Dream of The Broken Horses, The

by Bayer-William

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I'm not ready to talk about that yet. What I want you to do is make a date with me, a date for the two of us to screw so we can get it out of our systems.’

  ‘Fantasy time is over.’

  ‘Fantasy time has just begun.’

  ‘Sorry, the hour's up.’

  He rose from his chair. As he did, I checked his trousers to see if I could detect a protuberance.

  I find this entry mind-boggling. Did she really take control of the session like that? Is this why Dad's paper suddenly stops? Because he lost control?

  She really is an impossible patient! How could Dad stand her? On the other hand, in her diary at least, he comes off as something of a dork, relying on the old analyst's scam of answering every question with a question of his own, and employing the classic standby, ‘Now what makes you think that?’

  The next day, Tuesday, August 5, she receives a sealed condom in the mail. She's appalled, frightened. Based on her reaction, whoever is doing this is achieving his goal:

  Tuesday

  First the article about the kidnapping, then the money, now a rubber. What's he trying to say? When I opened the envelope and that thing fell out, I nearly threw up. My heart was thumping. My forehead was wet. I called J. He said come over right away. I said no, I need to collect myself, I'm going out to the yard for a swim.

  I must have swum a hundred laps, and even that wasn't enough. When I came back into the house, the phone was ringing. J again. He said W's been spreading around a story about my meeting a lover at a crummy motel. ‘For some reason he's got it in for you, cutie.’ ‘Don't call me that, Jack. Not today!’ ‘Sorry. But listen to me — the little bastard's got it in for you. Think about it. Think about why.’

  I know why. Because I didn't tell him about T, didn't share my confidences, cut him off from my secret life. If you keep a secret from W and he finds out, he never forgives you.

  ‘I wonder if he's the one sending that stuff to you,’ J said.

  W! Little W? Sure, the little turd's fully capable of a stunt like that. It's mean enough, cruel enough, sexually twisted enough, too. But if it is W, then it's not a warning from the kidnappers, it's just a mean, dirty act of a mean, warped, dirty-minded little man who hopes I'll confide in him again about the pain he's causing me, like I stupidly did two weeks ago.

  I called up W, told him about the rubber. ‘Gawd!’ he moaned, ‘I didn't know people still used those things.’ ‘If whoever-it-is wants me to crawl through broken glass, they're succeeding,’ I told him. ‘I'm tortured, I'm in real pain.’

  He wanted to come over and soothe me. I told him I was crying so hard I couldn't face him. Silence, then he snapped: ‘I think it's Jack.’ ‘But why, W? Why would J do a thing like that?’ ‘Because he's jealous. Because he thinks you're screwing someone else. He can't stand that. It makes him crazy. So now he's sending you all this crazy stuff.’ ‘But I'm not screwing anyone else.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I heard you were.’ ‘You know I would have told you.’ ‘Yes, love, I know. Listen, we'll talk later. Deadline pressure. Gotta run, get my column in.’

  I phoned J back. ‘W says it's you.’ ‘That's his game,’ J said. ‘Stir the pot, then sit back and watch us tear each other apart.’

  I told him I want revenge on the little freak. ‘I can have him beaten up,’ J said. ‘Break his legs.’ ‘No, no violence. I want everyone to turn against him. That'll hurt him most.’ ‘Well, that's your department,’ J said. ‘I only know how to strong-arm people, not how to get them disinvited from parties.’ ‘Well, I do!’ I told him. ‘And I'm going to do it. I know his weaknesses, where to get him where he hurts.’ ‘Well, good for you,’ he said, ‘but be careful, because if you're wrong and it's not him, he'll go to war against you, publish stuff that'll help A with his case.’ ‘Well, J, if it comes down to that, you'll have my permission to break his legs, his stupid neck, too, while you're at it!’

  The great revelation for me here is her suspicion that it was Waldo Channing who sent her the article, money, and condom. It makes sense. For one thing, he'd have easy access to old newspaper clippings. For another, he had sufficient malice of heart and financial ability to blow a thousand bucks on a vicious gesture. But if it was Waldo, what was he trying to convey? Or was Barbara right, was it just his way of pulling her back into his orbit, coaxing her to confide her latest sexual escapade, which they could then dish together with complicit smiles?

  On Thursday, August 7, she has lunch with Waldo at The Elms. She reports this encounter and subsequent lovemaking session with Jack Cody in what I feel is an increasingly alarming cynicism:

  Thursday

  Lunch today at The Elms: W his usual bubbly, mean self. On Elaine: ‘She really ought to get some wrinkle cream. She's looking like an awful prune.’ On A's pupsy-baby: ‘She's one of those Bettyboob types. You know — lotsa boob but not much to bet on!’

  After I came over, he whispered: ‘He's looking kind of peaked these days. Must be he's not getting enough sex.’

  Ha!ha!ha!

  ‘I put the rubber someone sent me on him and J didn't like it one bit,’ I told him. W giggled, but I detected a certain quivering in his eyeball, the left one, the ‘tell’ Andy used to say always gave away W's intentions to their poker group

  ‘Look,’ I told him, ‘whoever's got it in for me had better watch out because I'm going to find the little creep. I've got detectives working on it right now, and when I find out who he is, I'm going to expose him to the world.’

  The old left eyeball started vibrating again. He tightened up so much I was sure I'd found my man. ‘What can detectives do? How can they tell?’ ‘All sorts of ways,’ I told him. ‘Fingerprints on the paper, saliva on the stamps. Plus some other angles I can't tell you about. Don't worry, I'll find him out.’

  More quivering. Great sport!

  ‘I'm surprised you keep saying ‘him.’ I just assumed it was a woman,’ W said.

  ‘You said you thought it was Jack.’

  ‘I was wrong. Now I sense a feminine hand at work.’

  ‘You mean it's all so catty, is that it, W?’

  ‘Well put, love. Very well put.’

  I laughed in a very special way to suggest several layers of private amusement. That unnerved him more. He excused himself before coffee, said he had to get back to town and file his column.

  Soon as he left, J and I went upstairs. ‘It's definitely W,’ I told J. ‘And now he's running scared.’

  ‘He's pathetic.’

  ‘Vicious-pathetic.’

  ‘So what're you going to do about it?"

  ‘Wait a while, see how far he goes. I read there's a saying: “revenge is a dish best eaten cold.”’

  We made love and J was tender with me, more tender than I can ever remember him being. When I closed my eyes, I imagined he was T. He could have been. It was T's touch, T sensuous and grazing on my skin, T's tongue wagging its way into me. For a moment, I thought I was going mad, mixing my lovers up.

  On the way home, I pounded the steering wheel. If J can make love as tenderly as T, then what do I need T for? But maybe T can make love as harshly as J. Could I train him to? Could I cross-train these guys, make them interchangeable?

  Must ask R about this.

  What kind of a slut am I? I wonder. Am I nuts or just perverse?

  Fascinating! And I find I'm beginning to respect her for dealing with Waldo in such a magnificent sangfroid. Seems to me she beats him at his own game.

  But the following day, August 8, she receives another envelope. If Waldo sent it, he probably did so prior to their Thursday lunch.

  Friday

  A rubber tied in the middle full of — yuk! I immediately threw it in the trash. Then I called W, told him what had just arrived. ‘If it really is semen,’ I told him, ‘I'm sure it isn't his.’ ‘Now why do you say that, love?’ ‘‘Cause I'm sure he's impotent, an impotent little toad. He couldn't produce a bag of scum if he wanted to. It's probably d
iluted mayonnaise.’

  Long silence. ‘I've been thinking about this since we spoke yesterday, and the more I've thought about it the clearer it is to me it has to be a woman.’

  ‘Now why do you say that?’ I asked, taking a page from R.

  ‘It's more than just being catty, love. There's something definitely female-cruel about those letters. Diabolically cruel, I might add. Strikes me this person is some kind of witch.’

  "Well, dear, I think it's a man, and he's probably a fruit, too. You know what they're like W. I mean, a man as worldly as you.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me something, love?’

  ‘I'm just saying I know it's a man, a pathetic sick excuse for one. Sending me a scumbag filled with yuk! Did he think I'd feel threatened? Me! Barb Fulraine! No, dear, it only makes me laugh!’

  ‘Well, love, go tell your shrink all about it.’ Pause. ‘I wonder if it's him. Maybe he's got a crush on you. Wouldn't surprise me, you know, since everyone else around seems to.’

  On Monday, August 11, more neurotic fissures open up in her already fragile analytic relationship with Dad:

  Monday

  At session, told R about the second condom, why I think it's W who sent it, what we've said to each other back and forth, and what I think he's trying to do.

  ‘He wants me to confide in him, tell him all my secrets. He can't stand it that I come here. He considers you his rival. That's why he said it wouldn't surprise him if you were the sender.’

  ‘Do you think the man's dangerous?’

  ‘No. What he's doing is cowardly.’

  ‘Now you're trying to infuriate him?’

  ‘That's right. I want to provoke him, make him go too far. Then, if I'm successful, I'll have him cold. I might even be able to file criminal charges against him.’

  ‘I think sometimes in our sessions you've tried to provoke me, make me go too far.’

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  ‘I think it's the way you play people. You mentioned that there's been some trouble between T and you. Want to talk about it?’

  ‘No! I want to talk about my dream. Rather, I want you to talk about it. Solve it for me, Dr. R! Release me from it! Do that and I'll be forever in your debt.’

  He tried. I was truly touched, even though I didn't buy much of what he said. It all goes back, he believes, to Mom and Blackjack. Pretty good hunch, I guess. When we parted, I saw something caring and sorrowful in his eyes. Touched again, I thanked him for all he's done for me. ‘Sometimes I get so mad at you,’ I told him, ‘but you know it's not personal. It's my rage at my father transposed to you. Anyway, I just want you to know how grateful I am for all the efforts you've made with me and for putting up with all my shit.’

  ‘Thank you for saying that,’ he said.

  In the car driving home, it suddenly occurred to me that my horsemanship is such an important part of my identity that it's inevitable that anything important to me would be dramatized in my dreams in terms of riding and horses. I also thought that maybe this analysis idea wasn't so smart after all, that I'm going to have to reconsider going on with it after the first of the year and that maybe I'd do just as well going back to card readers and psychics.

  Tuesday

  This time the little squirt went too far! And gave himself away! He sent a baggie containing tender, long, blond girlish head hairs mixed with short, rough, curly black ones, the latter presumably pubic. By this he's telling me my worst fear has been realized — Belle's being used as a sex slave in a brothel. But what the little stinker doesn't know is that there're only three people on this earth with whom I've shared my fear: J, R, and himself! So that settles it. W deserves to be strung up by his balls, but that would be too good for him. He'd love all the attention he'd get, the martyrdom.

  Still I'm relieved. Now that I'm certain it's him, I don't feel menaced anymore. Rather a sense of clarification, that this is how things stand. A feeling of vindication, too, coupled with a feeling that now the power's swung to me, it's all in my hands now.

  Later, at the club, I thrashed Greta 6-1 6-0. And she thinks she's my rival for the Woman's Cup! Feeling her hatred out on the court only encouraged me to battle harder!

  Doris called from Florida. I told her about the letters. She wasn't too interested until I told her who sent them. The she got interested. ‘What're you going to do about this?’ ‘Call him on it, call the man to account.’ ‘Better be careful, Barb,’ she said. ‘W's powerful. He could do you damage.’ ‘You don't get it, Mom. It's my turn now, it's me who can do the damage.’ ‘Listen to me, Barb — don't get high and mighty just because you have the Fulraine name. Since you and Andy split up, it doesn't count for much. You're back to being Barbie Lyman to W's crowd. Don't chew off more than you can swallow.’

  She made me so mad I hung up on her.

  Great stuff! It's nine o'clock and I still can't put the diary down. In two weeks and a day, Barbara and Tom Jessup will be killed, and there're things in her diary that point toward a suspect I hadn't considered.

  What could Waldo have been thinking? If he really was the sender, and it certainly sounds like it was, he had to know Barbara was onto him. Waldo may have been malicious, but he wasn't stupid. There was no other way to interpret the things Barbara was saying to him.

  So, how threatened did he feel? And if he felt badly threatened, to what lengths was he willing to go?

  Certainly if it came out that he'd sent Barbara horrible anonymous letters, his position in Calista's upper crust would be severely undermined. At the very least, he'd lose his column, the mainstay of his existence, the excuse for his lifestyle and the only rationale for his superficiality.

  But would he really kill to protect himself — get hold of a shotgun, pull a fedora down to his eyes, then march into Barbara's love nest and blast her and Tom four times?

  That seems improbable considering how devious he was and the cowardice of an attack by anonymous letter. Still, who can know what a man like that might have done if he believed his reputation, the very currency of his life, was in jeopardy?

  It's all very strange and the end game stranger still. For Barbara had more than one game going those final days: her game with Waldo, her game with Dad, and her high-risk game with Tom:

  Wednesday

  3:00 p.m. at the F. T was waiting when I arrived. He looked upset.

  ‘What's the matter, darling?’

  ‘I can't go on with this. I just can't!’

  He told me that last night that awful couple looked at him with scorn. Also how when he paid them, he felt their contempt even more.

  ‘This isn't me, B,’ he said. ‘I've done my best, but I just can't go on with it.’

  ‘Well, it's a little late to tell me that, T, don't you think? A little late in the game to back out.’

  ‘I never wanted to do this. I only agreed because you asked me.’

  ‘If you didn't want to play, you shouldn't have agreed. If you back out now everything's lost, not to mention the money I've invested.’

  ‘I'll pay you back.’

  I laughed. ‘You! You can't even afford a decent pair of shoes!’

  He was so hurt I was afraid he was going to cry. ‘I'm sorry,’ I told him. ‘I'm being mean. You did enough, delving into that pit of sleaze. I love you all the more because it was so hard for you. Let me show you just how much I love you.’

  How could he resist, poor boy?

  Afterwards I watched him sleep, then went downstairs where there's a cigarette machine, bought a pack, returned to the room, sat down in the crummy easy chair, and watched him some more while I smoked.

  I don't know what got into me. I haven't smoked tobacco in five years, not since Belle was taken. But it felt good to draw the smoke in, feel it in my lungs. I think because I felt so filthy in my soul I wanted to physically dirty myself inside.

  Then T woke up, he sniffed the air. ‘You've been smoking.’

  ‘Yes, my sweet.’

  �
�I never saw you smoke anything but pot.’

  ‘It's a rare occurrence.’

  ‘Please smoke another so I can watch.’

  I lit up again, sat back, inhaled deeply, blew out gusts, a few smoke rings, too.

  ‘I wish this were pot,’ I told him.

  ‘I'll bring some next time.’

  ‘I'm shocked, shocked that you, a teacher, a sterling example to children, partake of drugs!’

  He laughed. ‘There's a girl in my house who smokes all the time.’

  ‘Then bring some.’

  ‘We’ll share, get high together.’

  ‘Yes, that'll be fun.’

  He paused at the door. ‘Because I promised you, B, I'll try to see it through.’

  ‘A man of his word. I appreciate that. Just a couple more weeks and I'll release you from your vows.’

  Soon as he left, I called W from the room. It was 5 p.m.. I knew just where to reach him, at the Townsend bar.

  ‘I know it's you,’ I told him.

  ‘What are you talking about, love.’

  ‘I bet your left eyelid's twitching as we speak.’

  ‘Are you crazy, Barb, or what?’

  ‘I've got proof. My detectives tracked the letters back to you.’

  ‘That's absurd!’

  ‘I knew you were a snake, W. But I didn't know how poisonous. I truly didn't.’

  Silence. Then: ‘When you say things like that to me, you're as good as declaring war.’

  ‘Let there be war then. So be it.’

  ‘You forget one thing, love. You may be a hell of a fighter on the tennis court, but the field of battle we're talking about is mine. I was born to it, you only sucked your way up, and I can push you back into the gutter any time I please!’

  ‘I'm afraid you're the real guttersnipe, W, as your cozy Happy Few will soon find out! And I'd watch that left eyeball if I were you. When it starts to twitch, everyone in town knows you're lying.’

  ‘Meow! Bye, darling!’