Francois: A Rough Beginning

You don’t know Francois like I do. Many of you would see the arrogant Frenchman, smoking away on his slender and finer imported cigarettes (still made with Virginia tobacco, mind you) and talking smack every minute about the Americans de merde. That’s not Francois.

When I met Francois, he looked like the most miserable, most pitiable creature on the planet. He was clinging to the pool’s wall, his scraggly, mousy brown hair plastered to his hollowed-out cheeks, strands dripping with an almost sad commonness. You wouldn’t even have noticed him, but I did because I was also at the same moment resting in my lane, fiddling with my goggles, and suffering from the escape attempt of my contact lenses. I think he thought I kept winking at him, but really I was just trying to squeeze chlorinated and urinated pool water from my eyeball. So much for the goggles.

 

Breeding Contempt

I wrote this in class today, but I don’t know if I will develop this.

I was born in Hanover, Germany, and I bear its brand on my shoulder. I stand a proud 16 hands 2 inches–that’s 66 inches to you. My coat, sienna with burnt copper flecks in the sun, blankets my dimpled haunches and the muscles of my burly neck. My black legs are not spindly like a Thoroughbred’s or like the tree trunks of Clydesdales, brute enough to pull carriages for watery American beer. Better than squat Quarter Horses, too, with their bulbous drumstick hinds. Warmblood I am, and the most beautiful one at that.

I have no white splotches on my legs–they are pure in their inky tone. Instead, I wear a star on my forehead, a bright diamond buffeted by a hazy border of light. When I’m feeling rakish, I’ll shake my head just so to side sweep my thick forelock across my eye.

And now I strut in California for the latest detestable and ignorant human. She stands, hands clasped and a gaping mouth catching flies, as I trod down the ramp of my cramped trailer. She flits forward, reaching out to poke and prod at my face. I skit around her touch and snort at her impetuousness. She will learn soon that I am not owned. I have my very own passport.