Flying Changes (6 page)

I peel off my boots and socks, leave them at the front door, and hobble down the pumpkin orange carpet to Dan’s bedroom. I change into a pair of his sweatpants and a T-shirt. The extra material gathers in rolls on my legs, but I’m warm and I’m dry and my mood is infinitely improved.

I decide my clothes are too wet to put inside his laundry hamper and head down the hall to the bathroom to toss them in the bathtub. I almost reconsider after finding algae-like stuff growing around its edges, but since the floor is no cleaner, I drop them in anyway.

Then I dig through the medicine cabinet looking for painkillers and trying to ignore the mildew spot beside it. I find all sorts of medicine, but, alas, none of it seems to be for people. And so I go in search of alcohol.

I thump across the kitchen with my eyes glued firmly on the refrigerator, awash with guilt and for good reason. I set Dan’s kitchen on fire last year, and his strategy for repairing the damage was to “air things out a bit,” buy a secondhand stove and range hood, and finally—the
coup de grâce
—to throw a coat of paint over the blackened walls and ceiling. He repeats this at regular intervals because the greasy streaks eventually work their way back to the surface of the paint; as indeed, they’re doing now.

I wanted to have the kitchen redone, but Dan refused. I begged him to at least let me replace the stove, but he refused even that.

And so now he has a rust brown 1980s era coil-top stove in place of the avocado green 1970s one I set on fire.

I reach the fridge, having successfully avoided looking at either the stove or the recurring black streaks. My
eyes sweep its empty shelves quickly and with increasing desperation: there’s a large jar of Klaas pickles, which, upon closer examination, turns out to be a single pickle swimming in generous brine, two bottles of Odwalla soy protein drink whose swelling sides suggest they’re of questionable vintage, a box of baking soda—whose vintage I know because he threw the previous box on the flames—a squeeze bottle of French’s mustard, a baffling jar of Kim Chee, and Oh! Merciful Gods! Three cans of beer! Boddingtons, too, bless his heart.

I remove one of the tall yellow tins and get a glass ready. I learned the hard way that one has to be prepared when opening a Boddingtons—the cans contain a floating thing called something like a sprigget or a widget, but as far as I can tell its purpose in life is to make the beer explode forth and spill over the sides of the can the second you open it. And so I prepare, setting the glass next to the can, sliding my thumbnail under the tab, and leaning so my lips are within slurping distance.

Just as the seal breaks and the beer surges forth, the phone rings. I glance at it, back at the quickly rising foam, and decide to take care of business first. I snap the tab completely open, lean over, and suck the beer as it rises from the can. With the situation thus under control, I wipe my lips with the back of my hand and stump, wincing, to the phone.

“Hello?”

There’s a shuffling at the other end.

“Hello?” I repeat, glancing at my beer, which is still rising. My stomach gurgles, and I’m reminded of my dim dinner prospects. Perhaps he has cereal or some
thing stashed away in a cupboard? Macaroni and cheese? Anything?

“Hello?” I say again.

I’m just about to give up when a female voice says, “Oh…uh…Who’s this?”

“Who are you trying to reach?” I say, propping the phone between my head and shoulder and reaching oh-so-far for my beer.

Success. I snag the glass with my fingertips and tip it, pouring the beer slowly down its angled side. It’s a lovely rich brown and its foaming head cascades down the interior in rolling waves. I’m drooling like Pavlov’s dog, but I think I’m entitled—I’ve had what Eva would call “a day.” Besides, I need some Dutch courage if I’m going to spend the night alone in the trailer with all the mold and fungus, not to mention the rodents underneath.

“Never mind,” the woman on the phone says. “I’ll try again.”

“But—”

There’s a click at the other end.

I shrug, hang up, take a long sip of beer, and head for the living room area, progressing carefully because I’m off-kilter and don’t want to spill my beer, which may well be the closest thing to dinner I get.

It takes me a while, but I reach the couch with my beer intact and set it on the coffee table beside the television’s remote control. At Mutti’s house, I’d use a coaster; but I’m not at Mutti’s house, I’m in Dan’s trailer, where the coffee table is made of something that only looks like wood.

I pull my ailing leg up onto its laminate surface and
settle back into the couch cushions. Then I reach for the remote control, determined to figure out the foal-cam.

The screen zaps to life. A man is holding a long floppy tube-like thing, tearing chunks off with his teeth with obvious and great disgust. Whatever it is, it’s tough and stringy and he chews with his lips pulled back and eyes scrunched shut. The people around him scream things like “Puke! Go on! You know you wanna!” and then groan, looking as though they’re going to do so themselves.

I realize—with immense and overwhelming horror—that I’m watching
Fear Factor,
Eva’s favorite TV show, and that the current competitor is attempting to eat some type of disembodied penis. I scan the remote control frantically for the Input button so I can make it go away.

But there is no such button. Judy’s words—“the big clicker”—come back to me.

“You can do it!” encourages the show’s host, although even he’s grimacing. He recovers with a shudder. “Three more minutes!” he shouts in a raw baritone. “Don’t listen to them! Force it down! Just think of the fifty thousand!”

I scan the room quickly for the big clicker, and then dive elbow-deep into the couch, frantic to find it.

“Think of where it’s been, dude!” shrieks another contestant, then apparently does so himself because his face contorts and he spins so that his back is to the camera, clutching his chest and stamping his leg up and down like a country fiddler.

I’m now gagging. I sweep my hands beneath the cushions with increasing desperation and encounter
nothing but encrusted bits of God-knows-what, a couple of energy bar wrappers, and some coins. Since I’m now in serious danger of actually throwing up, I grab the smaller clicker so I can just turn the damned thing off. Just as I poke the power button, the phone starts ringing again. I leap to my feet, still feeling distinctly ill, and hobble toward it. But apparently I pressed the power button with such force that I double-clicked it, because the television has turned itself back on. And on it must stay, because I’m almost at the telephone now, clutching my hip and gritting my teeth in pain.

“Hello?” I shout into the mouthpiece, plugging my other ear to keep out the groans of disgust coming from the other room, which is really only separated from the kitchen by a counter.

“Oh, crap,” says the same distant voice. “I’ve done it again.”

“Who are you trying to reach?” I ask impatiently. I can’t help it—my hip is seizing, people are eating penises behind me, and a most horrifying thought about female callers who don’t want to identify themselves when I answer Dan’s phone has just occurred to me.

“I was trying to reach the horse rescue,” she says.

I shut my eyes with relief and make the sign of the cross, even though my Catholicism is definitely of the lapsed variety. “Then you’ve succeeded. This is the Day Break Horse Sanctuary.”

“In that case you should say so.”

My eyes spring open in surprise. “The phone line is also for a residence. Is there something I can do for you?”

“I have to get rid of my horse.”

“Uh, okay,” I say, frowning. That’s a mighty strange
way of putting it. So strange, in fact, that it puts me on alert. “Let me get some information from you. Hang on while I find a pen.” I yank the handle of Dan’s junk drawer, which sticks shut because of the multiple layers of paint. When I finally jerk it open, loose batteries, screwdrivers, computer labels, and a tube of bute—an equine analgesic—crash to the floor.

I scrabble through the remaining Banamine granules, expired coupons, hoof picks, and assorted other junk until I find a pen and Post-it notes.

“Okay, I’m ready,” I say, scribbling on the top sheet to get the ink flowing. “What’s your name and number? I’ll have the owner call you when he gets back.” I glance back at the television, which has fallen blessedly quiet, the penis apparently consumed.

“What do you mean? When’s he getting back?”

“In a couple of days. He’s up in Canada getting a load of horses.”

“I can’t wait that long.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but that’s when he’s coming back. I can get the ball rolling, though. Do you have a fax number where I can send the surrender papers? Or do you want to pick them up?”

“I’m selling him, not surrendering him.”

I put the pen down on the pad. “You realize this is a rescue center, yes?”

“Yes.”

“We don’t buy horses.”

“What about them PMU mares? You buy them, don’t you?”

“Well, yes,” I say, frowning. “But that’s only so they won’t go to slaughter.”

“That’s why I figured you’d buy Squire. The dealer
I talked to said he’d give me three hundred and fifty for him.”

“Which dealer?” I say with a sinking feeling.

“Jack Harrison.”

“He’s a killer buyer!”

“Well, exactly. That’s why I thought you’d want first shot,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Listen,” I say, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead. “I don’t think you understand the way this place works. It runs on a shoestring. We depend on donations of hay, wormers, grain—everything. Farriers donate their work for free. Volunteers do the barn work. I highly doubt we even
have
three hundred and fifty in the bank. We’d be happy to take your horse and give him a good home, but we can’t pay for him.”

“Well, I can’t afford to give him up for nothing, so I guess that’s that.”

I press my lips together and rub my hand back and forth across my forehead. After a long pause I say, “Okay. Call him back and tell him the deal’s off.” I’ll pay for the horse myself and consider it a karmic opportunity to pay Dan back for the stove.

“So you’ll take him?” she says, brightening audibly.

“Yes,” I say.

“You’ll have to come out tonight.”

“Why?”

“Cuz the dealer’s coming first thing in the morning.”

“Just tell him the deal’s off.”

“How do I know you won’t back out?”

I sigh deeply, grievously. “Okay. Fine. Where are you?”

“You won’t be sorry. He’s a real nice horse. A fifteen-hand Appy, although he’s built more like a Thorough
bred. Real slim, real athletic. He’d make a good sport horse.”

“I said,
where are you
?”

There is silence on the other end of the line.

I take another deep breath and force my voice to soften. “Please tell me how to get to you. I’ll come out tonight.”

“With four hundred?”

My jaw drops. “You just said Harrison offered three fifty!”

“Well, I figured being a rescue and all you’d pay a bit more,” she says coyly, “so that…you know…”

“Okay. Fine,” I say wearily. “Just tell me how to get to you.”

And then she does, interspersing her directions with assurances about how I won’t be sorry to have this horse because he’s such a nice horse and worth so much more than I’m getting him for and it’s just
killing
her to give him up but right now she really needs the money and all sorts of other stuff that I don’t hear because I’ve tuned her out.

It doesn’t matter a damn what kind of horse he is. I’d go get that poor creature tonight if he were a llama.

Forty-five minutes. That’s how long she told me it would take to get to her place. So far I’ve been on the road for an hour and a half, and I still haven’t seen the designated landmark—a large maple with a black lightning mark on its trunk.

I finally catch sight of it—in my side-view mirror as I sail past. I pull off on the practically nonexistent shoulder, throw the car into reverse, and back up to it. This is only possible because I’m not hauling a trailer—the second I stepped outside at Dan’s place, I realized I’d driven the Camry and therefore had no way of hauling a horse. I figured I’d better come anyway, pay the woman, write up a bill of sale, give her a stern warning about the legal ramifications of double-selling and how much more than seven hundred and fifty it would cost her if she tried, and then return in the morning to claim the horse.

At least the rain has stopped. The road is narrow and twisting, hemmed in by thick and tangled trees. Fat disks of pale fungus cling to their trunks up near where they split into branches. I’ve always thought of them as
tree mushrooms, although I have no idea what they’re really called.

The driveways are hard to make out, unpaved as they are and with night falling. I lean forward in the driver’s seat, squinting and trying to count. I turn into what I think is the fourth driveway, discover that it’s the beginning of a trail, and reverse back out to the road.

I stop tentatively at the mouth of the next possibility (two wheel tracks that lead into the trees), and turn. It snakes sharply a few times, then opens onto a clearing that is so muddy I hang tightly to the tree line, circumnavigating the lot in an effort to keep at least two of the car’s wheels on solid ground.

I climb out of the car, glance down at the deep and slippery mud, and reposition my feet on little islands of rotting leaves.

The house is small and weathered with a dilapidated porch. It was white at some point, but the color is now merely suggested by streaks of paint embedded in the grain. There’s a small paddock on one side, and its fence is a mess; some of the boards are missing entirely. Others are broken in half, their splintered ends resting on the ground. There’s no way it could contain a horse.

I look around with widened eyes, wondering where the hell he is. There are a few small outbuildings, but nothing that looks like it could house a horse. It dawns on me that if he’s not in one of the buildings, he must be wandering free. I’m starting to seriously regret not making a detour to get Mutti’s pickup and trailer.

I approach the house, taking in the broken windows and toothless blinds with growing trepidation.

A little girl sits on the front porch. She’s no more
than three, with dark curly hair, a yellow dress, and a bleached-out blue snow jacket that is unzipped. She has shoes on, but no socks. She’s manipulating a Barbie doll with a crew cut. More disturbingly, Barbie has no clothes. The peach-colored body, with its wasp-waist and oh-so-perky breasts, is covered with ballpoint pen marks that look like varicose veins. Upon closer examination, Barbie is not entirely naked—she’s wearing pink rhinestone-encrusted high heels.

The girl looks up at me, startled.

I lean over. “Hi, sweetie,” I say, conjuring up my warmest smile. “Is your mommy home?”

She clambers to her feet and runs past me into the house. The screen door, with a two-foot rip in it, slams shut behind her. Its springs hang free from the hinges, which are crisp with rust.

A moment later a woman comes out the front door. She is small, with dark hair pulled back into a messy knot. She looks frail and wan, nothing like I expected.

“Hi,” I say, stepping forward and sticking my hand out. “I’m Annemarie Zimmer. From Day Break.”

“Hi,” she says. All bravado is gone. She offers me a limp-fish hand and stares at the floorboards of her porch. “Eugenie Alcott.”

“So,” I say, putting my hands on my waist and looking around for something positive to comment on. “Is that your little girl?”

“Yes.”

“She’s adorable,” I say.

“Thank you.” There is no proud smile, no cute anecdote, no offering up of a name. “So I suppose you want to see Squire.”

“Um…sure,” I say. I look in alarm toward the
house, wondering if I can stall a bit because now I’m at least as concerned about the child as I am about the horse.

“Hang on,” Eugenie says before turning and disappearing inside the house. When she returns, a man’s flannel shirt hangs around her shoulders.

“He’s this way,” she says, walking past me and down the stairs.

She leads me around the side of the house toward a white cement-brick building that looks like a garage. I limp behind, as quickly as my hip will allow.

She comes to a stop outside the garage. It’s even more dilapidated than the house—surely the horse isn’t in here?

I glance at her with wide eyes and step up to the doorway. That’s when the smell hits me.

“Sweet Jesus!” I exclaim, stepping back and gagging. And it’s not just that I’ve been primed by
Fear Factor
—the interior reeks so fiercely of ammonia my eyes and nostrils sting.

“I know it’s not the cleanest,” she says.

“Not the cleanest?” I stare in disbelief. She gazes at the ground in either indifference or defiance.

I throw her one final look of incredulity, take a deep breath, and step inside.

There’s one window at the very back of the cement brick structure. By its dim light I make out an enclosure and step closer.

It’s a makeshift stall set up in the corner, the boards nailed haphazardly to a wooden post. I catch sight of white hide and a single shining eye. I’m almost out of oxygen, but I lean forward and peer through the slats.

Inside is a tiny creature, no more than thirteen hands
high, bedraggled, and clearly skeletal despite his hugely distended belly. His feet are completely obscured by slimy muck. It’s at least a foot deep.

I’ve run out of breath without noticing and gasp in a lungful of contaminated air. I turn back to the doorway, toward the woman who lets him live like this. “Get him out of here.”

“What?”

“Please. Just get him out,” I say, staggering past her to the fresh air. I stand doubled over, hands on my thighs, struggling for breath.

Eugenie disappears around the side of the building and returns with a piece of knotted twine.

“What’s that?” I say, pointing at it.

“It’s a halter.”

“No it’s not.”

“It’s all I’ve got,” she says.

She approaches the stall slowly, timidly even. She fumbles with the latch, which appears to be stuck. The second she gets it open, the pony blasts through the door and out of the building. His parting gesture is to shoot a hind hoof at my face—I fall back against the outside wall to avoid being hit.

Despite his initial steam, he comes to a stop about thirty feet away, at the first clump of sorry grass.

His legs are wet and dark almost up to his knees. His hipbones stick out like wings behind a belly as grossly swollen as Maisie’s. He eyes us warily, swirling his ropy tail in circles. Out in the open, he looks so much worse I realize I can’t possibly leave him here tonight. The paddock wouldn’t hold him, and there’s no way I can allow him to go back into that garage.

I spin around to Eugenie. She’s scowling into the wind, hugging the flannel shirt against herself.

“What?” she says, as though she has no idea.

The second I get out of here, I’m calling Child Protective Services.

I turn away from her and step toward the pony, carefully, approaching from the side. He keeps working the tuft of grass, but his left pupil is aimed right at me. When I get within eight feet his ears fall back.

“Easy, boy,” I say, stopping. “Easy.”

I take a few tentative steps forward, holding out my hand.

He lifts his muzzle a few inches from the ground and holds it there, pinning his ears. Then
WHOOSH!
A hind leg snaps out, narrowly missing my ear.

“Whoa!” I take a long step backward and look over my shoulder at Eugenie, who is still scowling. “Got any grain?” I ask.

“No.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

I sigh and walk back to her. “Let’s just go inside and draw up a bill of sale. I’m going to need to borrow your phone to call for a trailer. Will you take a check?”

“Cash only,” she says quickly.

I throw her a murderous glance.

“I can’t do it through a bank account,” she says. “My husband would get at it.”

“Okay. Fine. I’ll get cash. Let’s just get this over with, okay?”

She leads the way to the house in silence. I follow, limping like Quasimodo and glancing back at the starv
ing pony to make sure he’s staying put, although I’m not sure what, exactly, I would do about it if he didn’t.

Once we’re inside the house’s dismal interior, Eugenie waves me at the phone and climbs the stairs with hunched shoulders.

I glance around the living room. A single bulb is suspended from three wires in what was once an ornate ceiling fixture. The wallpaper hangs off in shreds, revealing crumbling plaster and strips of lath. There’s a couch and matching chair, with ornate woodwork and red upholstery. At one time it was glorious. Now it’s tattered and lumpy, with springs sticking through the seat. Loose garbage and stacks of newspaper tied with twine line the walls.

The little girl sits at the very bottom of the stairs playing with her Barbie. She gives no indication of being aware of my presence. Her dark hair is greasy, and flattened at the back. I watch her for a moment, fingers pressed to my mouth in thought.

Then I turn back to the phone and dial our number.

Eva answers immediately, so quickly that from this end it didn’t even sound like it rang.

“Hello?” she says breathlessly. Obviously she’s hoping I’m her boyfriend Luis.

“Eva, it’s me,” I say. “Get Oma.”

“Can you call back later?” Eva hisses. “I’m expecting a call.”

“Honey, please—this is important.”

She sighs dramatically. “Okay. Fine. But I really do need a cell phone.”

“Point noted. Now get Oma.”

“So I’m getting a cell phone?”

“Get Oma!”

She slams the receiver down and her footsteps recede. “Oma,” she calls in the distance, “it’s Mom. Says it’s…‘
important.
’” There’s a clear pause before the final word.

Hurried footsteps approach the phone.

“What is it? Is everything all right?” says Mutti in clipped Teutonic. She can’t help it. Her accent gets stronger when she’s worried. “Is it the mare?”

“No. But I do need help.”

“What? What is it? Are you all right?”

“Not really. I need you to come out to Gum Neck with the horse trailer. And four hundred in cash. And a pony halter. And a bucket of grain.”

There is silence at the end of the line as she takes this in. “I will come. Where are you?”

I’m just getting to the part about the burnt maple when I hear heavy footsteps on the porch. I turn just as a huge man crashes through the front door. He throws it open with such force that its knob lodges in the wall behind it, and then he stands in the doorway, wild-eyed and panting. He’s at least six foot three, and well over two hundred pounds.

The little girl looks up and screams. He trips over her in his rush to mount the stairs, which he takes three at a time. The child scrambles over to me on all fours and grabs me by the legs, shrieking into the back of Dan’s sweatpants.

Eugenie appears at the top of the stairs and opens her mouth, but before she can make a sound, the man cups her throat in one hand, claps his other over her mouth, and throws her back against the wall.

“Hey, Buddy!” I bellow. “Yo! Buddy!”

He freezes and does a double take down the stairs.
He passed right by me on his way up the stairs, but apparently failed to notice my presence.

“I’ve got nine-one-one on the line here!” I say, still pressing the receiver to my ear.

“
Mein Gott,
Annemarie! What is going on?” cries Mutti.

“Hang it up!” he roars. “Hang it up or so help me God—”

“You’ll what?” I scream back at him. “The second I dialed it, they traced the call. They’re already on their way and they’re listening to every damned word you say!”

“Eva! Eva! Get my cell phone!
Schnell! Schnell!
” screams Mutti from the other end of the phone. “Annemarie,” she continues, her voice an urgent whisper, “I’m calling nine-one-one on my cell phone. I’ve got your instructions. They are coming. They are coming! Do not hang up!” Then again, her mouth away from the receiver, “
Schnell,
Eva!
Schnell!
”

The man drops Eugenie, who crumples to the floor like a rag doll. He turns and stares at me, his expression frighteningly blank. He takes a step toward the top of the stairs. Then another.

The little girl whimpers, her face still buried in the back of my legs. I reach around and press her against me.

The man comes to the top of stairs, slowly, his eyes locked on mine, his massive hand gripping the banister.

“They’re listening to the whole thing,” I say, forcing myself to meet his gaze. My voice is hollow and deep, fueled by God only knows what. “The dispatcher confirmed your address. It’s all over,” I say.

He stares at me for what seems an eternity. Then his face falls, his shoulders slump, and he comes down the
stairs slowly, one at a time. When he reaches the bottom, I take a couple of steps backward, still pressing the child against me.

But we might as well not be in his world anymore. He passes right on through the open door, which is still impaled in the wall, and takes a seat on the top step of the porch.

“Mutti,” I whisper into the phone. “I’m hanging up now. I’m calling nine-one-one for real.”

“I already have,
Schatzlein,
” she hisses. “They are already coming, and so am I.”

Twenty minutes later, the police arrive. I’m sitting on the tattered couch with both arms wrapped around the child. She’s curled into a ball on my lap, sucking her thumb. She still hasn’t said a word, but her little body is relaxed. Her head is tucked beneath my chin, and I stroke her hair even though the scent of unwashed scalp is overwhelming.