by Jessie Haas
This was a good trot, with plenty of impulsion. Impulsion—the energy from the rear that comes forward into a rider’s hands and gives him something to work with; like breath support for the singer, turgor pressure for the stalk of celery; like the current that floats the little boat or the wind that fills the sail; like drive and purpose and commitment in the human character. When Ghazal’s hindquarters were engaged, so that his hind feet stepped well forward under his body and he carried himself, not pushing himself like a wheelbarrow, and when the fresh energy flowed up his relaxed spine and neck and down onto the bit and submitted gladly to James’s hands, then beauty happened, and James was in it. He didn’t need the mirrors then.
He could have shouted at the unexpected joy. Instead, he resumed the dull transition work. Ghazal’s impulsion changed it to a dance. They danced together.
Then James pushed harder, to find the limits where Ghazal’s softness turned to strain. The limits were too narrow still. Gently James nudged against them a couple times, bumped them back maybe a little. Then back to the dance. Then rest—plain old tired walking.
“Good boy! Good boy!” You were supposed to praise your horse after good work. But James felt funny about it. It oversimplified the relationship between horse and rider and work. Ghazal knew his own goodness, and his goodness was his reward. His correct and joyous motion was his pleasure. He only needed James to stimulate him to the effort; then to support him and step out of his way. Ghazal’s was the body with the power and the knowledge. Ghazal should be the one to utter condescending praise.
Now the magic moment was past. James dismounted, ran up the stirrups, and began to walk cool his sweaty white horse. Once again they were a couple of ordinary mortals of different species, eyeing one another across a gap of ignorance.
Later, as he buckled on the ugly yellow-plaid blanket, James caught himself dreaming. The dream was a montage of international flags against a blue sky, Olympic TV clips, magazine photos, and Rolex advertisements. Those were for all the parts he knew nothing about.
At the center of the dream, though, was the feeling of the ride just now. He noticed that even in the dream, he shut out everything else to concentrate on that feeling, and to ride as if he were alone.
So I’m already doing my dream, he thought. It’s not only for the future. It’s now.
He turned Ghazal into his stall and brought him a handful of sweet feed, rich with molasses. He laid his hand on the yellow blanket and felt the warmth of the horse come through. A sudden, clear thought came.
I don’t do this for money. I do it because I want to.
It was so simple that he wondered why he hadn’t said it to Kip, in so many words. There isn’t money in horses, or not much. If it were money he wanted most, he’d be doing something else.
He thought of the guy in the paper, with the herd of milk goats who paid for themselves. The understanding Kip had scattered with his attack returned.
If a guy has been doing all that work for fifteen years before it begins to pay, then he’s doing it for its own sake, not for money. Money is great, money is necessary, but it’s nothing in itself. It’s for things—food and shelter and education, and the freedom to do what you want.
And how many of the things people want to do ever pay for themselves? Not skiing, certainly. No, you pay to ski, and pay plenty. Some people get rich, but not you, Kipper, old man! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Kip returned at chore time, flushed in the cheeks and very amusing about the snowbank episode. Time and hot buttered rum had wrought a change of view, James thought. But he was glad to have Kip in better humor.
The evening’s chosen amusement for the MacLieshes was a wobbly home video of a three-day event in Pennsylvania. James would have liked to see it, but being a good host he played cribbage with Kip in the kitchen, so the TV couldn’t draw his eye.
Even here, though, he could hear the self-conscious voice of the narrator—Tom’s ex-student Jennifer—giving the names of horses and riders and points to note. Only once her voice warmed to normalcy, as she gave a rider’s name and then exclaimed, “What a hunko!” In the living room, Marion and Gloria whistled and clapped; Uncle Tom harrumphed.
Kip smiled slightly and pegged fifteen. “Great entertainment, eh, Jimbo? You’re gonna get skunked!”
“Guess so,” said James, pegging four. He must see this film later, if only to discover what kind of guy Jennifer would call a hunko.
“Beer?” asked Kip, getting up and going to the refrigerator.
“Okay,” said James without thinking. He was looking at Kip, who had taken over the role of host where the beer was concerned with his customary ease. He was measuring himself against Kip and remembering that nothing was certain in this world, wondering if Kip could be wrong about things when he looked so right.
Kip twisted off the caps and flipped them one by one into the wastebasket. He handed a beer to James and roamed a little way across the kitchen, nursing his own bottle against his chest. At last he took a long swig and turned to face James.
“Guess I’ll be heading back tomorrow,” he said, “if you can drive me to the bus.”
“Wait and see what it’s like in the morning,” James suggested, because he was ashamed of his own relief.
Kip shook his head. As he stood there, reared back a little on his long legs, he looked more serious than James could ever remember.
“Come back with me, Jimbo,” he said. “Go to school.”
This was not the young male challenge of this morning, the half-laughing struggle for dominance. This was the old good friendship that lay buried so deep beneath the games, they had nearly forgotten it.
“I don’t want to,” said James.
“Why not?”
James opened his mouth to say the things he’d thought that afternoon. They had seemed clear and simple. He had felt sure of them. Now, facing Kip across the kitchen, he realized he was sure of his ideas, but unsure of himself. The truth was there, but would he be true to it? And wasn’t it, after all, only part of the truth? There were so many other things in life; things, maybe, that Kip knew about and he did not.
For instance, what if he wanted a place of his own someday? How would he afford it? How would he afford the superb, expensive horses he would someday need to carry him to the top of his chosen profession? Would he ever again hop on a plane for that winter week or two in Bermuda? Money was freedom, he knew, at least in material things. He didn’t know how he would react when he came up against the barrier of not having enough.
No, he couldn’t open his mouth and preach to Kip about money and satisfactions. Still, something must be said, and the right thing. He could never explain all that was in his heart. He must speak in code and trust Kip to understand.
“Kip …” he began helplessly, because the silence had stretched too long. “Kip …”
Kip laughed a little, looking down at his beer. “Stubborn old Jimmy,” he said. “Well, go for it, then! Go for it!”
His voice was rough and reluctant, his reservations imperfectly concealed. Time, James knew, might dispel the reservations, or it might give them the remembered ring of prophecy. Or things might always be like this; always reservations on both sides and never a clear judgment by fate or fortune.
Raucous shouts and whistles broke from the other room. “Oh, my God!” cried Tom in a revolted voice.
Gloria said, “I’m calling her up!” She reached through the doorway and snatched the phone from its table.
Suddenly it seemed imperative to James that he rejoin his family and his real life, and give up being separate here with Kip. He stood up from the table. “I’ve gotta see this.”
Kip slanted an amused glance at the cribbage board, where James’s peg lagged far below the skunk point. “Okay, Jimmy,” he said, and followed James into the living room to join the others.
THE GREYHOUND
THE FOUR DOGS leapt at the gate, whining and crowding one another. Their beautiful, elongate
d paws caught at the steel mesh. Bony tails thumped loudly against the fence and each other’s haunches. Ears flattened appealingly against long, smooth skulls. Deep eyes glowed with a golden, friendly light.
“They all belong to the same kennel,” said Sharon, “or they’d be fighting.” She reached through the gate and snapped the leash onto a collar. “Somebody had a rotten weekend at the races.”
“They bring them when they don’t win?” asked Phillip. He was pushing the other dogs back as Sharon drew her captive through the gate. Freed from the necessity of competing, the greyhound drew itself up in dignified pleasure at being singled out.
“Yes,” Sharon said, giving the high neck beside her one reluctant stroke. “I don’t know the magic number, but after a while they get rid of the slow ones. It’s not like horses, where each one is a huge investment of time and money. There are so many dogs.…”
“Horses are also good for something besides racing,” Phillip suggested, following Sharon and the dog across the parking lot.
“Yes, you can always retrain a racehorse. But these guys—”
“Don’t they make good pets?”
“Well, yeah, they do. I’ve got one. They’re great dogs—but people don’t know about them, or they’re not into greyhounds, or … I don’t know. People are scared they might chase cats because of the way they’re trained to run after rabbits. They do have the chasing instinct, though mine hasn’t … but, anyway, there are just so many. You’ll see.”
Sharon seemed very matter-of-fact about this, and Phillip wondered if he, too, would learn to be.
Growing up on a farm, he’d always known that veterinarians worked as much with death as with life. Unlike doctors, vets were always killing in the course of a day’s work. They brought suffering to a peaceful end. They rid the world of surplus pets, and they killed for the convenience of owners who didn’t want to be bothered anymore. He’d always known that much of it was dishonorable.
But he didn’t think he’d seen or heard of anything more dishonorable than this: the production of hundreds of thousands of beautiful animals for the sole purpose of providing people with something to bet on, and the casual disposal of the ones who proved less fit.
He was supposed to be learning how to do this, so he opened the door for Sharon and watched her lead the reluctant dog into the grooming room, where Dr. Rossi waited with a syringe in her hand.
Sharon made all her movements big and clear so he could understand them. She knelt at the greyhound’s side and hugged it around the chest. At the same time she grasped the right foreleg with one hand and pulled it forward. Dr. Rossi approached and took the stiffly offered paw. The dog flattened its ears, still hoping for the best.
Dr. Rossi held the needle pointing straight toward the ceiling a moment as she studied the slender, corded leg. Then she slid the steel point neatly into the bulging vein and depressed the plunger. The dog whined and a second later collapsed.
Dr. Rossi stood up, twisting the disposable needle out of the hypodermic and looking down regretfully at the body. Then she glanced at the needle and tsked to herself. “I keep forgetting, there’s no need to preserve sterility.” She was a small, fortyish lady with a country-club look; hair just so, face beautifully painted. But her eyes were real, and sad. She turned away to the table for a fresh needle and a refill.
“Pick them up like this,” Sharon said in a small voice. She gripped two handfuls of loose skin, at the dog’s neck and farther down the spine. The dog hung away from her fists, horribly slack. “And carry them out to the incinerator.”
Phillip cleared his throat. “Is it heavy? D’you want help?”
“No, I’ll get this one. You can take the next.”
The three remaining dogs stood and wagged their tails when the door opened. Sharon carried their companion across the blacktop and left it in the shade next to the incinerator. She unsnapped the leash from the dead dog’s collar.
“Okay, next dog!” She was trying to sound cheerful. Phillip wondered why.
Now only three dogs leapt at the fence in happy, jealous expectation. They seemed to have no inkling of what had just occurred, and Phillip was slightly surprised. Many times he’d seen dogs deeply distressed at the death of a friend. Maybe the greyhounds were too excited about going for a walk to pay attention to the smell of death.
Sharon snapped the leash onto the collar of a beautiful fawn greyhound, who bounded joyfully out when Phillip opened the door. Phillip felt helpless and dazed. He looked through the chain-link fence at the two remaining greyhounds, and he wondered what would happen if he let the gate stand open, and walked away. But he didn’t do that. He dropped the U-bar with a clank and slowly followed Sharon.
It was too quick and too easy to kill these dogs. He didn’t like what that said about life, and he thought of his father, who was shrunken and damaged yet seemed essentially himself. While he seemed himself, they counted on the continuation of things as they had always been. Yet these dogs, so full of life and self one minute, were dead in the next, almost without transition. He thought for a second of calling home.
But that was Not Done; just as it was Not Done to leave the gate open, nor was it Done to fling yourself in Dr. Rossi’s way and shout, “Stop!” So he stood again and pretended to study how Sharon held the dog, and then he had to take it by its warm, loose skin and lug it out to the incinerator, its long beautiful legs dangling and bumping against his own. Then he had to take off the leash and go put it on a long beautiful neck like a column, like the neck of a doe, and he had to lead the third dog in to Dr. Rossi’s needle.
Dr. Rossi’s sad brown eyes found his face and studied him as he stood beside the dog, waiting.
“The needle isn’t the worst way to get rid of a dog,” she said. He understood her to mean that if they did not do it, someone else would, someone less scrupulous and less efficient. She understood his stubborn, mute look in answer, for she nodded. “Yes, it stinks. But hold the dog, please.”
He wrapped the leash around the muzzle as he’d seen Sharon do, not meeting the sad, worried eyes. He knelt and hugged the dog. Its hide was smooth like polished wood. The leg he grasped in his hand was warm, and he felt the pulse jump.
Dr. Rossi approached with the needle, and the dog flinched back.
She stopped and looked straight at him, very serious. “You must hold quite firmly, Phillip. Otherwise the needle will slip out before the full dose is given, and that’s horrible.”
Phillip, to his surprise, felt tears spill over his lower lids. He gripped the dog’s leg more firmly and stretched it forward. Quite close to his face, only slightly blurred, he saw the needle enter the round vein, saw the plunger depress under Dr. Rossi’s pretty, lacquered thumb. In a few seconds the dog went limp, like a puppet when the strings are snipped. It seemed to melt out of his arms, sprawling on the floor. Phillip stood up, wiping the palm of his hand across his eyes. Sharon came forward and picked the dog up for him. He followed her out into the sunshine, hearing Dr. Rossi’s quiet voice behind him: “Good job, Phillip.”
His whole head felt prickly and faraway, as if it floated above his body on a string. He had no thoughts; only followed Sharon on feet that seemed faraway, too, on legs that felt like rubber bands. Through a haze of small black dots he saw the last greyhound on its feet, far to the back of the run.
“I’ll get her,” he said to Sharon, taking the leash.
He went through the gate, carelessly leaving it ajar. But Sharon was there to push it shut behind him. He walked down the long, long run. The diamonds of chain link blurred past his unfocused eyes.
The greyhound sat as he approached, bony tail clamped between her legs. The golden-brown eyes regarded him gravely for a moment, then shifted away, as if to spare them both embarrassment. She flattened her ears but otherwise ignored him as he snapped on the strong black leash. His hands seemed faraway—everything was faraway.
“Come on,” he said, tugging deferentially on the leash.
/> The greyhound rose to her feet with dignity, still not looking at him, and paced quietly at his right side as he went back down the run. Her head was turned away. She watched the cars on the busy road out front. Her nose twitched as she sniffed the breeze. She did not turn to look at her dead companions, piled near the incinerator. Phillip felt she deliberately did not look at them.
His palms were sweaty on the leash. It could easily slip through his hands. Very slowly, as if at gunpoint, he slid the loop over the wrist for greater security, thinking, It only gets worse. This is the worst yet.
He was careful to address none of his thoughts to the dog. What could he say except, “Sorry, I have to do this”? That seemed craven, because in fact no one held a gun to his head. There was only the force of the people around him, doing a certain distasteful thing in which he had agreed to participate for a fee.
They walked across the sunny driveway and came to the door of the grooming room.
Phillip opened it, but the greyhound hesitated, looking at the sky and the trees behind the building. She couldn’t really know—she seemed unhappy, but she couldn’t know. It was only her beautiful form that gave each movement such significance. He was reluctant to tug on the leash. But Sharon was coming, and so he did. The greyhound turned and came with him into the room.
Dr. Rossi waited with the needle. She looked beautiful, too, in an older-lady way; standing in her long green lab coat under the harsh light. You couldn’t blame Dr. Rossi.
Turning his face away, feeling things crack and groan within him, Phillip knelt on the concrete floor. He looped the leash around the greyhound’s muzzle and hugged her, reaching for the foreleg. She rolled her eyes at him. Deep within Phillip saw a golden light, grave but friendly. As he embraced her she slowly waved her tail.
“No,” he said. He dropped her leg as the steely needle came near.
Dr. Rossi’s sad eyes regarded him. “Phillip,” she said. “Phillip. We do six dogs a day some weeks. What are you going to do?”