I'm Your Horse in the Night

            Last week we were asked to get into small groups and read two short stories from the text book: one our group would choose to read, and the second would be a story that another group chose to read. Our group chose to look at the short work I’m Your Horse in the Night by Luis Valenzuela and we then switched and read How Far She Went by Mary Hood. Both were very intriguing and I enjoyed each immensely. I was impressed by how much meaning each author crammed in to just a few short pages, especially Luis Valenzuela considering I’m Your Horse in the Night is only two pages! Once we read each story, Mr. Delacruz instructed us to decipher each story’s theme, as we would be required to write a creative response to the theme of our choosing.

            I’m Your Horse in the Night is very brief, yet packed with action and meaning. Valenzuela depicts the scene of a woman, Chiquita, who is finally reunited with the criminal named Beto for a night of love- making. It is a very emotional rendezvous, as the two have not seen each other in a lengthy time due to Beto’s villainous status. The next morning, Beto is gone and the police storm Chiquita’s apartment demanding she divulge where he is. Chiquita describes the occurrence the previous night to the police as a dream as shown by the quote, “My only real possession was a dream and the can’t deprive me of my dreams just like that. My dream the night before, when Beto was there with me and we loved each other.” In this quote, Chiquita describes her experience with Beto as merely a dream and not reality, as described earlier in the story.

This was the part in I’m Your Horse in the Night where my group became confused. We were unsure if Chiquita and Beto actually engaged in sexual activity or if it was all a dream! It took us awhile to interpret that out of her endearing love for Beto, Chiquita morphed her memories of real experiences into dreams. Chiquita didn’t allow herself to give Beto’s whereabouts to the police. She essentially bended her own perception of reality to protect the person she cared for deeply. She even endured torture for him! The passge, “(Go ahead, burn me with your cigarettes, kick me all you wish, threaten, go ahead, stick a mouse in me so it’ll eat my insides out, pull my nails out, do as you please,” shows Chiquita’s unrelenting determination to keep Beto safe.

Based off this realization, my group mates and I concurred the message in I’m Your Horse in the Night to be that humans will go to extraordinary lengths to protect things or people from harm, even if they are criminals. In hindsight, my group sorted through the part of the story that puzzled us and figured out the author, Valenzuela, intentionally inserted the part of Chiquita telling the police Beto was a dream to confuse the reader and ultimately produce the theme of the story – that is if the reader could figure it out as such. I’m Your Horse in the Night is a masterpiece because it tells a riveting story with a deep meaning in only two pages! Valenzuela is a genius! Tune in to my next blog to hear what my group came up with for the theme of How Far She Went by Mary Hood.