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Show ^70 a gentile foible. On our way home Ben laughed. "So. Papa Rubin thinks you're shacking up with IfcLte. And Carrie does." "Tobin probably does too." "Are you?" "Hell no." 'lull l il i ' • ' 1 "What's the problem?" "We have a Platonic relationship." "Poor old Plato, what they don't dump on him." My immediate problem was that I'd forgotteofco bring a book along and had to read one of Amelia's mysteries, tf then sleep in the double bed with Ben, on a pillow reeking of Tabu. With Ber/taking most of the bed. The next day while Amelia and Ben drove the Rubins out to meet Ben's family on the Northwest Side, I hung around that ideal basement apartment feeling that I didn't belong, feeling lost, feeling insubstantial. I remembered a team of met horses whichJiad run away with me and nearly rubbed me out. They were a young team, the gelding a spirited bay called Dick, the mare a placid brown which I had named Smoky wheivfehe was a colt and I had just read a book about a horse of that name. And saw the movie, and cried. As a kid I'd read a lot of books about horses, all of Zane Grey, and one about a wild horse which had been cap-which tured and broken to ride by a Cruel Man, but/wka had always fought back, always ready to escape. Alas, the only wjfcay out was over a cliff, so over he went, and the book ended with the phrase "lifeless but free." There was no doubt in myfak mind then that dead and Free was much better than alive and Enslaved. Anyhow, on that day I was raking hay, a wind was blowing, and a gust caught my hat from behind and sailed it toward the horses, catching Dick across the ears. He took off with such a charge that the gentle mare Smoky was spooked too, and those Roman two horses ran like they were in a/tatmk chariot race. A rake is very light, with big wheels, and I was small and pulling on reins attached to mouth bits not intended to stop runaway horses, so we headed off across the field, me bouncing |