EDITOR'S PICKS
Debi Orton's Pick:
Dream About Kansas
by Henry Presente
When I was young, my family always had horses, and I loved all of them. Each had a distinctive personality, and all were sensitive and highly intelligent. Because of that background — and the straightforward, powerful telling — this story really resonated for me.
Billy is taking it hard since Betsy passed away. They were together fourteen years, which must seem even longer to a horse.
Billy mourns in the dark under the only tree in my backyard. With his head pressed to the ground, he dreams about Kansas —same as me when I bury my face in the pillow on the other side of the bed.
On weekends, he waits till I wake to pace around the fence of my half-acre. After every small lap, Billy kicks clumps of mud onto the backdoor to show me it's plain horse sense that there's not enough room. Everything is a lot smaller now that Betsy's not around: the world, Portland, but especially my backyard.
"They told me land was cheap here," I apologize to Billy through the window and he snorts in disgust. He flicks me off with his tail and lumbers back to the tree. He stays there through Sunday night.
At daybreak, I hear a mournful wailing as I climb into my truck on the way to work. In this strange place, sounds materialize from nowhere, like the steam from my mouth on these cold mornings.
I leave the door of my Ford hanging open and trudge to the backyard to check on Billy. I lie in the grass next to him while he cries. Time passes as slowly as the clouds overhead.
"But we can't just lie here and grow roots in this ground," I finally say. "It's time to go to work." I take his silence for agreement, yet Billy seems surprised when I saddle him up and we clop down the road to the office.
The ride raises his spirits. Outside the building, the women gather round while I tether Billy to a lamppost. He smiles with all those hands on him, all that feminine fuss reassuring him that he is still enchanting and powerful and gentle, too. It's good to see him happy again.
But the magic grows thin after a week or two. Billy becomes just another car in the lot — a Mustang parked next to a Chevy. No one pays him any mind and Billy grows gloomy again standing outside under the sun.
The gloom grows inside, too. The secretaries don't peer over their monitors and imagine me in shining armor atop my steed. They just want me to fix their computers and stop telling old jokes that were funny back when.
At lunch, I look down on the parking lot from the cafeteria window. Beyond the steam hovering above my soup bowl, I see Billy pulling his rope taut. With his nose, he is nuzzling the side mirror of a little Honda. He is straining against his tether to reach the car, which is maroon, like Betsy's coat at sunset.
I leave my soup and walk outside. Billy cocks his head suddenly, embarrassed to be caught so vulnerable. I put my hand on the side of his long face and tell him not to worry.
"There's a lot of places left to see. We can roam anywhere," I tell him, but Billy blinks and gazes at the little red Honda sadly.
He knows that some places we just can't go. Even Kansas isn't Kansas anymore.
Henry Presente's creative juices have dripped upon the pages of SmokeLong Quarterly, Medicinal Purposes Literary Review, Post Road Magazine, and EWG Presents.
Copyright 2006, Henry Presente