The Mare

Beverly

Jesus Christ. Even her, the tough black girl from the city — or Puerto Rican, or whatever she is — even she’s been ruined by the Disneyfied horse-snot they sell in the multiplex. Love and self-esteem, love and self-esteem — love is good for babies and that’s it. Yes, you make a horse good by raising it up with a little love and a lot of discipline. But you make a horse great by making it feel like shit. Because it knows it is not shit and it will turn itself inside out to prove it to you. Sure you give it love, just a touch. And then you make it crave the love, make it try to please you for another little taste — it will turn itself inside out to show you it’s good; you make that horse prove it over and over, every time. If that horse is worth anything, it will pull up everything it’s got for you and it will find what it’s worth and be more and more proud. It will know it can take whatever you got and sometimes it will give it back. But it will know its worth. And it will do anything to make you know it. It will die to make you know it. Not that I’d go that far. That would be stupid. Because that horse is worth more than me. The dumb animal just doesn’t know it. It’s me that’s shit. Not him.