Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

She humiliated her mother. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. The look on her face when she looked back at us, walking with that obnoxious woman! I didn’t blame her. Her mom was a bitch, and she was getting back. But I couldn’t forget the way the woman shrank and then just went away. Like she was the child and her twelve-year-old daughter had all the power.

She closed the door and knocked me down in the hall. She said, “Get up.”

Dante went away down the hall.

She said, “Get up, bitch!”

Dante turned the TV on and up loud.

My mother kicked me and yelled, “Get up!” I tried to stand; she kicked me in the stomach and I sat back down. I heard Dante talking to the TV, cursing and calling it “bitch.” I held back crying.

“Understand,” she said. “I will knock you down until you don’t get up. Every time you get up, I will knock you down again. Maybe you’re the boss with that fool woman, but here I am the boss.”

“Mami,” I said. “Mami—”

Dante talked faster, louder.

“You want to ride those horses, fine, ride them. You want to die, die. I don’t care.”

There was more, her cursing and kicking and then Dante ran at her yelling. “I don’t want Velvet to die!”

Then me running out the door, down the stairs. My mother was yelling at Dante and he was yelling back. I ran out into the street. It was snowing, and I ran in front of a car with music blasting out of it. People laughing at the crazy girl, but stopping, caring if I died. Laughing on their way somewhere else. I was never out this late before and the street was full of people I didn’t know. Lydia; I knew Lydia. I ran to her; I rang all the doorbells on her door. A man said, “Hey, lil’ mama,” but he saw I was crying and went away. I rang and rang but Lydia didn’t come. I sat on her steps and stopped crying. I looked at all the people going by. Some looked back, some kept going. I thought about the play where people were singing and dancing and pretending to be poor. I thought of Fiery Girl. I wanted to go into the stall with her and feel her body, see the snow falling outside the barn while I was beside her warm body.

A woman passed by carrying plastic bags full of bottles. She wore a winter coat, but instead of shoes she wore furry house slippers with socks that were soaking wet in the mushy snow. I realized she was the lady my mom called “the Haitian.” But I liked her; her hair was gray under her scarf and her eyes were deep and kind. “Young woman,” she said. “What’s going on with you? You look sad.”

“My mom hit me and said she doesn’t care if I die,” I said. “I don’t want to go home.”

She came close to me, but her eyes didn’t look at me. She looked past me, but like she was seeing me. Like Pat and the horses. “Don’t be afraid,” she said. “You are blessed. Don’t forget, you are blessed.” Then she brought her eyes to mine. “But you need to go home. Your eyes are older than your years, but I can feel your heart is very young, too young to be out now. Go home. Your mother won’t hurt you any more tonight.”

Her thirteenth birthday fell on a weekend, so she came. Paul was away at a conference and it was just the two of us. Waiting at Penn, she looked like she did the first time I saw her: tender, pure-eyed, with that gorgeous hair free and unstraightened. I knelt to hold her and I thought with my body, I love you.

I said, “Your mom says it’s okay for you to ride.”

The light left her eyes. She said, “I know. She doesn’t care if I die.”

I said, “She doesn’t mean that. She was angry because she felt disrespected.”

“She hit me, Ginger. She knocked me down.”

My mind went blank. I saw Mrs. Vargas’s face when she heard the love song in the play. I saw her telling Velvet she was ugly. I said, “I’m sorry. You did not deserve that.”

That evening she was sullen and snappish; she went to the barn, came back, and looked at me like she had nothing to do with me. On the second day, we fought because I asked her to help me with the dishes and she refused. I told her we would not go out to celebrate her birthday in that case and she stormed upstairs, I thought to her room, but when I went to use the bathroom, I found she was lying sprawled out in the hallway, face turned sideways so I could see its aggrieved expression. I stepped over her, to and from the bathroom. Eventually she got up and went out to the horses. I went for a walk. When I came back, she was sitting on the porch. I sat next to her and put my arm around her. She sat there staring straight ahead like she didn’t know me. I kept my arm there anyway. I asked her if she wanted to have a good time or a bad time. She looked at me like I was an asshole. I was about to say, “Maybe you should just go home,” when she said, “A good time.” I said, “Okay. Help me with the dishes and we can go out for your birthday.” She looked at me blankly. I put my hand on her shoulder and said, “I’m sorry about your mom and the horses. It was my fault. I should’ve told her.” We went in and she started running the water.

We went to a fancy place to eat. The people there were fat ugly pigs who thought they were great. Their expressions were ugly and fat even when they were pretty and thin. I remembered this disgusting thing I heard a boy say about somebody: “She thinks her shit smells like ice cream.” I felt glad I don’t live where people think their shit is ice cream. I looked at Ginger. Why was she even here? We sat down and next to the table was a shelf of olive oil marked thirty dollars a bottle. I remembered something Ginger said to me about Republicans, how they were on the side of the most greedy rich people in the country. Right now, Ginger was looking at a menu while behind her greedy pigs laughed and stank up the air with their slit eyes and hairy hands and little red nasty mouths. I said, “This place is full of Republicans.” She said, “No, honey, probably not. This is a mostly Democrat county.” I said, “There’s a bunch of Republicans right behind you,” and she said, “How would you know by looking?” “Trust me,” I said. “They’re Republicans.”

How adorable was that? Wondering what she saw, I turned to look: jowly guys with big arms spread out on the table, women in flowered dresses, a certain expression of…“Um, maybe,” I said. “Those might actually be Republicans.” I nodded at another party across from us. “But those are likely Democrats.”

“Why?” she asked. “They don’t look different.”

I tried to think of how to explain. A tray of red cocktails went past. Our waiter appeared. Velvet looked at the menu and frowned. “How about the steak?” I said. “It’s good here.” A roar of enjoyment swept the room; there were drinks, red drinks riding a sudden, bitter wave. What was I thinking bringing her here? “I’m going to have the calamari. Do you know what that is?” She shook her head. Her tight-curled hair fell over her lush cheek. “Octopus. You can tell people you know somebody who eats octopus.”

“Darling! Oh my God!”

Two guys wearing flowered shirts strutted into the room. Velvet gaped. One of the “Democrat” women stood up, clutched her heart, and screamed, “Oh, it’s been so long!” A flowered guy clutched his heart, “fainting” against the door and crying, “Darling, I want to smooch you!”

And Velvet cracked up. I mean, she really did burst into laughter. Flowered Guy Two looked over, ready to bitch slap, then saw he was apparently being laughed at by a black teenager. The other guy looked; the whole table looked. I giggled behind my hand. Velvet slapped the table and laughed. The Republicans smiled benignly. It was too ridiculous and Flowered Guy One knew it. “Ladies,” he said as he magnificently swept past, “have a wonderful night.”