The Myth of Wile E

Secretariat's Something

Everyone in the car had fallen asleep except Daddy. And, of course, me. At the age of three I had somehow come down with a bad case of insomnia which would recur at inopportune times, and this was one of those times. (Mama had occasionally tried to cure the insomnia by attacking it with reason: "You can't have insomnia. Who ever heard of a kid your age with insomnia? Go to sleep." But the cure did not take.) Whenever the insomnia hit, I'd try to put myself to sleep by weaving yawn-yarns: very boring stories. This method usually didn't work, because the more boring a story I tried to tell myself, the sillier it got, and soon I'd be like the old Indian woman, laughing to myself over this dream-lure that I'd spun.

We'd left New Mexico, and now all around us were strange plants that had spikes all over them and lots of arms. Some of them were stumpy and hairy and looked like Captain Caveman. I personally found Captain Caveman scary.

The radio had been playing static for a long time without anyone else noticing. It was strange, wavy static with an occasional hint of lyrics, like a stormy sea of interference with a few swept-away songs crying out from within it.

Somewhere in the middle of Arizona, they started to come clear. The first songs to emerge were ones I'd never heard before. Mama had always said music was a "universal language," but apparently folks who lived in the land of red sand and prickly plants had their own dialect of songs. I felt awkward and unwelcome. It was like visiting a family that had a very big secret that everyone knew, but no one would tell you.

Finally a song emerged that I knew very well. The song was about racehorses, and it had been played over and over in the weeks before the Kentucky Derby until Daddy would say "ugh" and change the channel. Something about the song had always vaguely bothered me, but I couldn't remember what. Probably because my opinions had not been fully formed at the time, and therefore could not hope to be remembered later.

But crossing the alien desert at daybreak in our big Impala station wagon, with no signs of life out there except for hostile plants that were nothing at all like bluegrass, and with Dougie and Gladys slamming into me every time we ovaled because the seat was slippery and there weren't any seat belts, and with Mama up in the passenger seat sleeping off her empty victory and Daddy up in the driver's seat silently lost in thought—probably wondering where he was going to get some Prospects or why he never painted anymore—I, who was still in my pajamas and with opinions not fully formed yet, suddenly thought of any old acquaintance as a long-lost friend. And that included vaguely troubling songs about the Kentucky Derby.

So I sang along with the radio, softly, about a little foal growing up in Kentucky with its mama guiding and teaching him.

"Oh . . . that's good," Mama muttered, half-asleep in the front seat. "Your pitch is getting a lot better."

I shrugged and sang a little louder, about the beautiful green hills of horse country, the sun and the breeze.

"Mmm-hmm, I can tell you've been practicing your scales, Gladdy," Mama said, and then dozed off again. I looked at Gladys. She was sound asleep, gaping like a carp.

I went on singing, something about destiny and luck and all that . . . until I got to that part about what really made one horse outrun all the others.

And that's when I remembered what had always bothered me about the song.

It was that something unknown part.

Something Unknown was definitely grown-ups' double talk. Something Unknown was either a secret, or a cop out. Adults knew everything. The only time they talked about a Something Unknown was when it was too naughty or too complicated to explain, or if it had to do with the mysterious whims of a higher power, like God or Santa Claus. When you asked what the Something was, they told you that you'd find out when you were older.

Well. I was four (almost five), and now I was older-and now, and now, and now. With each minute I was older. So I thought it couldn't hurt to ask.

"Mama?" I said.

"Mmm-hmm," she mumbled. Her face looked doughy pressed against the headrest, and there was a thin silver line of drool on her cheek, like a slug trail. She had her feet up on the dashboard, something Dougie always got in trouble for.

"Mama."

"Uh-hmm," she said.

"How come Gladys doesn't win the roses anymore?"

"Mmm?"

"How come Gladys doesn't win the roses?"

" . . . Course she does," Mama said sleepily. When she talked, her squished mouth looked like the slit on one of those squeezable rubber coin-purses.

"Not lately, though."

"Lately . . . the judges aren't fair." She turned over to sleep again.

"Mama?"

"Ugghh."

"Does Gladys have it? The Something?"

"Please, Baby . . . Mama's tired."

"But does she have it?"

"Shhh. Go to sleep."

"Mama? What's the Something?"

She sighed. "The 'something'?"

"From the song."

"Oh, for heaven's sake."

"But what is it?"

"What."

"What makes one horse run fast enough to win?"

"I don't know," Mama said. "A crop to the withers! Go to sleep."

Oh.

So that's how you got the Something. From getting your backside whipped. Hmm.

I had seen the Kentucky Derby on television. Before the race, the horses would parade before the camera, each horse strutting and stomping and tossing its head while the crowds cheered and the jockey offered a little pat of affirmation. Each horse looked dead-determined, and each horse looked like a river of muscles poured over an armature of steel. Yet only one could win. And when the gates swung open, the horses ran as if they could know no greater joy than to die of a bursting heart. Even at four (almost five) years old, I knew there was so much more glory and magic at work than could be explained away as some dumb beasts running from a spanking.

Had Mama lied? Maybe the Something was a very, very big secret.

Or maybe—could it be possible?—Mama didn't know what the Something was.

Or knew, but wanted to forget.