I actually wrote this a month before I went on the trip. It turned out that the actual voyage was much more exciting, and is related (in part) in the first chapter of the Windy Chang story, "Disaster on the Road to San Diego." Thus, this little pastiche in the form of an imaginary personal letter to Gary Traveis ended up here, in the Attic, until I dusted it off recently and updated it.
How times have changed! I'm not sure that anyone goes to SHARE meetings any more.
24-April-1986
Dear Gary,
I am glad to have seen you last month! Being a cheapskate I always like to kill two birds with one stone, and as IBM was holding a SHARE meeting in Anaheim at Disneyland that my company wanted me to attend, I decided to take my own car and travel cross-country and see some of the centaur people along the way.
Now I have already told you about my encounter with Terrie Jones in the middle of the Southern California desert out by the Chocolate Mountains, and you saw the sketch I made (what with me rolling my brand-new minivan, I couldn't find my camera in time for that brief visit). -- Oh, yes, the insurance on that finally paid off and I got myself a new one a little over a week ago. (Same model, except it's a Dodge). At least I don't go around moaning "My Car!, My Car!" all the time. However, I have more news on the centaur front:
I was honor-bound not to tell you this the times we talked about centaurs (which cost my patience dear); but Merrienne DeLano, one of the new correspondents -- you recall, the one that I told you was extremely shy, "had a big secret," and who's address outside of Joplin, Missouri I gave to you -- just wrote me and has relented. Now I can tell you.
She's a centaur.
I suppose I should tell you the details about how I met her, and what she told me of her origin as a centauress. So here goes:
I had been driving half a day out of St. Louis on west-bound I-44 and was approaching the state line and Joplin, Mo. I was debating whether to stop and look up an aunt and uncle who live there, when I noted that my gas was low. The next exit had a generic station, so I went off with a mind to fill up the tank to my poor old new Chrysler Plymouth.
Now the station was up beyond the cross-ramp leading to the local road's overpass. So I had a pretty good view of the surrounding countryside. The area is a bit hilly, but mostly west of the Ozark Plateau, as the map calls it. It's mixed farming: some grass land, a few orchards (apples mostly), vegetables. While I was pumping gas I watched across the limited-access wire-fence at an equestrian taking jumps over a course. The poles and crossbars were freshly painted white with red stripes. It was very early in the season, and a bit muddy; but there are some horsey-types who are real fanatics. Private land, and a good hunk of it next to the freeway, though it was mostly screened by hedge. I made a mental line that the rider was female at something like 8:1 odds, in favor.
Idly I watched her, as she came nearer. There was something very wierd: and I knew what it was: the horse had no head. And she (with that long hair, it was definitely a she) was mounted directly atop the shoulders of the pounding equine. I didn't see any human legs.
The pump shut off -- my gas tank was full -- and this girl -- or creature -- had finished a jump and had turned out of sight behind some trees. I don't know how I had composure to pay the clerk (in a closed booth, his back was to this show entirely), and get into my car without running into something. I must have made more double-takes than W. C. Fields at five aces!
I had enough sense to note the name of the exit: Duenweg. (My uncle later corrected my pronounciation: it sounds some thing like "DUN-neg". Besides the post office, it's mostly warehouses and truck-trailer parking.)
In most reasonably flat areas, local midwest roads form mile-square patterns; but with just enough variation to screw you up. Especially when an interstate cuts through. Then you find plenty of dead-ends, cul-de-sacs and "access roads" that may or may not access anything. The same is true of this area.
Frankly, I was flustered. With that split-second image imprinted in my mind, I missed the first (and correct) connecting road, drove a mile too far north, turned east, drove a mile, looped back south and hit a dead end (the interstate), turned around, headed back west half a mile, turned south again and hit a dead end (the interstate again). Disgusted, I got back into the sight of the station, and saw the road to the left (and east). A quarter mile of prairie and trees later, it turned to the left sharply, then went on quite a ways, then somewhat right again and exitted onto the half-mile road I'd driven earlier, almost at the mouth; however, this last section was rather uninviting dirt. Hmph.
I doubled-back once more. Then, about a hundred feet west of the bend, I saw the house. Shrubbery and trees concealed it from the other direction.
There was plenty of shoulder and a mail box with "DeLano" on the side. I made a note of it and the number on the box.
The place seems to be old, a tall "Italian Villa" style farmhouse, with the high windows and ten-foot tall ceilings, which is made even higher by the fact that it sits on a small rise, between hills. It is well kept up, though, and even has the cupola; although that is probably either completely restored or relatively new. You can hear the traffic faintly on the highway some ways behind this homestead. The fence is painted white.
The grass was new with that bright green of spring at the time. I walked up on the dirt track that runs by the house and evidently to where a separate garage once stood. I saw the eventing course distant in the background and to the right a glimpse of where the interchange might be.
The girl wasn't there.
Naturally I was trespassing, so I told myself to be careful. I heard the splashing of water. It made sense to me: she was bathing. Another splash gave me a general direction: a little to the east is a stream that feeds a pool or pond. I walked the fifty feet and then saw her in the middle of a pool with stone and concrete sides partly obscured by the trunks of trees. It is very idyllic. Her clothes, I noted, were layed out at the edge. Her hair is black and shiny with water.
I headed back to my car, not wishing to see if Nature would imitate Art Fantasia fashion. I sat down in my vehicle, watched, waited, and thought.
Fifteen minutes later I saw the creature approach the house by the back way. She entered the house by the back door. Without doubt she is a centaur, albeit when my astonishment wore off, I saw that she is not exactly the classical type. Firstly, the tail is way way too long.
Well, A. M., I thought to myself, screw up your courage, because this is your chance in a life-time. I walked up to the front door, pushed the door-bell (it does not work), then knocked.
The door opened, and the black-haired girl's face peeked out and down from near the top of the jamb. "Who is it?" she asked. She sounded meek and timid.
I introduced myself, and told her that I was a member of Centaurs Gatherum, a correspondent's club who were interested in -- and sympathetic to -- centaurs. Oh I was smooth! Would she like to join?
She thought a moment. Then she really surprised me: she invited me in.
I had a good look at her as she moved to the back side of the enormous living room. Her equine part is huge. She must stand at least 18 hands tall: you can tell, from the time-delay photo (#1) I took with me standing next to her. And you know that I am no midget. The time of day probably altered the color rendition; but her hair is deep red-brown, with striking black points, black mane (what there is of it), division hair and tail. Her tail is something outrageous: its fleshy part is a full three times her length! In photo #2 you can see it best: she has a habit of wrapping it around her circumference when perturbed, nervous, or not fully in control of herself. More about that later.
With some jockeying (she fills a good part of the living room in that house), she sat down -- or rather, perhaps I should say -- sat herself down, or got herself sat down. She would prefer: got it sat down. I told her about the Gatherum and its purpose, and -- of course -- my expertise in centaurs -- at least, of the mythical kind. She said that she knew what a centaur was; but when I asked, said she didn't consider herself one. (I begged to differ, and politely told her my reasons.)
Her upper body is muscular; but her ribs show and she is almost cadaverously thin in the waist. Just above the division one can see the points of her hips. When she wears a half-blouse, she displays moderate but round breasts. (She wishes they were larger.) At that time of season her skin is quite pale. She has brown eyes and a fine featured face, though she's not an extraordinary beauty -- perhaps a bit too much character in the chin for that; but certainly not ugly. Her nose and mouth are quite small, her forehead -- when she pushes back her locks -- is quite high.
She told me about herself then: her name is Merrienne DeLano ("Ennie" or "Merrie" for short), as you know, and is nineteen years old. She has a job as a postal carrier out of the Duenweg Post Office. She'd gone through highschool, and was told that she had more than enough intelligence to reach any level of academic training she wished. Right now she wasn't sure what to do with herself; but her neighbors were friendly, everyone knew her and her job got her out and exercised. She was born human. She emphasized that! The creature she had been attached to for the last dozen years was a prothesis.
She went through the gory details of the accident with the drain in the old pool her parents had when she was a child. I'll spare you those. Her digestive reproductive and many of the other organs of her lower abdomen had been mangled beyond repair. The upshot is the animal body was surgically attached to her when she was six or seven and is a life-support system! How this did not make headlines, I don't know -- or maybe it did locally in Missouri. She showed me some old clippings from a Kansas City paper.
According to Ennie the creature she is attached to is a human-animal hybrid. ("mostly horse") raised to yearling size and the best of a thousand or more attempts, all done in parallel. From what I gather it sounded like a real race against time: hybridizing her genes taken from her thalamus into fertilized equine egg-cells and re-implanting them into mares must have taken an enormous effort, then waiting for the foaling (99.5% didn't catch), and waiting for the one or two acceptable alternatives to grow to an adequate size.
I remarked that that explained why her lower body had other than equine attributes.
"Such as the three-toed foot." she said. "They are a real pain to shoe according to the farrier, because the shapes are distorted to fit together. There's a middle, left and right shape. Now if I can have it bring up a foot, I'll show you how the toes spread apart and pull together to give a better grip on the ground when it decides to run fast É"
I told her that I really meant her tail --
"The doctor who checks me out tells me that my tail is a genetic throwback to my monkey ancestors!" she giggled -- laughed, really: the first time I'd see her do so. "I really like it: the best part of this whole affair, 'cause I can bend it around in loops and even grab things with it -- although the long hair does get in the way. It's very sensitive, almost like having a third arm, and in a very advantageous spot, considering my circumstances.
"Now if I can coax this foreleg up you see --"
I interrupted her and asked her why she always referred to her nether majority in the third person.
She was quite honest about it: except for the tail and bowels, she had no control over (or feeling in) her lower half! She said that it has a mind of its own, literally, which was implanted intact at the base of her spine, where her lower intestines used to be. They scarcely touched the animal's spinal cord, except to work out neurologic bypasses for the two organs. As long as the graft took, as it were, the surgeons were only minimally worried about giving Merrienne control over what would be herself from that moment on. In fact I suspect from what she has later told me that they had to go in and make the arrangements in a second (and very delicate) operation. She has spent much of the last dozen years working out subtle sensory signals and command cues between her brain and its, in both directions. Ennie also suspects the huge body has some ability to "piggy-back" on her human senses: it seems to see, hear, smell and taste at least a little bit of what she does.
"Sometimes it detects the fact that I've seen a good dust wallow, and it'll march right over, get down and roll over in it. Usually it is considerate enough (out of habit) to use its old neck muscles to turn my hips forward and down so I don't get laid on." She screwed up her face at that. "Sometimes it will want to run, and it's bar the door. Sometimes it just doesn't want to do anything -- or feels playful and won't do anything right!
"Fortunately, it understands my anger and knows that if I don't get my way -- eventually -- it won't get fed. And since it feels hunger pangs and I don't, the threat is pretty real."
Abruptly, she stood up.
She swore to make a sailor blush.
I understood what happened when the creature raised a foreleg: Ennie had wanted it to display a hoof; but it had decided to stand up to do it. The hooves are quite large, even for the length of leg and its heavy musculature. There are indeed three hooves that it spread out and contracted at Ennie's urging. There was some horse-like huffing and puffing; but she never opened her mouth or flared her nostrils. As I said, these are quite small. I asked her about that later, and she said that its windpipes are extended with flexible tubes that exit behind the back of her head and neck.
Showing me this nearly cost the room a book-shelf, and she decided to move to the kitchen ("It gets fractious when it's hungry."). There she quickly filled a mixing bowl with fruit and Cheerios, poured in a gallon of milk and started spooning it down. A large can of tuna quickly followed, then a half-dozen apples. I watched this show with a queazy feeling. When it was satisfied, the creature took a single step back. Indeed, if the digestive system had been pure horse, the belly would be far more prominent and she (or it) would have foundered long ago on that diet. I suspected here was another effect of the genetic hybridism. But the body is much slimmer than a typical horse, and more deeply chested; though not nearly as exaggerated as the coursing centaurs I've sometimes drawn. It is really an athletic body, with muscles that did show through its winter hair.
Snack time was over.
Just as spontaneously she told me she was going outside for a walk. She got a side-saddle from a large closet which obviously serves as her 'tack room' and put it on. The flexibility of her human torso astounded me as she cinched it about the equine barrel and breast, disregarding my offer of help. "I have an appointment with my riding instructor late this afternoon, after work," she explained. I figured out then that her training in comportment and carriage was vitally important to her, and no mean task.
As soon as she cleared the door the creature, sensing room to maneuver, sprinted towards the end of the greensward, stopped abruptly, dashed left, right, reared up (almost over backwards), jumped in place to an extraordinary height, turned about and high-stepped back to the door.
Merrienne muttered something like "Show-off!" under her breath. All this time her arms had been crossed about her chest, her chin tucked in, in case it decided to roll.
"I have lots of friends, and it has learned to keep pace with anyone who touches its withers at the flank, here." she said, matter-of-factly. I was to walk with her (or them).
I asked her as we walked past my parked car whether she was bothered by the locals? Did the kids tease her when she was in school?
"No," Ennie replied. She's lived in Duenweg all her life, except for the operations. She went to the local school both before and after. Everybody understands. Remarkably, everyone is her friend, and she usually doesn't run into any strangers.
I had a realization: I guessed that the locals probably have made her a mascot and have been -- and still are -- protecting her.
I asked her about her parents; brothers, sisters.
Her parents had died in a car accident nearly ten years ago. She is an only child.
I wonder if it wasn't suicide. I didn't bring up the subject; so I wouldn't mention it.
The neighbors and the community quietly have helped with the house, the property, the food. She makes whatever clothing she needs. She feels responsible and does not like the feeling of dependence, so she took and passed the postal exam given by the local postmistress and became a carrier. She would have to get on her route in a few minutes, she told me. So we turned around and walked back to my car.
"You play mountain dulcimer?" she asked, seeing the instrument in the back of my van.
"Yes," I said, "you play, too? Would you like to try mine?" I took the dulcimer out of its travel case.
She settled down -- awkwardly, as it became apparent that "it" didn't want to -- and strummed a few bars of a traditional tune. Then her nether body sensed that I'd gotten out my camera to take a picture of Ennie playing, and got up again. The human part of her rolled her eyes, and hurriedly handed the musical instrument back to me, as her torso was pushed forward of a ponderous flood of muscle and bone that flowed up into a standing position.
She (or, rather, it) proceeded to mug for my camera. Much to the distress of her shy nature, the horse part of her body pranced about the yard. Merrienne held her tail up and out, and whipped it about trying to unbalance the nether majority of her frame and impede its progress. Eventually she succeeded in wrapping it around one of the fence posts and the whole entourage of horse, girl and tail stopped. I joked about her loving to be a "centaur of attention." She fumed.
To make amends I gave her a list of correspondents and their addresses. I also gave her a copy of the Catalogue of Centaur Art and Literature. She admired the cover with the large-tailed fillies, but grew rather serious then. She told me she wished there were more like herself that she could consort with; but she hadn't heard of any. She had a tear when she said that, and when she remarked that it would have been so much easier with a more reasonable sized lower body; but she hadn't had a real choice: one alternative had been even larger, and the second had eight legs! She has remarked that it is still growing slightly; although she hopes (or fears) that it will mature soon. She says that that's going to give her a whole new set of problems.
It twitched at that comment. Responding to her dissatisfaction, I suppose. As I said, she's worked out some very subtle signals. I asked her if I could take more pictures, and she agreed.
She also had second thoughts, and asked me to keep quiet about her physical condition. "Don't say I'm a centaur -- at least not now. And don't joke about me being a perfect '34-18-185!'"
I promised not to.
Then she did something that shocked me.
With one movement, she wrapped the end of her tail around me and lifted me up on to her (its) back some six feet off the ground. I'm no lightweight, Gary, but she can do it as if I were a feather. There are muscles in that caudal appendage that would rival Spiderman's! She then swivelled about at her waist, grabbed my shoulder and bussed me on the cheek with a slobbering kiss. She sobbed, put me down (her equine body did a piaff-like dance to stand away from me) and walked off to get her coat.
In a few minutes she re-appeared with the top of the standard mail-carrier's uniform and the traditional large bag. She told me that she was off to Duenweg, which was on the other side of I-44.
I asked her what the reaction of the gas-station attendent would be.
"Oh, Mike," she called him by name. It turns out that he was in her high-school class. She's known him since she was little and it was no big deal. And it seems that Merienne has gone back and forth on that road for years, sometimes twice a day. Nobody seemed to think of her as anything exceptional --
What about the traffic on the interstate?
"They think I'm an equestrian -- as you did."
I considered that: it was probably true. As long as the mind said there were no such things as centaurs, she is not one; but a rider and horse. There are none so blind ... .
Then she walked off, and while doing so turned and waved at me over her (its?) working hindquarters beyond the tail of my car and paced up the hill by the road. (She -- it -- is five gaited.) In a minute I saw her walk past the road sign that formed the back of the gas station on the hill. I saw her give a friendly, rustic wave to someone besides myself and trotted in high-steps over the bridge.
I left only after she had cantered out of sight.
Believe me Gary, I am Sincerely Yours,
A. M. Nevers
-- Dave Alway, revised 25 April 1997 from an original text of February, 1986.
Merrienne Delano