A Horse Don't Call you names

Flash fiction prompted by a photo of two boys on a horse.

So here I am, on this horse an’ Kenny sitting in front- I let him sit there ‘cause it’s his birthday an’ all. Besides, he might fall if I don’t keep an eye on him. It seems fair. Uncle George says a cowboy calls his horse a bronco when it’s still wild, but that this ‘un’s been broken in so he’s a cow horse. But he says I’ll have to find my own bronco an’ break him in to be a real cow boy like him. Uncle George is white. He ain’t our real uncle either. An’ Kenny’s just sittin’ there up front grinning so hard his big old head’s damn near about to fall off his skinny neck, lookin’ like one of those bobble heads folks put in their cars. I can tell without even seeing his face, just from here. Kenny don’t talk much. But he’s good. He’s a good boy mama says.

An’ when we’re cowboys together we’ll have a ranch an’ bunk beds, an’ all our friends can come an’ stay, an’ mama an’ uncle George. They can all come stay to see all the broncos we broken in to be cow horses. We’ll have ice cream from the cows for breakfast an’ lunch, then beef burgers for dinner, an’ when it comes time to shoot the cattle for meat I’ll be a man about it like uncle George says I gotta be. I won’t look away or flinch ‘cause it’s the natural circle of life like he says, an’ then we can all have burgers for dinner. So all the nice folk can visit, but all the mean kids got to wait outside, an’ they’ll wish they’d been nicer to Kenny.

The horse keeps shuffling about. I think he wants to run about, like how Kenny shuffles about in church when he gets bored at what the minister’s saying, he don’t understand it’s rude to do though. I say to uncle George, I say,

“Uncle George, this here horse, is he part cow? He’s all black an’ white splodges like a cow”

“It don’t quite work that way, Hal.”

“Is it like camouflage? So all them cows think he’s one of ‘em?”

“No, they can tell he’s different”

“How can they tell?

“Oh, they just can”

“But how?”

An’ Kenny’s still sittin’ there grinning. I feel bad for the horse. If them cows are all running away every time he come up to say hello, or ask for the time or a pencil or just what day it is, an’ he’s just tryin’ to be nice but they’re all so scared of him they keep running away. But I s’pose the horse has to herd the cows so we can eat ‘em an’ that’s just how it is. Like in the natural circle of life. Mama comes out humming Billie Holiday, hands uncle George an ice tea an’ apologizes for it being a plastic cup instead of a glass. Kenny’s still sitting here grinning. Kenny don’t have many friends. We didn’t hand out invites this year, except for to uncle George an’ his horse, ‘cause mama said it’s just settin him up to be hurt again by the mean kids. An’ after his party last year we was eating birthday cake for a week. It got kinda sickly.

But this year we got a horse, and a horse don’t run away or call you names, or shove you into the lockers, like them jerks at school did with Kenny. He just stands there an’ shuffles a bit, an’ blinks them big eyes an’ sometimes blows raspberries or munches on a weed coming up between the slabs on the driveway.