Originally posted: July 28, 2005
A while back on another site I wrote a post about horses. I explained how I love horses. Well, to be more accurate, I explained how horses are the only animal I like. Why? Because they prove the existence of God. Nature’s Car, I called them. Sure there’s been a shitload of millenias worth of evolution and all, but to think that there’s some docile, obedient beast with a back that just perfectly fits a pair of human legs, and a beast that is cool with having these legs wrapped around it’s back, human attached, as it cruises the landscape? That’s not evolution, that’s a favor. A little kick-start from God, a Nature’s Car, until we evolved into thinking beings that could invent our own transportation. Ok, so maybe it’s not the most intellectual point that I’ve ever made, but it’s what I was thinking about one day.
Of course, horses were not what I was thinking about last Friday as I raced to put down a couple pints before Last Call.
My friends and I decided to finish off the night at a local tavern in my neck of the woods. And while one normally wouldn’t expect this place to be hopping at 2am, I was pleasantly suprised to find a pretty lively crowd there. I grabbed a pint of Redhook, and we headed outside to the back deck. Sitting at the end of the deck were three ladies who sorta seemed to give off an aura of intelligence. Yeah, I know, that sounds kind of lame. But see, at this particular bar you’ll usually find two types of girls – the angry ivory tower liberal ladies, and the sad chain-smoking drunk ones. And these girls weren’t smoking.
Somehow I soon found myself sitting with these ladies, shooting the shit. Apparently I wasn’t looking to impress them, as, if I recall correctly, I spent a good amount of time explaining to them how I used to be a puppeteer. And sadly, it wasn’t even a lie. I did some puppetering at a church back in seventh grade, so technically, I’m a former puppeteer, right? Are you impressed with that? They weren’t. Not even after I demonstrated the proper hand techniques required for a realistic puppet portrayal. “Why would you do that?” you may ask. “Fuck you,” I may reply.
Eventually my pals joined the group and the subject changed to other more relevent and timely topics. At one point in the discussion, some strange drunk-as-shit dude came and sat down on the stairs next to me. I gave him a friendly “Hello, how ya doing?” and he preceeded to go on and on and on about how happy he was, and how he’d recently discovered how wonderful everything is and how being nice to people is all that matters. You know, a bunch of happy drug-addled bullshit. “That’s cool, man,” I replied and turned back to talk with my new friends and try to barge myself back into the subject at hand. The happy guy just kept on talking, even while I was engaged in chit chat with the others. Occassionally he’d butt into the conversation, and drag my attention back to his newfound philosophies. After a good thirty minutes of this back and forth, I began to get a little frustrated with this guy. Here I was talking to three girls and my old pals, and I’m getting pulled away to hear some bastard’s pre-Guru dress rehearsal. I lost my patience with the guy, looked over at him, and said, “Look friend. It’s time to put up or shut up. If being nice and generous and shit is so damned important, then what are you doing sitting around all fucked up at a bar? Go out and do something nice for someone, or knock off the big talk!” Maybe it wasn’t the most polite thing to say, and of course I believe in honor among drunks and all that, but I expect the same in return. So let’s give me a little break and allow me to be the annoying guy. Whaddya say? This seemed to quiet the dude down, and I leaned back into the conversation that was going on next to me…
“And I’ve been riding horses all my life,” said the pretty blond-haired girl. “And now I train them and teach folks to ride…”
My buddy, obviously intrigued, made some crack about using the horses to make glue. The horse trainer was not amused. She opened up a full frontal verbal assualt on the guy, calling him such atypical insults as “mundane” and “pedestrian” and so forth. He continued to laugh at his own glue joke while Leo and I expressed our joy and appreciation for the new insults we’d just learned.
And then somewhere from the depths of my gin-soaked gray matter crawled out a touch of reason. Wait, what was that precursor to the “mundane/pedestrian” rant? Did she say…horses?
“Horses!” I yelled. “I like horses! In fact, they’re the only animal I like! See, to me, horses are proof of the existence…”
I can’t remember how far I got with that statement. Hopefully I didn’t complete it. But I managed to steer (horse pun) the conversation back to her career and learned that she worked at a stable.
“Hey, will you take us there?” I asked, fully expecting to get belittled for my mundanity.
“Uh. Yeah. Ok, sure,” she said.
“For real?”
“Yeah, just keep your mouth shut and don’t be stupid.” Or something along those lines.
So me and Leo (Sober) and the horse trainer headed over to the stables in Leo’s truck. She didn’t turn on the lights as she opened the gate and walked in, and Leo and I blindly followed her down the hay and dirt covered walkway hearing the soft sounds of shuffling hooves and quiet whinnies of the waking horses. It was surreal. Then the curious beasts began to stick their massive heads out of their dark stables to catch a glimpse of the unexpected visitors. The horse trainer stroked the dark brown one’s mane as she introduced us to it. I stared at it’s eyes. I was amazed by them. Maybe it was the gin, but they looked so, well, noble. Huge black, noble, patient eyes. I put an awkward hand up to it’s face and petted it’s snout. It didn’t jump out of the gate and eat me. That was a relief.
She then opened up the stable doors and led one of the horses out onto the large, circular, dirt-covered riding area (or whatever the hell they’re called). She pulled herself up onto it’s back and began to walk it around the track. Leo and I leaned over the railing and watched. I wanted a smoke, and I really wanted to find a bathroom. But I wasn’t going to go anywhere. This was way too random.
I turned to Leo. “Dude, this is so rad! It’s 4am and we’re at a horsefarm, watching a stranger ride a horse! And we’re drunk!!!”
Leo, of course, wasn’t drunk. Sober. Sober and married, and likely feeling a little awkward by the whole thing and wanting to call his wife. But me? Shit, I was fired up!
The trainer rode the horse up to us, hopped off, and asked me, “You want a ride?”
“Uh, really?”
“Yeah, come on.”
I stepped through the entrance and onto the track, and followed the horse trainer to the center, where she stopped at a small 3-step staircase. She motioned for me to get up on the stairs. I slowly lurched up the steps, and paused at the top to regain my balance. She directed the horse over to me.
“Go ahead. Hop on.”
Hell yeah! I put my hands on the horse’s back and prepared to launch.
Uh oh.
I looked down and realized what I was wearing. Flip flops, and a pair of tight hipster jeans. So tight, in fact, that you can probably read the numbers on my cell phone when I carry it in my pocket. There was no way I was going to be able to stretch my legs far enough apart to lurch onto that horse.
But then again, there was no way in hell I was going to pass up the comedy of trying to hop on a horse in designer jeans.
I went for it. I jumped up. Uggghh! My right leg barely extended and barely made it to the top of the horse’s back. I slid back down onto the steps. Damnit. I tried again. Uggghh! Nothing. Leo watched from the distance and laughed at the idiot trying to mount a horse in flip flops. One more try.
Uggghhh!
I made it. I was on. Holy shit.
The trainer began to slowly walk the horse around the track. I looked around at the stables around me, trying to take it in…
Here I was, high on gin and lit up by nothing but moonlight, riding bareback on a horse at 4am. Fucking a. This was a first. I think.
Not at all the way I had expected the night to go when they called Last Call at the bar…
…I’ll be turning thirty next month. And sometimes I wonder if maybe it’s getting time to settle down a bit. Maybe I’m getting a little too old for loud nights at the bar, hoisting pints of ale and shots of jager, laughing with friends, and spending my weekend hungover. Maybe there’s something or someone out there that might provide a little more, well, substance…
But then again, sometimes I’ll stumble upon some random occurance, some unexpected adventure… like meeting strangers at last call at a bar, and going out for an early morning ride on a fucking horse…
…And then I’ll think, time to settle? Ah, well, maybe not just yet…
