He sighed, looking around, as if to remember where exactly it was that they were. His face had a momentary look of utter helplessness that disgusted the boy as much as it frightened him. He didn’t want to feel that way, but couldn’t help it. It was as if Grandpa had pulled open a bandage to show the boy a sore which was a symptom of something awful. Something like leprosy.
‘Seems like spring started last week,’ Grandpa said, ‘but the blossoms’ll be gone tomorrow if the wind keeps up its head, and damn if it don’t look like it’s gonna. A man can’t keep his train of thought when things go as fast as that. A man can’t say, Whoa up a minute or two, old boss, while I get my bearins! There’s no one to say it to. It’s like bein in a cart that’s got no driver, if you take my drift. So what do you make of it, Clivey?’
‘Well,’ the boy said, ‘you’re right about one thing, Grandpa — it sounds like an ijit of some kind must’ve made up the whole thing.’
He didn’t mean it to be funny, but Grandpa laughed until his face went that alarming shade of purple again, and this time he not only had to lean over and put his hands on the knees of his overalls but then had to sling an arm around the boy’s neck to keep from falling down. They both would have gone tumbling if Grandpa’s coughing and wheezing hadn’t eased just at the moment when the boy felt sure the blood must come bursting out of that face, which was swollen purple with hilarity.
‘Ain’t you a jeezer!’ Grandpa said, pulling back at last. ‘Ain’t you a one!’
‘Grandpa? Are you all right? Maybe we ought to — ‘
‘Shit, no, I ain’t all right. I’ve had me two heart attacks in the last two years, and if I live another two years no one’ll be any more surprised than me. But it ain’t no news to the human race, boy. All I ever set out to say was that old or young, fast time or slow time, you can walk a straight line if you remember that pony. Because when you count and say ‘my pretty pony’
between each number, time can’t be nothing but time. You do that, I’m telling you you got the sucker stabled. You can’t count all the time -that ain’t God’s plan. I’ll go down the primrose lane with that little oily-faced pissant Chadband that far, anyway. But you got to remember that you don’t own time; it’s time that owns you. It goes along outside you at the same speed every second
of every day. It don’t care a pisshole in the snow for you, but that don’t matter if you got a pretty pony. If you got a pretty pony, Clivey, you got the bastard right where its dingle dangles and never mind all the Alden Osgoods in the world.’
He bent toward Clive Banning.
‘Do you understand that?’
‘No, sir.’
‘I know you don’t. Will you remember it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Grandpa Banning’s eyes studied him so long the boy became uncomfortable and fidgety. At last he nodded. ‘Yeah, I think you will. Goddam if I don’t.’
The boy said nothing. In truth, he could think of nothing to say.
‘You have taken instruction,’ Grandpa said.
‘I didn’t take any instruction if I didn’t understand! ‘ Clive cried in a frustrated anger so real and so complete it startled him. ‘I didn’t! ‘
‘Fuck understanding, ‘ the old man said calmly. He slung his arm around the boy’s neck again and drew him close — drew him close for the last time before Gramma would find him dead as a stone in bed a month later. She just woke up and there was Grandpa and Grandpa’s pony had kicked down Grandpa’s fences and gone over all the hills of the world.
Wicked heart, wicked heart. Pretty, but with a wicked heart.
‘Understanding and instruction are cousins that don’t kiss,’ Grandpa said that day among the apple trees.
Then what is instruction?’
‘Remembrance,’ the old man said serenely. ‘Can you remember that pony?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What name does it keep?’
The boy paused.
‘Time . . . I guess.’
‘Good. And what color is it?’
The boy thought longer this time. He opened his mind like an iris in the dark. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last.
‘Me, neither,’ the old man said, releasing him. ‘I don’t think it has one, and I don’t think it matters. What matters is, will you know it?’
‘Yes, sir,’ the boy said at once.
A glittering, feverish eye fastened the boy’s mind and heart like a staple.
‘How?’
‘It’ll be pretty,’ Clive Banning said with absolute certainty.
Grandpa smiled. ‘So!’ he said. ‘Clivey has taken a bit of instruction, and that makes him wiser and me more blessed . . . or the other way around. D’you want a slice of peach pie, boy?’
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Then what are we doin up here? Let’s go get her!’
They did.
And Clive Banning never forgot the name, which was time, and the color, which was none, and the look, which was not ugly or beautiful . . . but only pretty. Nor did he ever forget her nature, which was wicked, or what his Grandpa said on the way down, words almost thrown away, lost in the wind: having a pony to ride was better than having no pony at all, no matter how the weather of its heart might lie.
Sorry, Right Number
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Screenplay abbreviations are simple and exist, in this author’s opinion, mostly to make those who write screenplays feel like lodge brothers. In any case, you should be aware that cu means close-up; ECU means extreme close-up; INT. means interior, EXT. means exterior, BG
means background; POV means point of view. Probably most of you knew all that stuff to begin with, right?
ACT I
FADE IN ON:
KATIE WEIDERMAN’S MOUTH, ECU
She’s speaking into the telephone. Pretty mouth; in a few seconds we’ll see that the rest of her is just as pretty.
KATIE
Bill? Oh, he says he doesn’t feel very well, but he’s always like that between books . . . can’t sleep, thinks every headache is the first symptom of a brain tumor . . . once he gets going on something new, he’ll be fine.
SOUND, BG: THE TELEVISION.
THE CAMERA DRAWS BACK. KATIE is sitting in the kitchen phone nook, having a good gab with her sister while she idles through some catalogues. We should notice one not-quite-ordinary thing about the phone she’s on: it’s the sort with two lines. There are LIGHTED BUTTONS to show which ones are engaged. Right now only one — KATIE’S — is. As KATIE CONTINUES
HER CONVERSATION, THE CAMERA SWINGS AWAY FROM HER, TRACKS ACROSS
THE KITCHEN, and through the arched doorway that leads into the family room.
KATIE (voice, fading)
Oh, I saw Janie Charlton today . . . yes! Big as a house! . . .
She fades. The TV gets louder. There are three kids: JEFF, eight, CONNIE, ten, and DENNIS, thirteen. Wheel of Fortune is on, but they’re not watching. Instead they’re engaged in that great pastime, Fighting About What Comes On Later.
JEFF
Come onnn! It was his first book!
CONNIE
His first gross book.
DENNIS
We’re gonna watch Cheers and Wings, just like we do every week, Jeff.
DENNIS speaks with the utter finality only a big brother can manage. ‘Wanna talk about it some more and see how much pain I can inflict on your scrawny body, Jeff?” his face says.
JEFF
Could we at least tape it?
CONNIE
We’re taping CNN for Mom. She said she might be on the phone
with Aunt Lois for quite awhile.
JEFF
How can you tape CNN, for God’s sake? It never stops!
DENNIS
That’s what she likes about it.
CONNIE
And don’t say God’s sake, Jeffie — you’re not old enough to talk about God except in church.
JEFF
Then don’t call me Jeffie.
CONNIE
Jeffie, Jeffie, Jeffie.
JEFF gets up, walks to the window, and looks out into the dark. He’s really upset. DENNIS and CONNIE, in the grand tradition of older brothers and sisters, are delighted to see it.
DENNIS
Poor Jeffie.
CONNIE
I think he’s gonna commit suicide.
JEFF (turns to them)
It was his first book! Don’t you guys even care?
CONNIE
Rent it down at the Video Stop tomorrow, if you want to see it so bad.
JEFF
They don’t rent R-rated pictures to little kids and you know it!
CONNIE (DREAMILY)
Shut up, it’s Vanna! I love Vanna!
JEFF
Dennis —
DENNIS
Go ask Dad to tape it on the VCR in his office and quit being such a totally annoying little booger.
JEFF crosses the room, poking his tongue out at Vanna White as he goes. THE CAMERA FOLLOWS as he goes into the kitchen.