The Lotus Eaters

The Lotus Eaters

By Susan Taylor Brand

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,

In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie relined

On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.

-- Tennyson, from "Song of the Lotos-Eaters"

Chapter I

All my trouble started one June day, the afternoon I met Carl Nayshiburi outside 31 Flavors, near the corner of Third and B Streets.

Anita and I had taken the horses out of the stables at the end of Pole Line Road, then turned and travelled down a grassy alleyway where huge power line towers ran between two rows of six-foot backyard fences. We walked the horses until we came to Loyola Ave, where we crossed the railroad tracks into downtown.

We were planning on getting ice cream. That was the kind of town Republic was. There was not a lot to do or a lot of rules for teenagers in those days.

Jane, the trainer at our barn, would have been irritated had she known. We were supposed to be travelling via a farm road on the other side of town, cutting through an olive grove behind the university. We had borrowed the horses from her and were supposed to be taking them to school them over jumps beside the polo field, not walking around the asphalt streets of town.

But we wanted to see a different type of geography.

Carl stopped to look at us riding along the sidewalk. We were a bit out of place, I admit. But right away, Anita rode up to him. Anita knew how to talk to guys.

I sat back watching. My horse seemed unsure about Carl, who that particular day was wearing a worn t-shirt that said "If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me."

Which I read aloud to myself.

Carl heard me and looked over. "Well?" he asked.

What an obnoxious shirt. Any normal girl would be offended by such talk. "Yes I would," I said. Then I realized the double meaning.

Anita laughed so loud. "He got you!" she observed.

Who goes around with a shirt like that? It wasn't a problem for Anita, though. She just kept talking. He asked for her number. And then, to my horror, seemingly overnight, they were an item.

That Carl, I thought to myself. He bothered me. He bothered me a lot. I just knew him showing up was not a good thing. So you see how wrong I can get it sometimes.

* * *

It was just a week later a visiting trainer asked for her help with a big 16-hand black appaloosa, and instead of Jane riding him herself she told me to do it. The horse went fine until I tried to ride him up on a jump, and suddenly, quick as a fish, he grabbed the bit, bucked high with his back legs, spun and ran for the barn.

I stopped him halfway there and brought him back.

"Do that again," said the trainer.

"I don't think he likes the approach to the jump," I said.

"No, do it again."

So I did and the horse tried it again. I stopped him quicker that time. The trainer stood in the middle of the arena, bobbing his head, neither happy nor sad.

Later I come to find out that horse had used that trick to throw his owner, the assistant trainer, and the trainer himself in the dirt. Why did no one give me that information before I got on? But you know, lies of omission are everywhere. You'd be surprised all the stuff people keep hidden.

Afterwards that other trainer wanted to talk to Jane about that horse. I was still untacking him when she walked up. "Gemela, he's is staying and you'll be riding him. Put him in stall 6." We straightened out bad actors, and we schooled hunters and jumpers till they were ready for their owners to handle. I rode that horse for three months. Afterwards he was okay, we sent him back and I never heard any complaints.

I got off the horse that first day feeling pretty clever. But then I saw Anita leaving the stable with Carl in his old Mustang. I looked at him, he was wearing sunglasses and his dark dark hair fell over them and he smiled and waved at me. Anita got in the car and he hit the gas hard and the tires squealed and Anita whooped like she'd just won the lottery, and they took off.

In that moment I felt a dull pain low in my chest, and my breath caught in my throat and I couldn't breathe because I felt physically ill. And as that car sped down the street and disappeared around a corner, I knew what bothered me about him. It wasn't that he was rude and irritating and had stolen my best friend. In that moment I saw him clearly and I knew that bizarrely, nonsensically, and yet truly and completely I wanted Carl for myself. But the second that I thought it, I beat the felling back down inside me, and vowed that no one would ever find out.