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About the painting, BREAKAWAY - Part 1 of 4 

 

 

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KEEPING SECRETS  ~  

 

"What did we get Mom for her birthday?" I asked excitedly.

 

"I don't want to tell you," came the curt and pointed reply. "Because YOU can't keep a secret."  

 

"Yes I can," I insisted in protest.  "Yes.  I CAN keep a secret."

 

So eventually she gave in and told me.  Mom loved handbags and she would love this one - a lot! Over the next few days, when we were with our mother,  my older sib didn't miss an opportunity to glance over at me in warning with an angry expression that said everything she wanted to say,  'YOU!  Keep your mouth shut!'

 

And when mom's birthday finally arrived, I was bursting at the seams just bubbling over with excitement.  My mom shook the large, gift-wrapped box, turned it over and over, shook it and held it up to the light.  Nothing.   She had absolutely no idea - or at least was feigning well enough.  And then finally she turned to us and said with a hint of playfulness in her voice, that she couldn't possibly guess what was inside of the box, and she couldn't wait to find out.

 

"Well, it's not a white pocketbook!" I blurted out. 

 

 

 

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WHAT COLLECTORS WANT ~ 

 

I started to write about this painting more than a month ago, yet I was unable to publish what I wrote until just now today.  I didn't understand why.  And then something happened two nights ago and yesterday morning, and now I do know.  I just had to figure it all out in my head and in my heart.  Now i am ready to tell you this story,  Dear Reader.  I'll start with what changed my mind about publishing this story. 

 

 

I'm not just an artist.  I'm a Collector too.  And I buy art (or exchange my art with fellow artists)  for the same exact reason that I paint - for the way it makes me feel.  It touches me in ways I can't explain at times.  Sometimes I just don't know why there is a connection or what that connection truly is to a given piece,  but there are times that I do know.  There are times that a piece touches me so deeply.   That happened to me last night.  I saw a painting by the incomparable pastel artist, Kim Lordier.  I don't know the woman, but I knew I had to have her painting.  THAT painting.

 

 

I've purchased her work before ~ landscape pieces bought up in Ojai years ago from my friend Khalil at Primavera Gallery. I was driving home after a day visiting and painting with Bert, a fellow artist, at her home in Meiners Oaks.  And as always, I took a slight detour from the route back down to Los Angeles to drive past Primavera,  hoping I'd catch him before he left and headed home for the evening.  And maybe I could just poke my head inside the Gallery and say, "hi." Primavera was closed as it turned out, and Khalil had already left for the day.  But I drove slowly anyway past the front of the Gallery on the Main Street just across from the old Ojai post office.  The Gallery is just a few storefronts down from where now stands a wonderful little honey shop.  As I drove past the windows,  I glanced to my right to see what I could see.  And there, front and center were several large works by the incomparable pastelist from northern California, Kim Lordier.  And they took my breath away.  So much so that I hit my brake (nearly causing a collision - not an easy thing to do in a small town mind you),  and then,  to avoid further irritated honking from the cars jamming their brakes behind me - I decided to circle 'round.  I did the 'ol loop-dee-loop and proceeded slowly. I was fortunate to find a parking spot -- and not tick off anyone else behind me -- so I jumped out of the car and went up to Khalil's windows and peered inside.  WHO WAS THIS ARTIST?  It was Ms. Lordier.  This was my first time seeing her work.   JUST PHENOMENAL. (If you are unfamiliar with her work you absolutely must check her out!)   

I scribbled her name down on a piece of paper and drove home excitedly, unable to wait to hit my keyboard and search for more of her amazing work.  (And if you want to know what artists appeal to other artists,  she is certainly one of several who are at the tippy top of my list.)  But I digress. . . .

 

 

Why I love her work.  Ms. Lordier's work is above all peaceful.  Peace is not something I've had much of in my life,  so I'm always searching for ways to add more peace.  More joy.   Kim's work has that effect on me.  I derive both from viewing her paintings.  They are beautifully envisioned,  painted with a keen sensitivity. Her use of light is nothing short of glorious.  But there was something more that was pushing me last night.  Something that was making it not just a desire, but an absolute NEED to get my hands on this new piece -- a piece that had just barely arrived at the Gallery out in Utah days before.   And after reaching out last night to Ms. Lordier through her website (there is a link),  I called the gallery this morning at my first opportunity.  My fingers were crossed.  The owner of the Gallery answered the phone.  Her name is Jane.  She is very nice.  I named the piece not so nonchalantly, asking if it was still available.   Yes, it was.  It had just arrived at the Gallery.   I had to have that piece I told the Gallery owner, not really holding back or making any pretense at all about my desire  (which might be helpful, Dear Reader, if you're going to quibble about price.  I tend not to quibble about price,  because really,  can you put a price on love?  NO!  YOU CAN NOT!  LOVE IS LOVE! ).   I had to have it.  And now I do.  And now, miraculously, I am able to write about BREAKAWAY and finally finish LEBON's story.  And I realize now,  as I'm typing these words,  why having that one piece by Kim Lordier was so absolutely essential -- essential to bring this story full circle to its conclusion.  So here it is,  what I've already written - - - - - 

 

 

 

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WHAT   "BREAKAWAY"  MEANS TO ME  ~ 

 

About the painting,  BREAKAWAY  -  Exhilaration. 

(2018)  The moment you escape from those who want to do you harm.  That is the greatest moment.  You are free.  I call this moment of joy and exhilaration,  BREAKAWAY.   There is no feeling in the World quite like it!! 

 

 

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I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN  ~  

 

(2004)  It wasn't just deep grief when Sim was killed by a vet in the City of Angels.  There was also a certain amount of guilt.  HOW could I NOT have known?  How could the so-called VETERINARIAN TO THE STARS -- or any veterinarian for that matter -- have fooled me?  If anyone should have recognized a veterinarian huckster, it was me.  There's a lot of money to be had by veterinarian fraud.  It's big business not just in New York, but in Los Angeles,  too.  

 

I should have remembered, because I'd seen it before.  

 

 

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THE BARNES 2.0 COLLECTION   ~

 

Aside:  [Younger members of the family at some point began referring to my cart Collection (and me as well), as "Barnes 2.0,"  but I prefer to think of it as my "Esthetic Collection."  It is a collection of the most beautiful works of art of OUR lifetime - limited only by my limited resources -- for I am certainly by no means a wealthy person in monetary terms.   It is a Collection (& labor of love) to show future generations that the times we lived in were not filled entirely with ugliness, corruption, degeneration and political discord.  That during this period of our collective lifetimes, there was a group of artists working hard to create & bring great beauty into the World.  That beauty too reflects our culture - not just those pieces the critics tell us we are supposed to love or like or think are 'fantabulous.'  It is this group of artists who sadly are often not those recognized by the so-called Elite media or the Museums  - garnering the sort of recognition that guarantees both longevity of the work and a note in history about how they reflected their generation. I want future generations to know about these artists because knowing them says something about us.  And that's important to me.   So when I get called Barnes 2.0,  I just laugh.  It makes me happy on the inside.  Beautiful art makes me happy.  Beautiful art speaks to me in some ways difficult for me to explain.  But I will try].

 

 

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THE TRUSTING & THE VULNERABLE RELY ON OUR HUMANITY    ~  

 

(2021)  Sinking into my old living room couch, the kind you disappear into because the cushions have outlived their oooomph, I glance up from Dawn Raffel's The Strange Case of Dr. Couney, to eye a piece in my Art Collection. 

 

So I'm looking up, taking a break from reading about the real birth of the field of neonatology in the United States and the lives and deaths of those whose care is entrusted to us.  Those unable -- for whatever reason -- to defend themselves, trusting and vulnerable, without a say,  rely on our humanity, and that thought jolts me away from premies and weaklings and the world of Dr. Martin Couney, to a piece in my Collection.

 

 

 

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SHE KNOWS THIS HORSE    ~  

 

A painting of the head of a grey-white horse.  Bowed down.  I study it. I can't determine the mood. Pensive?  Sad?  Afraid?  It's the only one like it painted by Alberta Collins, known simply as "Bert,"  my friend in Ojai who at ninety four years young and in a wheelchair for many of those, remains one of,  if not the greatest American pastel artist at her age working today.  Seated in her studio just the two of us, she told me once of her love of horses, and the handling of this portrait clearly is a testament to that love.  Someone who doesn't love horses could not have painted it with such feeling.   His is a face she clearly recognizes. He doesn't look like any other horse.  She knows this horse.   I don't know why then she was so surprised when I took a liking to it. Maybe it had nothing whatsoever to do with her love of horses and the stories she told me. Maybe it had something more to do with me. 

 

 

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I'VE BEEN FASCINATED BY HORSES EVER SINCE I WAS A CHILD     ~  

 

I tried once to paint horses.  I was sitting there in Bert's studio surrounded by an elite group of pastel artists gathering on a Saturday morning to paint alongside Bert.  And I was wondering what to paint.  God only knows why I was there.  But the others who were there with me - - --  OH MY!   So I did my best -- missing the proper use of my right arm - injured first in November 2003 and then again in January 2004 -  I knew if I could just rest my right elbow on a surface, or maybe support it for short periods with my left hand, that I could get back to painting.  I missed the process so terribly.  A horrible aching loss that left me adrift.  So I would try silk.  And I would try pastel.   It would be a long road home again.   I painted one brightly colored amateurish piece, but in spite of the cheerful palette, my horse was alone and appeared frightened.  And although I'm admittedly not very good at painting horses,  I've been fascinated by them ever since I was a child.  

 

 

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I'M BLOCKED,  AND I DON'T KNOW WHY     ~  

 

I started the large oil painting with Molly and Sam sitting beside me in my 3' x 6' studio  The canvas is so large it blocks my entering and leaving, and I need to crawl underneath the wet canvas to access my stool and brushes. It's a messy business.  It is taking me years of trying to finish it.  Blocked.  A piece I just can't let go of,  and I don't know why.  

 

I went back to it after Sam died,  painting the top edge orange the color of his collar and lead.  It will be one of eight in his memory -- one for each year we spent together. But still I am stuck. Why can't I finish this piece? Something is blocking me. What?  I thought the painting might be a metaphor for all my canine buddies no longer with me and free to run in Heaven under the full moon where occasionally i might catch a glimpse of one of them.  Buster and Sim,  Casey and CurlyTail,  Molly and Sam.  There have been many a full moon,  but I have yet to catch a glimpse.  Or a sign.  And then, unexpectedly, for whatever reason,  a title pops into my head and seems to fit. I know it does. I just don't know why.  And I decide immediately to call it BREAKAWAY.  

 

And now it is no longer about any of my canine companions.  Because they would have stayed forever if they could.  They would never have wanted to 'breakaway.'  But I still don't know what it is about.  Where it came from or why.  Perhaps the title is a clue . . . . . 

 

 

 

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THE AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE (AFI)      ~  

 

Ron Martel is an instructor at the American Film Institute. He once told me that every story comes from somewhere -- even if you don't realize it.  I'm guessing the same is true of a painting.  

 

 

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WHY I COLLECT & CHALLENGES FACING THE DISCERNING COLLECTOR,  

PLUS THE STORY OF THE BEVERLY HILLS BRIGADE!     ~  

 

I have a second painting in my small two-piece equine collection, done by Bert's protegé Jannene. I tried to talk her into joining the California Art Club at one point, but you need to get juried in and she seemed to have little interest initially.  She didn't think she'd get in. I laughed when she told me that -- a lot. I kept laughing because I thought that that was uproariously funny.  I don't know a lot about a lot of things,  but when it comes to art,  I know talent when I see it.  And Jannene Behl is another one of the greats.   So finally after years of dragging her feet she submitted her paintings, and soon after left her day job to devote her full energies to creating beauty that the whole world could enjoy.  She's another spectacular artist -- one who should not be missed!  And if you don't know who she is and you love pastels,  I highly recommend looking her up to see her amazing talent!  And as for the saying of the WOMAN ON WESTWARD BEACH,  "you paint who you are,"  once again she is correct.  

 

 

It was the second weekend in October in Ojai not too long ago and Jannene joined Bert in Bert's home studio and gallery to show her equally masterful work alongside that of The Master. They have very different hands, both entirely recognizable, and Jannene's work like her personna is quiet, sweet and honest.  There's a decided gentleness to her work ("You paint who you are" - the words of the Lady on Westward Beach. Yup, more and more it was appearing that she was correct). A sweet gentle energy vibrates throughout JB's work. The woman is an angel.  Bert's work is also beautiful.  It is strong and self-assured,  calm and full of peace. There's an unassuming assuredness to every intentional stroke of color.  I love being surrounded by Bert's work. It fills me with joy and a feeling a moment of calm and peace.  I am centered when their spirits both surround me. JB and Bert Collins are artists who will be remembered. They are important additions to Barnes 2.0 -- but less because they are artists who most certainly will be remembered, and more because of how their paintings make me feel.  Or maybe that's the point.  Maybe they will be remembered because of how their paintings make most people feel.  Isn't that why people acquire art? 

 

 

That morning,  JB's exquisite landscapes and seascapes were all around the studio room that you enter through the sliders off the parking area adjacent to Bert Collins' studio gallery.  Gallery owners in-the-know from Beverly Hills arrive before dawn to line up prior to the Show's Annual 10AM Saturday opening time. Bert's assistant is handing out numbers like lottery tickets or tickets at your local bakery when it's crowded and you want to buy an almond croissant -- but way better.  The tickets are based upon your arrival time.  The one with the lowest number gets "first pick."  Mercedes and Infinitis and Range Rovers begin pulling into the lot before first light. There are no street lights nor any sounds of a City here. I had come the night before for dinner with Bert and fellow artist Donna Vis and the mother of artist Jennifer Moses, the woman who would be handling the money for Bert during the weekend festivities. I was able to see the pieces ahead of time. It's a wonderful collection.  I ask Bert which is her favorite piece -- and why.  She immediately points to one of the smallest paintings, "Summer." When I ask her why, she says simply, "It says everything I wanted to say."  I look more closely to hear what the painting is saying, and it whispers quietly in my ear. Then I put the flowers I bought for Bert into a vase and arrange them on the table that will greet gusests the following morning.  Bert really enjoys them.  But not nearly as much as the great story she will have to tell about the people lining up outside her home before the crack of dawn. That REALLY brings a twinkle to her aging eyes, and I'm proud to have been the one to kick THAT into full gear!  And while I did it partly for the way it made Bert feel, admittedly i also did it because of the way it made me feel.  

 

[OKAY so here is an admission:  Generally speaking I'd say I'm not a competitive person. But this was different.  Cue the Beverly Hills Brigade. Which brings me back to the ladies arriving thru the still night in their luxury sedans to line up outside the home of one 94 year old living legend. 

 

It was still and dark in the lot, with only enough space for about six luxury over-stuffed sedans. And then there was me -- lying half hidden alone in the dark.  Well, not entirely alone!  Two tall shrubs bookmarks the end of the parking area closest to the road. The stars shine above me in a clear sky, but I can't see them as I lay shivering there in the cold air of an October morning in the desert over an hour's drive out of Los Angeles lying under extra blankets and two large hunds in my tiny car. 

 

I learned my first year at the show about Bert and about those high falutin ladies from the Beverly Hills Galleries coming early and scooping up all of the best goodies before heading back down to Canon and Rodeo Drives.  My first year I arrived at Bert's home at 10:30AM. The show opens or is supposed to open at 10:00AM, not a moment earlier.  I had heard about Bert's work and was excited to see it.  When I arrived, there were hoards of Collectors  -- Yes, HOARDS -- in this small artsy village seemingly in the middle of nowhere, over an hour and half northeast of the city. The hoards were milling around inside and out, comparing notes, lamenting about a piece that they had really wanted but someone else (from some Beverly Hills Gallery) got to before they could even get through the door. I went inside. There were several dozen works, the culmination of a year's work, beautifully displayed on her Gallery walls and next door throughout her Studio.  And there were those dreadful RED DOT.  RED DOTS were everywhere.  Artists love RED DOTS.  Prospective Collectors, not so much.  And as of 10:15 AM, Bert was officially SOLD OUT!] 

 

 

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SLEEPING UNDER THE STARS,  SURROUNDED BY A HOWLING & HUNGRY PACK OF COYOTES ! ~ 

 

I heard the rumbling of the rocks underneath the wheels of a car slowly creeping into the lot, taking care not to wake anyone inside the home.  I pull my blanket down and sit up on my elbows just enough to see the silver Mercedes roll past my little compact fuel efficient car.  Hmmmmph.  BEAT YA!  (Oh, okay Dear Reader,  maybe i am just a wee bit competitive!  Ya' think?)  Maybe they thought I was asleep and wouldn't notice them.  The dogs were snoring loudly. But when I roused so did they. I leash them up and crawl out from beneath the blankets in the back of the car, popping open my door then outside into the chill mountain desert air. I waive at the others and thanks to a small light turned on by the rearview mirror in their Benz -- so the two art dealers wouldn't have to enjoy their cappuccino frappe caramel muchiatto in total darkness -- I am able to catch a glimpse of their globalist disappointment in seeing me there.  (THAT! is for snapping up all of the work last year and the year before that -- before any of the rest of us even got through the door! How unfair was that?!)  I'm not entirely embarrassed to tell you that a certain immeasurable joy washed over me.  And I walked Sim and Buster with nothing less than a huge Cheshire-grin spread clear across my face from ear to ear.  Out loud, but still only loud enough for BusterBrown and Sim to hear, I whisper one word,  GOTCHA!!!  And with that,  I take them for a very very brief walk up the dirt road adjacent to the parking area, a road which leads straight into coyote and wolf territory  (The year I discovered THAT,  I had to run for my life.  So I can say with clarity,  I won't ever be doing THAT again!)  and i don't even include that in my list of near-death experiences,  though clearly, now that I think of it,  being mauled and eaten by wild animals ought to easily qualify to make it onto any such list. . . .)

 

So then I made a horrible really unbelievably stupid error.   I realize afterwards that it will cost me hours of shuteye over the following decade:  Others arrived, one car after another until the lot filled up, and those who slept in (past 5:30 AM to 6 AM) would have to park on the dirt road and hike back (& just take their chances with the coyotes).  And someone wanted to know WHEN the first person had arrived. I wasn't thinking (who would have been?  I hadn't gotten much sleep, listening to the howling of the coyotes a hundred yards from my car all night long!) So I missed my one opportunity to tell a white lie.  SIX THIRTY-TWO, I responded, always so darned precise -- which was nearly a full hour before the Gallery Poachers had arrived in their Benz with their bubble wrap and cardboard corners and wads and wads of cash and a whole lot of attitude.  Why hadn't I said seven twenty-nine? And so,  with those two little words, I set in motion a series of events that committed me to a FIVE AM wake up call the following year. And then 4:30 AM. And then 4:00 AM.  (You get the point, Dear Reader!)

 

And every year since that second year, Bert hears about people arriving and often sleeping in her parking lot outside her art studio/home at 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning. And she tells that story to anyone who asks how early they need to arrive in order to find at least one work of art without a SOLD RED DOT!  And I can tell, that telling of that story annually brings her a great deal of joy to one incredible artist in her 90's!  I've always loved and appreciated her as do a large group of Bert Collins fans.  But to be told that and to genuinely know that -- can be very different things.  But that story year after year confirms it.  She feels loved and appreciated. And THAT -- making one woman whose husband died years ago and who is now and for years has been all alone  -- THAT makes sleeping in  a cramped car with my two dogs in a deserted parking lot in the cold mountain desert air - totally worth it in my opinion!!] 

 

 

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About the painting BREAKAWAY --  Part 2 of 4  

 

 

 

ABOUT  THE HORSE IN THE CORNER ~  

 

So, I am inside Bert's Studio, Number One again for well over a decade (Dear Reader, after reading my prior blog entry, certainly you didn't expect anything less, did you?), and I peruse the work on the walls systematically knowing that I have the luxury to pick whatever I want.  WHAT A JOY!  It is the Ojai Artists Studio Tour, and it is Christmas in October! Could there possibly be anything better than this!!  (That's NOT a question!)  

 

I've just greeted JB with a hug and air-kiss (the kind that were actually allowed before The Great Pandemic of 2020). And having already selected my two favorite piece of Bert's ("Summer" being one of them, of course), I'm now thoroughly enjoying the experience of Jannene Behl's gorgeously executed seas and fields, a panoply of colors before me in the Studio space next door. A half-rusted coyote stands guard outside.  Something in the corner catches my eye and draws me in.  It is a small piece and it is propped up alone against a wall, there in the corner.  It's one of Jannene's and it is unframed. Pastel.  Perhaps just completed the day before. It is a horse, alone, in his stall.  Lebon.  I feel something in my throat and I swallow hard.  His head is bowed, and he is facing into the corner. I don't know what that horse is thinking.  And I wonder, what is going through his mind right at this moment?  Is he frightened? Does he have a sense of what is about to happen?  And though he is a white horse not a chestnut,  a name comes to mind. He tugs at my heart so much so,  because I have not forgotten -- I never forget,  that I am finding that I am forcing fighting holding the reins back tightly holding back the tears.  How uncool would it be to cry here at this show?  NOT COOL AT ALL. (Nottheo wouldn't have it!)  I may only have half of a normal heart,  but that little heart inside of me I can feel it and it is pounding in my chest.  I see that horse.  

 

                                                                                    I SEE THAT HORSE!

 

 

 

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A VERY IMPORTANT MAN ~ 

 

It has been decades since that June night in New York.  I am home in southern California when I pick up a copy of The Los Angeles Times.   Unlike many New Yorkers, I never read the obits.   Never have, never do.  I'm just not interested.  I don't understand the fascination with the obits at all.  Dead is dead.  Why revisit it?  Why resurrect the past?  (Why, indeed?)  

 

I don't know how it happened then that on this particular morning I opened the paper landing right on the obits! I started to turn the page, but one obit in particular immediately caught my eye. How could it not?  It was a huge obit, the kind reserved for someone obviously very important.  Someone "Special."  What could you possibly say about one man that warrants so much space? And then I saw his name.  And I felt suddenly sick.  He was an awful, awful human being. And a secret buried deep and welling up inside of me is finally, painfully, unearthed.  A secret I somehow managed to keep in spite of myself,  for decades.  And I started to read about the death of a man I knew little about, but apparently more about than the investigators including Federal Law enforcement, possibly even the FBI,  who had looked into him extensively and failed to find everything, the most important thing,  such a very long time ago. 

 

 

 

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                                                    About the painting BREAKAWAY --  Part 3 of 4  

 

 

I am just a kid.  Along the street where I live, before the first of two small traffic circles, there's a $2-3 million dollar home on the left hand side with a long straight tree-lined driveway.  At the end of that drive stands this enormous Spanish-style home built around an inner courtyard.  Once you pass beyond the arched entry and enter the courtyard, there are stables to your right which open into the inner courtyard.  This magnificent home belongs to a man, the BIG SHOT DOC, who goes by a name that isn't his. It was one he made up - because apparently he's quite good at making things up -- and so he did -- and this he did after graduating from what is considered one of the top veterinary schools in the United States of America.  Imagine that! (Coincidentally - or not -- he attended the very same school attended by Los Angeles' own VETERINARIAN TO THE STARS.  (Something I'd learn several decades later).  But for now I wondered this,  'What exactly ARE they teaching at that esteemed center of higher academic learning?')  And still, I wonder . . . . 

 

BIG SHOT DOC provides 'care' to the thoroughbreds at some major racetrack in the State of New York. At least that's what I overheard some neighborhood adults saying.  As I mentioned already, I was just a kid.  Betty however, is not impressed by MR. BIG SHOT!  He's a scoundrel, she tells me repeatedly. (And Betty would know.  She was ALWAYS an excellent judge of these sorts of things.  It was like she had a sixth sense. Though in this case,  she didn't need one: He put the moves on her!)  She rebuffed him. But his petite wife has a flat chest like a little boy and the personality of a cold fish, says Betty.  Betty doesn't have a flat chest. She bubbles over with personality. And she's not his wife. Even better.  Betty refers to the Mrs. as the "Ice Queen," and she tells me that that woman is cold and calculating and at least ten years younger than MR. BIG SHOT DOC.  She does not like the Mrs.,  but she also does not like the Mr.  So there you have it!  A man with a name he's made up smart enough to attend one of the best centers of higher learning in the country,  a flat chested wife with the personality of a cold fish.  

 

I enjoy Betty's stories. I listen intently. For a while, I actually didn't know that the cold fish wasn't a boy! She wore beige jodhpurs and shiny high black riding boots, a man-tailored Paul Stuart white shirt buttoned up to her neck -- and yes, she was flat as an ironing board.  She carried a whip.  (I'm too young to know what that is for.  But I do hope it's not for the horse!)  Her blonde hair was cropped short around her stern face, the one that sat atop a body with ice running through its veins. She never smiled.  Not once.  I never thought her pretty.  Younger is not necessarily  prettier.  She has less than no interest in any of the kids in the neighborhood.  Kids are just not her thing.  She does however seem to notice everyone else's husband.  I find that perturbing,  and I'm just a kid.  But what do I know?  I'm not sure she even notices any of us.  Betty said she had had one of her own (kids), or so she thought or heard it rumored, but lost it.  (How does one even  lose a baby, I wonder?) 

 

 

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BREAKAWAY!!   ~  

 

Every once in a while the horses "got out" -- so I guess the caretakers weren't taking 'care.'  Not really.  It was on days like that where they'd come not at a gallop or a canter, but at a full-on run flying across the softly sloping hills and valleys of the neighborhood, past the ranch style home and the large traditional home that bordered the first circle,  at speeds that could only be clocked - well,  . . . on a racetrack. They were free.  BREAKAWAY! BREAKAWAY ! !  When this happened, I'd yell, "HORSES!  HORSES!"  standing nearby perched on or behind The Big Rock, watching them fly past me a jumble of hooves.  (One time I even found a horseshoe left behind.  I picked it up.  But it wasn't mine.  So I returned it.  I should have held onto that horseshoe.  I should never have given it back to THEM.  Over the years I've wondered -- did it belong to him?  Did it belong to Lebon?)  

 

And when there was a BREAKAWAY,  my mom or my second mom - that is to say, Betty  - would come running out the door and scoop me up and drag me inside where I couldn't get as good a first-hand look as they came flying through the air around The Big Rock tearing up the sod on our front lawn before veering to one side and heading down the DRUGSTORE TYCOON'S property line in the direction of the Big Sump.  Then someone would appear and gather them up, and they'd just disappear as quickly as they had appeared. This always upset my mom, who thought this was extremely dangerous and negligent of the BIG SHOT DOC who cared for horses at some track. Thoroughbreds pounding the earth with small children directly in their path. Of course, that's not exactly how I saw it, through the eyes of a small child.  I found it exhilarating. I loved those horses. I loved them! And I loved seeing those horses running free! 

 

 

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SHANI MAKES HER ESCAPE ~ 

 

DONNEGAL SHAMROCK,  A.K.A. Shani, got out again.  There were no leash laws in the area where BIG SHOT DOC and the rest of us lived.  The front door was partially ajar and she just decided to make a run for it.  Out the door, up the hill,  and down the block.   Betty and I went trudging up the hill in the dark to find her.  It was because it was dark that I was not allowed to go alone.  There were no street lamps so it was pitch black outside save for the twinkling in the night sky bling bling!  Betty was cursing under her breath but intentionally loud enough for me to hear, about "that dog," but secretly I knew she loved her too.  Oftentimes I'd catch Betty sneaking a piece of leftover dinner meat to Shani when she thought nobody was noticing.  I noticed.  But I never did let on.  The sun had set hours before Shani ran through a crack in the doorway and save for a big round moon there were no lights at all illuminating her path - or ours.

 

 

THEY'RE UP TO NO GOOD & ONE DOG WHO DOES NOT WANT TO BE FOUND ~ 

 

And then we heard work equipment and the cracking of the last pieces of asphalt.  In the middle of the night.  How very strange?!  Both of us turned as we passed the large Spanish one-story at the end of the straight tree-lined drive, and we could clearly see floodlights just beyond the archway, surrounding and illuminating the inner courtyard.  They were digging a huge hole.  But nobody noticed us as we walked by in silence. And even as a child I knew it was more than a little bit strange for workmen to have come in the middle of the night to be digging such a huge rectangular hole. So Betty's comment didn't seem at all out of place.  "I wonder what no good they're up to now!" she proffered, and we kept up the block searching for a sporting dog who didn't want to be found.  

 

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED . . . . 

 

Copyright 2021 Janai-Ami.  All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

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                                                        About the painting BREAKAWAY --  Part 4 of 4  

 

 

About the painting BREAKAWAY,  Part 4

~  by Janai-Ami 

Copyright 2021 Janai-Ami.  All Rights Reserved.

 

 

DON'T LOOK!   ~ 

 

Donnegal Shamrock was leashed, and Betty and I headed back down the road.  Betty was several paces out in front of me, and she turned her eyes briefly inward towards the bustle of activity in the inner courtyard at the home of The BIG SHOT DOC.  Her pace suddenly quickened and she signaled me and whispered for me to keep quiet and move quickly along towards home.  So I did and never asked why.  Betty told me years later what she had seen.  I didn't believe her at first.  Or maybe I just didn't want to believe her.  (Like the time she told me about some lady surname Marcos,  a lady from overseas with a huge collection of shoes, visiting my childhood home one  afternoon.  She should could spin a yarn or two!)  But she was very clear about what she saw.  Something very large was being moved on a forklift and placed into that large rectangular hole in the inner courtyard. In the middle of the night.  She saw it.  It was a horse.  It was our horse, the one that a little girl had loved.  And that is why he was gone.  

 

 

WHERE WAS LEBON?  ~  

 

The following day when I walked by with Shani, concrete had already been laid. The BIG SHOT DOC and his flat chested wife with the little boy haircut and stern face that never smiled now had a brand new inner courtyard, surrounded by the horses stalls.  But just as Betty had said,  one of the stalls now stood empty.  Where was Lebon?   

 

 

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A SECRET THAT WAS BURIED FOR YEARS ~ 

 

Years later Betty moved back to Fayetteville, but she talked often about what she had seen that night so many years ago. She still had a vivid recollection of it -- all of it - including the five year old chestnut with the white markings on his nose.   She said the BIG SHOT DOC was involved with some very bad people.  She said that the claim that his body was dumped under a pile of garbage in some landfill somewhere in New York was hogwash. (I've always believed that she said that just to make me feel a little bit better about his death. I could not think about him dumped like garbage into a landfill because it upset me so).   Betty reassured me that he wasn't left in a landfill, and she knew this for a fact, because she saw him being killed and then laid in a hole dug in the courtyard of a $2-3 million estate right there off of Muttontown Road. 

 

 

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ALL OF THE RACING WORLD IN SOUTH AMERICA IS ABUZZ   ~ 

 

The venerable Los Angeles Times talked about how much good this man had done.  He was a veterinarian. An esteemed one.  (Unfortunately I know a thing or two about esteemed veterinarians, Dear Reader.   The Cornell School of Veterinary Medicine has trained more than one of them.  But more about the VETERINARIAN TO THE STARS later. . . ) The obit was all about his incredible generosity. He died a very wealthy man,  just over a decade ago. But The Times devoted barely a paragraph to the real story, apparently they never interviewed Betty,  or the DRUG STORE TYCOON or any others  - for they glossed over it as if it were a mere footnote to this man's storied existence.  The story New Yorkers talked about for years.  The Times merely stated that there was a fixed race, an amazing long shot, huge winnings among a small group of people closely affiliated with the track, and investigators who were unable to figure out (at least at first) whether or not "the fix had been in."  Betty always talked about the young man from South America who worked as a stable hand, raising and caring for horses -- including two nearly identical ones, from the time they were very young.  Notably, two photos were sent to the States by a young flat chested woman - photos that showed how very alike they were.  Why was she so interested in the similarity of their appearance?  Why was the older one even purchased (she knew with certainty that he wasn't a racer)?  The stable hand could identify which horse actually ran and actually won the race. The News Media in South America confirmed what the young man suspected and was claiming. And it definitely was not the long shot who ran and won that race.  The authorities at the race track were notified. Then came the arrests. There were many arrests.  Those who placed bets on a long shot and won big went to jail.  The flat chested lady was never a suspect. She had sent the photos to Big Shot Doc showing him that she'd found two horses nearly identical in appearance -- one a racer, one not. But nothing ever happened to her.  They said she went crazy.  Unlikely.  But the only real crime,  the only meaningful one,  the one that involved the murder of an innocent living, breathing, feeling, sentient being -- for THAT CRIME -  nobody ever answered for that crime.   And one mystery remained and still remains. To this very day nobody ever did find out what really happened to the "other horse." HE HAD A NAME.  The horse that was a real long shot but actually never did run at the racetrack; the one that never lived a charmed life at all -  racking up win after win - for real. The one that in a pack of horses would be the least likely to ever be able to breakaway - except for that one day when he ran across the lawn in front of a little girl at her childhood home making her scream with joy!  

 

LEBON'S LUCKY SHOE   ~  

 

The one that a young man from South America had cared for and loved. He was not the only one that loved that horse.  A young man somewhere in South America became an old man and never forgot Lebon.  But others remembered him too.  The little girl never forgot that horse that ran through the Muttontown neighborhood on a warm Spring morning and lost his lucky shoe.  The shoe a little girl had returned to the stern-faced lady who did not love that horse. The horse that Betty told her had, one night in June, been killed. That horse, that eluded investigators and had seemingly just vanished into thin air, made to disappear entirely. Disappeared into a dark night, lit up for a brief moment by a bath of pure floodlights.  And in that moment,  the fleeting light of a five year old living breathing thinking feeling sentient being - who couldn't run fast enough for a track - but who was loved nonetheless by a small child just off of Muttontown Road - that bright light - was extinguished.

 

 

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SOMETIMES,   WHAT I COLLECT MAKES ME CRY   ~  

 

FEDEX just arrived.  I look at the return address.  It is a package for me from Jane in Utah. She owns a gallery there. I hold it for a second, before I open it.  And then I start to cry.  Why am I crying?  Inside the package is a painting.  But it is much more than just that.  I've been waiting for it for a very long time.  For years really.  Decades.  And now it has finally arrived.  

 

 

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HE STOOD ALL ALONE,  AND MY WEAK LITTLE HEART BREAKS EVERY TIME I THINK OF HIM STANDING THERE IN HIS STALL    ~  

 

I've thought about him often.  His memory has haunted me for what seems like forever.  My memory has always been of him alone, in his stall, or in that courtyard, his head bowed, afraid and alone.  No one to touch him.  No one to comfort him.  No one to say I love you and your life has meaning to me.  And every time I've seen him in my mind my broken heart breaks a little bit more.

 

 

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THAT'S WHAT HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE   ~ 

 

But then unexpectedly I saw him again all these years later, this time in a field.  A beautiful pastel painting by Kim Lordier, an artist of great sensitivity and extraordinary clarity,  her painting shows a horse.  And he is not alone. He is accompanied by friends.  He is not on a racetrack.   He is in a beautiful field that looks and feels to me a lot like what Heaven ought to look like.  He is free, and he is at peace.  That painting now hangs in the home of a little girl.  The little girl who loved Lebon and lost him one June night so many years ago. 

 

 

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Copyright 2021 Janai-Ami.  All Rights Reserved.