Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

The next day I asked Pat about the thing on my mare’s face.

“It’s so she won’t crib,” she said. “Remember the way she bites her feed bucket and the door of her stall? It’s bad for her stomach because she takes in too much air when she does it, so we’re trying to break her of it. Don’t worry, the strap doesn’t hurt her.”

“Can she eat with it?”

“Oh yeah,” said Pat. “It’s lunchtime now — you want to help feed ’em?”

I did. The horses got excited when they heard the grain coming. Fiery Girl kicked and neighed, and the others said, Yeah yeah, give it now! I thought she’d be glad when I came to give it, but instead she acted mad —her ears went flat and she snapped and kicked the door. Pat said, “Don’t be afraid,” and handed me the bucket of grain.

And I went in and she ran up on me in her killer mask like she would knock me down and stomp me. I was so scared I almost dropped the bucket, but I didn’t show it. I didn’t even look at her, even when she bumped me with her nose. I poured the food and she went at it, and Pat said, “Good work!” But I was scared and the horse knew it.

I think Pat knew also, but she still asked me to clean the mare’s stall later that afternoon. Pat moved Fiery Girl out into an empty stall and the mare went powerfully, making me and Gare flatten on the walls. But after I cleaned the stall, Pat asked if I wanted to put her back. I said yes, because Gare was there but also because I felt the mare looking at me like she wanted me to do it. Pat put the lead rope on her and handed her to me. I led her to the stall and tried to go in first. That’s when she blasted past me so hard she threw me into the wall. Pat came between me and the mare and yelled and took the lead rope. Beverly passed by and said, “I see you’re getting to know your friend better.”

Pat said, “You okay?” and I was, but still I was shaking; she threw me like a hurricane throws a house.

—

I wanted to tell Ginger about it, but I was embarrassed. Because this was the horse that was supposed to like me, and now she seemed to think I was crap. Also because Ginger might get worried and then decide I shouldn’t see the horses and maybe even tell my mom. So I just listened to her tell me she was painting a real picture of her sister because of me.

I said, “Why because of me?”

And she said, “Because you were asking why I didn’t do a real picture and I thought maybe I should.”

I asked, “Could I see?” and she took me up to her studio.

But the new painting was even more crazy than the other one. It was ugly too, like I wanted to say, Did you hate your sister? But I couldn’t say that and I couldn’t think of anything else to say that was nice, so I just looked around. And I saw something scary: a plastic doll like for little kids dressed in leopard-spotted clothes that looked homemade with even leopard socks and a hat. It was beat-up and it had one of its eyes rolled up in its head. It looked like it was in a Chucky movie, where a doll goes crazy and kills people. Except this doll looked too retarded to kill anybody. I thought, Is Ginger retarded?

Which for some reason — the creepy doll and Ginger’s maybe-retardation — made me remember when I woke up and sneaked in the hall and heard Paul say those things about pushing the limit and the boundaries, and then Ginger mumble-hissing about birthdays. It made me remember the lady on the bus talking about giving “them” a “example.” I started listening to Paul and Ginger when they didn’t know; I even pretended to be asleep and then creeped down the stairs again, to see if they were saying those things. But they just talked to each other like normal people, and the only times I heard my name, I didn’t hear anything bad in their voices, I only heard good. It was a strange kind of good that made me feel strange. But it was still good.

It was over very fast, but the happiness of that visit was peaceful, not so disturbed by worry and the fear that I was doing something wrong. She spent most of both days at the barn, taking lessons and working, just spending time with the animals. She came home — home! — for lunch and went back to the barn until five or so, then came back to us for dinner. I tried to get her to help me, but she would really only do that when the mood took her, and then she was wonderful, smiling while she dried the dishes or set the table. I had meant to help her with her homework, but she said she forgot it. So we walked instead and then I watched TV with her, us sitting against each other, me feeling her responses as she watched her favorite blond girls fight vampires or get boyfriends. And then she would go back to the barn to say good-night.

I went back to the barn at twilight. I didn’t have any apples. I just went to the mare to see what she would do. Which was nothing. She stood in the middle of her stall and stared at me with her ears up. I said, “I’m mad at you.” I thought she looked like maybe she felt bad, but then she just put her head down to look for pieces of hay in her bedding. I said, “All I did was bring food to you and you ran at me and then you threw me against the wall.” She put her head up and looked at me, then went back to eating. I said, “Okay. Good-bye.”

But when I was walking away, it was like I heard her in my ear, like she was saying, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to knock you down. I just forgot you were there.

Still, I did not go see her the next day. I went to the barn and I worked, I helped turn the horses out. Me and Beth and Gare led Little Tina and Blue Boy and Graylie out to the paddock. Beth brought Rocki back in and I groomed him and cleaned his feet. Then me and Beth cleaned buckets together. She told me about another barn she used to go to but that she couldn’t go to anymore because her parents couldn’t pay. It was named Spindletop, and the horses there were super clean. They got groomed every day, and their halters and bits were cleaned every day — they even got the hair on their ears trimmed. She said the girls there rode in a big show where people came from all over the country, and that she was going to show one day at the rodeo at the county fair. She also asked questions about Brooklyn and how I knew people up here. I told her the Fresh Air Fund and she said, “Oh, right.”

And I really wished Strawberry was there. Because if Strawberry was there I don’t think Beth would’ve said, “Oh, right” like she did. Strawberry was too bad for that. It wasn’t like it was wrong for Beth to say; it wasn’t a insult. But still…she wouldn’t say it to Strawberry, I don’t think. I started picturing Strawberry walking up in the barn, just looking around and how that would be. I pictured what she would’ve done to Gare when she said “deported” to me.

I got so into thinking it that I forgot to say good-bye to the mare.

At the end of the visit, she asked if her friend Strawberry could come with her next time. She said the girl had come from New Orleans, that she was a Katrina survivor and that she still couldn’t go home to her family. My first impulse was to say yes; even Paul was moved. Still, it seemed a lot to take on so soon, and also, it was great leverage. So I said, If your grades get better, she can come. If your report card at the end of the year is better, she can come next summer. She said, Ginger, Strawberry might not be here next summer. So I said, Easter, then. That got her attention.

It was just after I came back that Strawberry asked me to sit at the lunch table with her and Alicia. It was like one day she’s getting in the closet with me and putting makeup on my face but acting in school like I’m not good enough; the next day she’s like, “Velvet, come sit with us.” And I am eating lunch with these girls I don’t even like anymore and Strawberry is looking like she’s doing me a favor.