Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

“No,” I said.

“Well, he was not only the first, he was the only one, really. I was fifteen, and it was my first job. He was just a yearling. He came running up to me the first day, right up to the fence.”

Fugly Girl cut mad nasty gas. It stank and it made me smile. I rubbed the sweet spot between her shoulders. She turned her head and I saw the beautiful long hairs she had under her eye, like horse eyelashes. She blinked and put her head down a little.

“I was the only one who could ride Scorpio, and still we almost killed each other. He kicked me, I kicked him. Which I do not recommend, by the way, if this one ever kicks you, because even though I got away with it the first time, Scorpio remembered. And the next time he had the chance, he kicked me so I saw both back feet coming right for my face. I saw the nails on the bottom of his shoes and I thought, I hope there’s a doctor here who can put my face back together. And the feet went right past my head on either side. After that, we were good. He’d made his point.”

“Miss Pat,” I said. “If it wasn’t the little girl that abused Fugly Girl, who did? Was it the girl’s parents?”

“I’d call it more neglect than abuse on their part. They took her off the bush track circuit and were racing her as a quarter horse. They had her in a trailer with some other horses on the way back from a race. It was a long trip and one of her back shoes came halfway off, and she somehow stepped on a nail. And they didn’t have money for the vet. I guess she hadn’t won nothin’ for ’em in a while, so they just kept her in her stall and hoped it would get better. Instead it got infected. They wound up selling her cheap to some freak, a doctor who treated the infection half-assed, then starved her and beat her when she didn’t ‘perform.’ Those scars on her face? Those are from a halter he strapped to her face too tight and never took off. It was months before I could get a halter on her. She was a real big B and you know what, that’s great. Being like that was the only way she stopped him from breaking her spirit.”

“Miss Pat, when she kicks and bites her stall, is she lashing out like you said, like a bad mood?”

“Oh no, that — well, kind of. The biting is a nervous habit. It’s called ‘cribbing’ and it’s like some people biting their nails. The kicking, some of that is hormone issues. She’s feeling uncomfortable because — well, basically, she’s just being a girl. Here, watch me do her feet.”

She leaned in and stroked her hand down Fugly’s leg, pinching when she reached a special place; the foot came up like a button got pushed. Pat took a sharp thing and dug dirt out of the hooves. Fugly Girl made her lips like a camel’s!

“So how’d you get her?”

“The freak’s neighbor knew about me. I’d given lessons to his daughter. He told the freak that he’d call the cops if he kept up the abuse. He gave him my number and the doctor called me. I met the child when I went to pick up the horse. For some weird reason, the doctor called her to say good-bye to her horse. When I got there she was feeding Fugly Girl an apple out of her hand. Her mother didn’t even get out of the car. The girl walked the mare into the trailer for me. I’m not sure I could’ve gotten that horse in without her, even with Beth. Here, you want to pick up her foot?”

Her leg when I slid my hand on it was like something with roots in the ground. Then I got to the spot; it was like butterfly bones, between the body and the wing. Her leg bent into my arm, and her heavy hoof came up.

“The kid held it together until the door to the trailer closed. Then she cried her guts out.”

I held Fugly Girl’s wing-hoof and thought about the girl who would never see this horse again. I cleaned the dirt out of the foot.

When we drove to the train station, she cried. She seemed okay that morning; she smiled and said she wanted to see her little brother. She went to visit the horses one last time and came back with a big rusty horseshoe that she wrapped carefully in one of her shirts.

But on the way to the station I turned around in my seat and saw her face withdrawn and her body slumped like it had no feeling. Then when we got out of the car, she dropped her suitcase — it seemed like on purpose — and it popped open and she began to quietly cry.

“Don’t cry,” said Paul. “You’ll be back.”

“When?” she asked.

He paused uneasily and then said, “Next year.”

But she heard his unease louder than his words. She stopped crying and withdrew again. She stayed withdrawn for most of the train trip, staring out the window at the bright river with her lips parted and her eyes a thousand miles away.

—

Her mother and little brother met us at the station. The woman surprised me by kissing me on both cheeks; Paul she merely approved with her measuring eyes. The boy eye-checked us and pretended to ignore his sister. He was beautiful too — lighter-skinned than Velvet, more inward, more visibly intense, eyes flashing privately.

“I’ll call tonight,” I said to Velvet. “Don’t forget about the homework.”

And it happened again; she put her head down and quietly began to cry. Her mother’s eyes darkened powerfully. Her brother began whispering to himself with his face turned away.

“Here!” I said, my voice too bright. “Here’s some pictures of Velvet’s trip.” Small-voiced, Velvet translated. I handed Mrs. Vargas a carefully edited envelope. She took it angrily, stuffing it into her purse. She took Velvet by the arm and headed toward the subway.

“Those people weird,” said Dante. “That ugly man and that lady like a cat food and sugar sandwich.”

“They’re not weird,” I said. “They’re like people are supposed to be. They’re nice and they don’t yell, not even when they’re mad.”

“That lady is nice because she’s in the sky,” said my mom.

“Her name is Ginger.”

“Whatever her name is, she lives in the sky. She’s nice like a little girl is nice.”

“The people I stayed with were fucked up,” said Dante. “The food they ate was crap.”

“Mami,” I said. “The place I worked? There was a horse who really liked me because the little girl who owned her before looked like me. I was the only person there that she liked.”

“What happened to the little girl who owned her before?”

“Her parents wouldn’t let her see the horse anymore because—”

“Because they didn’t want their daughter to get killed. Listen, you think I don’t know? Where I grew up, horses used to walk in the street. Now stop talking before you give me a headache.”

I called her that night. Not right after we got home, but during the soft time before bed. She picked up the phone eagerly. She asked what we had for dinner and if I went for a walk. She asked if there were any fireflies.

And then there was screaming in the background, vicious, hateful. Velvet screamed back, wild strings of Spanish words, raging but imploring too — and then she dropped the phone and the scream went raw. I shouted her name, almost hung up to call the cops when somebody else picked up the phone and said “Cat food!” at me like a curse; the brother. Then Velvet had the phone again, yelling sideways off it before sobbing to me that her mom had told her she was no good all night even though she didn’t do anything bad and now she called the horseshoe dirty and threw it out the window.

I talked to her; I called her honey, darling. I said if she was with me, I’d hold her in my arms like she was a little girl. I said it would be all right. The words came out of me — desolate, helpless, and real. She got quiet; her silence felt a little incredulous, embarrassed even. I told her she could find the shoe tomorrow, sneak it back in and hide it. I told her we would do homework together and she could come to see us soon, on the weekend. The yelling in the background became angry talking, then normal talking between the mother and little boy. Velvet said, “I just decided something.”