If only Garn were loping cheerfully beside you. You’re heading straight for lamppost number twenty-six now (you can already see number twenty-seven), and you work to keep your wheel from veering off the cracked asphalt and into the sand and gravel, where it’s hazardous to bike, that is, you work to keep your wheel between the asphalt and the innermost clumps of grass, which, you see, are completely yellow, or brown, or yellowish brown, or brownish yellow. Like yellow peas. Or beige. The breathtaking play of muscle beneath a horse’s coat, the elegance, the power, the sleek, sweat-glistening hide, their skittishness (the slightest distraction can send them into a gallop), and the sound, which you’ve heard countless times before as you’ve cycled by, of lively movement behind the high wooden fence, hoofbeats, which initially resemble the sound of impatient fingers tapping on a table, becoming louder as they round the curve, though everything is still hidden by the high wooden fence, then crescendoing to an urgent, muted thunder, like the sound of a dozen invisible rubber mallets striking at once, then slowly fading as they finish the turn, as if all those hammering hands are getting tired, and then the fingers again, and then nothing, or next to nothing; such beautiful animals, and what an awful thought, you think, calling to mind the load they bear, the willowy racing sulkies (the powerful line of the shaft extended through the seat and back out again resembles a harp, and the horse’s muscles, tendons, and ligaments, not to mention the reins, make up the strings), a load composed of unhealthy, unshaven, sometimes overweight men in gaudy outfits, pure deadweight that causes the sulky’s slender wheels to sink, not to mention, you think, the disgusting pigsty around the podium and bleachers, the beer guzzling, the good-for-nothings, the hoarse shouting while the race is underway, the hands banging away at the rails as the horses are nearing the finish line, the nasty, wadded-up bills fumbled up from even nastier pockets in filthy, worn-out jackets, and the empty bottles of cheap booze tossed into corners, the foul language, the cesspool of language, not to mention, you think, the eternal rain of trash, the blizzard of trash, the tempest of trash, the monsoon of trash disgorged by gamblers, by fat ones and thin ones, ruddy ones and pale ones, the constant shower of tickets falling from grimy, unwashed hands, and after a few races they cover the whole area like snow, like flat snowflakes, expiring securities, millions of dollars in action made worthless in five minutes or less, and scattered, scattered everywhere, as if this were the gamblers’ natural element, as if it wasn’t enough to trample on it, wade in it, bathe in it even, no, as if they needed to bury themselves up to their armpits in it, no, as if they needed to dive, splash, and swim in it, bury themselves in the torrent of discarded paper, in the avalanche of dashed hopes and dreams, which is like a sewer whose contents have been whipped to a frothy lather resembling the foam on a glass of beer by sheer raw appetite alone. It’s an insult, you think, an unforgivable insult to those noble beasts, who once galloped joyful and wild through the virgin wilderness, untamed by man, as free individuals! as masters of their own destiny! as lords of the land!
After the hard climb, your mouth feels disgusting, you stop pedaling, hawk and spit (an extended, slimy blob, if truth be told) in the direction of lamppost number twenty-seven (and no other; you’re confident, for example, that it’s not post number twenty-six or twenty-eight, or, even more absurd! number thirty-five or ninety-seven!), the last lamppost before the lights on the big cross street begin, and you have to start the count anew (not forgetting, of course, to add the first and last lamppost numbers together and see if the total is divisible by two, which will tell you if you get to eat dinner tonight after you’ve finished all your squats. Or maybe if the result of your calculation is an even number, it’ll be ginseng, malt extract, rutabaga, and turnips for dinner; if it’s an odd number it’ll be turnips, rutabaga, malt extract, and ginseng; and if some night he doesn’t take the trouble, well, straight to bed without dinner).
It was a fine burial, you think. Out in the fresh air. Beneath the rustling pines. Amid the hopping rabbits. The flat rock was so heavy you had to go back and fetch a crowbar; yes, the burial was exhausting, truly exhausting, but worth it, since the heavy stone prevents vandals from disturbing his resting place, and since now, when you stop at his grave on one of your endless tours through the woods, you have a nice, flat surface to sit on (sometimes with a backpack cover), preferably in the springtime, when the sun is just starting to warm the earth, and you can take out your thermos and your lunch and eat carrots and drink hot cocoa, reflecting on the fact that you’re sitting up there on the rock, that you’re alive, in great shape, enjoying the spring sun and the spring air, and that he, your dead dog, is lying down there in the dark, where there’s no wind and no sun, how he, your steadfast companion, is now one with nature, recalling how he’d humbly bring you your rainboots (or in winter, your heavy boots), every Sunday morning at seven o’clock sharp, and drop them right in front of the bed without complaint, that was back in the good old days when you still worked at the slaughterhouse on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but not on Sunday, no, Sunday was reserved for those wonderful, long treks through the woods; and as you sit there on top of the flat slab of rock and think of this and other things, you sometimes have trouble swallowing your carrot, even though it’s been well chewed, and you have to blow your nose, which sends a trumpet blast through the whispering woods, before you go your way, missing Garm, yet confident that he has a good final resting place. You’d like to come back as a dog. A police dog! Or a sled dog! Not as a guide dog, though. You’d be stuck breathing car fumes all day. But imagine catching a criminal with one ferocious bite! Or saving skiers with complicated fractures, bones sticking up out of them! You’d even be willing to trade places with Garm, so that in the next life you could be the dog and he could be the master, and when you died, he could bury you in the woods beneath a heavy flat rock and you, the dog, could lie there and be dead, content in the knowledge that your master regularly sits up above with thermos and lunch in remembrance of you.
Lamppost number twenty-eight, the last in this particular row; you’ve passed the curve, the tall wooden fence around the track has been replaced by a tall chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. If you push back the shadow of your cap, your eagle eye can pick out a swarm of insects circling around the lamppost above you, and you can see the small store clearly, which at this time of day is dimly lit by neon, and you can just pick out the large displays of garish, almost luminous colored paper, where various sale announcements have been written out in broad, thick strokes, and which are displayed in the glass and steel entryway between the outer doors and the store itself, whose boisterous voices, similar to those of fair vendors, have fallen silent for the night, and you can see the nursing home next door, a gray high-rise, as lifeless and neutral as the store, with its large windows, is colorful and appealing, and you think of the old folks who are forced to live there now, because they didn’t take care of themselves back when they had the chance, many of whom are at least ten years younger than you (you’re over seventy!), about how they (presumably) never go any farther than the store next door, how every day, or every other day, or only occasionally they take the elevator down to the lobby, and with the aid of a cane, or a crutch, or maybe even a walker, hobble down the flagstone path, perhaps supporting themselves on the gray metal railing, cross the parking lot and enter the store, the same store every day, and make their purchases, and then with a rolling bag, or with a shapeless shopping bag in hand or hanging from their arm, which in turn is supported by a cane, or perhaps dangling from their walker, they go back the way they came, back across the parking lot, along the flagstone path, through the main doors and up in the elevator, until they’re back in their own rooms, where they can look out over the whole city with its thousands of different stores, although in practice they’re unable to visit any store but the one next door to the nursing home, they’re stuck in a habitual, perpetual circuit between the nursing home and the store, the store and the nursing home, until one day the movement simply stops.