Alice Hoffman - Here On Earth

Last night, when she called her friend Minnie to complain and decompress, Minnie wasn’t home. Her mother said she was sleeping at Pepita Anderson’s house, but that’s nothing more than a code all the girls use, a fake friend, a disembodied name given to parents when you want to be out all night. The old Pepita excuse, Gwen planned to tease Minnie, if she ever got to talk to her. Well, I hope you enjoyed yourself. I hope you had a whole bunch of fun, because I sure am not having any. If she were home, Gwen would probably be over at the Shopping Center; at least she could spend some money and feel better. Here, when she wants to get away from her mother there are only these silver fields, and the fading light, and the woods filled with things that are probably watching her-raccoons and weasels, and hopefully nothing more.

As she walks along this empty road, Gwen realizes that nobody knows her. No one could begin to imagine what it’s like to be her. Ever since she got here, she’s been desperate to get back to California, but if she’s really going to be honest, what is she going back to? She’s a loser, that’s the truth. She hates school, she hates all her friends, except for Minnie-who, when you come right down to it, is even more of a loser-she hates her last two boyfriends, both of whom she had sex with for reasons she can’t remember anymore. Admittedly, the sex was nothing. She’d heard so much about it, but it turned out she was floating outside her body while she did all those things. It wasn’t love, that’s for sure. It was all so nothing. If a nuclear bomb fell from the sky, would it really matter? Wouldn’t it be better to be blown away, completely and utterly, before she screws up the rest of her life?

She started to think like this at the funeral parlor, and she’s been morbid ever since, going over weird concepts. What, for instance, will she do with the rest of her life? Now that she’s here, with no outside stimulus-no TV, telephone, mall, pot, boy-who is she really? Why can’t she go back to being the way she was before she came here, when she barely thought at all?

Gwen puts out her cigarette on the road, crushing the embers beneath her boot. She leans on a rickety wooden fence, and reaches into her pocket for a scarf. But before she can loop the fabric around her throat, she begins to feel a tingling sensation on the back of her neck. It’s as if someone was breathing on her; either she’s going crazy, or someone is right there behind her. She might have turned and run home without stopping to see what sort of creature breathed out such warm air, if she hadn’t then heard a noise, one so small it resembled a question mark. Even before she turns and sees Tarot, Gwen feels as if she’s entered into a dream. This night, with its dark and silver edges, this horse on the other side of the fence who has come to her without being called. And perhaps that is why she has no second thoughts as she slips through the railings and goes into the pasture; it’s a dream, and it’s hers, and she’s desperate to see what happens next.

Up on the hill, Hank grabs one of the youngest dogs, who’s begun to yelp, and gives it a shake. He wants to see this, and he doesn’t want some idiot dog to announce his presence. Hank tries to be responsible in most things, and usually he is. He knows he should climb down the hill, fast, and stop this girl. If she stays in the pasture, she could get hurt. Tarot has charged at much lesser things-at the wind, for instance, at butterflies and bees. But Tarot seems completely hypnotized, maybe because the girl is so beautiful against the blue-black sky, or maybe Hank is the one who’s been hypnotized. In fact, the only time Gwen has even seen a real live horse has been at county fairs. She doesn’t even think to be afraid. She’s comfortable enough to stand beside Tarot and talk to him when most grown men would run. That’s what she’s doing down there in the field, where frost coats the soles of her borrowed boots. She’s telling this evil old horse that he’s gorgeous, and he seems to like what he’s hearing. He steps closer to Gwen, carefully, slowly, as if to hear more of whatever she has to say.

It is very odd, indeed, to see the horse everyone called a killer trail along, mild as can be, as the girl heads toward the rotten stump Hank should have pulled last spring. It had been a huge maple tree, before lightning split it in two. Ken Helm took it down, in exchange for the wood, and Hank was supposed to come here with some dynamite and get rid of what was left. Now, he’s glad he forgot. What remains of that old maple is the perfect height for this girl to get onto so she can throw herself onto Tarot’s back. When she nearly falls off, she gives Tarot a little slap, which, in other circumstances, would have sent him racing.

“Stand still,” she tells him. “You big cutie.”

Although Gwen knows nothing about horses, she’s right about his size. Tarot is sixteen hands high, which is even bigger when you’re up on his back, looking down at the ground.

“Be a good boy,” she tells him.

For his part, Tarot seems too shocked to move. If this girl does get hurt, Hank will have to live with it. A broken leg, a crumpled spine would be his fault. And yet, he does nothing to stop her. The muscles in his arm have tightened; his pulse is going fast. He keeps a hand on the yelpy dog, willing to shake it like a dust mop if the dog dares to bark and startle Tarot.

Gwen is leaning forward, her hands holding on to the horse’s mane. She’s afraid that if she blinks this will all disappear and she’ll wake in her bed to find she never even left the house; she never borrowed these boots, or walked along the road, or found this beautiful horse. If this is a dream, she wants to go on sleeping. She doesn’t make a sound; that’s how much she wants this to be real. And as he watches from the highest point on Fox Hill, Hank wants it for her just as badly. In this pasture, in the dark, Gwen’s life has made a major turn, something as rare as planets leaving their orbits to crash into each other and fill up the night. In a place she never wanted to be, on a night that will be cold enough to freeze the apples on the trees, she is no longer alone.

The Coward sits on a hard-backed chair, wearing gloves and boots, since the old house where he lives hasn’t got a bit of heat. He does not deserve heat, he knows that. He deserves exactly what he’s got, which is nothing, in spades. He’s not quite fifty, but most people would guess he’s twenty years older than that. His skin is sallow and pockmarked. His long hair and beard are gray. He’s thin as a twig, and as crooked as one too. When he happens to catch sight of himself in the reflection of his battered coffeepot, he always gets a good laugh. He is what he appears to be, there’s no hiding that. His inside is affecting his outside, like a rotten piece of fruit.

Years ago, when the Coward was a boy, he was on the debating team at the local high school. He had a slick quality, which always helps in an argument, and was often applauded for his speaking voice. Words, however, are nothing to him now. There are weeks when he doesn’t talk to anyone. He doesn’t complain to the fleas who live in his mattress; he doesn’t bother to shoo the flies away from his morning cereal-that is, when he remembers to eat. He has ruined his life, and although he can’t blame it all on drink, drinking has become his whole universe. Sometimes, he doesn’t bother to get out of bed before he starts. It’s just as easy to lie there and reach for the bottle; he doesn’t even have to open his eyes.

This morning some woman was knocking at his door. She must not have known that the Coward’s philosophy of life makes him temperamentally unfit for human contact, although he did appreciate Judith Dale’s visits. When he heard the stranger out on his porch, the Coward knew it wasn’t Judith, since she is dead, and there’s no one else he allows to visit. He crawled to the window on his belly so he could peek outside. The woman out there had long, dark hair; in spite of a heavy, woolen coat, she looked as if she were freezing. She was ill at ease, and kept glancing over her shoulder. She knocked several times, and when there was no answer she called out “Alan” in a clear, pretty voice which startled the Coward. That name-which he never uses anymore and would never sign on a piece of paper, even if offered a hundred dollars cash-made him cover his ears and count to a thousand. Luckily, by the time he was done, the woman had left.