Mary Gaitskill - The Mare

So I laid it out for her: dishes, math workbooks, and the three-extra credit essays for school. I said, “And don’t ever endanger yourself like that again. If you do, you can’t come back here anymore. That would break my heart, but—”

“I stopped Beverly from hurting Joker.”

“If Beverly was abusing Joker, you should’ve told somebody! Instead of getting on another horse bareback and riding it out with your ass halfway on it!”

“I told Pat, and she didn’t listen!”

“Then you need to say it differently or say it to someone else or accept that you can’t do anything about it!”

“I did do something about it! She stopped hitting him!”

“And you know what? The next time she looks at Joker, she’s going to remember that you got her knocked down and guess who she’s going to take it out on?”

“I don’t care. I’m not afraid of her.”

“Not you. She’s not going to take it out on you. You won’t even be there. She’s going to take it out on the horse.”

Her face went into a wounded full stop, mouth and eyes open.

“Maybe that won’t happen,” I said. “I’m just saying it could. But I don’t care that much about the horse. I care about you. You could’ve broken your neck and that would’ve broken my heart. And by the way, it would’ve destroyed your mother.”

“Trust me,” she said, “it would not destroy my mother.”

I said, “Just don’t do it again.”

But I was thinking: It would be a relief to have a mom who could not be destroyed. My mom used to say that Melinda was going to destroy her and that if I ever “went like Melinda” it would destroy her. It was a very annoying thing to hear.

Before I could go to Pat’s house I had to do chores and read books for a week. I had to apologize to Estella Kadner for causing trouble and apologize to Beverly again in front of Estella. It was disgusting, but I had to do it and I was going to do it. But when I went, Pat took me into Estella’s special office and it was only me and her there, not Beverly. It was the first time I saw her since Christmas. She was sitting down and her hair was tied back, but her shiny skin and her carved nose still made her seem like she was looking down at me, and maybe she would lift me up, maybe not.

“I wanted you to ride in a competition,” she said. “I wanted you to represent us. Why did you do such a foolish thing?”

And I told her. I said that Beverly was hurting Joker inside. She said, “I see” and looked at her desk. Lines came on her forehead.

Then Pat came, and Beverly, and I had to apologize to Beverly. I said, “I’m sorry, Miss Beverly,” but I said it with my head down and Estella Kadner made me raise my head and look at Beverly and say it again. And then I had to say what I was sorry for, just like in school, basically feeling like a piece of shit for no reason. Except that the lines were still on Estella Kadner’s forehead because of what I said before.

“How old are you now?” asked Beverly.

I looked at her for real then. “I’m thirteen,” I said.

“You look older. Even if you were older, I’d be wondering. Just what do you think you know about psychology ?”

Nobody said anything.

“How do you know anything about psychology ?”

And then I did something I’ve seen my mom do. Except I didn’t do it, it just happened. Instead of looking at Beverly, I looked in her, like looking down a dark hall with doors.

“I know like everybody knows. Miss. ”

Beverly looked at me like we were the only people in the room. “You know, you used to be able to beat a kid who acted bad,” she said. “And guess what, kids learned fast, just like horses. They figured out, I act like a jerk I get the crap beat out of me, maybe I don’t want to act like a jerk. Not anymore. Everybody’s worried about ‘self-esteem’ and ‘hurting inside.’ ”

Estella Kadner said, “That’s enough.”

Beverly didn’t say nothin’. It was still like, just her and me in the room.

I said, “My mom does beat me.”

Estella’s forehead went more lined.

Beverly said, “Then your mom does you right.”

The lord is my shepherd / I shall not want. Today a man went into a movie theater with guns and started shooting. He killed five people and hurt lots of others, and I understand. Because I am tired of being the one in pain. It says I shall not want. But I want; I want somebody else to feel pain. I want to hear them screaming.

What I don’t want is prayer. I hate prayer. It’s what people do when they have nothing. I have never had anything and now I don’t even have a job. I am on the crowded subway but I am alone in darkness. I want to send bullets into the darkness, send knives. They won’t strike anyone because in the dark no one is there. And I am praying. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. I see Velvet’s horses, running in the grass. They are beautiful; my children smile and reach for them, thinking they can have them — their smiles, their hope destined to go black and die. Tears come up under my closed lids. He leads me beside the still waters. Last week I hurt Dante by crying in front of him — better for him if I’d given him my fist. He restores my soul. The horses run again, swerving together. I open my eyes. Across from me there’s an old woman with a sad face. In her body she carries a small flame. I look around; all the people on the car, no matter how rough, have a flame. I want to be like them. But I can’t. I am locked inside hardness and nothingness and I can’t get out. Like the horse Velvet talks about, the one who kicks the wall. Striking the hard thing, trying to break it. No one sees, no one hears. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for—.

But I fear. I fear. I am ill with fear.

I thought Pat would talk about it in the car, but she just put the radio on. We drove over the bridge and took a road I didn’t know, like a dirty tongue going up a hill with no houses or even trees on the sides of it. The Iraq War was on the radio and people were being blown up. Pat said the war was a horrible mistake; she said it like she wanted to know what I thought. But I was thinking of when I showed Ginger’s picture to Shawn. I wanted him to see how nice she was, but he said, “You know why those people can act nice? Other people do the violence for them. That’s how they have that nice world.” I said, “Ginger doesn’t have anybody doin’ violence.” He just tossed her picture back at me and said, “She must think you some lil’ Orphan Annie.”

Pat changed the station to a song I didn’t know. Suddenly I thought, I don’t know her. And she is Beverly’s friend. Hard feelings banged together in me. You used to be able to beat a kid who acted bad.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“My place,” she said. “Where did you think?”

We went up a bumpy driveway. I remembered a long time ago when I rode my bike with Ginger and she said, “Lumpety bumpety!” and we flew.

Pat said, “Just so you know, my place is primitive compared to Estella’s.”

“What’s ‘primitive’?”

“I mean there’s no toilet in the barn. When I don’t feel like walking to the house I use a bucket.”

We drove past a little house with tin patched on it and colored plastic flowers twirling in the yard. There was a vegetable garden with wire around it and a barn behind a bunch of pale trees. Two horses in a jelly-bean-shaped paddock came running at us, then away; they were both light brown, one with a blond mane and low, round, ripply shoulders. “Chloe’s the blondie,” said Pat. “The gelding’s Nut. See the difference in the way they’re built?” I looked. Nut looked stronger to me; he was tall and his back was very wide. “Chloe’s built what they call ‘uphill’—and her back is nice and short and she’s got a strong rear. See how long her shoulders are, that long neck? She’s a good jumper partly because of how she’s built — but the main reason is, she actually likes to jump.”