Wild Horses

Erin Kiernan

Harry’s job was park-going. He’d retired early, just before he’d turned 55. So he filled the days with long walks and PETA protests. His wife used to walk with him some days, but as he aged he started to leave the apartment before she’d wake up. Why waste his life with people he didn’t enjoy?

            This park-going was tiring business. One particular day, he’d confronted four horse carriage drivers before noon. He stopped for some falafel and penned a particularly aggressive letter to de Blasio while sitting on a bench. Horses were his favorite, and he was tired of seeing them everyday. “The taxis, Subway, LIRR, Metro North, ferries—are they not enough for us? Would this island screech to a halt if we outlawed ungulate oppression?” the letter read. This brought him to one thirty.

            It was time for a nap. Sometimes, Harry liked to nap in the park. It reminded him of growing up in West Virginia, the state he called home till a redheaded reporter lured him east with promises of freedom and eternal youth. She smoked long cigarettes and when he first asked her to the diner she licked his nose before hopping into his truck. Was she New York? He wanted to see. So they left and she set him up with a job in her brother’s office, a place he stayed for thirty years. He watched her work her way up to an executive position at her company, even allowing her to sleep with another man once. That’s how you made it in her business and it was only going to happen once.

            Harry did not feel free, as he was promised, and he was getting older, as he was not promised. His wife never licked his nose in New York, and his accent embarrassed her. She also did not have the time for children and she certainly did not have the time to get her body back after giving birth. She was very pleasant to Harry, but he had a suspicion the sleeping-with-another-man thing did not only happen once.

            His accent stopped embarrassing her because she stopped taking him places. It was only fair, as he never took her places. Soon they only took themselves places. But on some special days they would walk together in the park in an effort to revive the union. That is, until Harry decided the union was beyond resuscitating. Then he started to leave the apartment before she woke up.

            Which brings us to one thirty and Harry’s desired nap. He would have set out a blanket right there in the park, but it rained the night before and the ground was sodden. Harry lived on Riverside in Morningside Heights, and that morning he’d walked himself all the way to the south side of Central Park. He decided to take the train home for his nap. When it arrived, he dashed for a seat. Squarely planted in the seat he started to doze and was jarred awake by a baby carted onboard by his mother at Lincoln Center. He’d started to nestle himself back to sleep when he noticed the woman sitting across from him. He forgot all of his West Virginia etiquette and stared for several stops.

            She looked young, freshly 25 perhaps, with unmanageable brown hair and dewy skin. Was she beautiful? He really didn’t know; he hadn’t practiced recognizing beauty in years—at least beauty in a woman. She was thin, yet solid, and it seemed like she only partly cared about her appearance. She had the whitest teeth and the wildest eyes. Her shirt was plain and her boots were worn. She had ugly glasses—Harry was adept at recognizing ugly—but delicate jewelry. And she was glisteningly pale. He watched her read her book. She was that New York freedom he was promised long ago.

            The woman took a break from her book a few stops into Harry’s ride. When she looked up from the page, her eyes were immediately drawn to his with the aid of that unexplained magnetism all wandering eyes have. As if to inconvenience him with her gaze the same way he had burdened her with his, she didn’t look away. But Harry did not feel intimidated by her eyes. In fact, he felt big. This free woman noticed him, so he stared stolidly back at her, soaking up her essence of freedom, wanting to touch it.

            Harry had shoulder-length salt and pepper hair and a clean and chiseled face. He was tall and strong and wore boot cut jeans with cowboy boots. He was nearing 60 but he looked 50.  And he was well aware of all of this. Emboldened by her stare, he caught himself thinking that maybe she would let him touch her freedom. He hoped she would tell him that.

            Their staring contest survived for several stops, but the woman finally parted her lips briefly and looked down. She read.

            Harry wondered what he had done wrong. Why didn’t she want to look at him anymore? Where was she was going midday on a Tuesday? Was that book for a class? Shouldn’t she have brushed her hair? Maybe she was going home for a nap too. He wished she lived in his building. He willed her to look up. He craved her freedom. He wanted her to offer it to him.

            But still she read. He told himself he had to do something. Anything. His stop was near, and he didn’t want to lose this free young woman forever.

            They arrived at 116th Street, his stop. He prayed she’d look up. He prayed he’d do something. But he just sat. The only action he was capable of was inaction.

            He continued to stare and she continued to read. 125th Street, 137th Street, 145th Street, 157th Street. As the train whirred away from the tiled 157 on the wall, the woman closed her book. She slid it into her satchel and stood up. Her face was closed. Harry tried and failed to catch her eye.

            At 168th Street, the doors opened and the free woman slipped away. Harry sat a moment, then followed her just as the doors were closing.

            He walked over to the downtown track and waiting quietly for the next train.

Erin Kiernan