A Life Together
Albert wouldn’t jump. Now I don’t mean spook jump, or play jump, or jump for joy. I don’t even mean jump big scary walls, or loudly painted coops, or huge spreads with bottomless water pits beneath. I mean Albert wouldn’t jump … period. He saw no point in it. He was designed to cover his own little square of earth with his own four, dinner plate-sized feet in as constant contact as possible … and that was that. Well actually, to give the old man all due credit, that was almost that. He really was very sensible about it. As I later discovered, Albert had no real objection to the act of jumping; he simply couldn’t justify the extra exertion under any but the most necessary of circumstances. If there was a way around an obstacle, there was obviously no need to go over it.
But this was a concept I had to be taught. Up to this point, I had nervously accepted as truth the idea that when a rider points a horse at a fence and says jump (with whatever means of communication that rider may possess the skills to employ), by golly, that horse is supposed to jump. At least that was the theory. Personal history told quite a different story, however. My equestrian skills had developed along a somewhat conflicted path, much to Captain’s disdain. While my brain demanded, “Jump … oh, please jump,” my physical body responded to every impending fence with a little more along the line of, “I’m going to die … I’m going to die.” For some inexplicable reason, horse after horse took great pity on my physical reluctance and spared me the terror of momentary flight, only to leave me, as often as not, somewhat more intimately earthbound than I would have ideally preferred. But I always made the valiant attempt. That tenacious and undauntable spirit would have it no other way. The fact that my ever-diminishing fear of falling couldn’t touch my ever-increasing fear of the wrath of Captain also helped to keep those fences coming. I did finally manage to make it over a few … somehow.
Back at John Gilroy’s, Lisa and I spent happy afternoons playing about on the horses. I was perfectly content to ride around the ring day after day, thoroughly enjoying that which I knew and with which I was comfortable. Lisa, however, was a far more adventurous sort. She always wanted to see what else Beau could do or could be taught to do. One day she decided to see what Beau knew about jumping. She set up tiny crossrails and verticals around the ring. Beau loved it. Lisa confidently rode the little obstacles until each challenge had been met and thoroughly conquered. Then, she started on me. “Laurie, take Albert over that crossrail.” No, thank you. I had less than no interest in seeing what Albert knew about flight. But as usual, Lisa talked me out of my own senses and into her own lack of them.
I walked Albert up to the jump. “Now see this, Albert? I want you to jump this.” We walked past it and picked up a moderate trot. We circled back toward the jump, and that familiar bevy of butterflies invaded my stomach. I found a line perpendicular to the center of the fence. A little leg squeeze …
(Oh God, how did twelve inches get so BIG!) … closer … closer … closer … farther … farther … farther … (Now wait, I don’t remember jumping. No, I’m sure we didn’t jump. We went around. Oh, I get it. When I showed Albert the fence a minute ago, we walked past it. Obviously, he misunderstood the point of this whole thing. He thinks he is supposed to go around it. I can fix this. I’ll just hold a steadier rein. That’s it, a steadier rain.) We approached again … closer … closer … closer … farther … farther … farther … (NOW what went wrong? Boy, he really isn’t getting this. I’ll add more leg. That’ll work, more leg.) One more time … closer … faster … closer … faster … closer … faster … farther … slower … farther … slower … farther … slower … (You’re starting to get me angry, Albert. This isn’t funny anymore. You’re making me look really stupid here.) Aggressively now … closer … faster … closer … faster … closer … faster …(KICK!) … farther … FASTER… farther … FASTER … farther … FASTER … (THAT’S IT! YOU ARE GOING OVER THIS JUMP OR DIE TRYING! FOR PETE’S SAKE, IT’S ONLY TWELVE INCHES!) I had the reins in my well-practiced death grip. My legs achieved their vise-like position. We were going over … closer … faster … closer … faster … closer … faster …(KICK!) … STOP! (STOP?) … JUMP! … (JUMP?) … BUCK! … (BUCK?) … farther … FASTER… farther … FASTER … farther … FASTER …
Actually, I don’t have much memory of those last couple of farther … fasters. I do remember landing on top of Albert after the fence, somewhere behind the saddle. I do remember Albert taking great exception to my new and, I suppose, uncomfortable position. I do remember lying on the ground gasping for air with Lisa in a sheer (and I might add, well deserved) panic at my side. I do remember thinking that jumping was not exactly one of Albert’s fortés.
Lisa and I went on to share any number of less disastrous escapades during our time together with the horses. Then, going into our senior year, the bottom fell out of my world. Lisa’s father was transferred to a position on the East Coast. Lisa and Beau were moving. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t do anything about it. All too soon, they were gone … my best friend and her dream … our dream. Albert was all I had left of a lifetime’s worth of plans. He was my only consolation.
Sometime after my separation from Lisa, John Gilroy offered me a job as a stable hand (translation: stall mucker and groom) for half of Albert’s board fee each month. Seeing as I wasn’t exactly getting rich working fifteen hours a week at the drug store after school for minimum wage, and still blissfully lingering in that horse-crazy phase of loving anything that would get me closer to the animals themselves, I jumped at the chance. It was my first experience as one of the underpaid, overworked, indentured known as stable labor. With board at $75 a month (half of that being $37.50, for those of you poor at math), and duties including opening and closing the stable, cleaning fifteen stalls twice a week, feeding and watering all animals, as well as grooming, tacking, and untacking horses for lessons and training, this could only be deemed a labor of love. Don’t get me wrong; I hold absolutely nothing against John Gilroy. Slave labor is a tradition among equine facilities. The practice separates those who can from those who want to. I know this. I have dealt with plenty of both, and even more who neither can nor want to.
And so, at seventeen, I entered the hardest working, as well as one of the most rewarding, periods of my life. Between school, work at Conrad’s and John Gilroy’s, and running a small equine remedy manufacturing company I inherited from my grandfather (in a roundabout sort of way), I had to scramble to find time to spend with my beloved Albert. But time does have a way of expanding to include those most essential priorities in one’s life, and I was not about to be denied mine. My time with Albert did take on a somewhat more serious tone, however. After all, I was now a representative of the stable; an example, as it were. Moreover, I was acquiring through my work an increasing knowledge of and interest in the proper care and keeping of the equine species … and Albert in particular. I saw much, experienced much, and learned much during that time: feed quickly; yell murderously; don’t assume all horses crosstie; don’t discredit the propensity of a mare to kick if touched on the hind legs; don’t rub your eyes in the aftermath of an ambush in the shavings shed; check and double-check everything; etc., etc., etc. All was not work, however. Albert and I did manage to explore a few new avenues of our own.
Uncle Albert died here at home at the approximate age of thirty-four in the summer of 1992, almost twenty-one years after our meeting. He will be forever lovingly remembered as my long-time companion, confidant, and most treasured teacher. Rest up, Albert … you’ll need it when we meet again …
