By Jay Seate
Over the course of twenty years, the Right Reverend Smiley Gunderson had found many an unexpected item residing on the top step of his small church, but nothing to rival the squirming infant in a bassinette. A note was pinned to the baby’s pinafore. It read: This is Mary. Please find her a home.
The Reverend was not inclined to take in an additional mouth to feed, but the act might buy him some credit in heaven. He took little Mary home to the angst of his overworked wife with her passel of screaming brats and promptly turned the duty of raising “God’s gift” over to his dutiful wife.
Mary spent the next six years being, at best, tolerated. The Gundersons fed and clothed her but the milk of human kindness was woefully shallow. Just after Mary’s seventh birthday, Mrs. Gunderson died suddenly. The gossip in town favored the opinion that her own little monsters and her husband, who had perfected the art of dodging chores by disappearing on church business, drove her to an early grave.
Mary began her unhappy association with other children in the first grade. Children can be cruel and poor Mary paid the price, being outfitted with third generation clothes and questionable credentials. She seldom spoke, but that eventually didn’t matter because she found an escape.
For years, the town fathers had threatened to tear down the deteriorating old carousel that resided in the far corner of a triangle commonly known as City Park. But like most committees, they never seemed to come to a decision about much of anything. It was at this ancient carousel that Mary took refuge.
Reverend Gunderson had never cared much about Mary’s whereabouts and when his wife passed on, he cared even less. Consequently, Mary found herself in front of the old merry-go-round once or twice a week. Soon, she was there daily watching the painted animals dance up and down in an ethereal ballet, the horses and wooden seats made into swans spinning slowly, hypnotically.
She had no money to ride, but she knew which horse was her favorite: a gray appaloosa with a spotted rear end. She wished she could mount him and ride until the image of the school, the house she lived in, and the questions about her origins were swept away with the swish of her painted pony’s black tail.
One day, George Johnson, the old man who ran the carousel, took pity and invited Mary to ride for free. There weren’t many kids around anyway since the town counsel allowed the carousel to fall into disrepair, channeling funds instead toward a shed of cheap construction for the town’s maintenance vehicle.
“Come on over, young lady, and take it for a spin,” George said to Mary with a voice that sounded like old tires on a gravel road.
Even though the carousel was as shabby as Mr. Johnson, Mary did not notice. She ran excitedly to the carousel entrance, quickly hopped upon the wooden platform and made her way to her spotted pony. She hugged his neck. “Oh, I’m so happy to meet you,” she said into the chipped black enamel eyes.
“Get on and hold tight, girl,” Johnson commanded.
It was a tough job for a little girl no bigger than Mary, but she managed to scramble on to the saddle as the old man pushed a button and pulled the lever. The merry-go-round started to move. As it picked up speed, Mary was transformed into a world of peace and beauty. The painted scenes on the music pavilion merged into a trip through a green meadow next to a lazy, blue river, all the while astride her gallant, dappled steed. Glass mirrors above the scene reflected sparkles of light through convex prisms.
Mary squealed with delight as she rode around and around, carried through a wonderland of freedom and tranquility. She reached forward and petted her pony’s scraggly black mane. She had never felt so happy or so close to anything. Mary and her pony rose and fell as she held tightly to the brass pole. Up, down, then up again.
“I could ride you forever,” she told the piece of wood, scarred by decades of children and teenagers climbing up and down. The paint on his prancing left leg was worn off from shoes perched on top of it, but Mary did not care about his imperfections. He was beautiful and the only horse she ever cared to ride.
The up and down motion suddenly slowed. The ride was coming to an end much too soon. Mary wondered if she stayed put and did not move, maybe Mr. Johnson would forget to tell her to get off.
“You have to get down now, young lady. Got a paying customer waiting,” he called out.
She climbed from her mount. “I’ll be back, pretty pony. I’ll get some money so I can ride you again…some way.”
Mary’s eyes shyly met the old man’s. “Thank you for letting me ride.” A craggy smile cracked the old man’s weathered face.
The calliope music of the carousel haunted Mary as she walked away. She could not bear to look back, afraid the new rider would be seated on her painted pony. Other horses on the merry-go-round were white, some jet black, many with bejeweled collars. Maybe they would appeal to the other kids who came to ride. She and the one with the spots on his behind belonged to each other.
That night, Mary dreamed of riding through the meadow along the babbling brook toward an inviting farmhouse with smoke billowing from its chimney. The next day, although hesitant to approach Reverend Gunderson about anything, she asked if she could perform some special chore to earn some change. She had been forced to sit through many of his sermons as he roared from the pulpit about winged demons and serpents who were all too willing to cast unholy men, women, and children into fiery pits. Full of fire and brimstone, the man it had been her fate to endure during her young life reminded her more of the horrible creatures than those he railed against.
But now, she was desperate for money and she had learned from life’s hard knocks the talent of deception. She could mask her fears and insecurities at school or at home when she had to. This time, however, it did no good as Gunderson grunted something unintelligible and waved her away, his sherry glass in hand. Mary supposed it was no wonder the only father figure she’d ever known was grumpy. She had overheard a neighbor discussing his habit of sampling the devil’s brew after sermons while his children ran wild.
At school, Mary talked a classmate out of a quarter. Maybe that would be enough to get another ride. She could only hope Mr. Johnson would accept a single coin. He seemed kind enough.
When the school bell rang, Mary ran the three blocks to the city park, to the little triangle of land tucked in the corner of the park where she knew her pony would be waiting. Something was different today, however. George Johnson was dragging a sawhorse in front the carousel entrance creating a barrier. Mary approached him warily.
“Excuse me,” she said anxiously. “I have a quarter.” She held it up so he could see. “Could I please have a ride?”
“Sorry, little lady, but the town’s shuttin’ us down. They say we’re relics.”
“But…”
“Yeah, tearing ’er down,” he went on. “Progress they call it. They say kids don’t care for things such as this any longer and even if they did, town ain’t spending the money to fix ’er up. Probably put up some plastic piece of junk. Don’t know what I’ll do. Will be pickin’ up trash around it, I suspect.”
Mary could not grasp all of what the man was telling her. All she knew was she had a shiny coin and her pony waited patiently. Her lower lip quivered and her tear ducts were on the verge of opening.
Johnson looked at the child for a moment. “What’s your name, young ‘un?”
“Mary. Mary Gunderson.”
“The preacher’s kid? I heard about you.” He studied her for a moment as she was just a tear away from breaking down. “Tell you what, Mary. They may be shuttin’ us down, but were not plowed over yet. What would you say to a ride…a long ride…a ride like no other kid has ever had?”
Mary looked at the old man and wondered if he was teasing her since he “knew who she was” and all. She again held out her coin fighting back the tears.
“You keep your money, child,” Johnson said with kindly eyes. “Go pick out the horse you want and we’ll have us a time.”
Could he mean it? Mary could not believe what she was hearing. Her pulse quickened with the anticipation of such a possibility. Her fears forgotten, she smiled broadly at Mr. Johnson, shoved the coin in her pocket vowing to give it back to her schoolmate and ran to her wooden horse, her silken hair streaming in a wave behind her. She could swear it smiled a little as she approached. “Hello.” She put her tiny cheek against its black nose then quickly placed her worn-out tennis shoe on the dirty brass foothold protruding from its tummy. She pulled herself up into the saddle, straddled her mount, and waited.
For a moment she was frightened that he had changed his mind, but the merry-go-round finally started to move. “You ready to ride, Mary?” he called while piddling with the controls. “You ready to ride till they come and make us stop?”
Mary squirmed with excitement and squealed. The old man took that as a “yes” and cranked up the gears.
She felt the pole rise. She had no problem returning to her fantasy world where her ride was alive and carrying her across the meadow toward the faraway mountains. Around and around they flew…where they would stop, nobody knew.
Mary thrilled to every revolution but knew the time with her pony would soon be over. Still they had gone around many more times than the usual ride. Maybe the man meant it. Maybe she could ride until someone made him stop. “Oh, if we could only go on forever, my pretty boy,” she gleefully shouted.
Around and around, up and down. Mary caught sight of Mr. Johnson. He was having a good chuckle as if he were enjoying Mary’s ride as much as she.
Then something happened. There was a flash of light and a pop above the carousel near the enclosure where Johnson sat at his controls. He looked to see what had occurred. At the same time, the carousel began to accelerate. Faster and faster she and the animals raced. The man was yelling something at her. She didn’t understand what it was, could not know that her uninterrupted ride had caused old wires to overheat, creating a short.
Faster and faster they flew like a spinning hovercraft about to lift from its mooring and rise into space. Johnson was in quite a state. He was waving his hands wildly at Mary with each spin of the carousel. She heard him this time.
“Get off, girl!” he screamed. “Jump…now!”
Mary held on as they sped faster and faster. She wasn’t afraid. She was safe on the back of her pony because she knew he loved her as much as she loved him. They were going so fast now it seemed they would soon tear free of the pole that was bolted at top and bottom.
Then the truly remarkable happened. The horse, nothing more than carved wood a few moments ago, sprouted wings. Mary’s eyes grew wide with wonder. It was true. They wound separate from their station and fly above the clouds that were already forming around them. The mirrored glass on the music pavilion now looked like glittering stars as they merged into a solid stream of reflective sunbursts.
Mary couldn’t hear Mr. Johnson any longer. All she knew was that her pony’s mane had grown long and luxurious. His dull gray paint was now muscled flesh and supple hair. His saddle was of the softest leather she could have imagined. “Oh, you’re real!” she exclaimed. “My real pony.”
The brass pole was gone now. Her pony’s wingspan was like that of a small airplane with silvery-gray feathers fluttering in the wind, not at all like the demon wings of her adopted father’s sermons. She had never heard of the mythological horse called Pegasus, but she had seen the flying red horse on a gas station sign and had hoped such an animal existed. She held onto her pony’s velvet reins as he whinnied and galloped on nothing but air, a gate so smooth that Mary’s ride was cushioned and perfect.
The air crackled like electric static, stirring her hair. Normalcy receded farther with each passing moment. She’d taken control of the space around her, like opening the lid on a magical box. She looked down. The man and the carousel were out of sight. Higher and higher they climbed. It seemed as if they were headed into the sun as Mary’s eyes watered in the bright light, but that was all right. As her pony’s luminous wings flapped, his head turned toward her. He smiled to let her know she need not worry. She knew he would eventually fly them beyond the light and heat to the meadow with the river and the mountains.
All was well in Mary’s world. She knew she would never see Mr. Gunderson, his bratty kids, or the schoolhouse again. She and her pretty pony, no longer paint and wood but flesh, bone, and muscled feathered wings, were all that mattered.
And that would always be enough.
#
George Johnson’s face, seamed with wrinkles like a dry riverbed, was lined with pain as well as age. His gravelly voice told the sad tale to the investigators. “I tried to get the child…Mary…to jump off the thing, but she paid me no mind,” he lamented. “It happened quick as a wink. The short in the wires caused the undercarriage to overheat and the whole shebang was in smoke and blazes in no time.” He lowered his head. “That poor little girl. She just wouldn’t get off that horse.”
One of the men responded with a patient smile one gives a child who has just said something absurd. “We’ve gone through the ashes, Mr. Johnson, and we found no human remains. Are you sure someone was riding? Maybe she got off and ran away and you didn’t see?”
The two men in suits looked at each other slyly. Johnson knew what they were thinking: here’s an absent-minded drool case who gets mixed up easily and wouldn’t remember one child or one ride from the next. Blotches on his cheeks and the purple veins on his nose began to stand out. “She was on the caroused, I tell ya,” he said flatly.
“Okay,” one of them said, smiling. “We have no more questions for now. We know this is a sad day for you, Sir. If there’s anything we can do?”
How about giving me back my livelihood and giving that little girl her life back, he thought but did not say.
One of the men offered a handshake. George’s hand looked old and calloused in the younger man’s grip. “Take care then.”
The two men walked away. There was no one now. The firemen followed by the gawking locals had all left. Johnson was finally alone with his thoughts. “Damndest thing,” he muttered, looking at the carnage that remained. A child who possessed a kind of inner light despite her circumstances, snuffed out. A crying shame is what it was. “Make the counsel happy though. Be easier to bulldoze now that…”
The next word caught in his phlegm-filled throat. He walked closer to what was left of the carousel, which wasn’t much except for a painted panel of the music shell. On the scene’s peaceful landscape, the fire had left its blackened mark. The mural was unharmed except for a single flaw, but it was not a flaw at all. It was a perfect silhouette of a happy little girl riding a winged horse across the meadow toward the welcoming farmhouse.
George didn’t completely comprehend, but like a shadow of knowledge slowly passing over a meadow, he understood enough. The sagging shoulders atop his lanky frame straightened a bit. The knotted rope that was his mouth softened. It cracked into a ghost of a grin as tears weld in his exhausted eyes caught in a nest of wrinkles. “No wonder they found nothing in the ashes,” he said to the surrounding trees and the squirrels inhabiting them. The old man who thought he had seen it all removed his sweat-stained baseball cap and wiped his brow. “Nothin’ to find.” His voice trailed off into a reverie. “Little gal’s in a better place than this. That’s for sure.”