Killing Mary

I alone raised my hand when the teacher asked, “Who here has never ridden a horse before?”

In fact, I’d barely even touched a horse before. My only equine experience involved sucking up to a girl down the road because her family had horses. Her father was running for governor and even though we lived in suburbia, he somehow managed to have an enormous piece of land and what I remember as an impressive mansion. I never climbed on the horses. The family moved away when he lost the election.

“Okay. I’ll put you on Mary. She’s very gentle.” She gestured toward a white horse with a sagging back before consulting with the rest of the class about their riding experience.

Mary didn’t care about me. Mary, with her ragged hair and white eyelashes, looking over at me like she thought I was a telephone pole or another horse or maybe an alien. Her eyes had that glazed over look. Her apathy was impressive, like a stoned teenager the day after finals. When I reached up to stroke her nose, she snorted. It was an exhausted sound. “Oh Christ,” she seemed to say, “You mean another person is going to climb on me? Fine. Mount me. It might kill me, but I really don’t care.”

I attributed Mary’s apathy to her age. She was 28 years old. A very old horse. Kind of like a woman in her 90s. If she were a person, she’d be one of those elderly women who can’t step more than a foot at a time without a walker. The kind of woman you never wanted puttering along ahead of you on a two-lane highway. The kind of woman who operated at such a dangerously slow speed that even ants could outrun her.

There I was in my black velvet riding cap and jeans. Looking at her, I was pretty sure my 120 pounds would snap her sagging back in two. Like a twig.

The teacher took us through the basics of riding a horse and eventually it was time to climb on. I regarded Mary. It occurred to me that when her back snapped in half, I was going to land in a grotesque crumble of horse and bone and me.

As I threw my leg over Mary’s back, she wheezed. That phlegmy intake of mucus breath. I didn’t know it then, but her wheezing would become our riding metronome.

“She’s fine. She’s just old.” This from the teacher, as if that would comfort me. Once we were on our horses, we were told to give the animal a good kick to get them moving.

So basically, I was to kick this elderly horse just so I could get one college PE credit. It was like punching my grandmother to get a better Christmas gift.

I listened to Mary’s wheezing. A clouded intake, an exasperated release. Over and over and over. I gave her a soft kick and she didn’t move. She didn’t even blink. I kicked again, harder this time. She barely flinched. I began to think maybe she wasn’t a horse, but a mule.

“Give her a good hard kick. Mary’s a little stubborn.” The teacher was watching me with her leathery face and she vaguely reminded me of the devil.

I kicked Mary once more and she wheezed to life, taking a few steps forward. Then she stopped.

“Kick her again!” The devil said.

It went on like this for thirty minutes. Me kicking the dying wheezing Mary while slowly cracking her spine, Mary a subdued sort of belligerent, but complying lest I should grab a tree trunk next time and beat her with it at the devil’s command.

Mary endured another sixteen sessions of abuse before I got my class credit. I haven’t been on a horse since.