Isaac didn’t have siblings of his own, didn’t know those social rules. He barely knew his own. He always felt like a guest in his parents’ house, like he had to apologize for his existence, his laundry, his need for peanut butter and toilet paper. He wanted to be a given, not a guest star. Chris always took him for granted, which made him feel more real.
He didn’t know how Nina thought of him, since she never talked. He had even turned it into a game, asking her random questions: “Hey, Nina. If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?” or “Hey, Nina. Why can a person be discombobulated but not combobulated?” Every day, he expended valuable daydreaming time thinking of ways to provoke a reaction: “Hey, Nina. Rats can’t throw up,” or “Hey, Nina. Two roads diverged in a wood. I took the one more traveled by. It made no difference whatsoever.” She never responded, except for one time at lunch: “Hey, Nina. What’s the sound of one hand clapping?” Nina thought for a second, reached across the table, and slapped him loudly in the face.
Now, Nina was the first one out of the Jeep the second it stopped. Isaac jumped out behind her. He had heard about these horses years ago, and had been searching for them ever since he got his driver’s license. A cloud of dirt from the Jeep’s wheels still hung round and low in the air, like a filthy sun. “You coming?,” Isaac asked Chris. Chris, never much into nature, climbed into the back seat for a nap. He pulled his baseball cap lower, and slumped down.
Isaac and Nina crunched across the cracked earth together. The air smelled like pine sap. Furry horses in every color quivered a little in the chilly air, although the sun was strong. Their coats were brushed askew by the wind. They grazed on the tough desert grass, heads slung low.
The only one not eating was a black horse set apart from the herd, his mane ruffled up. Isaac and Nina walked over the mud and brush until something in his dark eyes said, Stop.
“See that one, that black one?” Isaac pointed from his shoulder, as if sighting a gun. “Herds always have a sentry. If you scare that guy, they all run.”
Nina’s thin jean jacket was shiny at the seams, and the cold blurred her lips. “You chilly?” Isaac asked. He took off his coat and held it in her direction, looking away as if he didn’t want it. The cold air instantly blanketed his sides, but he was wearing a wool sweater and Nina only had a thin T-shirt under her jacket. He shook it at her, and his hand became light as she lifted it. When he glanced at her again, it was already on her shoulders, flapping almost to her ankles. He sank his hands into his jean pockets, and the cold from his fingers soaked through to his legs.
They watched the horses eat. “What are you going to do after graduation?” he asked.
Nina shrugged. Her black hair rustled against the shoulders of his coat.
“It’s only three months away. You really should have a plan.” Isaac liked the way his voice sounded, deep and assertive like that. He wiped his cold nose with the back of his hand. “I have a plan. A few plans, actually. My old man wants me go into mining, like him.” It sounded as bad outside his head as it did on the inside. He kicked a rock, watched it scurry across the dirt. “There are some jobs in California and Nevada. But I’m not all that interested in it. Dirt and rocks.”
Nina pursed her lips, her gaze fixed on the black horse.
“What I wish I could do is something cool, like be an actor. Like Shakespeare. The great tragedies and comedies. Life and death. Something real.” Isaac had recently played Stanley Kowalski in their school play, and he had scared himself with his passion for acting out this made-up story in front of people sitting in the dark. Now, he was surprised to be saying this stuff out loud to Nina when he hadn’t even talked about it with Chris. She wasn’t listening, so he kept talking.
“You can just disappear into someone else,” he said. “Someone surprising, except not surprising, because you know the lines. No matter how fucked up they are, the characters, it’s not as bad as how fucked up I am. Because, you know, their fucked-upness is art, and mine is just…here.”
A horse tossed his head and nickered. Nina clicked her tongue at him.
“Of course, it’s not like I really could do that for a living. Become some great actor or something. Only one percent of one percent of one percent of actors get acting jobs.” Isaac didn’t know if that was true. It sounded true. He kicked the cold dust and watched it scuttle across the ground toward the hazy horizon. “Maybe even less than that.”
The wind gusted, and if he hadn’t been so surprised by her speaking at all, he might not have heard Nina say, “Someone has to do it, though.”
“What?”
She raised her voice. “Someone has to get those jobs. Or there wouldn’t be any Shakespeare. Or plays, or movies. Right?” The wind whipped her hair over her face.
“Sure,” he said. “Someone gets those jobs.”
She asked, tilting her head, “So why not you?”
When she didn’t laugh, Isaac blushed, baffled and angry. He wanted to tell her, Because I’m nothing. I’m from the Land of Nothing. I can’t. It’s impossible for people like us, from the sticks, broke, and stupid.
She waited in his coat.
He wanted to shake her, push her down, kiss her. Instead, he just cleared his throat and said, low, “You have no idea how hard acting is.”
A smile hit one corner of her mouth, lingering like a smudge. Nina turned and began walking away from him, her feet swishing through the frozen grass.
The sentry horse turned to face her, his front legs twitching a little. Nina didn’t break her stride. Isaac said, “Nina, these horses are feral,” but she ignored him and walked closer and closer. The sentry snorted at her, his tail flipping. She paused, as if taking his opinion into account. Then she continued her forward march.
“Nina, what are you doing?” Isaac hissed, but she couldn’t hear him anymore. He took a few steps toward her retreating, fragile back.
Now, she stood right in front of the horse. Its black mane stood up like a Mohawk. She leaned forward into the stiff wind until they stared face to face, not an arm’s length apart. Isaac was afraid that the horse would bash her, knock her out. He was afraid of a stampede. He was afraid of…he didn’t know.
With a whoosh, Nina grabbed the sides of Isaac's coat and yanked them high above her head, like a bat.
The black horse reared onto its hind legs above the girl. She didn’t move, her black wings flapping in the wind. The horse’s crumbly front hooves pawed the air above Nina’s tiny head, and he whinnied hard. Isaac imagined Nina’s head smashing to pieces as the horse landed on her, her body crumpling to the ground under his hooves, irreversibly lifeless. He shouted and ran.
The horse twisted at the last minute. His hooves landed next to Nina’s worn shoes. He pushed off, launching his body away from her as she stood motionless, still angled forward.
By now, the entire herd was galloping toward the ridge, moving as one beast, the black horse holding the rear. The ground vibrated under Isaac’s feet, and the dry air filled with dust and the thumping of their rough, worn hooves. Their backs rippled as their muscles stretched and contracted under their hides, over and over in perfect action.
Isaac knew he should be watching them. He’d never see anything like this again. But he couldn’t stop looking at Nina, transformed. Nina, with her smudgy smile, Nina with her black wings.
He caught up to her, panting. She let her scrawny arms drop to her sides. Suddenly small again in his coat, she grinned up at him through the din and dust.
“Acting,” she said.
Chapter Four: Cops and Robbers
Dong Haichuan was born in China in the early 1800s. The youngest son of the youngest wife, he was the bullied runt in his family hierarchy. He left