my wind.”

  They stood for a moment, he wavering against her, while the snow tumbled down on them in clumps.

  “I think you should come back to the bar, Louie. You’re going blue. You could use a drink,” she said.

  “Sure, Red, let’s go then.” Louie gave her his bravest smile.

  They slowly made their way to the bar, where Aloysius greeted them and Jake said, “Back from the South Pole already?”

  “Aloysius, let’s fix up Louie here with a drink. Something special,” Red said. “He’s going soft under the gills.”

  They sat at the table, Louie sunk weakly in the chair.

  Jake said, “He’s all wet and going green.”

  The bartender thought about it and said, “I have something here, something very old, from the days when the Greeks fermented their wine with grapes from a sacred mountain grove, grapes that sucked iron power from the sun.”

  “That mountain,” Jake said, “where Plato threw dice with the gods.”

  “Oh! That wild man in love with horses,” Patch said. “Did he ever know we horses dreamed him his ideas?”

  “We read and we write and we dream. We dream the books that all the books in the world come from. We dreamed books before the earth got cool. We dreamed books before the invention of Time,” Jake said.

  Sally, her head on the bar counter, looked up and said in a sloppy voice, “It’s always life in the past you talk about but where are we now, tell me?”

  Then she gave a long look over to the table and said: “Hello, Mr. Banker, buy a lady a drink?”

  “Yes,” Louie said.

  “Bring me the best,” Sally said to the bartender, but then she put her head back on the counter and fell asleep.

  “It’s hard not being young and a star of the ring,” Red said. “You didn�
�t have to buy her a drink but it was sweet of you.”

  “You know,” Jake said, “now I see that you don’t look like a fish of any kind at all.”

  “Like a beached whale?” Louie asked. “Like a whale in the snow?”

  “No, not at all,” Patch said.

  “You look like something in the becoming,” Jake said, tilting his head.

  Aloysius brought over a golden drink glowing with the drowned light of an old sun.

  Louie sipped until color came back to his face. “Feeling better,” he said, but then he shivered in the cold of his wet clothes.

  “You should go home and get into bed,” Red said, “before you catch the pneumonia.”

  “Oh! Not right now,” the man said, his cheeks flushed. “I like it here, my friends,” he said, raising his glass.

  Aloysius went to the door and opened it to a wall of mounting snow. A wind of flakes swarmed through the room.

  “Sorry, but I doubt if you can leave now anyway,” he said to Louie. “You can’t walk in these drifts, and there’s nothing moving in sight.”

  “Wonderful, I’ll stay a while, I’ll stay till spring,” Louie said.

  “You can stay the night,” Aloysius said, “just as long as you don’t have another drop.”

  “He’s not drunk,” Red said. “He’s pleased.”

  “Not drunk at all,” Louie said, rising, glass in hand. “I drink to you all and to this retreat, to this cave, to this glade of dreamers. I drink to becoming.”

  “He’s feverish,” Jake said, “his face is sending off sparks.”

  “It’s hot in here,” Louie said, “even though I’m freezing.”

  Aloysius and Red led him to a back room with three stalls of hay. Louie undressed to his shorts and stretched himself out in the straw.

  “Take this,” Aloysius said, covering him with a thick horse blanket. And turning to Red, the bartender said, “I think we’re all glued here till morning.”

  “Don’t use that word, it give me the chills,” Red said.

  “What’s the difference,” Aloysius said, “the glue or the ashes? The soul is immortal.”

  “I always wondered,” Louie said, suddenly raising his head.