Equus Page #7

It lifts in the dark.

Equus, godslave.

Now the king commands you.

Tonight, we ride against them all,

the hosts of bowler,

the hosts of Jodhpur,

all those who show you

off for their vanity,

tie rosettes on your head for their vanity.

Come on, Equus, let's get them.

Trot! Steady, steady! Steady, steady!

That's it, steady, steady.

Cowboys are watching,

taking off their Stetsons.

They know who we are.

They're admiring us.

Bowing low unto us.

Come on now, show them.

Canter! Canter!

And Equus the mighty rose against all.

His enemies scatter.

His enemies fall.

Turn! Trample them! Trample them!

Trample them! Turn.

Trample them! Trample them!

Trample them! Turn.

Turn! Turn! Turn!

Turn! Turn! Turn!

Stiff! Stiff in the wind.

My mane, stiff in the wind!

I'm raw, I'm raw. Do you feel my raw?

Feel me on you?

On you! On you! I want to be inside you.

I want to be inside you, and be you.

Forever one person.

I love you!

Bear me away.

Make us now one person.

Ahh! One person!

Ahh! One person!

Amen.

Afterwards, he says,

they always embrace.

He showed me how he stands in the night,

like a frozen tango dancer,

inhaling the cold...

Sweet breath.

Have you noticed it about horses,

the way they'll stand,

one hoof on its end,

like those girls in the ballet?

And now,

he's gone off to rest,

leaving me alone,

with Equus.

I can hear the creature's voice.

He's calling me out

of the black cave of the psyche.

I shove in my dim little torch,

and there he stands,

waiting for me.

He raises his matted head.

He opens his great square teeth,

and he says,

"Why? Why me?

"Why, ultimately, me?

"Do you really imagine

you can account for me,

"totally, infallibly,

inevitably account for me?

"Poor Dr. Dysart."

Of course, I've stared

at such images before,

or been stared at by them,

whichever way you look at it.

And weirdly, often now with me,

the feeling is that they are staring at us.

That in some quite palpable way,

they precede us.

Meaningless, but unsettling.

In either case, this particular one.

This huge, implacable head

is the most alarming yet.

It asks questions

I've avoided all my professional life.

A child is born into a world of phenomena,

all equal in their power to enslave.

It sniffs, it sucks, it strokes its eyes,

over the whole, uncountable range.

Suddenly, one strikes.

Then another. Then another.

Why'?

Moments snap together,

like magnets forging a chain of shackles.

Why'?

I can trace them. I can even,

with time, pull them apart again.

But why, at the start,

they were ever magnetized at all,

why those particular moments

of experience and no others,

I do not know, and nor does anybody else!

And if I don't know,

if I can never know,

what am I doing here?

I don't mean clinically doing,

or socially doing, but fundamentally.

These whys, these questions,

are fundamental.

Yet they have no place

in a consulting room.

So, then, do I?

Do any of us?

This is the feeling, more and more.

Displacement.

Relentless...

Displacement.

"Account for me,"

says staring Equus.

"First, account for me!"

Dr. Dysart!

Dr. Dysart!

There's a terrible scene with

the Strang boy in the violence room.

His mother brought him chocolates.

He threw them at her, hard!

Don't you dare!

Don't you dare.

Don't you look at me like that.

I'm not a doctor, you know,

who'll take anything.

Don't you give me that stare, young man.

Mrs. Strang.

I know your stares, they

don't work on me...

Leave here at once!

What did you say?

I tell you to leave here at once.

Goodbye, Alan.

Wait for me here.

I must ask you never to come here again.

You think I want to?

Do you think I want to?

Mrs. Strang,

what on earth has got into you?

Into me?

- Can't you see the boy's highly distressed?

- Oh, really?

Yes, he's at the most delicate stage

of treatment.

He's totally ex... ex... exposed,

ashamed, everything you can imagine.

And me?

What about me?

What do you think I am?

I'm a parent. Of course,

that doesn't count.

That's a dirty word in here, isn't it?

"Parent"?

Now, you know that's not true.

Oh, I know it, I know it, all right.

I've heard it all my life.

I...it's our fault.

Whatever happens, we did it.

You come to us and say,

"Who forbids television?

"Who does what behind whose back?"

As if we're criminals.

Well, let me tell you something.

We're not criminals.

We've done nothing wrong.

We loved Alan.

We gave him the best love we could.

Poor Frank digs into the boy too much,

but... but nothing in excess.

He's not a bully.

No, Doctor.

Whatever has happened,

has happened because of Alan.

If you added up everything

we ever did to him,

from his first day on Earth to this,

you wouldn't find out why he did this,

t... terrible thing.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

I want you to understand,

because I lie awake,

and awake, thinking it out.

And I want you to know

that I deny it absolutely,

what he's doing now.

Staring at me,

attacking me for what he's done.

For what... he... is.

- Mrs. Strang!

- Oh!

You have your words, and I have mine.

But if you knew God, Doctor,

you would know about the devil.

The devil isn't made by what Mummy says,

or what Daddy says.

The devil is there.

It's an old-fashioned

word, but a true thing.

I'll go.

What I did just now was inexcusable.

I only know that...

He was my little Alan,

and then the devil came.

I thought you liked your mother.

She doesn't know anything, you know.

I haven't told her what you told me.

You know that, don't you?

It was lies, anyway.

What was?

You and your pencil.

Just a con-trick, that's all.

Made me say a lot of lies.

Like what?

All of it. Everything I said.

A lot of lies.

I see.

Ought to be locked up. Bloody tricks.

Thought you liked tricks.

It'll be the drug next, huh?

What drug?

I've heard. I'm not ignorant.

I know what you get up to in here,

shove needles in people and pump them

full of truth drugs, so they...

Can't help saying things.

That's next, isn't it?

Alan,

do you know why you're here?

So you can give me truth drugs.

He actually believes they exist.

Truth drugs?

MARTINI Yes.

And don't they?

Of course not.

The important thing is that he...

Wants a way to speak,

to finally tell me

what happened in those stables.

Tape is too isolated,

and hypnosis, he pretends, is a trick,

so he can deny it later.

Now I'm tempted to play

a real trick on him.

Like what?

Give him an aspirin.

Tell him it's the strongest truth drug

in the world.

He'd just deny everything again afterwards.

The same thing all over.

No, because I'd tell him

the truth afterwards,

that it was simply an aspirin.

And he'll believe me.

You know, underneath all that glowering,

the boy trusts me.

You realize that?

Oh, I'm sure he does.

Poor, bloody fool.

Oh, now, please, Martin, dear,

don't start that again.

Can you think of anything worse

one can do to somebody

than to take away their worship?

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