The Horse - God

The moaning grew louder as she walked the long block, closer and closer to the corner. It was a low mournful sound, like a cow’s droning, heavy and blue. Then its pitch climbed slowly up the sound register, sometimes sustaining itself until the next climb. At its top the sustaining was steady until a heavy phlegmy cough interrupted it. Sandy quickened her pace and, keeping her head down, she raised only her eyes. She looked at him as she did every time she passed his house.

Her house was the second one from her corner if she turned to the right. It stood on a little hill. Sandy would turn to the right and run up the hill every Saturday morning to the ball field where the boys played baseball or football or soccer depending on the season. To the left was the long long block to the other corner where his house stood. That was the way to school every weekday morning.

She turned to the left this morning. She could never hear the moaning until she reached the little square house with windows for its eyes and nose and a red painted door for its mouth about halfway down the block. She slowed her pace at first and looked down at the sidewalk. Little clumps of green grass poked their way between the sidewalk cracks. It even looked as if the grass forced the sidewalk to crack. She knew that wasn’t possible but she thought it all the same.

He was so big. Bigger than her father. He was sixteen years old. He was out on the porch sitting hunched over on the floor of the playpen that was barely big enough to hold him. He wore thick brown corduroy pants and a brown and orange argyle sweater. The sweater was zipped up to his chin covering his neck. He wore soft brown slippers. His hair was neatly combed. His mother came out on the porch and bent over him, smoothing his hair and kissing his forehead. She felt his hands and his cheek. She put a cookie in his mouth. His moaning was softer now as he moved his head from side to side. She smiled and put another cookie in his mouth. He munched on the cookie while he droned on steadily. His sounds were muffled as if they were coming out of a box of cotton. He opened his mouth and bits of the cookie fell on his sweater. His mother brushed them away.

Sandy hurried past the house wondering, as she always did, how Mrs. Stein lifted her son into the playpen. Even with Marie helping her. She wondered whether Mrs. Stein ever thought about why Jeremy happened to her. She knew they weren’t bad. She used to play at Mrs. Stein’s but she didn’t anymore. That was a long time ago. She was ten years old now. Sandy couldn’t understand why Mrs. Stein smiled. Someone once told her that it takes way more muscles in the face to frown than to smile. Maybe that was why. It was easier. But Sandy thought about how she would not smile if she had to dress a man bigger than she was. Or give him a bath.