The 2007 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading featured an interesting little segment titled "Best American Beginnings of Ten Stories about Ponies." The segment, by Wendy Molyneux, originally appeared in Monkey Bicycle, and is syndicated below for your enjoyment.
1. I saw this pony there, just standing there, just standing in the rain. And that's when I knew I was going to leave my wife.
2. At the time this all happened I was on the run from this mean-ass pony named Chad. I owed Chad thirty thousand dollars, and I was thirty thousand dollars short.
3. I still remember that one hot summer. The way the heat made the cars seem to shimmer as they drove by us on the way to godknowswhere, the way the girls I had known all my life were suddenly women--taller and wiser than us boys--bust most of all I remember that night when we all gathered around the black-and-white TV set to watch as the first pony walked on the moon.
4. On Fridays, the ponies got paid. And after they got paid, they got drunk. And when they got drunk, you bet your ass somebody was going to get hurt or broken.
5. A lot of stuff's been said in the papers lately about what went down at the Federated Bank that afternoon. Some people say we did it for money. Some say we did it for glory. But none of them know the real story of how it started. It started with a little girl who wanted a pony.
6. When that pony walked into my gym and said she wanted to learn how to box, I said no. And I said no for the next thirty days when she walked in asking the same thing. And then, for some reason, on the thirty-second day, I said yes.
7. The street was teeming with people jostling and shouting and waiting for the motorcade to come down the street. And what with all the noise and the excitement and the general chaos, no on thought anything of it when a pony burst past the barricades just as the president's car came into view.
8. No one saw the pony rebellion coming. No one but Brent Steel.
9. Jeremy Chadwick had eaten one hundred corn dogs in one sitting. He had eaten seventeen blueberry pies at the country fair, taking home the blue ribbon. He had eaten an eight pound hamburger, a jar of jalapeños, and a tub of ice cream on a dare in college. One time, to impress a girl, he had even eaten sixteen pennies. But there was this one thing, just one thing, that Jeremy had never eaten.
10. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. And there was this f**king pony, too.
5 comments:
Many years later when Macho Hombre the Pony faced the firing line, he would remember that distant afternoon when his boy master Garrick rode him into the orchard to discover apples: those fatefully tender morsels of inspiration for his capriciously mounted, never again repeated, Great One-Horse-Pony Pony Rebellion.
Nice. Dig the appropriation of Gabo for your pony ride of an opening line.
I thought maybe that should be the idea. I think that mabe now there should be twelve beginnings of twelve stories about ponies. You know, for fun.
i sent stephane that anthology just because i wanted him to read the pony sentences. and then i see that i could have just directed him to your blog! sheesh.
Brae,
I met stephane downtown at the Reid House last Wednesday. When he walked up on me in the lobby he saw me reading my copy of Best American Nonrequired. He told me right away you'd bought him a copy, and the first section he mentioned was the section on stories about ponies. I'd say he digs the book well enough to have his own copy.
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