My Rider In the Dark

I often wake during the night and browse the news on an iPad my son gave me.  Somehow the technology offers a variety of platforms I would not normally see.  Yesterday, among the dismal global disarray and haunting obituaries was an odd story about a horse which had run off with a pack of wild mustangs and returned, 8 years later-- some pounds thinner-- but somehow, like a Jack London novella, he'd made his way back home.  Of course, unlike the novella, we know nothing of his wanderings-- like a teenager kidnapped by a cult or a runaway gang-- he'd had a life... and somehow decided it wasn't for him.

So I had a stray dog, years ago; he passed me on a street in Harlem, and we both looked back at the same instant, like star-crossed lovers.  He followed me; I fed him.  A few days later I had to go 'on the road' for a gig-weekend, left him with a friend who tied him outside the Broome Street bar while he had a beer.  The dog broke loose, returned to my apartment several miles uptown.  It was extraordinary.  He had some strange habits... God only knew from whence he came, and what had formed his canine version of urban-wild. He was unpredictable.  I made up stories and songs... he was moody-- sometimes affectionate and obedient, but most of the time he was wild and callow and kept a perpetual eye on the door or open window. 

My mother's father left her mother, with two children... never to return.  It warped her, surely, and prompted her to marry a strong man with straight edges-- a war-hero with a certain chip on his shoulder-- my father.  She worshipped him, never criticized.  Her Mom, my Grandma, passed away at a very young age, in her so-called prime.  Did she grieve his absence? I never met her, but I think not. In highschool my Mom's estranged father (presumably my Grandfather) phoned- invited her to his 80th birthday.  She'd not seen him for at least 35-40 years, and declined, with a cold edgy voice (I listened in, as you could do in those old days).  Shortly thereafter he died, and while I begged, she would not let me accompany her to the funeral.  It upset her... after all these years, and in those days, when I was 15 or so and she was still a beautiful woman, she occasionally confided in me.  At the service, her obstetrician.. who had delivered her, was there-- took her aside and assured her there was not a drop of her alleged father's blood in her.  She related this to me, confidentially.  I was an imaginative teenager who wrote stories.  I invented all sorts of scenarios... who were we, after all?   

At Christmastime that year this obstetrician phoned and invited her and her daughters (us) to his grand home somewhere upstate.  She declined.  I begged and pleaded...  but in the end she buried this bit of information and never spoke again of her father.  I don't even think I'd seen a photo of him; there were few enough of my beautiful Grandma and they were snatched up by various cousins.  I mean-- he was a bad father... why was it that she refused to abandon the original narrative?  I don't know...

When I was about 17, an English man approached me and told me he was my real Grandfather.  It seemed plausible... and on my roguish post-college discovery path, it was a kind of fairy-tale.  It appealed. I listened and accepted... he took me all sorts of places and introduced me to Chinese literature and writers I'd not known about (William Gaddis, John Gardner).  He painted, spoke all kinds of languages... told me my Grandma had been a great beauty and he was a boy at the time.  It's unlikely but I believed.  I visited him; he affectionately called me his little mouse or his monkey. Unlike my father he praised my little original songs and was first on line at the London Virgin Megastore to buy my album.  You're right in front of Madonna, he rejoiced (alphabetically only).  He felt like a Grandfather.. and besides, it engendered all sorts of identity odysseys.  

I remember once I came home early after school and the gardener's truck was parked in the driveway.  The house was wide open, with the fragrance of freshly-baked pie. My poor oppressed but still beautiful mother, ditto the gardener, were nowhere to be seen.  I started to climb the staircase to the bedrooms, my heart pounding... but turned around and left the house-- came back hours later, loudly announcing my arrival.  My mother's favorite song was Me and Mrs. Jones.  We watched Billy Paul on Soul Train.  She had the record-- we played it over and over and she sang it.  It gave me joy to see her eyes tear up... we sang together.  

But it occurs to me-- especially in the pre and early post-war years-- that there were all kinds of secrets.  Every family has them.  I have them.  My women friends in successful marriages often tell me the secret to this success is precisely in what remains hidden.  Why confound their spouse when they can reminisce with me about old affairs and crushes? You're only as sick as your secrets I learned at an Alanon meeting.  I did not understand what this meant. I did once tell my son-- it's okay to have secrets as long as someone knows each one... you spread them around, you do not harbor them.  It's healthier.  One of my character flaws is I generally preferred the narratives of my affairs and mistakes; they felt familiar and exciting. 

The literary market is flooded with memoir-- some good, some bad, some fictional.  How can one reveal secrets without conscripting unwilling acquaintances? Or like Proust or Kerouac, do we rape our lives for material? Water it down, romanticize it?  Tonight I watched Interview with the Vampire. I don't normally like Vampire stories but I'd read this one on a plane so long ago. During one of the interview sections which punctuate the episodes, the writer asks 'Is this reality or is this performance?' Even vampires have secrets... maybe especially vampires.  Why would we expect truth from an immortal? Why would he be capable of love, or inclined to tell his truth? 

In the Ethicist column of the Times today there was a query from someone wondering whether she should tell her neighbor's child that her husband is his real father (they'd had an affair).  There are days when I wonder whether I am my father's child.  Certainly not by personality or temperament.  Besides, I am the dark daughter. Neither of my parents had the black hair and eyes-- they were fairer. I am taller than my sister who has the curvy body of my father's family.  My mother called me often her dark horse... which brings us back to Mongo the runaway stallion who surely knows more than he reveals.  My hero of the day.  I've been walking around with the Led Zeppelin vision of Traveling Riverside Blues in my head-- every time they or Robert Johnson mention 'my rider' I get a little chill.  It opens me, as music does, sometimes... especially when it cuts right to the chase, and finds those buried horse-hearts.