You could cut the despair of working people and the “outs” with a knife.
Two things helped the Republicans. One was that my generation was at the peak of its child-rearing years. We still had the kids at home, and our parents were aging, so often we had to care for them too. We couldn’t be as politically active as we had been when we were in our twenties.
The second thing that helped them was that we overplayed our hand. We weren’t as well organized as we should have been and, convinced of our moral superiority, we let things slide. We’d thought that since we were right, on the side of the future, we’d win. I think an entire generation has now been disabused of this notion.
All this was coming down as I was trying to rise up after my losses.
Did this hurt my work? No. I can write through anything. What it did was slide me away from any task wherein the public could see me. No one wanted the Queer of the Year sitting by their front window. No professorships would be coming my way. Nor would I be on the board of directors for a local bank or a national corporation.
Don’t laugh. One of the weaknesses of these boards is that they rarely have members who came up from the people, nor do they have anyone from the arts. You can’t succeed in the arts on talent alone anymore (if you ever could). You’d better be a half-decent businessman or surround yourself with people who are.
I had hoped in my middle years to be able to contribute on these different levels—and I wouldn’t have minded the compensation, either, since if you’re going to do it right, such involvement takes a lot of time.
No government appointments would come my way. I’d served with the Literature Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts during the Carter administration. This isn’t to say I understood the inner workings of government but I watched two women who did: Midge Costanza and Donna Shalala. I also closely watched the senator from Kansas, Bob Dole. He knew the Hill. At that time the Republicans used him as the forward or attack man. And always there was Senator Ted Kennedy, who seemed to command a shadow government.
Each of these people was good with other people, one-on-one. They were easy to talk to, often had wit, had fantastic staffs and had clear objectives.
To be pushed aside happens to many people. While Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, think of the other women, the Democrats, who could have filled that slot. It wasn’t their time.
So much of life is happenstance. It makes me laugh when I go to a bookstore and see all those titles about controlling your life. You’re lucky if you can control your bladder.
And like those before me who belonged to the party out of power, or to a despised group, I had to readjust.
Bursting with energy and ideas, I couldn’t sit around twiddling my thumbs. I accepted never being a part of government with more ease than I accepted not teaching. But in the end, I bowed to fate and asked myself what could I do that was useful above and beyond writing.
Animals. They were the first love of my life, coequal with language. If I couldn’t do much for people, I hoped I could do a great deal for my friends without a vote.
Kalarama Farm in Springfield, Kentucky, provided inspiration. Kalarama brought me back “home.” I’d met Joan Hamilton and Larry Hodge two weeks before Mother died. David Goodstein, the publisher of The Advocate, introduced me. These people knew horses. At the top of the Saddlebred game, Joan and Larry also had a keen appreciation for a good Thoroughbred. If it had a leg on each corner, they knew about it.
It’s a seven-hour drive from central Virginia to Springfield. I’d put Juts, my Chow puppy, in the car and go. I figured naming the dog after Mother would give Mom a jolt in the Great Beyond. She could rail at my lack of respect. Doggie Juts and I would rumble from Lexington, Virginia, to Lexington, Kentucky. We’d pick up the Bluegrass Parkway and head south to Springfield.
My heart skips a beat each time I pass the grave of Kalarama Rex, one of the great Saddlebred sires. By the time you pass the simple stone you’re at the main white barn. Out run Jack Russells, out runs Joan. If Larry’s in the office, he runs out, too.
Like so many friendships, this one has deepened over time to the point that I can’t imagine my life without Joan and Larry.
I bedevil them with questions because they’re at the forefront of knowledge. Kalarama Farm was one of the first farms to experiment with feeds incorporating rice hulls, which supply shine to horses’ coats as well as nutrition. Joan studies nutrition, pasture forage, bloodlines. When it comes to breeding, she has a gift, the ability to see what isn’t yet there. As for Larry, he has the best hands I have ever seen on a horseman. Jean Beegle, a dear friend of mine, now in her seventies, had great hands like Larry. Part of that is training and part is a gift from God.
I watched how they ran their business, how they cared for their horses. Joan, always up on medical research, would keep me informed as to advances at the Gluck Equine Research Center at the University of Kentucky. She also told me what horses were on the back acres of the big Thoroughbred farms. Many times the best hunter/jumpers come off those back acres.
Even better, Joan and Larry would foxhunt with me. Again, remember that in America we hunt for the chase, not the kill.
One February, Chuck and Jean Beegle, their daughter Lynne and I hauled horses over to Lexington. We threw on two extra horses, one for Joan and one for Larry. We’d called ahead, receiving permission to hunt with Iroquois, a grand hunt founded in 1880. We also thought we’d stay and go out with Woodford Hounds, founded in 1981 by Richard Dole, a keen hunting man, as is his wife. Both hunts have a reputation for burning the wind and we couldn’t wait to mount up.
In hunting you cannot wear your colors with another hunt unless the Master gives you permission to do so. Chuck called and received permission. Colors are awarded once a year by the Master. It is the highest honor a person can earn in the field and colors can be earned only in the field. It takes years to win them.
Meg Finney, a member of Iroquois, took upon herself the role of our guide. She was to regret this.
The morning of the hunt the temperature hovered in the high twenties. Skies were overcast. Although it was cold, we figured the day would warm up a tad, and overcast skies usually presage a good hunt because dampness and cool temperatures keep the scent down. When the sun climbs in the sky and the temperature rises, scent burns off.
Excited, we inspected one another’s attire to make certain we were perfect. As each one mounted, the person on the ground took a towel and rubbed off whatever specks had gotten onto the other’s boots. The last one up dusted off his boots as best he could and off we rode, led by Meg, who is a fine rider, very fluid and easy on a horse. She’s also quite a lovely-looking woman and, turned out in proper formal attire, makes men’s heads snap around—as they do for Joan, a beauty with big brown eyes, and for Lynne, tiny like her mother, with an infectious smile.
By the time we reached the fixture, the place where the hunters gather, we were limbered up. The first thing I noticed was the horses. What splendid animals, and not one Western color among them: no paints, buckskins, palominos. Every horse was bay, chestnut or seal brown. These were the horses from the back acres of the studs. I hope I remembered to close my mouth. The gathering was impeccably turned out, many wearing the colors of Iroquois, a black collar with robin’s egg blue piping, and some had the robin’s egg blue vest, too.
Out came the hounds. Cross-bred and English, and that fast, off we went over the undulating green of Kentucky. Our first jump was a stone wall with a log rider over the top. I was riding a big horse called Chester, not pretty but he would jump anything. My Thoroughbred hunter, a smallish, 15.3-hand bay called Jones, was beginning to go blind in one eye so I’d borrowed a horse from Lynne. Jones, by the way, now lives a life of ease. A few more years and he’ll be able to vote.
I rubbed the jump and the rail came off. I’d never jumped a true stone wall before. I was amazed at how quickly the rosary came back to me.
/> Joan, Larry, Chuck, Jean, Lynne and I—off we went at an easy gallop, for the hounds gave tongue. Whatever was in front of us we cleared, sometimes landing on smooth rock on the other side. The hounds sounded glorious. At one point, early in the day, we were in a river bottom looking up at bluffs overhead with the hounds running single file, silhouetted on the bluffs. What a beautiful sight, and the music was good. Then off we tore, plowing through the river, over more rail fences, paneled fences and the occasional coop.
We clipped along, the wind came up, tears streamed down our faces. The temperature plummeted. I could no longer feel my hands or my toes.
Here I must insert that Virginia foxhunters are not beloved by the rest of America or by Canada. Too often that haughtiness of Virginians, that elegant way of saying nothing yet saying everything, plain pisses people off. We, of course, feel that Virginia is the center of foxhunting in America, and you can hunt the shires of England or you can hunt Virginia.
Naturally, Marylanders take great exception to this, especially Mother’s old hunt, Green Spring Valley Hounds.
Iroquois therefore felt a touch of competitiveness toward us. They flat ran our asses off. At one point we had a check, a pause for hounds to again find the scent. The gentlemen of Iroquois offered us libations from their hunting flasks. Libations? That stuff could raise the dead! As I’ve said, I don’t drink, but I will take a nip in the hunt field to ward off the cold. I swallowed a tiny mouthful and was grateful I hadn’t imbibed more. My compatriots gulped down large quantities of the stuff as our hosts smiled benevolently. Few people are more hospitable or better storytellers than Kentuckians. All that bourbon has to go to some good purpose.
I looked at Joan as she knocked back a swig, her head to the sky.
Laughing, she handed the flask back to its owner, a tall, good-looking man, saying, “That tastes good.”
Right then and there I knew that Joan was made of stronger stuff than I was. Had I swallowed that much of the juice, I’d be dead.
Larry also allowed himself a sip.
No sooner was the cap on the flask then off we boomed at a gallop. We were winding our way at a good speed through low bushes and trees almost stunted, a curious patch of territory. By now it was snowing. You could still see but the flakes seemed as big as pancakes.
Chuck, Jean, Lynne and I somehow had pushed up to the front, and we slowed down to take a fence by a gate. The terrain was narrow, so we had to jump it single file. Usually Iroquois people “take their own line,” which means they take the obstacle wherever they please so long as they don’t pass the Master.
As we waited, impatient to continue, a lady rode up and shouted, “You’ve lost one of your people.”
Now, in hunting parlance that is a euphemism that can mean “One of your people is dead,” “One of your people has hit the ground hard” or even “One of your people has wandered into the back of the beyond and I’ll be damned if I’m going to miss a ripping hunt to look for them.”
Dutifully the three of us turned our horses back to find either Joan or Larry. Meg wasn’t with us either, but since the lady had said “one of your people” we knew it wasn’t Meg.
We rode back to find Joan dusting herself off. Feeling the effects of the Kickapoo joy juice, she’d popped off when her horse slipped and twisted out from under her. She must have hit the ground hard because she was a touch nauseated, which can mean a slight concussion.
Gamely she mounted back up. We figured we’d better go back to the stables, but only Meg knew the territory and she said, “You can’t get there from here.”
By now you couldn’t see the hand in front of your face. Occasionally we’d hear the hounds.
Hunched down in our saddles, we picked our way through the countryside, now silent and white. No one thought Joan should jump, but in a few places you had to. She went up and over in good form but her face was as white as the snow.
The temperature was really dropping now. We finally slid over a soft hill about an hour later and there reposed the field. They hailed us. “There are the Virginians.”
The field master turned toward home. It was another hour before we finally reached the stables.
Jean got Joan off her horse and into the little stable office that had a cot in it. There was no heat in that room but there were horse blankets, so Jean covered her up as we, fingers stiff from the cold, untacked our horses, rubbed them down, put coolers on them to dry them out and put them in their stalls. Once the animals were dry, we threw on their blankets and fed them hay. The thermometer in the stable read 16°F.
Another hour passed. Jean suggested we take Joan to a hospital just in case. Joan refused and said she needed to rest. Larry, lips blue, bright blue, put her in the car and carried her home, which is about forty-five minutes from Lexington.
I’ve never been so glad to get in a car in my life. When that heater cranked on, it was heaven. We drove back to our hotel, where Chuck and Jean got into the hot tub. I couldn’t do it. It seemed so hot it was painful. I took a shower instead.
That evening we were invited to the clubhouse for dinner. The clubhouse is an old mill with lovely stonework. The downstairs has a long bar and a big fireplace. The upstairs is a big, open room that can be used for various functions. It was filled with long tables, lively conversation and good food.
The weather grew even more hateful and Woodford chose, wisely, not to go out. This gives me an excuse to go back and hunt some more since I really want to go out with Woodford. To this day, when Joan discusses hunting, she says, “I am never drinking that witch’s brew again.”
Sometimes when I’m faced with a tough decision or a physically unpleasant task I say to myself, “Can’t be as bad as Joan’s day with Iroquois.”
74
Laughter Beyond the Grave
When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the spirit rejoices for what it has found.” I can’t take credit for that thought. It’s a Sufi aphorism.
When losses and heartbreak pile up, my aphorism is, “Dammit to hell.” But time and heartache taught me there’s great truth in the Sufi aphorism. I learned to be grateful for the time I had with those who had died and even with those who had ditched me.
Many times when someone’s mother or a dear friend dies, they are bereft because they’ve lost a person who loved them, foremost, and someone to whom they could open their heart. Since I seldom opened my heart to either Mother or Jerry, I didn’t search for new sounding boards. I had opened my mind to them, and I missed the free exchange of ideas.
I learned quite young that Mother cared nothing for what I felt. Her focus was on how I behaved, how I achieved, how I looked. In fairness to her, she never cared how anyone felt. For Mother, life was external. If there were any emotions to be displayed they would be her own or Aunt Mimi’s. And I learned my lessons well: Nobody wants to know what you’re feeling. Concentrate on the other person.
I recognize now that this period in my life was one of my emotional turning points. The fact that I didn’t speak of it nor write about it means only that I was figuring it out as best I could. Then, too, I was following my minuet of manners.
Since my writing direction was clear, and my farming was clear, I thought I was doing rather well. I’d go out with people but I wasn’t focusing on a deep connection. By the same token, I wasn’t focusing just on sex either, and this brought me no end of trouble. In America you either sow your wild oats or make a lifelong commitment. There seems to be little tolerance for a more relaxed attitude about dating people. One is supposed to date with intentions obvious.
I didn’t do that. I wasn’t looking for a life partner. I was happy to go to the movies, go to a baseball game, or go to bed. This made a lot of people unhappy with me. Not just the woman or occasional man that I would date, but the people surrounding them and the people surrounding me.
I simply did not want to make a commitment I couldn’t keep. I was struggling inside to order—strange as that word may sound—my losses.
I accepted them, I learned from them, but I had to order them.
I order the socks in my drawer, the books on my shelf, the bridles in the tackroom. It’s part of my personality. So I had to order my internal life anew.
While I was coming back to the land of the living, I decided to unpack the big trunk I’d thrown together when Mother died. I took from her house her treadle sewing machine, my ribbons and trophies from sporting events, her accounting books and personal correspondence and one old housecoat because it was so Mom (in her cleaning incarnation). I also packed her jewelry, and I hasten to add we have vastly different taste in jewelry.
I opened the trunk and started reading. It’s a good thing Juts was dead because if she’d returned to terra firma I would have brained her.
75
Juts’s Secret
Rooting through Mother’s things, I endured a bout of sadness, getting misty, even missing that wild woman. I held her big bloodstone ring in my hand and thought of the times I beheld her wearing the ring, a Chesterfield between her first and second finger, conversation running along an uncharitable course.
I weakened and called Aunt Mimi, now in her high eighties, sound as a dollar even though she’d been dying since the day she was born and was not one to leave us ignorant of her sufferings. I sniffled a bit about how much I missed my beloved mother. Okay, the beloved part was gilding the lily, but Aunt Mimi liked to hear those things.
“Did I ever tell you about the time we went to lunch from the silk mill?” she said.
Indeed she had, but I pretended that I hadn’t heard this tale before. She knew she’d told me many times but the polite thing was to ask. The minute I said no she could trot out the polished story.
“Well, it was 1925 and Juts was working at the Blue Bird Silk Mill. She was palling around with Toot Weigel and Laura Uhlein—it might have been spelled Uhlein but it was pronounced ‘E-line’ … of course, you knew her as Laura Gadd. I was working down on Hanover Square at—” Here there was an interruption because her Pekingese, Chin, wanted attention. “The best puppy in the world.… Where was I?”
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