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Wild Horses
Epilogue
A tow truck arrived the next day, bright and early, and hauled the Mustang off to a body shop for repairs,
and that was the last time Mason ever saw it. He didn’t asked about what happened to it, and his father
never offered any explanations.
That Monday he went to work at the construction site, and didn’t have all that bad of a time during the
summer. The foreman had falsely told his crew that Mason was his nephew, and talked C.C. into using an
alternate drop off/pick up point, so that Mason would ride up to the job site with 'Uncle John'. This way, he
didn’t have the sigma of being the rich Capwell boy to overcome.
At first the guys teased him endlessly about his soft hands, pale skin, and inability to lift heavy objects, but
then as the weeks went on they started referring to him as ‘nephew’, and when the boss wasn’t around,
they told him colorful stories, and Mason learned how ‘real men’ spoke when only men were around.
One day Earl, the loudest man on the team, summoned him over by calling out, “Hey nephew, come over
here, I got something to show you.” He looked around to assure himself that the boss man was nowhere
around, then he reached around under his shirt and pulled out a doubled up magazine and handed to
Mason. All the others stopped what they were doing to watch as Mason started thumbing through it, and
they all roared with laughter as his eyes got big. Earl slapped him hard on the back and told him “take it
home with you, kid, knock yourself out with it,” which inspired another round of laughter from the men.
The trips to and from the pickup point were almost always silent. Mason and C.C. didn’t have much to talk
about. Usually on the way home, Mason was busy writing in a journal that he kept of the manly things that
he was taught during the day. He didn’t think that C.C. had any idea about the kind of education that he
was receiving, or sometimes he wondered if that wasn’t the whole purpose of this unusual arrangement,
saving his father from having to have any of those awkward father/son talks about sensitive matters.
Mason had a few loose floorboards in his room where he hid his journal, the magazines he picked up at
the construction site, and a certain chrome figure horse.
There was never a shortage of promises and hope dangled in front of him by his father, and he would
always go chasing after them. But it would be years before he would ever stage another revolt against
him, and it would be years before his father would ever hug again.
Whenever he felt at his lowest, Mason would retrieve the mustang figure from its confines in the floor, and
would trace the outline of it with his finger, as a reminder of that brief time that he had dared to run wild
and free.
A tow truck arrived the next day, bright and early, and hauled the Mustang off to a body shop for repairs,
and that was the last time Mason ever saw it. He didn’t asked about what happened to it, and his father
never offered any explanations.
That Monday he went to work at the construction site, and didn’t have all that bad of a time during the
summer. The foreman had falsely told his crew that Mason was his nephew, and talked C.C. into using an
alternate drop off/pick up point, so that Mason would ride up to the job site with 'Uncle John'. This way, he
didn’t have the sigma of being the rich Capwell boy to overcome.
At first the guys teased him endlessly about his soft hands, pale skin, and inability to lift heavy objects, but
then as the weeks went on they started referring to him as ‘nephew’, and when the boss wasn’t around,
they told him colorful stories, and Mason learned how ‘real men’ spoke when only men were around.
One day Earl, the loudest man on the team, summoned him over by calling out, “Hey nephew, come over
here, I got something to show you.” He looked around to assure himself that the boss man was nowhere
around, then he reached around under his shirt and pulled out a doubled up magazine and handed to
Mason. All the others stopped what they were doing to watch as Mason started thumbing through it, and
they all roared with laughter as his eyes got big. Earl slapped him hard on the back and told him “take it
home with you, kid, knock yourself out with it,” which inspired another round of laughter from the men.
The trips to and from the pickup point were almost always silent. Mason and C.C. didn’t have much to talk
about. Usually on the way home, Mason was busy writing in a journal that he kept of the manly things that
he was taught during the day. He didn’t think that C.C. had any idea about the kind of education that he
was receiving, or sometimes he wondered if that wasn’t the whole purpose of this unusual arrangement,
saving his father from having to have any of those awkward father/son talks about sensitive matters.
Mason had a few loose floorboards in his room where he hid his journal, the magazines he picked up at
the construction site, and a certain chrome figure horse.
There was never a shortage of promises and hope dangled in front of him by his father, and he would
always go chasing after them. But it would be years before he would ever stage another revolt against
him, and it would be years before his father would ever hug again.
Whenever he felt at his lowest, Mason would retrieve the mustang figure from its confines in the floor, and
would trace the outline of it with his finger, as a reminder of that brief time that he had dared to run wild
and free.