Flash

by Rachel Anne Ridge

  One day, we noticed some horses grazing in the north pasture. Flash now had his pick of whom he’d like to spend his lazy afternoons with—the horses or the cows. I wasn’t surprised at his decision; Flash’s newfound confidence made him ally squarely with the horses.

  “This will have to satisfy Flash’s social needs for now,” Tom said as he watched them touch noses over the fence. “I’m a little relieved, actually. All the benefits of having more animals without the work and expense.”

  Flash was happy as could be with this new arrangement. He lifted his pliable upper lip to show his teeth, rocking his head from side to side in greeting. Did it bother him that he had a leaf between his front teeth? Nope. Not in the least. He just smiled away, fully confident of the effect of his donkey charm on the mares next door, who seemed amused but thoroughly unimpressed.

  “Honey, let me help you finish loading the truck,” I offered, grabbing a plastic bin filled with paints and brushes. Tom was departing for a work marathon to complete the installation of the art for Bridgette’s corporate project. It looked like it was going to take an all-nighter to meet the deadline. Bridgette and Steve had championed our skills and convinced the project managers that we could not only create and install custom artwork but also design signage and wayfinding for the spaces as well.

  As we had suspected, the job was indeed beyond our previous experience, and it required some on-the-job training to pull it off. But the scope of the project made us find some talent we didn’t know we’d had. We leaned on our daughter and new son-in-law to give us those crash courses in Photoshop and learned graphic design as we went along. The medium was new, but the principles and the skills we’d honed over years of creating mural art were the same. There was an excitement to the work—a sink-or-swim feeling that carried us through the weeks of design and installation. We were, indeed, running with horses.

  That night, we had decided to divide and conquer the workload, so I stayed at our home office and poured myself an extra cup of coffee to work on some last-minute drawings that were needed. By 1:00 a.m., I was bleary but determined to finish.

  Then, without warning, the bright red and blue lights of a squad car pierced the darkness outside the window. My heart stopped for a second as I assessed the situation. No cars ever drive up our remote driveway late at night, let alone a police vehicle! This could not be good. I peered through the glass as two sheriff’s deputies hoisted themselves out of the front seat and came up the walk.

  “Howdy, ma’am,” one of the men said as I opened the door a crack. In my mind I could see the headline—“Woman Slain by Phony Sheriffs Overnight”—followed by a story with a stern warning to women to not open their doors for just anyone who flashes a badge.

  As if on cue, the officers flashed their badges, and I felt certain they were probably murderers—but I went ahead and opened the door wider to get it over with. The two men were exactly what you might picture Texas county sheriff’s deputies looking like: imposing and serious, with crew cuts, and with builds that hinted at both weightlifting and doughnuts. Their starched uniforms were pulled taut across their chests, and suddenly I felt more threatened by an impending button pop-off than the Colt .45s in their holsters. Plus, their car looked somewhat legit with the lights and all.

  “Sorry to bother you, ma’am,” the lead deputy said. “I’ll cut right to the chase.” He paused for a moment. “Uh, you own a donkey?”

  Sir, you’re pulling up at this hour, with lights flashing, to ask me if I own a donkey?

  Just then, a pickup truck roared up the driveway and came to a stop behind the squad car. Two vehicles in one night? This was some kind of record. The truck door burst open, and out stumbled a man, a waft of beer and stale cigars hanging on him.

  “Yes, yes, I do,” I replied, narrowing my eyes and thinking what a good setup this was. The fake officers disarm me with their badges while the boss pulls up to finish the job. I was a goner, for sure. If only I’d had time to leave a note for the kids.

  “Well, this gentleman here,” said the deputy, motioning over his shoulder, “says you got a problem on your hands.”

  I looked questioningly over to the new guy, who stepped forward, apparently to tell me all about it. It was then that I wondered about a justice system in which some kind of “donkey problem” is deemed greater than the fact that this man may have driven under the influence to inform me in person. What kind of society is this, anyway? And why aren’t the officers arresting this man?

  “Yore donkey . . . ,” he slurred, pointing his finger in my face. “Yore donkey got up into my corral and got at my mare. I’d been keepin’ her away from my stallions, and then yore sorry little donkey broke in and got to her.” He swayed toward me and continued. “Yeah, he got to her, all right. By the time I figured it out and found ’em, they was layin’ down, smokin’ a cigarette. The deed had been done.”

  I blinked at him in horror as he capped off his story. “Lady, yore gonna have a baby mule on yore hands, ’cause that’s what you get when you cross a donkey with a horse. A baby mule!” He kicked at some gravel in disgust and let his words hang in the air.

  There was an awkward pause as I struggled for an appropriate response. Something about Flash being an “immature” male and incapable of procreation. Something about how he was too young for this kind of monkey business. Wait. Had maturity happened while we’d been up to our necks in our new project, not paying attention to the passage of time and adolescence? Uh-oh.

  The deputy cleared his throat and asked, “You gonna go get him tonight then?”

  I turned to him and said, “Tonight? I can’t drag him home in the middle of the night! Can’t this wait until morning? The ‘deed’ has been done, so what’s the hurry?” Also, I was in my slippers.

  The deputy looked at the man. The horse owner shrugged, the fight suddenly gone out of him. He got back in his truck, slumped behind the steering wheel, and said out the door, “Just get him tomorrow; it’s already too late.”

  Morning dawned, and Tom fell into bed, exhausted from the all-night art installation. I decided right then to deal with the donkey situation on my own, so I kept quiet about Flash’s escapade, tucked Tom in, and tiptoed out. I would need tools, so I headed for the local feed store.

  “Give me the largest halter you’ve got,” I said to the lady at the register. I slapped my hand down on the counter and looked around the joint like I knew what I was doing.

  “Sure. Whatcha got, a hefty Belgian?” she asked, snapping her gum and indicating his height with her hand over her head.

  I sighed. “No. No, just a smallish donkey . . . with a gigantic head.” I held my hand chest-high. “I’ve got to get him home from my neighbor’s house, so I’ll need some oats and a lead rope as well.”

  Just then, my cell phone rang. It was my friend Priscilla. She and I had met a few years earlier when she’d found my business card and hired me to paint her baby’s nursery. We hit it off immediately and spent so much time talking with each other that the one-week job took about three weeks to complete. Our differences in age, vocation, ethnicity, and life season didn’t matter one bit as we sat on that nursery room floor and dreamed up a beautiful space for the new baby.

  Later, even though I had retreated into my work and family responsibilities, she kept after me. Gradually, through her determined effort to break through my wall of busyness, we became real friends, and over time I had come to count her as family. She now had two babies in tow, and I hoped to convince her that she and her husband needed to move to the country to raise their family. I thought a house on our quiet road would be a perfect place for them.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. I started to give her the lowdown, but before I could finish, she said, “I’m on my way,” and hung up. Priscilla was always up for an adventure, and what better way to initiate her into country life than to chase down a loose farm animal?

  The August air was stifling by the time we donned tennis shoes and got ours
elves organized. It was going to be a hot one. Accompanied by the deafening sound of cicadas overhead, Priscilla and I made our way to the pasture’s back gate, which had been ripped from its hinges by my precious little donkey. Mercy!

  We walked farther to find a broken fence post, wires dangling. A little farther, and another broken fence. Dear me. I dreaded to see what kind of state Flash would be in after all this. We finally found him holed up in the corral next to his ladylove, beat up from his night of charging through barbed wire fences and foisting his affection upon her.

  Just one look at him told me he was not going to come easily. He had the same hardened donkey stare as the first night we’d found him—“Make me,” it simply said.

  So we haltered him up and started coaxing.

  Flash would have none of it. And who could blame him? The leggy mare he’d fallen for was adorable. Chocolate brown in color with a black mane and tail, she was an exotic vixen, and he was a lovesick donkey-boy. He was hopelessly, madly, genuinely in love with her. She, on the other hand, was not so much in love with him but clearly in love with being adored. With her head tossing and hooves prancing, she accepted this lopsided relationship with her body language. That was all Flash needed to see; he was fully committed to making the tenuous bond work. Now, with head low and blubbering lips pulled back, he sullenly brayed his opposition to our mission to move him.

  Flash refused to leave his girlfriend, whom we now called “Maria,” after the female lead in West Side Story. At the prospect of being forced apart, she decided she’d make it work as well. Maria whinnied at him and paced back and forth in her corral as we inched him away from her. Hours of pushing, pulling, cajoling, entreating, and offering treats yielded only limited progress. We were still on the neighbor’s property, just halfway to the back gate, and standing at an impasse in the blistering sun.

  “We’ve tried everything,” Priscilla said, wiping the perspiration from her forehead. “The only thing we haven’t tried is dropping the rope to see if he’ll come on his own.” She reminded me that, under normal circumstances, Flash follows us around like a puppy dog. He can’t stand to be left behind.

  “True,” I said, unconvinced but willing to try anything at this point. “We might as well give it a go. What do we have to lose?”

  So we dropped the rope and turned to head back to our place. We took teeny little pretend steps, glancing over our shoulders to see what Flash would do.

  “And we’re walking away. We’re walking, and we’re leaving . . .” I narrated our movements for good measure, just in case Flash didn’t notice that we were leaving him.

  “And we’re walking . . .”

  To our amazement, he thought about it for only a moment, then picked up his small hooves and followed. On his own. No carrot, no stick. Just followed.

  I guess as long as he thought it was his own idea, he was willing to cooperate.

  Flash stepped nonchalantly behind us the remaining distance, as if we were out on a Sunday stroll. Perhaps he knew it was simply time to go home. Or perhaps he was plotting his return. Whatever the case, we hurriedly jury-rigged the gate in place behind us, and Priscilla stopped to admire the strength and determination it had taken to break it down in the first place. “Wow, that guy sure found his passion. He knew what he wanted and didn’t let anything stand in his way,” she commented. “I’d never have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

  Like he knew we were talking about him, Flash seemed to shrug his narrow donkey shoulders with modesty and lowered his head into the grass to munch away, his foray into romance over with for now. Beau trotted out to offer his opinion about Flash’s escapade, barking his moral indignation from behind our legs, but Flash simply ignored the criticism.

  Priscilla and I made our way back to the house for some sweet tea and air-conditioning, relieved to have Flash back in the fold where he belonged. I pulled two glasses from the cupboard, then found a pen and hastily scrawled “find your passion” on an old envelope that was sitting on the counter. I thought I might like to muse about it later, but of course I promptly forgot about it. For quite a while.

  But the funny thing about writing something down, even if you forget that you ever wrote it, is that the message stays with you long afterward. The envelope eventually went the way of gathered trash, yet the mental note attached to it followed me around and turned up in odd moments. Middle of the night. Halfway through a shower. Driving to the home improvement store.

  “Find your passion.”

  Flash had certainly found his passion. There was a sheriff’s report (and a broken gate) to prove it. I’d pictured his midnight rendezvous with the pretty little mare as a humorous anecdote to tell at a party, an icebreaker of a story that was sure to get a laugh. Flash was exceeding our expectations as a conversation piece, and I felt really proud of him for that, even if the circumstances were a bit sketchy.

  But that note stuck with me.

  Did I have a passion big enough to pursue with the same dogged determination Flash had? It was kind of a daunting thought, especially when so much of my life seemed muddled and unclear. As I could see it, I had several passions, all competing for my attention and not necessarily working together in one beautiful, synergistic purpose as I imagined they should.

  Perhaps making a list would help. I brought out my notebook, turned to a fresh page, and paused. Finally, I wrote,

  My Passions — Rachel Ridge

  (Always write your name at the top.)

  1. Faith — my core beliefs

  I put this one first because I figured that’s what good Christians are supposed to do. I remembered sitting in Sunday school and seeing circles drawn on an overhead projector image, with the center circle being Jesus Christ, and the larger circles around it representing other parts of your life, almost like ripples. Totally made sense. Yes, this should be the first thing I list, even though I sort of think it ought to go without saying. But it would feel funny to leave it off. Or would it?

  I imagined those circles again and wondered what would happen if I took faith out of the center. What would I put in its place? Suddenly, seeing life without a moral compass and an abiding relationship with God at its core looked like a hopeless abyss. If I thought life was muddled and confused before, now it would be completely impossible.

  Truthfully, as of late it felt more like a value than a passion, but when push came to shove, if the definition for passion was something like “strong energy or emotion that compels you,” then faith would qualify. I was still a bit unclear about how it should actually look (i.e., if I were truly passionate, shouldn’t I be in full-time service?). But I kept it at the top and moved on to number two. Maybe this little exercise would lead me to the answer.

  2. My family

  This one was easy. I found this passion the day we brought our first baby home from the hospital and became a family unit. I lay on the bed next to the most perfect pink bundle I’d ever seen, and I knew instantly that everything was different. As I smoothed the tiny ruffles on the dress her daddy had bought her, I vowed to be the best mother I could possibly be. I would love and cherish her, lead and protect her—and the babies that would come after her—no matter what.

  Passion burst into flame and colored every life decision afterward: where we would live, what we would do, what kinds of food we’d eat, how we’d spend our time and money. Parenting wasn’t a hobby or passing fancy. It took center stage as a passion worth pursuing, even through the setbacks (like forgetting to pick up a kid from school on his first day of sixth grade, losing patience with whining toddlers and teenagers, and wanting to run out the door at times).

  Deep in my heart, I wanted to make our home an unforgettable place. A place that would ground our kids for life, make them feel loved, and give them a sense of belonging. I wanted our home and family, however imperfect, to be a sanctuary.

  3. Creating — making art and stuff

  (I decorated this point with doodles for emphasis, a
nd also because I doodle when I think hard.)

  And here is where Flash’s pursuit of his passion really spoke to me. It was on the level of that outside circle used in the overhead projector image, that part of me that looked beyond the “done deals” of faith and family and wondered about things like interests and purpose and, I don’t know, experiencing joy. I thought back to seventh grade, when my journey to discovering a passion for creating art died a sudden death before it even had a chance to live.

  It was my first day of art class—the elective I’d been waiting for ever since seeing the thrown pottery jugs, papier-mâché figures, and charcoal still lifes on display in the hallways of my junior high. “Make Art,” said the sign above them, and I knew in my heart that I was born to do just that. I’d always loved colors and nature and crayons and glue. To think I would finally get to take a real art class! I had already pictured a blue ribbon hanging from one of my paintings in the hallway and a write-up in the school newspaper.

  We perched on stools, our easels arranged in a square facing a table in the center of the room. A large clay vase was placed on the table. We were instructed to pick up our pencils and draw the container without looking at the paper secured to our easels.

  “This is called blind contour drawing,” said Mr. Hastings, the art teacher. “It is essential to everything else we will learn in this class. Begin.” He abruptly sat down at his desk, opened a book, and left us to our work.

  All the other kids brought their pencils up and began to draw, steadfastly staring at the vase without glancing at their papers. I heard the sound of charcoal points on manila, stool legs squeaking on industrial tile floors, the ticking of the large clock above the door. And I froze. The vase swam before me. My heart began to pound, and I felt my skin start to flush. My hand shook as I looked at the lip of the vase and tried to make my hand follow its simple shape.