Half Broke Read online

  Bob and I talked easily about growing hay the following spring and about the land where he had lived for most of his life. Bringing a horse back onto his land was a silent dream reawakened, a reason to keep up the routine of farming that Bob loved. It gave his life purpose.

  We drove onto the pristine horse farm complete with a perky, white fence, a neatly crowned pebbled driveway, and fields of bright-green fertilized grass. The rolling hills were spotted with well-groomed horses wearing lightweight blankets to keep their coats from fading in the sun. The owner had told me the mare was difficult when I first called. They had put a few rides on her, but this horse was far from gentle, the owner said. She had broken out of halters and bridles, knocked down gates, and jumped over fences. I hung up and relayed these brief descriptions to Bob, who wasn’t the least bit concerned.

  “Ain’t no reason we can’t get her through all that. She’s young,” he confided in his sing-song southern voice.

  When we arrived, she was in a large stall, halfway down the impeccably clean barn aisle. Not one blade of hay or spotting of manure in sight. We heard her first, blowing short snorts and stomping the ground, rattling the upright bars on her stall walls. Dust poured from her stall into the alley of the barn. I was shocked when I first saw her. She was terrified and angry, sweat all over her body, frothy-white foam bubbling up between her chest muscles. She looked crazed, untamable, as if she’d seen a demon. The young men who worked at the barn greeted us and handed over her halter and bridle. They asked us to be careful, and then they left us alone.

  Bob sent me back to his truck, where I pulled out the brushes and combs, hoof pick, saddle blanket, and Bob’s old cherished saddle layered in dust. It had a signature handmade stamp on the corner of the skirt. Faint and worn out, it read: Saddle Maker; Billy Cook. I stacked all the gear on the outside of her stall. We entered, first unlatching the gate, then the two strands of chains wrapped around the door frame that held tight the barricade they built to keep her from busting free. Steam rose off her back. Her eyes were rounder than harvest moons, lined with a spooky white edge. She danced around us. Her feet barely touching the ground.

  “Easy, girl,” Bob rolled his words out slow. If he was nervous, there was not one sound or sight of it in him. “E A S Y.”

  Bob walked right up to her and laid his hand on her shoulder. She stopped her feet as he reached for her, and stood, head high, right next to him. I handed Bob one of the brushes. There wasn’t much to clean off her. She was a shimmering bronze red, the metallic color of a newly minted motorcycle. He brushed her anyway. His touch seemed to settle her, to stabilize her instinct to run. He moved the brush along her back and over her loin, then back to her chest, knocking the globs of sweaty foam off her bulging, young muscles. All the while, Bob spoke to her in a soft voice. Bob was hard of hearing and said just about everything in a full-out scream. But he whispered to her like he was in a dream. I imagined he could only hear his own words from the inside of his head, yet the mare heard him just fine. I handed him the mane and tail comb, and he went about his magic, soothing her high anxiety. Her head dropped down as he pulled the comb through her hair.

  “We ain’t gonna tie her. Ain’t no sense in that. She don’t need that kind of pressure today,” he yelled at me. The mare stood, seemingly unconcerned about his vocal outburst, her ears twitching back and forth. “We’re gonna get this bridle on her, saddle, too, and you gonna ride her.”

  At two years of age, she was already an athlete, and I needed a horse. I’d been riding quarter horses for the manager of a nearby barn. I had always ridden other people’s horses, never having the income or savings to take care of a horse. Now at twenty-nine, I wanted, needed my own. I had gone to Bob a few months before and asked for his help in finding one. His nephew Jerry rode for this barn and told us about the troubled mare. The owners wanted her gone, so the price was right. Jerry brought us a photo, and Bob liked her right away.

  When Bob spoke about his old horses, they each had their own story. He’d tell me how one horse was different from the next. How breaking in a young horse requires listening for the slightest clues: a shortened stride trotting to the right, a holding of breath in certain kinds of light, an inability to swallow around loud and fast-moving people. One thing they all had in common, Bob would say, was that they were always trying to get things right. They were totally honest that way, always seeking clarity in the wake of confusion. Like Big Red, the one horse no one could ever fall off. As Bob put it, Big Red would find a way to slide east to west, north to south, and keep whatever body was on top of him upright. Big Red was “damned determined” to keep everyone safe.

  “Most people,” Bob said one day, “don’t think half as much as a horse do.”

  Looking at the photograph, Bob drew his finger across her topline. “By the looks of it, she’s a hell of a horse, and they selling her for next to nothin’.”

  That was a prerequisite for Bob. You should always get a deal. Never, ever, overspend on a horse. Never.

  With no rope or halter on her, Bob soothed the mare’s head downward with the stroke of his weathered hands. She softened her tight, upright posture and cocked her left hind leg, resting after a half-hour’s worth of grooming. Her long neck and finely shaped head sank to the height of Bob’s shoulders. Her eyes blinked as she let free a wide yawn. We could smell the stench of tension trapped inside her clenched jaw. I handed the bridle to Bob, and he struggled to put it in position. Bob’s a small, slim man, and not much taller than myself at five feet, seven inches. He lifted his arms above her head and placed the reins over her neck, pulling them up onto her withers. He prepared the bit in his hand. Stretched it between his index finger and his thumb, spreading the broken snaffle wide enough that it could slide through the thin slit between her lips. He moved his hand slowly and played the corner of her mouth with his thumb. Tickling her, she parted her teeth. Once the bit touched the top of her tongue, her head snapped up and she pulled back hard, rushing backward and hitting the stall wall.

  “They hurt her. Did somethin’ to her mouth,” Bob asserted.

  The mare’s wrinkled butt was pressed up against the wall. Her head soared above us, straining to keep its distance from Bob’s hand. He scratched the cowlick that centered itself on the midline of her chest. Little flaky crusts of dried skin scraped off. The mare started to chew and lick. She took a step forward, accompanied by a deep sigh, and balanced herself again on all four feet.

  “Never underestimate ’em,” Bob said in a whisper, “They sensitive, like hummin’ birds.” And it seemed the mare heard him, too. She dropped her head, on cue, while Bob raised his hand from her chest to caress her muzzle.

  This time he lifted the snaffle up into her mouth, making sure to not touch down on her tongue. He held the crown of the bridle high and placed it over her ears. There were a lot of things to “fix” with this horse. Bob was confident that we could get her through all her troubles. He would teach me how to gentle this mare. How to help her trust humans again. He handed me the reins. I took the left rein, pinched it through my fingers, and closed my palm around the leather. I was three inches from her mouth.

  “Hold her loose with those reins,” he shouted at me. “She feels every little touch.”

  Bob pulled the saddle blanket over her back without any trouble. He picked up his precious, dirty saddle and placed it a few inches behind her withers. He cinched it up while the mare stood quietly waiting. I was busy minding the pressure on the reins. Standing off to the left of her, I opened my grip and the rein dangled from the corner of her lip. My own mouth quivered at the thought of riding her.

  The manager of the quarter horse barn where I rode told me I was a good natural rider. She picked me out of a group of riders and asked if I wanted more horses to ride. I didn’t grow up with horses, like Bob. Every year I would ask for a horse on my birthday and for Christmas. And every year I collected two more plastic horses to put into my growing collection. My fascination for ho
rses came from a place inside me I have never understood. I was told as a child that my deceased grandfather was a lover of horses. That he often preferred to spend more time at the barn, and the bar, than he did with his own son. I never met my grandfather. I never saw a photo of him next to a horse. Maybe the love of horses can skip a generation. Maybe it passed by my father and landed, full saddle, on me. I can count on one hand how many times I was able to ride a horse as a child, yet I’m able to remember the smell, feel, and sight of those horses in full detail.

  Most of my youth was spent riding waves along the coast of New Jersey, or on the basketball court. Bob had forty years on me. I was thinking that I was in over my head. In that instant of doubt, Bob moved back toward me. He took the reins and ordered me to open the door. He stepped through the stall doorway, leading the mare out into the barn alley. She moved light, on her tiptoes it seemed, as I watched from behind.

  “Damn, she’s somethin’. Ain’t she?” Bob shouted in admiration.

  The daylight had turned into night. At the end of the barn aisle was a bright, half-lit riding arena, part indoor and part outdoor. Half light, half pitch black. We walked her to the end of the aisle, passing the barn workers on the way.

  “What’s her name?” I asked them as I walked by. Belle, they said politely, looking shocked at the sight of her all saddled, bridled, and ready for a ride.

  “Be careful,” they said again as we passed.

  Bob opened the gate, and we walked out into the sandy, lit end of the arena. It was here that I got my first real look at her. She looked at me, too, under those bright lights, her eyes witnessing every step I took. She was a streamlined locomotive; every inch of her body cried out for speed. I should have been terrified. I should have questioned the whole idea of riding her, but there was something about being with Bob that erased my fears. The way he stood, so still and calm, in front of her. The way he caressed her neck with long, quiet strokes. How rhythmically his chest rose and fell, like he was in a deep, comfortable sleep.

  I was standing on her left side, up toward her shoulder. I placed the reins over her neck and then gathered them in my left hand as gently as I could. I began lifting my left leg toward the stirrup when I felt Bob grab ahold of my foot, and with one quick motion, he swung me into the saddle.

  “Whatever you do, don’t hold her back,” was the last thing I heard him say.

  I pushed my arms forward, straightened out my elbows, and she rode off at a trot. She gained speed quickly, then rolled up effortlessly into a canter. She was soft underneath me. Her muscles circled under my seat. I could barely feel the touch of ground. All normal concussive forces evaporated, and I floated on fast-moving clouds. Her breath took on a constrained rhythm. It caught halfway in her exhale. I put her up to a faster canter just by thinking. I knew not to touch my legs against her; that kind of contact could make her pitch me. I leaned forward in Bob’s creaking old saddle, closing just the uppermost part of my thighs, working for a feel of stability. I moved the reins into my right hand, shoved them forward up her neck to make sure not to draw contact with her mouth. I grabbed the back of the saddle with my left hand, just in case she went into a buck. She went out around the outer rail of the arena, which was over 300 feet long. As we gained speed, I heard the thump of her four-beat gallop hustle up underneath her. Ta dunt, ta dunt, ta dunt, ta da. Soon we were out into the night. I was blinded by the transition from lit indoor arena into the dark, and the only thing to do was trust her sight.

  Riding on young, troubled flesh, the curl of her stride coming up underneath me, pushing upward then falling back. Every ten feet the rise of her beneath me returning. Lap after lap, my body fell into her rhythm. Back into the light I saw Bob, his mouth moving, but it was many moments later when I heard him say, “Let her do the work.” I leaned forward. Let go of the saddle with my left hand and lifted over her neck. Ready for more speed, she spilled us around the light, then back into darkness. We were animals, left to our own senses, running into the cold black night as if there were no fences. Like we could run through the night and disappear.

  “LET’S SIT DOWN and talk about it.” Glenda, my lover, didn’t want a horse. She was certain she could talk me out of this decision. She sat on the edge of the sofa cushions and patted the space next to her. What could I say to her that would make a difference? That I was trying to save me, save us? We’d been together almost three years, the longest relationship I’d ever had. At twenty-nine years old, I still could not stay committed. In the past, I tore through lovers, at times dating three people at once. I was already close to having an affair, even looking for my own apartment.

  “Why a horse? We can’t take on a horse. Where would we keep it?” she asked.

  Glenda leaned against the back of the couch. She listened as I told her the plan. How Bob was going to help me. How we had already met Belle, and I had ridden her. How we had prepared the barn and were ready to drive to Charlotte and pick her up.

  “I’m getting a horse.” I sat straight up on the couch. Glenda stared back at me, her eyebrows compressed and furrowed with frustration. She took a long, deep breath and moved a few inches away.

  I could hear the washer whirling our clothes around on the final spin. The earthy scent of beets cooking on low boil swelled from the kitchen. They were close to being soft enough to remove from the stove. I rose from the couch and stepped toward the kitchen.

  When we moved into this cabin together, I fought every decision we made for our new home. Buying a refrigerator, a washer and dryer—these felt like a cage around me. I thought I was fighting for my freedom. Instead, I was running backward toward the one place I knew: the loneliness of my childhood.

  Glenda walked up behind me as I poured cold water on the beets and started to peel the thick, black, purple skin away from their bodies. She wrapped her arms around me and pressed her waist up to mine. The beets were hot, too hot to mess with, but I kept picking at their skins until she let go.

  “You feel so cold,” she told me and left the kitchen.

  I looked down at my purple-blue stained fingers. My nails bitten down to the quick, the cuticles picked apart, dried scabs in their corners. They were the stubby, torn edges of me. When I was younger, I could calm myself down by typing my fingers against my thighs, spelling out the words that raced around in my head. Standing at the free-throw line during basketball games, waiting for the referee to hand me the ball, I typed I N T H E H O L E. I N T H E H O L E. My personal code for HELP.

  I rolled the skinless beets around in my palm. Their small ball-shaped bodies looked full of life, full of blood. The stain of something solid and eternal.

  My body felt like an empty shell holding them. It held a deadness I had felt since childhood. I had no tether, no cord that tied me to anything or anyone. My stepmother told me, at my father’s funeral, that I was the only child my father had continued to worry about. I imagined him up at night, trying to picture where I was and what I was doing. His lost girl.

  Riding Belle, I had felt my body thicken. Waves of flesh grew on flesh. From the rise and fall of her underneath me, from the sweat and the squeezing of my upper thighs against her ribs—she hinged the broken parts of me back together. Riding her, I became an earthly thing, a body full and weighted, something that belonged.

  I put the beets in a green ceramic bowl, covered them with aluminum foil, and placed them in the refrigerator.

  Glenda went back to her computer. I went into my room and shut the door. I took off my dirty day clothes and lay on the bed naked, feeling my body from my thighs up to my abdomen. Fingers rippled across muscle. I felt the bony protrusions of hips and ribs, the long oval cords of quadriceps tighten and bulge on contraction. The ropelike lines of abdominal muscles encasing my torso, holding my soft insides safe.

  I rolled over on my side and stared out the double-hung window of the old cabin. I could hear the squeaking of the azalea branches rubbing against the windowpane. “You’re so cold,” Glenda had
said. I shivered and pulled the blanket over me.

  NEITHER OF MY PARENTS knew what to do about my extreme childhood shyness, an introversion that kept me from speaking until the age of six. I was a half-girl, half-boy—a genderless thing—in a world that seemed so intensely defined by gender. I knew I wasn’t like my mother, nor like any of my three sisters. And yet I was not a boy. I would stand in front of the bathroom mirror, door locked, checking my skin closely for facial hair, for my vagina to sprout a penis. Once, in a fit of enthusiasm, I announced to my entire family, and to my mother’s youngest brother Charlie, that I couldn’t wait to grow a mustache and chest hair just like him. My mother stared at my father and whispered something into his ear. My father, who had always encouraged my tomboy nature, sank in embarrassment.

  I slipped between the cracks of what people were supposed to be and hid there. Playing sports gave my boy muscles a place to grow. It felt like the harder I played, the better the chance for boyhood to emerge. As I grew older, the basketball court was the only place I felt whole. Alone, but whole nonetheless.

  When I was a freshman in high school, I was accepted into a two-week, all-star basketball camp for girls. It must have cost my waitress mother and electrician father a fortune, but they managed to come up with the fee. Perhaps my parents hoped that sending me to this camp could help me become, at least in part, a socially normal child. They cut into their meager bank account to make the trip happen. I was fifteen years old.

  Carla was also fifteen, on scholarship along with her twin sister, Joan. They had been at the camp since early June, playing with the college-level players, and they were both good.

  “You’re from Mainland,” she told me when I first met her.

  “How did you know that?” I asked.

  “Saw your photo in the paper. Freshman starter on the varsity team. Big Shit,” she said.

  She had her shorts pulled halfway down her butt, hanging so low they covered her knees. As she walked beside me, her upper torso waved side to side, while her lower lip curled around her upper. She is so cool, I thought, then stared back at the ground and shuffled my sneakers along.