I fell asleep last night on The Red Pony. Well, I didn't fall asleep on him (here I go again), but the movie was showing on channel 323 when I finally nodded off. I love all of John Steinbeck's novels and short stories, and I remember this one -- the story and the pony -- from grade eight as something called Gabilan, although who knows if I am right? What I do have right is the memory of my best friend, Sandy, sobbing over this poor animal just the way she sobbed over the lions in Born Free, the frogs in biology class, and the furry kitten my stepfather brought into our home economics class (don't ask) the year before.
This talk of horses, an animal of which I am so fond and still terribly afraid, takes me even further back to my tenth summer -- the happiest in my life while living in my father's house -- and the month I was sent off to Saratoga Springs to stay with my grandparents, who were lovely to me. They lived in a wonderful tree-lined flower-laden mobile home neighbourhood, although you could not tell that most of these homes were what we used to call trailers. Many of the homeowners had built beautiful awninged porches, and I don't remember ever seeing trees as tall as the ones that swayed in their front yards. The weather that summer was perfect, too, balmy and breezy.
After I had been there a few days, two of my cousins, Janice and John, arrived from Port Hope. We were one year apart in age -- I was in the middle -- and we got along perfectly, racing off to the stables every morning right after oatmeal. There we talked to and fed the horses, and in braver cases (not mine) helped groom them. I remember looking up and up into their exquisite equine faces (the horses', not my cousins' -- although my cousins were lovely to look at too), those eyes sparkling back at me; and the nodding heads, imploring and grateful. Sometimes we fed them.
On special nights when my grandfather was racing, we went back to the track after supper. The stands overflowed with eager fans, and my grandfather always gave me two dollars, which I gave back to one of the track employees so that he, or she, could place a bet for me. I stood at the railing on my toes peering over the wooden bar, following the line of the blurred carts, listening to the pounding hooves, the roars surging from the crowd behind me. I wore my lucky pants -- a pair of skin-tight vertically-striped snakeskin-coloured soft corduroys -- bought for me by my grandparents as a special treat.
One especially hot night when my grandfather, whose name was Clarence, was racing two horses, and I had been given four dollars to bet, I noticed that his favourite horse -- the one expected to win -- was lagging terribly, panting heavily by the time he approached the finish line. Janice and John and I looked at each other, confused. After the race, my grandfather and the vet tended to the animal overnight, and the next morning when Clarence returned home with the good news that the animal would live, we expressed our relief and surprise.
"I don't understand," John said. "We took such good care of him yesterday."
I, not wanting to be left out of the bragging, leapt in. "Yes we did! We took better care of him than any of the horses, ever!"
Clarence wanted to know just exactly what we meant by "taking care of him."
We explained.
Having spotted a freshly-filled barrel of oats leaning against a shed wall the day before at the stables, John and I took it upon ourselves to roll the enormous container over to the stall where Clarence's favourite horse spent his days. We tipped the barrel toward the horse, supporting the cylinder with our backs, and waited while the animal ate..and ate..and ate. We fed him so much that when he could no longer reach the supply with his mouth, we offered him food by hand.
I bragged to Clarence that even I had been brave enough to do this for the sake of his prize-winning steed. I remember my grandfather's normally gentle face folding into a shade of unhealthy grey, his hooded eyes disappearing under angry shadows.
"You...did...what?" he asked, his voice so low we had trouble making out what he said.
"Well," I began, my hands on my hips, "we rolled--"
"I heard you," he said, his voice rising.
"But--"
"I heard you," he said, even more emphatically.
Who knew that not only had we cost the horse the race, but that we had almost killed him? Who knew that my grandfather was not going to see our side of things and would therefore bar us from the track indefinitely? Who knew, in fact, that a barrel of oats could weigh that much?
I remember other things about that summer -- Janice and John and I jumping wildly on our grandparent's double bed; eavesdropping on my grandfather as he half-whispered to a fellow sulky driver how no one had ever suspected that he, my grandfather, was Ojibwa; the tall trees swaying like graceful ballerinas in the moonlight; the pleasant journey home on the Greyhound bus to my waiting baby brother. But what I remember most is how one day we fed my grandfather's favourite horse and I was brave enough to let him eat straight from the palm of my hand.
Gallop apace, you fiery footed steeds, towards Phoebus' lodging.
Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 2
