head. The plaster construction must have placed a seam there, at the top of the neck where it joined the jaw, because all the heads were gone, and pretty smoothly, right there at the top of the neck. Truly couldnât have planned it better for a lay-up stable, and I laughed the first time I noticed the layers of irony and stumbled through trying to explain the joke to my mother before giving up.
I knew it was funny, but I didnât know how to tell it. It wouldnât be worth it with an adult, and there were no kids around. I liked making kids laugh, but Iâd never be able to make a kid see what was funny. Sometimes when kids laugh and laugh, when they keep at it long after the joke is used up, I know theyâre just doing it for the physical high, and after a while itâs to see how long they can go, and when theyâre doing it with their friends itâs almost a competition. Still, sometimes when a kid keeps laughing, whatâs going on is the joke is becoming increasingly complicated. The joke isnât over, the kid is watching it unfold in her mind, so she keeps making laughing sounds to go with it, because the jokeâs not over yet. Sheâs giggling, watching connotations skitter and ripple like the arms of a balled-up octopus unfurling in the water, sending waves and tousling little fishes.
I loved the joke. It was easy to see what the horses must have looked like whole, easy enough that youâd have to look twice to notice the missing heads, because no one wants to see anything headless, really, so your mind makes it up. You know how sometimes a person missing a few fingers or even an arm can be around people all day or for years and no one will notice, because the person can hide the absence the way a magician can redirect your attention, but also you see what you expect to see, and by a certain age, most things are exactly what you expect to see, as long as youâve been a clever enough child to catch on. The sign for the Western stable is written in a motif of ropes. Written in a motif of snakes and you might never notice, because snakes are close enough to ropes. Paint a Stetson rakishly over a capital letter, and even if itâs plain writing you might think itâs written in rope. Usually youâre right, because if you look at it in a nice way, people want to communicate clearly and they know how hard it is, so they keep it simple.
But look at it more accurately and they simply have no imagination. Eyes are trained. You have to be extremely innocent or extremely wise to see anything at all after a while.
So it was easy to see the horses as whole and I wondered how they got mangled. I pictured Joe, who owned Sandpiper Farm and was one of several Joes who owned stables in the area. He was forty maybe, maybe younger, just getting gray at the temples. His fatherâd died and Joe lived on the property in the ranch-style house that was about half the size of the barn but still pretty big, the kind with excellent wall-to-wall carpeting everywhere except the kitchen, and a big bulbous TV in its own wooden piece of furniture in the sunken living room, and a big sliced-stone fireplace in the center of the whole house, a giant enormous support column you could walk all the way around and see from all sides, with a fireplace on one side and a wood-burner on the other even though it never got cold enough to need heat. Like they went on vacation in the Tetons, came back and built it to match the lobby where they stayed. Also shiny candelabra-style light fixtures dangling from the center of every room or room-area, and attached to dimmer switches that dotted the walls near all the doorways.
Joe lived in there with his mother, who waddled around bitching about her heart attacks and wouldnât come off the back stoop when she hollered down to the barn for him and he hollered back, âUse the goddamn phone, Ma, thatâs why I put a goddamn phone down here!â
And one
I knew it was funny, but I didnât know how to tell it. It wouldnât be worth it with an adult, and there were no kids around. I liked making kids laugh, but Iâd never be able to make a kid see what was funny. Sometimes when kids laugh and laugh, when they keep at it long after the joke is used up, I know theyâre just doing it for the physical high, and after a while itâs to see how long they can go, and when theyâre doing it with their friends itâs almost a competition. Still, sometimes when a kid keeps laughing, whatâs going on is the joke is becoming increasingly complicated. The joke isnât over, the kid is watching it unfold in her mind, so she keeps making laughing sounds to go with it, because the jokeâs not over yet. Sheâs giggling, watching connotations skitter and ripple like the arms of a balled-up octopus unfurling in the water, sending waves and tousling little fishes.
I loved the joke. It was easy to see what the horses must have looked like whole, easy enough that youâd have to look twice to notice the missing heads, because no one wants to see anything headless, really, so your mind makes it up. You know how sometimes a person missing a few fingers or even an arm can be around people all day or for years and no one will notice, because the person can hide the absence the way a magician can redirect your attention, but also you see what you expect to see, and by a certain age, most things are exactly what you expect to see, as long as youâve been a clever enough child to catch on. The sign for the Western stable is written in a motif of ropes. Written in a motif of snakes and you might never notice, because snakes are close enough to ropes. Paint a Stetson rakishly over a capital letter, and even if itâs plain writing you might think itâs written in rope. Usually youâre right, because if you look at it in a nice way, people want to communicate clearly and they know how hard it is, so they keep it simple.
But look at it more accurately and they simply have no imagination. Eyes are trained. You have to be extremely innocent or extremely wise to see anything at all after a while.
So it was easy to see the horses as whole and I wondered how they got mangled. I pictured Joe, who owned Sandpiper Farm and was one of several Joes who owned stables in the area. He was forty maybe, maybe younger, just getting gray at the temples. His fatherâd died and Joe lived on the property in the ranch-style house that was about half the size of the barn but still pretty big, the kind with excellent wall-to-wall carpeting everywhere except the kitchen, and a big bulbous TV in its own wooden piece of furniture in the sunken living room, and a big sliced-stone fireplace in the center of the whole house, a giant enormous support column you could walk all the way around and see from all sides, with a fireplace on one side and a wood-burner on the other even though it never got cold enough to need heat. Like they went on vacation in the Tetons, came back and built it to match the lobby where they stayed. Also shiny candelabra-style light fixtures dangling from the center of every room or room-area, and attached to dimmer switches that dotted the walls near all the doorways.
Joe lived in there with his mother, who waddled around bitching about her heart attacks and wouldnât come off the back stoop when she hollered down to the barn for him and he hollered back, âUse the goddamn phone, Ma, thatâs why I put a goddamn phone down here!â
And one
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