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Description
The Mana Farms story line frequently contains mature language, topics, and situations. The characters within are fictional beings with weaknesses and faults, and I cannot promise you that you will like them for what they believe, say and do.

The first book in the MANA series will be published with a tentative release date of May 1 2012. Join the community of MANA readers! Start from the beginning. (New readers, it is strongly recommended you begin this series from the very first story...which can be found here: [link] ) Thanks!

PREVIOUSLY ON:

The thing about harness racing was that it was old. The good drivers were old, an odd and colorful assortment of unwanted expired hard candies leftover in the christmas bowl, white men and black men with crowns of silver and pale ghost eyes and hands chaffed down to the bones. They drank and they smoked and they spit. They hated journalists with a fiery passion and if pressed to talk to one they kept to monosyllabic grunts and glares from out of their milky blue eyes. Then they’d laugh and they’d bend over and spit and someone would offer them a beer. Most of them were poor, following the circuit of fairgrounds that were strung along the old Canadian Pacific rail lines from Vermont to Idaho like charms on a steel track necklace. Few of them had freshly painted sulkies, or fancy bridles, or clean silks, or quality hay. No one drove an expensive car or owned a suit with matching slacks. The only metal on them might be simple gold wedding band, and a watch, and the zipper to their pants which was up as high as a turtleneck. Even the trailers looked like the kind owned by backyard horsemen; chipped white paint with a faded barn logo, splotches of rust on the back, a handle that stuck, a tack door that wouldn’t close unless you kicked it in just so. The long leather lines from horse to hand didn’t even smell like oil when you held them up under your chin; they smelled of sawdust and wool like they’d come from a hat box inside an old man’s closet.

Eddie Ne could hardly believe he’d agreed to this as he was lifted out of his wheelchair, and placed gingerly into the training cart. Clive Thompson, with his gold wedding band and his watch and his fly zipped all the way up, pretended not to notice.

“Now just let me get your feet in here,” he was mumbling to Eddie, as he dropped his dystrophied legs into the custom made foot stirrups.

Eddie was trying to be grateful. Jack, the local farrier’s son, had paused in putting a heavier shoe on a racer, and stopped to admire his own welding job on the cart. As he pointed out to Clive and to Eddie the finer details of the cart he had made for them, the clasps, the harness, the foot stirrups, Eddie tried not to feel ashamed as they adjusted his broken legs here and there the way women arrange a newly bought curtain in a window.

“Fuck off, Jack, I know how to get a man into a sulky,” Clive finally said on his behalf. Jack shrugged his bullish shoulders and went back to shoeing the lazy bay tied to a tree. Eddie Ne shot a glance at the old black trainer tightening the belt across his lap and Clive made a point not to meet his eyes. “Now just take Reggie around for a mile and a half. Understand? A mile and a half. I don’t have time for more than that. You want a joy ride you do it on someone else’s watch. Now Reggie is a soft mouth, understand? So I don’t expect him to drag you to Seattle but don’t get comfortable and don’t get carried away.”

“I won’t get carried away,” Eddie mumbled and he meant it, the cart was nothing like a saddle, the cart was hard and stiff and unforgiving and foreign. Here he was belted in like a child to his ricepicking mother, instead of perched like a free bird. Instead of cupping his cheeks, it turned its cold metal back on him. Eddie stared at the large long blue haunches of the roan standardbred in front of him and realized he couldn’t see anything in front of him but that. You are an ass echoed the words in sharpie marker scrawled across a hockey stick in the corner of an old hospital room. They danced in front of him now along that stringy black tail, as black as that hockey stick’s shaft, all the way down to the ground.

“Mom,” he whispered ever so quietly to himself. In place of the horse’s ass was a closet door and around him a gaggle of smiling chinese prostitutes, his mother’s coworkers, their long black hair down around them, their painted faces flushed with raucous laughter, some of them pointing at his pale drawn face, one girl hugging his shoulders to her. The girl was slender and sickly, but she was smiling tenderly from above him, even hungry her face was round and pale like the moon surrounded by inky black night. His mother. There was a loud eerie knocking at the door.

“Enlai,” she commanded. Enlai was his name, he remembered it absently, an old word for appreciation or gratitude or something else obscenely ironic for the son of a whore. He snorted audibly at the memory. “Enlai, you go answer the door and you tell that ghost you’re too busy right now.”

“I don’t want to answer the door.”

“What?” Clive Thompson barked beside him.

Somewhere behind the hospital door, Brett North, his replacement, was banging on it with a hockey stick.

“I don’t want to answer the door,” Eddie repeated.

“Enlai,” the whores laughed, “You do it like this!” One of them in a bright pink dress, placed her hand on the closet door and pulled it open with a fearless tug, “Eee ghost!” she announced to the costumes hanging there like dead bodies, “We’re too busy living right now, you go haunt somebody else!” Then she slammed it shut.

Eddie Ne’s eyes were wide with fear. A group of painted girls that smelled of orchids and pork broth and tears and money from a sweaty hand and sex, wet and sticky, grabbed him by his skinny arms and pulled him, dragged him, to the handle of the door.

“Will you give me the reins?” Eddie replied and Clive frowned at him.

“Lines.”

“Give me the lines, Clive.”

Clive Thompson passed the long leather lines to him, instructed him to find the hand holds, how to place his hands on them, his large round white eyes watching him for a flinch of discomfort or fear. The blue roan Reggie let out a long impatient sigh. With the lines in his hands, Eddie clucked to the horse and Reggie went out onto the track, ears pricked, long legs working, the wheels beside him began spinning faster and faster. They began to hum. The poles whizzed by. The barns in the corner of his eyes began to blur and stretch out long and thin and disappear.

Eddie realized he could feel Reggie’s mouth in his hands, just as he could feel Yakety Sax’s and the Outlaw’s and Sweettalkin’s and Monique’s. He could still feel when Reggie wanted to move and he could sense when the blue roan was distracted by another colt and cart coming up alongside him.

“Oh mah god,” said the old man breezing up next to him and the blue roan. Eddie could barely make out the man’s face behind his goggles and hat. But he could see the large coffee stained grin and smell the cigar smoke on his worn denim shirt. “If it isn’t Eddie Ne.”

Enlai Ne smiled.

NEXT ON:

Description
The Mana Farms story line frequently contains mature language, topics, and situations. The characters within are fictional beings with weaknesses and faults, and I cannot promise you that you will like them for what they believe, say and do.

The first book in the MANA series will be published with a tentative release date of May 1 2012. Join the community of MANA readers! Start from the beginning. (New readers, it is strongly recommended you begin this series from the very first story...which can be found here: [link] ) Thanks!

PREVIOUSLY ON:

The thing about harness racing was that it was old. The good drivers were old, an odd and colorful assortment of unwanted expired hard candies leftover in the christmas bowl, white men and black men with crowns of silver and pale ghost eyes and hands chaffed down to the bones. They drank and they smoked and they spit. They hated journalists with a fiery passion and if pressed to talk to one they kept to monosyllabic grunts and glares from out of their milky blue eyes. Then they’d laugh and they’d bend over and spit and someone would offer them a beer. Most of them were poor, following the circuit of fairgrounds that were strung along the old Canadian Pacific rail lines from Vermont to Idaho like charms on a steel track necklace. Few of them had freshly painted sulkies, or fancy bridles, or clean silks, or quality hay. No one drove an expensive car or owned a suit with matching slacks. The only metal on them might be simple gold wedding band, and a watch, and the zipper to their pants which was up as high as a turtleneck. Even the trailers looked like the kind owned by backyard horsemen; chipped white paint with a faded barn logo, splotches of rust on the back, a handle that stuck, a tack door that wouldn’t close unless you kicked it in just so. The long leather lines from horse to hand didn’t even smell like oil when you held them up under your chin; they smelled of sawdust and wool like they’d come from a hat box inside an old man’s closet.

Eddie Ne could hardly believe he’d agreed to this as he was lifted out of his wheelchair, and placed gingerly into the training cart. Clive Thompson, with his gold wedding band and his watch and his fly zipped all the way up, pretended not to notice.

“Now just let me get your feet in here,” he was mumbling to Eddie, as he dropped his dystrophied legs into the custom made foot stirrups.

Eddie was trying to be grateful. Jack, the local farrier’s son, had paused in putting a heavier shoe on a racer, and stopped to admire his own welding job on the cart. As he pointed out to Clive and to Eddie the finer details of the cart he had made for them, the clasps, the harness, the foot stirrups, Eddie tried not to feel ashamed as they adjusted his broken legs here and there the way women arrange a newly bought curtain in a window.

“Fuck off, Jack, I know how to get a man into a sulky,” Clive finally said on his behalf. Jack shrugged his bullish shoulders and went back to shoeing the lazy bay tied to a tree. Eddie Ne shot a glance at the old black trainer tightening the belt across his lap and Clive made a point not to meet his eyes. “Now just take Reggie around for a mile and a half. Understand? A mile and a half. I don’t have time for more than that. You want a joy ride you do it on someone else’s watch. Now Reggie is a soft mouth, understand? So I don’t expect him to drag you to Seattle but don’t get comfortable and don’t get carried away.”

“I won’t get carried away,” Eddie mumbled and he meant it, the cart was nothing like a saddle, the cart was hard and stiff and unforgiving and foreign. Here he was belted in like a child to his ricepicking mother, instead of perched like a free bird. Instead of cupping his cheeks, it turned its cold metal back on him. Eddie stared at the large long blue haunches of the roan standardbred in front of him and realized he couldn’t see anything in front of him but that. You are an ass echoed the words in sharpie marker scrawled across a hockey stick in the corner of an old hospital room. They danced in front of him now along that stringy black tail, as black as that hockey stick’s shaft, all the way down to the ground.

“Mom,” he whispered ever so quietly to himself. In place of the horse’s ass was a closet door and around him a gaggle of smiling chinese prostitutes, his mother’s coworkers, their long black hair down around them, their painted faces flushed with raucous laughter, some of them pointing at his pale drawn face, one girl hugging his shoulders to her. The girl was slender and sickly, but she was smiling tenderly from above him, even hungry her face was round and pale like the moon surrounded by inky black night. His mother. There was a loud eerie knocking at the door.

“Enlai,” she commanded. Enlai was his name, he remembered it absently, an old word for appreciation or gratitude or something else obscenely ironic for the son of a whore. He snorted audibly at the memory. “Enlai, you go answer the door and you tell that ghost you’re too busy right now.”

“I don’t want to answer the door.”

“What?” Clive Thompson barked beside him.

Somewhere behind the hospital door, Brett North, his replacement, was banging on it with a hockey stick.

“I don’t want to answer the door,” Eddie repeated.

“Enlai,” the whores laughed, “You do it like this!” One of them in a bright pink dress, placed her hand on the closet door and pulled it open with a fearless tug, “Eee ghost!” she announced to the costumes hanging there like dead bodies, “We’re too busy living right now, you go haunt somebody else!” Then she slammed it shut.

Eddie Ne’s eyes were wide with fear. A group of painted girls that smelled of orchids and pork broth and tears and money from a sweaty hand and sex, wet and sticky, grabbed him by his skinny arms and pulled him, dragged him, to the handle of the door.

“Will you give me the reins?” Eddie replied and Clive frowned at him.

“Lines.”

“Give me the lines, Clive.”

Clive Thompson passed the long leather lines to him, instructed him to find the hand holds, how to place his hands on them, his large round white eyes watching him for a flinch of discomfort or fear. The blue roan Reggie let out a long impatient sigh. With the lines in his hands, Eddie clucked to the horse and Reggie went out onto the track, ears pricked, long legs working, the wheels beside him began spinning faster and faster. They began to hum. The poles whizzed by. The barns in the corner of his eyes began to blur and stretch out long and thin and disappear.

Eddie realized he could feel Reggie’s mouth in his hands, just as he could feel Yakety Sax’s and the Outlaw’s and Sweettalkin’s and Monique’s. He could still feel when Reggie wanted to move and he could sense when the blue roan was distracted by another colt and cart coming up alongside him.

“Oh mah god,” said the old man breezing up next to him and the blue roan. Eddie could barely make out the man’s face behind his goggles and hat. But he could see the large coffee stained grin and smell the cigar smoke on his worn denim shirt. “If it isn’t Eddie Ne.”

Enlai Ne smiled.

NEXT ON: