by Brian Hodge
White Mule leaped through the red ribbon a full three lengths ahead to win.
Frank let White Mule run past the watchers, on until he slowed and began to trot, and then walk. He let the mule go on like that for some time, then he gently pulled the reins and got out of the saddle. He walked the mule a while. Then he stopped and unbuttoned the belly band. He slid the saddle into the dirt. He pulled the bridle off of the mule’s head.
The mule turned and looked at him.
“You done your part,” Frank said, and swung the bridle gently against the mule’s ass. “Go on.”
White Mule sort of skipped forward and began running down the road, then turned into the trees. And was gone.
Frank walked all the way back to the beginning of the race, the viewers amazed he was without his mule.
But he was still the winner.
“You let him go?” Leroy said. “After all we went through, you let him go?”
“Yep,” Frank said.
Nigger Joe shook his head. “Could have run him again. Plowed him. Ate him.”
Frank took his prize money from the judges and side bet from Crone, paid Leroy his money, watched Nigger Joe follow Crone away from the race’s starting line, on out to Crone’s horse and wagon. Dynamite, his head down, was being led to the wagon by axe-face.
Frank knew what was coming. Nigger Joe had not been paid, and on top of that, he was ill-tempered. As Frank watched, Nigger Joe hit Crone and knocked him flat. No one did anything.
Black man or not, you didn’t mess with Nigger Joe.
Nigger Joe took his money from Crone’s wallet, punched the axe-faced rider in the nose for the hell of it, and walked back in their direction.
Frank didn’t wait. He went over to where the hog lay on the grass. His front and back legs had been tied and a kid about thirteen was poking him with a stick. Frank slapped the kid in the back of the head, knocking his hat off. The kid bolted like a deer.
Frank got Dobbin and called Nigger Joe over. “Help me.”
Nigger Joe and Frank loaded the hog across the back of Dobbin as if he were a sack of potatoes. Heavy as the porker was, it was accomplished with some difficulty, the hog’s head hanging down on one side, his feet on the other. The hog seemed defeated. He hardly even squirmed.
“Misses that mule,” Nigger Joe said.
“You and me got our business done, Joe,” Frank asked.
Nigger Joe nodded.
Frank took Dobbin’s reins and started leading him away.
“Wait,” Leroy said.
Frank turned on him. “No. I’m through with you. You and me. We’re quits.”
“What?” Leroy said.
Frank pulled at the reins and kept walking. He glanced back once to see Leroy standing where they had last spoke, standing in the road looking at him, wearing the seed salesman’s hat.
Frank put the hog in the old hog pen at his place and fed him good. Then he ate and poured out all the liquor he had, and waited until dark. When it came he sat on a large rock out back of the house. The wind carried the urine smell of all those out the window pees to his nostrils. He kept his place.
The moon was near full that night and it had risen high above the world and its light was bright and silver. Even the old, ugly place looked good under that light.
Frank sat there for a long time, finally dozed. He was awakened by the sound of wood cracking. He snapped his head up and looked out at the hog pen. The mule was there. He was kicking at the slats of the pen, trying to free his friend.
Frank got up and walked out there. The mule saw him, ran back a few paces, stared at him.
“Knew you’d show,” Frank said. “Just wanted to see you one more time. Today, buddy, you had wings.”
The mule turned its head and snorted.
Frank lifted the gate to the pen and the hog ran out. The hog stopped beside the mule and they both looked at Frank.
“It’s all right,” Frank said. “I ain’t gonna try and stop you.”
The mule dipped its nose to the hog’s snout and they pressed them together. Frank smiled. The mule and the hog wheeled suddenly, as if by agreed signal, and raced toward the rickety rail fence near the hill.
The mule, with one beautiful leap, jumped the fence, seemed pinned in the air for a long time, held there by the rays of the moon. The way the rays fell, for a strange, short instant, it seemed as if he were sprouting gossamer wings.
The hog wiggled under the bottom rail and the two of them ran across the pasture, between the trees and out of sight. Frank didn’t have to go look to know that the mule had jumped the other side of the fence as well, that the hog had worked his way under. And that they were gone.
When the sun came up and Frank was sure there was no wind, he put a match to a broom’s straw and used it to start the house afire, then the barn and the rotted out-buildings. He kicked the slats on the hog pen until one side of it fell down.
He went out to where Dobbin was tied to a tree, saddled and ready to go. He mounted him and turned his head toward the rail fence and the hill. He looked at it for a long time. He gave a gentle nudge to Dobbin with his heels and started out of there, on down toward the road and town.
Bill, the Little Steam Shovel
Bill, the Little Steam Shovel was very excited. He was getting a fresh coat of blue paint from Dave, the Steam Shovel Man, in the morning, and the thought of that made him so happy he secreted oil through his metal. He had been sitting idle in the big garage since he had been made and he was ready to go out into the world to do his first job.
The first of many.
He was going to move big mounds of dirt and big piles of rocks. He was going to make basements for schools and hospitals. He was going to clear land for playgrounds so good little boys and good little girls would have a place for swings and merry-go-rounds and teeter-totters. He was going to move big trees and flatten hills so farmers could grow good food for the good little boys and girls to eat. He was going to clear land for churches and synagogues and cathedrals and mosques and buildings for the worship of Vishnu, Voudan, and such.
He was so happy.
So eager.
He hoped he wouldn’t fuck up.
At night, all alone in the big garage, he thought about a lot of things. The work he wanted to do. How well he wanted to do it. The new coat of paint he was going to get. And sometimes he slept and had the dreams. Thinking about the dreams made his metal turn cold and his manifold blow leaky air.
What was happening to him on those long nights in the dark corner of the garage, waiting for his coat of paint and his working orders, was unclear to him. He knew only that he didn’t like it and the dreams came to him no matter how much he thought about the good things, and the dreams were about falling great distances and they were about the dark. A dark so black, stygian was as bright as fresh-lit candle. One moment he seemed to be on solid support, the next, he was in mid-air, and down he would go, sailing through the empty blackness, and when he hit the ground, it was like, suddenly, he was as flexible as an accordion, all his metal wadded and crunched, his steam shovel knocked all the way back to his ass end. Dave, the Steam Shovel Man, crunched in the cab, was squirting out like a big bag of busted transmission fluid.
Then he would pop awake, snapping on his head beams, disturbing others in the garage, and from time to time, Butch, the Big Pissed-Off Steam Shovel, would throb his engine and laugh.
“You just a big Tinker Toy,” Butch would say.
Bill wasn’t sure what a Tinker Toy was, but he didn’t like the sound of it. But he didn’t say anything, because Butch would whip his ass. Something Butch would remind him of in his next wheezing breath.
“I could beat you to a pile of metal flakes with my shovel. You just a big Tinker Toy.”
There was one thing that Bill thought about that helped him through the long nights, even when he had the dreams. And that was Miss Maudie. The little gold steam shovel with the great head beams that perked high and the lit
tle tail pipe that looked so… Well, there was no other way he could think of it… So open and inviting, dark and warm and full of dismissed steam that could curl around your dipstick like… No. That was vulgar and Miss Maudie would certainly not think of him that way. She was too classy. Too fine. Bill thanked all the metal in Steam Shovel Heaven that she was made the way she was.
Oh, but Heaven forbid, and in the name of Jayzus, the Steam Shovel Who Had Died For His Sins, and all Steam Shovel’s sins by allowing himself to be worked to a frazzle and ran off a cliff by a lot of uncaring machines of the old religion, in his name, he shouldn’t think such things.
He was a good little steam shovel. Good little steam shovels didn’t think about that sort of business, about dipping their oil sticks down good little girl steam shovel’s tail pipes, even if it probably felt damn good. The Great Steam Shovel in The Sky on The Great Expanse of Red Clay, and Jayzus and The Holy Roller Ghost, would know his thoughts, and it would be a mark against him, and when it was his time to be before the door of the Big Garage in the Sky, he would not meet his maker justified, but would be sent way down there to the scrap heap where flames leaped and metal was scorched and melted, twisted and crushed, but never died.
Besides, why would anyone as neat and bright with such big head beams and that fine tail pipe think of him? He didn’t even have his coat of paint yet. Here he was, brand new, but not painted. He was gray as a storm cloud and just sitting, having never done work before. And he was a cheap machine at that, made from cheap parts: melted toasters, vacuums, refrigerators and such.
Maudie looked to be made from high quality steel, like Butch, who eyed her and growled at her from time to time and made her flutter. Happily or fearfully, Bill could not determine. Perhaps both.
But Bill was just a cheap little machine made to do good, hard work for all the good little children in the world, and the men and women who made him—
Then Bill saw his Dave.
Dave came into the building, slid the door way open to let in the morning air, went to a corner of the garage, moved something on the front of his pants and took out his little poker and let fly with steaming water, going, “Oooooooh, yeah, the pause that refreshes, the envy of all race horses.”
Now I know why it stinks in here, Bill thought. Hadn’t seen that before, but now I have. He’s letting juice out of himself. Smells worse than transmission fluid, oil, or windshield cleaner. Don’t the Daves get an oil change?
Dave went out again, came back with a paint gun and a big canister of blue paint fastened to it. He started right in on Bill.
“How’s that, Bill?” Dave said, “How’s that feel?”
Bill cranked his motor and purred.
“Oh, yeah, now you’re digging it,” Dave said.
Dave used several canisters, and soon Bill was as blue as the sky. Or, at least he’s always heard that the sky was blue when the pollution was light. He spent all his time in the garage, where he was built and where he had set for months, listening to the other steam shovels and diggers and such, so, he didn’t know blue from green. He was just a little machine with an eager engine and a desire to do good, and Dave had promised to paint him blue, so he figured the color on him, the paint coming out of the sprayer, must be blue, and it must be the color of the sky.
When Dave finished with the paint, he brought out a big handheld dryer and went over Bill with that. The dryer felt warm on Bill’s metal, and when that was done, Dave took a long, bristly device and poked it down his steam pipe and made Bill jump a little.
“Easy, boy. You’ll get used to this.”
The bristle worked inside to clean him, but Bill knew he wasn’t dirty. This made him wonder about Dave, him doing this, smiling while he did, poking fast as he could in the ole pipe. But, then again, it did feel pretty good.
When Dave finished, he said, “When you go to work, little fella, make me proud.”
On the way out, Dave stopped by Miss Maudie, bent looked up her tail pipe, said, “Clean. Really clean,” and departed.
That day, because of the new coat of paint, the finishing touch, Bill thought he would be sent to work. Dave had said so. But no. The day went by and the other steam shovels, including Miss Maudie, went out to do their work, but he remained inside, fresh and blue and unused.
That night, when the steam shovels returned, he was still in his place, and they, tired, weaving their shovels and dragging their treads, were hosed down by the other Daves, rubbed with rags and oiled and put away for the night.
What is wrong with me? thought Bill.
Why are they not using me to build roads and schools and churches and synagogues and all that shit?
What’s up with that?
Night came and shadows fell through the windows and made the barn dark. Bill squatted on his treads in the gloom and tried not to cry. He was so disappointed. And with the night, he was scared.
He hated the dark. And he hated the dreams, and he knew if he slept they would come.
But if he didn’t sleep, how would that be?
What if they called him out tomorrow? He’d be too tuckered to shovel. He had to sleep. Had to.
And he tried.
And did…
Down in the motor functions where the oil squeezed slow and the little rotors turned and the fans hummed and the coals burned, down there, way down there in the constantly fed nuclear pellet fire, Bill dreamed.
And the dream was a blossom of blackness, and he was falling, fast, so fast. Then he hit and his engine screamed. His lights popped on. Then Butch’s lights popped on, and there was a hum of Butch’s motor, and a clunk of treads, and pretty soon, Butch, was beside him.
“You just a big Tinker Toy, and you starting to make me really mad, little squirt. You wrecking Butch’s sleep. And Butch, he don’t like it. He don’t like it some at all, you diggin’ on that, Tinker Toy? Well… No, you don’t dig at all, do you, little friend? You sit and sit and soon rust and rust. If you live that long. You scream that engine again, you gonna wake up with a crowd of mechanics around you. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Bill said.
“Good. Now…” and to emphasize, Butch lifted his shovel and rubbed it against Bill’s side, made a scratch that ran all the way from Bill’s cab to his treads, “there’s a little taste of what may be the appetizer to a big ole dinner. Dig? Oh, wrong term for you. You don’t dig at all. You’re too little.”
“I may be little, but I’m willing to work,” Bill said. “I want to build schools and churches and—”
“Shut the fuck up, Billy. Hear me, little bitty Billy. You just a big Tinker Toy.”
“I…”
“Hear me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s better, oil squirt.”
“Lebe em alone, ya ole clunk of paper clips.”
Lights were coming toward them, along with a rattling sound, like loose bolts and creaky hinges in a bucket, and soon, close up, Bill saw that it was Gabe, the Wise Old Steam Shovel. His paint had gone gray and his shovel wobbled and leaned a bit to the left, and his treads were frayed, but his head beams were still bright.
“You talking to me, Four Cylinder?” Butch said. “If that many work.”
“Gid the fug away from him,” Gabe said, “or I’ll slap duh gohtdamn steam out of ya.”
Butch laughed.
“You do any slapping, old shovel, your shovel will come off. You barely running on treads now, you greasy box of parts.”
“Kizz muh ass,” Gabe said.
“Won’t poison myself with that idea,” Butch said. “Gonna let you go cause you so old you make the stone wheel look like it a modern invention. You do, you know.”
Chuckling under the roar of his engine, Butch motored off.
Gabe lifted up on one tread and let fly a steam fart that sounded like a howitzer.
“Thad’s whad you can do wid yer gohtdamn stone wheel, ya big hunk of bolt-suckin’, leakin’ steamin’ pile of—”
“Pl
ease,” Bill said. “There’s a lady nearby.”
Bill rolled his headlamps toward Miss Maudie, who sat with her beams on, awakened by the commotion.
“Oh,” Gabe said. “Sorry, girlie. Gid a liddle worked up sometimes.”
“Excuse us for the bother,” Bill said to Miss Maudie.
“That’s all right,” she said, and the sound of her motor made Bill feel a tightening in his joints and a gurgle in his transmission fluid. She blinked her headlights, then shut them down, with, “But I do need the sleep.”
“Sure,” Bill said. “Of course.” And he could feel a tingling in his lines and parts that wasn’t just fluid circulation.
“Yah ain’t eben giddin’ none, and you done exhaust-whipped,” Gabe said.
“Sshhhhhh,” Bill said, letting out a soft puff of steam. “You’ll embarrass her… And me… And Butch will come back and scratch me again, or beat me… But thanks. Thanks for taking up for me.”
“Ain’t nuthin’. Jes wand to sleep muhself. So shud up. ’Sides, don’t like to see some medal-assed whipper-snapper bullyin’ a liddle steam fard like yerself. Now, go to sleep.”
“Sure,” Bill said, and smiled. “Thanks again.”
“Nothin’ to id,” Gabe said. “And kid, you’re habbin’ dreams, right? I hear ya moanin’ yer engine.”
“I am. The same dream.”
“Whad is id?”
Bill told him.
“Huuummmm,” Gabe said. “Pud my thinker on thad one. I’m a preddy smart fugger, say so myself… But in the meantime, ya want to git them dreams outta yer head, least a lidde, what ya do, ya close yer eyes, and ya think of yerself ridin’ Miss Maudie’s tail pipe like yer trying to climb a gohtdamn straid up incline without any treads. Gid me? That’ll put yer liddle nut of a fire in a gohtdamn happy place, thad’s whad I’m tryin’ to tell ya.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Done said.”
And with that, Gabe chuckled dryly and rattled off to leave Bill with the shadows and his dreams.