The Mare

Velvet

The next day I went to the barn early, at eight instead of nine. Ginger said she would go with me, but I didn’t want Gare to see me walk in with her. Because that would make the stupid bitch think I was afraid of her and I wasn’t. What I was afraid of was that they took my horse away. I didn’t know where they’d put her. But I was afraid I’d go and she wouldn’t be there anymore.

But she was there, biting and kicking her stall like normal. Instead Gare wasn’t there, not the retarded boy either. There was just Beth, looking at me too hard and saying hi too nice. I expected Pat to give me hell, but she didn’t even say nothing. Except that we were short that day, so there was more work to do, which she said I’d be happy about because it meant I earned my lesson quicker.

I almost forgot about it. Until it was almost lunch and Beth was already outside the barn eating out of her brown bag. I was still cleaning Little Tina’s stall when Pat came and stood next to me. She said, “After you left, I had a little talk with Gare Ann and she decided to take the day off. Now I need to talk to you.”

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.