so i had this horse named max when i was growing up who didn’t have a mean bone in his body, i believe he genuinely had no desire to hurt anyone in his life, the only problem being that he was at times almost too clumsy to live.
he was a dirt-speckled white tall stocky arab gelding with absurdly long haunches and very dark quizzical eyes. he was very interested in new people and new objects and utterly terrified of anything that he couldn’t automatically define. he had very pronounced withers that would jam right up into your goddamn crotch when you were riding him bareback, and he had the worst, bumpiest, most broken-laundry-machine of a gait that would jar the teeth from your skull right as you were losing your virginity.
he was the world’s largest dog. he would wander over without fail to come over and say hi and then he would slowly and sedately lick you all over your hands and arms without using his teeth once. the man. loved. to lick things. you offered him something to eat and he would ever so delicately pick it up with his front lip, deposit it dexterously in his mouth, then gently chew. he never bit or kicked a person in his entire life. he didn’t mind being sat on while he wandered around and grazed, and he was so tall and broad that you could sit on him backwards and lay forward with your arms folded on the big black-spotted white of his butt like he was a couch.
he loved having his feet trimmed. he would always be so interested in the man working with his feet, and he would lick them on the arms and they never knew how to deal with it. “This is the lickiest damn horse I ever saw” said one while he had one of max’s knees locked between his legs while he carved away at the long overgrown toenail of his foot.
he’d trip over himself every four seconds, and while he’d amble like a lanky sedan chair on the way out on a trip, on the way back you’d have to keep your elbows yanked back to your sides and your biceps straining as you kept his head glued to his chest and kept him from going faster and faster. he had this amazing lunatic bursts of insane energy when the situation called for it, and while he wasn’t particularly fast, the mere sight of that much poorly aligned and desperately out-of-proportion horsemeat attempting to fling itself through the sound barrier was enough to make you want to sit down for a minute.
he became desperately unhappy once his lifelong partner-in-horse would leave while someone took her out on a ride alone and he’d stand in the farthest mile corner of the six miles of pasture and scream his head off until she came back. his sweat always smelled more acrid and sour than hers did, and he always foamed in big greenish smears. he loved being brushed until his hair fluffed out gleaming white, and while hoses terrified him into emotional outbursts, he very much loved to swim, and stand in the shallows and churn the water while jerking his head up and down in dogged delight.
on hot summer days he would lay down in the softest most nibbled to the quick part of the pasture and sleep for hours in the sunshine with the breath wheezing in and out his mouth and his legs stretched out.
he absolutely had to walk in front of his horse partner at all times.
he didn’t like dandelion flowers. he liked eating hollyhocks and thistle flowers, and he destroyed my mother’s lilac bush by literally walking over it until it was on his undercarriage and scratching back and forth with a look of complete and total bliss on his long stupid face.
if you walked up to him in the dark he would walk over, inspect you for food, then breathe on you and keep you company while farting gently. if you were taking a nap in the grass he’d walk over and lick you mournfully on your face, while farting gently. if you were riding him and he saw a leaf that looked at him wrong he would explode in seven different directions at once and yank your arms out of their sockets, excitedly farting the entire time.
he was, in every respect, the sweetest, dumbest farmboy who ever lived.