It took a second for you to realize what you were looking at.
A man with his back to the camera was running down the alley toward another man who looked as if he were doubled over in pain or looking for something because he was kneeling. Then the running man pulled back his leg, did a half-pirouette, and kicked the kneeling man in the ribs.
You stood there outside Whitey’s cage and watched a film of yourself attacking Drop-Kick that afternoon after Dad’s funeral.
“Didn’t think you had it in you to do a Bruce Lee like that,” said Whitey. “You have good form, by the way.”
The scene had been filmed from two different angles, one from each end of the alley. What struck you as odd about it-aside from its existing in the first place-was the angle from which it had all been filmed; it was very low to the ground, as if the camera operator had been lying on their stomach so as to – no.
You remembered how the face of the collie had filled the screen. You remembered how the animals had sat so unnaturally still that afternoon. How the sunlight glittered off the tags hanging from some of their collars.
This had been filmed with the cameras held at about collar height.
“Technology’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?” said Whitey. “A camera no bigger than a tag on a collar. Been around for a while, from what I hear. I mean, just look at that.”
The alley scene was gone, but the camera remained just as jerky as it had been before. A shadow passed over the lens, leaving a smear in its trail. This kept happening for several seconds until, at last, the blurry image of a face could be seen forming. The face bounced up and down, as if it were looking down into the lens of the camera it was carrying while trying to clean something off the lens and – “Oh, no,” you said.
Your thumb passed over the lens one more time and you then were looking into the face of your fifteen- year-old self. You were crying like a baby, lips moving, forming words that could not be heard but you didn’t need to hear them, you knew damn well what you’d said to that poor cat as you stood there by the trash cans in back of Beckman’s Market.
The image of your bawling face was very clear, indeed; you’d wiped more blood from the tag on its collar than you’d thought.
You shook your head. “I never was able to make out its name.”
The image faded back into the home movies of before.
“You got a good heart, Captain,” said Whitey. “That counts for something in the end. Or so goes the rumor.” He jerked his head down and to the left once, twice, three times, then made a chuffing sound as he kicked at the thick layer of straw covering most of the floor. “They’ve been aware of you for a long time now, Captain. They’re very good at keeping track of folks who interest them.
“To answer your question about what this place is: It’s sort of their version of Ellis Island-and don’t ask me-” He chuffed once again, shaking his head. “-who ‘they’ are because you have to know at this point and, besides, a pro never wastes time repeating a gag that everyone in the peanut gallery has heard a dozen times. But I digress. Do me a favor-there’s a bag hanging on the wall to your right. Be a splendid fellow and get it for me, will you?”
You grabbed the canvas pouch by its strap and lifted it from the hook on the wall. “Who are they, Whitey?”
He laughed. “You might say they’re not from around here.”
You held the pouch through the bars. It must have weighed ten pounds. “What is this?”
“Dinner,” he said, moving forward into the light.
His arms were gone, that was the first thing that registered; in their place were two large clumps of ugly knotted scar tissue that protruded from his shoulders like the padding under a vaudevillian’s oversized coat.
Then you acknowledged the whole of him and went numb. All you could hear was the blood surging through your temples and the echo of Whitey’s voice from another time, another world.
I love horses. Hope to be one in my next life.
He was almost halfway there.
His head had been shaved except for a hand-sized, Mohawk-like patch directly in the middle; the rest of his exposed, scabrous scalp was implanted with the same silver matchboxes you’d seen on the others, only these weren’t hooked up to any electrical wires dangling from the ceiling. His now-massive torso was lacquered in thousands of short brittle hairs that grew more dense as they neared his waist. His neck was twice as long and twice as thick as it should have been, glistening with sweat and frothy streaks of lathered mucus.
Before you could snap out of your stupor, Whitey cantered forward, dipped down, craned his neck, and slipped the handle of the pouch around the back of his head, all the time singing the words to the Mr. Ed theme.
“Oh, a horse is a horse, of course of course…”
From somewhere nearby a low, thrumming groan began to take form, rolling across the floor, slowly growing in volume and power.
“Nothing like room service,” said Whitey, then shoved his face deep into the pouch and spun around as the thrum grew louder and stronger.
The heavy white mane flowed from the center of his head all the way down his dense, ashen, solid back. His spine was thick as a forearm; with every move its powerful muscles stretched and quaked and rippled. His gaskins and hocks were mostly concealed by the leather towel-which wasn’t a towel at all but something organic, something sentient, a living mass that pulsed and breathed as it made itself a part of his flesh-but the rest of his legs were clearly visible; the hard cannons, the steel-like tendons, the pasterns and fetlocks and, worst of all, the burnished, astonishing, impossible hooves. Moving in stops and starts as he fed, hooves scraping through the straw and clopping loudly against the cement floor, his mane fanning out like a column of bleached flames, Whitey continued to shake his head and chuff.
“… an no one can talk to a horse, of course…”
The thrum whip-cracked like the snap of a bone and became an eruption, bouncing off the walls, resonating up and down the corridor, spiraling overhead, within and without, a ripped-raw, berserk, frenzied, lunatic siren of a sound with enough power behind it to throttle you to the floor, legs scrabbling to push yourself backward, far back, away from the harrowing shriek, and you began to cover your ears but each time the sound tripled in volume and force, there was no stopping it, no blocking it out, it engulfed everything but you couldn’t think of anything else to do so you ground the heels of your hands against your ears and held them there, throwing yourself totally into the rattling cacophony as something shredded deep in your throat and you realized the sound was even closer than before because it was coming out of you, had been coming from you this whole time, but you didn’t care, couldn’t move, and wouldn’t stop screaming, screaming, screaming.
Whitey pulled his face from the bag and clopped forward to kick a hoof against the bars.
“ Will you stop that irksome racket? Stop it right now! Stop it! ”
You pressed the knuckles of your fist into your mouth and bit down, choking off the noise; whether the blood you tasted was your own or Mabel’s, you couldn’t tell.
“That’s better,” said Whitey, cantering around the cage. “Hysterics are so unbecoming. Downright distasteful, if you ask me. I personally feel diminished by your behavior and think you should”-he shook his head and chuffed, spraying gummy globs of oatflaked spit-“apologize at once.”
You pulled your fist away and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“You damned well ought to be. Is that any way to behave when you visit a sick friend? I think not. Sincerely.”
“Please, please tell me what’s happening.”
“No begging, if you please. Hey-would you like to see a trick? Ask me what two plus two equals, go on-oh, never mind, you’re a terrible audience. I’ll do it myself.” He cleared his throat and said, “Whitey Weis, the renowned Double-Dubya, here’s your question-quiet in the studio, please. For a handful of sugar cubes, tell us… What’s two plus two?” He extended his left leg and scraped his hoof against the cement four times. “Listen to that applause, folks, isn’t he amazing?” He trotted forward, pressing his face against the bars and looking down at you. “Did you like that? Please say you did, it’s my best one.”
You could only nod your head.
If the heart makes no sound when it shatters, then the mind is even quieter when it begins to collapse.
Whitey’s head jerked down and to the right once, twice, three times; he held it like that for a moment, then a shudder ran down his sides and he stamped a hoof down against the floor; when he turned his face toward you
