“He did what?!?” he yelled. Then more muffled Grandma followed by a slightly less upset Grandpa.
I gradually relaxed.
He never came upstairs.
The next morning I showed up at breakfast expecting the worst, but nothing happened. They were both quiet and said pleasant, if somewhat reserved, “good mornings” to me.
After breakfast I walked through the living room and saw that the wall had been repaired. If it hadn’t been just a bit whiter than the surrounding area, it would have been impossible to tell where I had damaged it. My grandfather must have vented his anger with plaster and a trowel. A bucket of paint was sitting on the floor in front of the wall.
“Eddie, it looks like you have some painting to do,” Grandpa said without looking up from his paper. “Be careful not to splatter on the floor.”
“Yes, sir,” I said without an ounce of sarcasm. I think that might have been the only time I called my grandfather “sir” in my entire life.
I wondered if they were as miserable with me living there as I was.
I was afraid to ask to go over to Taylor’s house until the knapsack incident was forgotten, so instead he came over to our farm nearly every day for the next few weeks. My grandparents treated him just like the Ashtons treated me.
It occurred to me that having Taylor over was almost as good as being at his place. Grandma was so happy to have me close by that a simple “Aww, but Grandma, we were about to go exploring” was all it took to get out of my chores. Grandpa was harder to game, but at least Taylor was willing to help do whatever my grandfather asked of us.
One day Grandpa asked us to walk the fence line around the farm looking for sections needing repair. It was a crisp, late-fall afternoon, and Taylor and I had grand plans that did not include trudging along what seemed like a thousand miles of fence.
“It’s a gorgeous day,” Grandpa tried to reason, “and the walk will do you two good. Who knows, it might even turn out to be fun.”
Taylor always had a better outlook than I did. He accepted the challenge as an opportunity to have an adventure. After all, our task would take us to corners of the farm that even I had not yet seen. Grandma made sandwiches for us, wrapped them up in waxed paper along with garlic pickles, and put them into my knapsack. I was a little embarrassed by Grandma’s homemade bread and waxed paper, since Taylor always had store-bought bread and plastic bags. I hoped he wouldn’t notice how we lived. I filled my canteen with water, joking that we needed to rough it like Lewis and Clark.
Our trip took us around the back of the property and into an area where the woods were reclaiming part of the farm. The fence was doing its best to hold off the hordes of bushes and saplings, but we discovered a few places where the forest had won.
When we were safely out of earshot of my grandparents, I decided to tell Taylor how much I liked staying at his house. “Your parents are the best. Sometimes I wish I lived with you guys.”
“Seriously?” Taylor seemed surprised. “To be honest, I’d rather live with you. Your grandma is the best cook ever, and your grandpa is hilarious. The other day when I was waiting for you to finish your chores out back, he and I had a lot of fun playing cards together. It was weird, though, cause your grandma kept shouting his name from the kitchen.”
I was shocked. I hadn’t played cards with Grandpa since before last Christmas. I didn’t want Taylor playing with him if I couldn’t. “Taylor, he cheats,” I sneered.
“Oh, I know,” Taylor replied matter-of-factly, as if I’d been the gullible one. “That’s what makes it to so great. He’s been working on a system for a while now. He said that if we play just a few more times, he’ll have it down and then he’ll teach it to me.”
The thought of Taylor playing cards with my grandfather really infuriated me. I wasn’t mad at Taylor, I was mad at Grandpa. Taylor was my friend, and I didn’t like Grandpa talking to him. I tried a new tactic. “Yeah,” I said, “he seems pretty funny at first, but once you get to know him he’s not all that great. The jokes really get old after a while. But your family is always great. Your parents let you do whatever you want. You guys go on great vacations. You can watch any TV show you want, and your dad told me that you guys are getting a Betamax soon so you can record shows and watch ’em over and over. What’s wrong with you, Taylor? Your dad isn’t a failure. You guys are rich. You have it made.”
“Things aren’t always like they seem, Eddie,” Taylor muttered, almost as if he’d been talking to himself. He shrugged and walked a few steps in front of me, a clear sign that he didn’t really want to talk about it anymore.
A tree had fallen across the fence in a corner of the wooded area, creating a notable breach and a place to sit and eat our lunch. It was also the only place where we could be inside the fence and not see any other evidence that we were on the farm. I don’t know if my grandfather had planned it that way, but the trek was turning out to be one of our best adventures ever.
“Uh-oh,” Taylor said to the pickle he didn’t want to eat.
“What?”
“My dad’s going to kill me. I was supposed to be home by three, and it’s way past that.”
“Just tell him you forgot. That’s mostly the truth, isn’t it? Finish the walk with me, stay for dinner, and then walk in your house like nothing’s wrong. Come on, I already know Grandpa’s system. You don’t need to play cards with him, I’ll teach it to you,” I lied.
“I can’t. We’re going to my aunt’s house for some big family thing. I don’t even know what it is, but my parents have been making a huge deal over it. Seriously, if I miss it, they’ll kill me.”
I pictured Taylor blindfolded against the wall as his parents stood in front of him with old-fashioned rifles. “Any final requests?” I joked, pointing a pickle at him like a gun.
“You are so weird. Things that are serious aren’t, and things that shouldn’t be are.”
“Huh? What the heck are you talking about?”
“Never mind, Eddie. Your grandpa said that if we finished the fence today we could go on some errand with him tomorrow, so just tell him we finished.” He stood up, brushed the crumbs from his pants, and started along the only section of fence we had yet to examine.
I ran to catch up with him, and we both jogged toward the front of the farm, half looking at the fence. We could have overlooked openings big enough for an elephant to walk through, but I guess I had a lot of experience at missing what was right in front of me.
The front edge of the fence was made of new chain link attached to sturdy metal poles. Rather then walk back to the driveway, Taylor climbed up and over the fence at the corner. “See ya,” he said without looking back. He really was scared. I watched him run along the road, then noticed something going on next door.
There was a corral between the old house and the run-down barn on the farm next door. The corral couldn’t be seen from the road. In fact, the fields around it were so overgrown that it was only visible through the gap in the scrubby, unharvested crops in front of me. I scaled the fence not far from where Taylor had gone over and made my way close enough to see what was going on. I was pretty sure I could stay hidden in the field for as long as I cared to watch.
The old man I’d seen before was standing in the center of the corral with his back to a very unhappy horse. His grease-stained overalls were only slightly cleaner than his face. “Shhh, sweetie, it’s all right. Come and get this apple.” His arm was extended, and he held a quarter of an apple in his upturned palm. “Come on, come on, come on,” he said, a little quieter each time. The mare snorted and tossed her head as she moved cautiously toward the stranger. She pulled her lips from her teeth and gently but quickly took the apple from his hand. Without turning around, he slowly reached into the pocket of his dirty plaid work jacket and pulled out another piece. “Would you like another one, sweetheart?” he asked in a voice that reminded me of my last encounter with him. She took it; this time, she didn’t step back before eating it.
As
he turned around to face her, he looked into the field directly at me, his eyes stopping just long enough to tell me he knew I was there. He took another piece of apple out of his pocket as he looked intently at the horse’s face. With one cupped hand, he put the apple under her nose and gently stroked her head with his other hand. “We’re friends now, aren’t we, darlin’, there’s nothing to be afraid of. No one is going to hurt you.”
The horse actually nodded her head, as if to agree.
“Eddie,” he said without turning around. “Come out and say hello to my new friend.”
I took a few steps out of the field, then turned around to look at where I had been crouched in the shadows. It was hard to imagine how he had seen me in there. I climbed the four rails that made up the side of the corral and sat on the top one. The man walked over and stood in front of me. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced,” he said. “My name is Russell.”
I was again struck by how dirty he looked. His beard was not really gray, as it appeared from a distance. Instead it seemed to be naturally white, but covered with layers of dirty brown and yellow. If a living human could be described as sepia, it was Russell. He smiled, removed his cowboy hat, wiped the grimy sweat from his brow with an already filthy handkerchief, and gave me a long look.
“Russell what?” I was sure my grandparents would want to know his last name.
“Just Russell.”
“Oh.” I paused for a few moments and turned toward the mare. “I didn’t think it was that easy to break a horse.” I had never been this close to a horse that wasn’t moving up and down on a pole and going around in circles.
Russell smiled. “I’m actually the third man to try and help this mare. Somehow I always seem to find myself with the horses that everyone else has given up on.”
As a stranger who spoke cryptically about horses, Russell probably should have made me more leery than I was. It’s hard to explain, but he gave off a warmth that made me feel comfortable and secure. He had all the dirt of every farm on earth on him—yet he felt clean, peaceful. Talking to Russell felt like talking to someone I had known my whole life.
“So you just gave her an apple?” I asked.
“No, Eddie. I just showed her that I love her. Horses have to be reminded of that sometimes. This old girl had been through some tough stuff, and then everyone gave up on her. She’d been beaten and felt abandoned. I’m just trying to help her see that she’s wrong.”
“How do you do that?”
“Well, it may sound funny, but I just try to remind her of who she is. These horses are trained day after day to forget the instincts and emotions they’re born with. Everyone wants to feel loved, but when all you feel is alone it’s tough to accomplish anything else.”
He was losing me. “A horse can feel lonely?”
“Of course they can. In fact, horses are more like us than you think. They’re born knowing what they’re supposed to become, but they don’t know who they are or how to get there. I bet it’s the same with you, Eddie. People probably ask you all the time what you want to be when you grow up, but that’s the wrong question, isn’t it? That is like saying this horse is a workhorse, instead of saying what she really is: good, gentle, and faithful. See the difference? The ‘what’ doesn’t matter. The question people should really ask is, Who do you want to be when you grow up?”
I still didn’t really get it. “Who do I want to be? You mean like Joe Namath or Evel Knievel?”
“No, not exactly.” Russell smiled. His voice didn’t show a hint of irritation that I didn’t understand what he was trying to say. “I mean who do you want to be? What kind of person do you want to become?”
“I want to be rich and live far away from here. I am going to have a huge house somewhere like New York City. I’ll buy the fanciest car, a new TV, and anything else I want.”
“Wow,” Russell said, turning to face the horse. “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”
“I do. I just have to get away from here and all the people who are trying to drag me down.”
Russell paused for a moment and stroked the mare’s head. “So if you’ve got all that figured out, then you must know who you are.”
“I already told you, I’m Eddie.” I made up for Russell’s patience with a severe lack of my own.
“No, I don’t mean it like that. I’m sure you already know this, Eddie,” Russell played to my ego, “but most people aren’t like you. Most people don’t know what they are going to do or where they are going to live or even what tomorrow holds. They just keep moving, hoping that the next move or the next job or the next day they’ll just ‘be happy.’ But a guy like you gets it. That’s why you’ve been able to make such a great plan.”
I didn’t quite understand why I was getting so many compliments. But I liked them. “You bet. I have it all mapped out.”
“Good for you. You know people are meant to be happy, Eddie, but sometimes that’s hard to do if you’ve allowed yourself to become someone you’re not.”
Now I was starting to understand what he was talking about. “Yeah, my grandfather is like that. He’s so busy convincing himself that he’s happy that he doesn’t even notice how many things he doesn’t have.”
“Really?” Russell said. He seemed genuinely interested.
“Yep. I used to think he was cool and fun, but now I know exactly who he is: an old man who’s fooled himself into thinking that he’s successful. He can’t even see that you’ll never find happiness on a street full of farmers and simpleminded people. He can have so much more than a stupid little berry farm. There is a whole world out there, but he’s trapped here with a bunch of dead enders, bad memories, and outdated ways.”
I could tell by the way Russell was listening that he knew exactly what I was talking about. I felt smart showing him how much I knew and sharing things that my grandparents could never understand. I was surprised that someone who looked like Russell “got it”—but he did.
“Boy, I’m sorry to hear that about your grandparents,” Russell replied sympathetically. “It’s too bad they can’t learn a little from someone like you, someone who knows what he wants and goes out and gets it. And you know you’ll succeed because you understand that the ‘who’ will always lead you to happiness. After that, the ‘what’ and the ‘where’ just fall into place. If your grandparents could figure that out, they might be as happy as you are. Maybe they’d even be as successful as you’ll be.”
Russell paused a moment and turned to the horse. “Of course, this old girl will figure all that out just as soon as I remind her that she’s loved.”
I ignored the horse. “I’m plenty happy,” I protested, feeling compelled to reinforce an already stated fact. “And my grandparents tell me all the time that they love me.”
“I’m sure. I didn’t know we were talking about you.”
“We aren’t. I was just saying.”
“Oh. Sure. You know, Eddie, you seem like a smart kid, so let me ask your advice on something.”
“Okay.” I played it cool, but I was happy that Russell already thought that much of me.
“Well, I’ve come a long way with this horse, but I still can’t get her to trust me completely.” He pulled another slice of apple out from his pocket and brought it up to the mare’s nose. Her head flinched back violently. Russell held the apple slice steady, and the horse cautiously brought her head forward and took the apple in her mouth.
“I told you that she’s been through some tough stuff,” Russell said, “but it actually goes much deeper than that.
“When she was born her owners raised her on a farm with a bunch of other horses. Then the farm got sold and the new owners were hardly ever around.” Russell turned back around to face me. He was almost as good a storyteller as Grandpa. “They hired someone to care for the animals, but he was a mean old guy who was more interested in abusing the horses than feeding or grooming them.”
I pictured the gentle horse that sto
od in front of me being mistreated. It made me angry. I wanted to help her.
“Anyway,” Russell continued, “one day an older horse on the farm got sick. Instead of nursing it back to health, the caretaker grabbed his rifle and killed it—right in front of this poor girl. Imagine that, seeing your friend killed for no reason, right in front of your eyes.”
Flashes of bright lights and loud sirens filled my head. My father, frail and sick in a hospital bed. Mom, tired and angry, behind the wheel of our car.
“A few months later, a bad storm blew down a part of the fence around the corral. The horses’ instincts took over, and they all ran for freedom through the breach in the fence. That’s when I found her, scared and alone in the woods.”
I looked back at the mare with a new level of appreciation.
“I wanted to see about buying her, so I went over to see the caretaker. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, and I’ve been nursing her back to health ever since.”
Russell turned back toward her and pulled out another piece of apple. “Unfortunately, she had such a bad experience that she’s never trusted another human.” The mare’s head flinched again. “I show her love every day, but I think, in her mind at least, she equates it with fear. So, Eddie, I guess I could use your advice…how do I get her to realize that not everyone wants to hurt her?”
I’d gotten so engrossed in the story that I’d forgotten Russell was looking for my help. I tried to think of something smart to say. “Well, I don’t know. I guess you just have to stick with what you’re doing. I’m sure she’ll eventually see that what happened to her wasn’t her fault and that you’re her friend.”
I was embarrassed that I didn’t have more to offer, but Russell apparently thought my answer was better than I did. His face brightened. “You know, Eddie, you’re absolutely right. I’ve just got to keep at it. Thanks.”
I was glowing inside, but I didn’t want to press my luck. “Well, my grandparents are expecting me,” I said as I jumped down from the fence and walked away quickly.