My Pretty Pony – Stephen King

The old man sat in the barn doorway in the smell of apples, rocking, wanting not to want to smoke not because of the doctor but because now his heart

fluttered all the time. He watched the son of that stupid son-of -a-bitch Osgood do a fast count with his head against the tree and watched when he turned and

caught Clivey out and laughed, his mouth open wide enough so the old man could observe how his teeth were already rotting in his head and imagine how the kid’s breath would smell: like the back part of a wet cellar. Although the whelp couldn’t be more than eleven.

The old man watched him count the ritual and then laugh gaspy hee-haws. He laughed so hard he finally had to lean over and put his hands on his knees, so hard the others came out of their hiding places to see what it was, and when they saw, they laughed, too.

They all stood around in the morning sun and

laughed at his grandson and the old man forgot to rock and to want to smoke in his wanting to see if Clivey would cry.

“Caught ‘im out!” the others chanted, laughing.

“Caught ‘im, caught’im, caught’im out!” Clivey only stood there, stolidly, waiting for it to be over so the game could go on with him as it and the

embarrassment beginning to be behind him. After a while the game did. Then it was time for lunch and the boys went home. He

watched to see how much lunch Clivey would eat.

Clivey didn’t eat much, just poked things around on his plate and fed a little to the dog under the table. The old man watched it all, interested, talking when the others talked to him, but not much listening to their mouths or his own. His mind was on the boy.

When the pie was done he wanted what he couldn’t have and so excused himself to take a nap and paused halfway up the stairs because now his heart felt like a fan with a playing card caught in it, and he stood there with his head down, waiting to see if this was the final one (there had been two before), and when it wasn’t he went on up and took off all but his underdrawers and lay down on the crisp white coverlet. A square of sun lay on his scrawny chest and to either side; it was crossed with dark marks that were window laths. The shadow of the cross was between his nipples. He put his hands behind his head, drowsing and listening.

After a while he heard the boy crying in his own room and he thought, I ought to take care of that.

He slept an hour, and when he got up the woman

was asleep beside him in her slip, and so he took his clothes out into the hallway to dress before going down.

Clivey was outside, sitting on the steps and

throwing a stick for the dog, who fetched with more will than the boy tossed. The dog (he had no name, he was just the dog) seemed puzzled.

The old man hailed the boy and told him to take a walk up to the orchard with him and so the boy did.

His Grandpa’s name was George Banning, and it was from him that Clive Banning had learned the

importance of having a pretty pony in your life. You had to have one of those even if you were allergic to horses. Because without a pretty pony you could have six clocks in every room and so many watches on each wrist you couldn’t raise your arm and still you’d never know what time it was.

The instruction (his Grandpa didn’t give advice, only instruction) had taken place when he was ten going on eleven. Grandpa seemed older than God—

which probably meant about seventy-two. The

instruction was given and taken in the town of Troy, New York, which in 1962 was just starting to learn how not to be the country.

The instruction took place in the West Orchard.