Black Beauty - Charlie Foxtrot (Sid)

False Alarm. The Last Run. Chicago 1923

Is it still so today? In the late mid-century (1959) book reports were de rigueur. Rough estimate? One a semester. How can it be done today? The Internet is swarming with synopses and book reports. Why would a kid do one? I'm sure they just rip it. I would have if I could have.


These two words together, book and report, caused a strange chain reaction in my father, Jack. It came up fairly frequently (what with 3 kids). I think that most fathers have auto-response stories. The first time you hear it as a little tyke your daddy impresses you as quite the raconteur. But by the time you learn to do some bigger boy shit, you are sick to death of the story.


“Book Report” hence “Black Beauty”. “Book Report” hence “Black Beauty”. “Book Report” hence “Black Beauty”. Get it? Jack claimed that he did one book report in his life. Guess what the fuck book it was on? Come on..Double dare..One guess! Shit! You got it. Great fucking guess!


A few years ago I snagged a worm-eaten edition in a Good-Will shop and read the sappy story for the first time. It is an honest-to-God tear-jerker of the highest order, a must read in the genre, an “Uncle Tom's Cabin” for horses (if you will).


Jack didn't say much at all about his childhood. Or more accurately, Jack said nothing about his childhood, ever. All I ever got were these involuntary snapshots when an auto-response story was triggered, kind of a combination faded photo album and record stuck in a groove. (Kiddies, ask your Grandparents what that last thing means.)


So I slightly compulsively decided to try to recreate what Jack's response might be to having read Black Beauty in (I'm guessing) Fourth Grade. What year would that be? (I'm guessing)1918? (Help me big sister!) There were working horses in Chicago then. In 1921 Chicago had 350 horse drawn fire fighting apparatus. On February 6, 1923 at 12:40 PM there was an intentional false alarm. As the last horses left the station. New motorized equipment was backed into place. The horses were taken to the House of Correction and sold. The fire department horse story could excite the righteous indignation of a little kid. (In fact these horses were treated like royalty. The Chicago Fire Department spent more on horses than firefighters).


The thing is, Jack would have been conflicted (feel free to substitute any hackneyed psychobabble for this word). From what I can gather his family life was a genuine cluster fuck (OK, I am overly fond of the expression. I will commence using Charlie Foxtrot.) Jack's family life was a Charlie Foxtrot. (Fuck! That just doesn't have the same ring.) Anyhow...from what little knowledge of Jack's childhood has seeped down, I gather that he was kicked out of the house and on the streets at age 13. (where he made a smash success selling Pornography, Condoms, Ripped-Off Picture Postcards, and Ripped Off Handicapping Sheets for the Pony Races). I am imagining that this was a harsh life: cops beating him, condom competitors beating him, handicappers beating him, and perhaps even effete post card photographers beating him. I imagine the Porno people were the worst. How could he continue to embrace jejune sympathy for a fictional British horse. “I cry now for me, not thee.” must have been.


I don't think Jack knew how to deal with a normal family situation where kids did regular book reports and were free to fully feel the rush of sympathy for Black Beauty. He knew a different reality. Black Beauty wasn't needed for a sad story. I'm afraid he didn't know how to tell me that. Too bad for me. Too bad for him. Charlie Foxtrot.