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Show 3*1 and drab. I didn't even want to see her looking like that, unhappiness pulling her down like gravity. So I went out into the November day, cold and blustery, the first snow gone and with big white clouds sailing in blue stretches of sky. The streets and buildings were drab and grey and heavy, sinking, but the sky was alive, in motion, lifting. I wore my hot-pilot boots and my Navy aviation green trousers and my best khaki wool shirt and my flight jacket, but I had no hat. I would have to imagine a hat, a big white Stetson while I was at it, as dented top and curled brim and/crisp as crackers. I found the place futher south. I had seen people riding horses in Jackson Park and I knew they had to get the horses somewhere, that some of them must be rented nags, so I looked in the yellow pages and found it. The man brought out a big bay. It was a magnificent horse, much taller than cowponies or quarter horses, and uneasily I looked at that small, Eastern saddle on its back. I had never been in one, or 011 one, and the owner, a lanky redhead with a strong Chicago accent, suggested I try him in the ring first. The ring was in a big barn-like structure, and the man did not trust me with his horse. He had to boost me up onto that saddle, and then there was nothing to hang on to, and my knees were up under my cnin, and that damned horse wanted to run in the ring, really to go. I felt a mile up from the ground, I felt ^uncomfortable, for the first time in my life on a horse I felt acutely out of place, not at home, alienated. God! And that redhead suggested a gentler horse, looking at me as if my claims to horsemanship were something I had dreamed. But I xa ddidn't want a plug, a plug would help nothing. "Don't you have a western saddle? That's all I've ever ridden, western." He shrugged. "Where could I buy one then? I'll buy one -- and sell it back at half price after just one rig"e. I just need it once. How. I'll pay double for one. I'll PaY double to rent one. Triple." The redhead picked his nose. 'Maybe Sonny's got one. Maybe he'd rent |
