Pixley

 

June 28, 2021

 Greetings from the irresistible,

 “What’s so funny?” asked the young man in the seat next to me.

I was still laughing about things that happened the days before, random bursts that I tried to keep quiet, but he couldn’t help noticing, or asking.  We were going to be on a four-hour flight, so I imagine he wanted to know if I was some kind of nut.

“Honestly, lots of things are funny but just now I was thinking of Pixley.”

I could tell he already regretted asking the question.

 Pixley California is a hardscrabble desert town patched on the edge of highway 99 in the middle of the state.  It is far enough from anything else that you would wonder how people came to stay there in the first place, or why they stayed.  It’s one remarkable attribute might be that the town’s name was used in the ‘60’s era TV sit com ‘Petticoat Junction’. 

 My brother looped through town searching for the gas station, noting the empty buildings, hollow cars, the few people walking at the edge of the road.  His daughter Cali dozed in the seat next to him, his wife Lee and I were in the back seat, having already spent too much time remembering the theme songs to ‘60’s era TV sit coms. 

 I got out of the car, curious about an old mini-Winnebago I’d seen sitting abandoned in the corner of the gas station’s lot, which was one of the more redeeming parts of the tableau.  I only had my back turned for a minute but when I looked back to our car, there was an old black sedan parked next to it, with a group of little girls boiling out of it, running into the gas station.  And right next to that, a Shetland pony.

 There was a large woman holding a rope looped around the horse.  She was red in the face, her clothes dark with sweat.  I admit I was astonished that a tiny horse had appeared out of nowhere.  Before I could think to say hello, I asked, “Did you just take that horse out of your car?”

 A wise person would not have asked this question, not that I have ever been mistaken for someone of that ilk.  The woman laughed a little, rattling her false teeth, and a little breathless, told me, “No, I’s just walking it, my daughter was driving the car.” 

 “I’s driving the kids to school and saw this horse walking down the road, and I said, ‘Kids, you ain’t going to school today!’ and pulled over.  I been walking it up and down the road trying to find whose it is.”

 Later my brother told me that he (and everyone in the car) was deliberately ignoring the woman with the pony.  It was a self-defense mechanism created from a myriad of experiences with the homeless, the grifters, and the sketchy types with complicated stories that always end with, “I just need a few dollars …”   Inside the car my niece Cali was rolling her eyes.  Not only was her midwestern uncle NOT ignoring the woman, he was asking her questions.

 The woman had a tattoo on her shoulder: ‘Pearl’.  I asked the woman if her name was Pearl, which in retrospect it was the second dumbest question I had asked that day, right after ‘Did you just take that horse out of your car?’  As if someone would tattoo their own name on their shoulder.

 “Nah, that’s my daughter, Pearl.” And then, yelling at the gas station “Pearl, I said no ice cream, just get me my soda!”  She barely broke cadence and continued to me: “I already called Animal Control, and if no one claims him, I’m keepin’ him.”  The horse looked up at me, much less curious about me than I was about him.  He looked tired, his coat was scarred, his hooves ragged.  Whatever past he had seemed to weigh heavier than the prospect of living with the woman who held the rope.

 The girls swarmed in and brought the woman her giant Styrofoam tub of soda, and she shooed them away, still explaining her plans for the horse.  I noticed there was another child strapped into the back seat of the car wearing only a diaper.  If this was an extraordinary day for her, she didn’t let on.

 My brother couldn’t resist buying ice cream for Pearl and the girls, and it turns out, most of whoever they knew back in their neighborhood.  By the time we eased out of the gas station Animal Control arrived, and even knowing the story I still smiled at the sight of a tiny horse standing at the corner gas station.

 It was an absurd little drama playing out in a sun scorched tumbleweed town in the middle of no reason-to-stop-here.  Even as I am telling you about it, I am laughing.  To be clear, I’m not laughing at the horse or his adoptive family.  I am laughing at the incongruity of it, and most of all at my joyful fascination in the whole thing.

 It delights me to think of how this woman changed her day, and then, to a degree, her life, in the instant she saw an orphan miniature horse walking down a busy road.  How often does this kind of story play out all over the world?  It also makes me smile that we happened to intersect with the story, which we might easily have missed.

 Which is some of what I said to the young man on the plane.  It only took a few minutes, but I think perhaps a few minutes longer than he was prepared for.  He laughed politely, not nearly as amused as I was, or am.  In fact, if you were sitting on the deck watching me write this, you might be tempted to ask, “What’s so funny?”

 

 Hope this finds you asking dumb questions,

 

David

 

 

 

Copyright © 2021 David Smith