The Black Stallion
My first book collection after the Bible, all 66 books, was the Black Stallion Series by Walter Farley. These adventures were my pride and passion. It was fueled by the first movie I ever saw on the big screen, can you guess?…The Black Stallion. My dad and mom took my sister and me to a movie theater somewhere in Midtown, near Radio City Music Hall. I remember the sinking ship, the billowing flames, and the Black Arabian stallion galloping across white power sands with infinite sky and azure sea as a backdrop. I remember the wild untamed rogue stallion fighting at Belmont race track before post call for the match race of the century against trained American thoroughbred racehorses, the clarion first call and call to post of the bugler on the track, the equestrian explosion of sinew, muscle, poetry, fire, and desire and blasting out of the metal contraption of a starting gate…and then the alternating staccato and bass of the breath of the black steed and the rhythm…of the lady kicking my seat behind me screaming as the obsidian Arabian came from a half a mile behind, umpteen horse-lengths with irrefutable will, indisputable power, and undeniable speed. The Arabs called him Shetan. Why? Was it because only the devil is that quick? Lies travel the universe like light while the truth presses its pants, buttons its shirts, tweaks the cufflinks, buffs the shoes, ties the laces, and opens the door.
The Palomino Poster, 35 years later, with creases. Photo by MIstofer Christopher
I invested into everything horse. I bought a Mustang poster for .75 cents from Scholastic Book Club. I saved up my allowance until I got to…I think it was one dollar and seventy-five cents and I purchased the first book in the series, The Black Stallion. I saved a few more dollars after a few months and I bought the second, The Black Stallion Returns. Every few months I would take a ride with my Dad to the mall and buy a book at Waldenbooks or Barnes and Noble. My collection was slowly building up. These books were treasures. I voraciously and carefully devoured them. I was a wine connoisseur, reflecting on the year of the wine and the events within it, selecting the correct crystal glass, decanting, and aerating the wine. The vintage had to breathe.
Slowly and carefully I pulled the book from the vault, the bookshelf. I studied the picture, and listened for the snorting of stallions and the racing hooves of thunder mares. Gingerly, ever so gingerly, I opened up the book to a particular degree. It was just enough so the reader had to tilt their head and stretch the eye to see the last word of each line. I couldn’t risk it. I didn’t want the book’s spine to collect those irritating, ugly, varicose, white, spindly vein creases that would radically depreciate my heavy investment. Not my prized book collection! Not on my yellow Snoopy Watch!
30+ years later with the wrinkly, varicose, white veins on the spine.
I started writing letters to Arabian horse farms and breeders around the country to send me information about their million dollar mares and stallions and their genealogical lines. Reflecting back now I wonder what those wealthy estates thought upon receiving a handwritten, cursive letter on three hole-punched binder paper requesting information about sales, cost, and breeding lines of their horses. Maybe they flipped the envelope and saw Saint Albans, New York. Queens…. New York City? “Maybe the kid has a backyard.” I did have one. It was huge. I raised one little albino rabbit back there named Nosey Alby Miller. The colt could have a stall next to the rabbit hutch and the barbecue grill. They would always write me back. I was important. Those estates would send me tremendous stock options, manila envelopes with Arabian horse booklets filled with glossy pictures, breeding lines, bloodlines, baby colt and filly announcements and a personal letter addressed to Mr. Miller, Chris Miller.