I'll Pay You for the Trouble

The last time i remember him telling one was some time in the eighties. He paid me a few dollars and then refused to say anything more about it. I had to settle for the fact that he named his gelding zan, which i took to be an allusion to xanthus one of achillessorse. The horse himself offered no clue to dad's state of mind. Zan was average height, five feet seven from hoofs to withers, and average weight somewhere around a thousand pounds. In a word, zan was unremarkable. What was remarkable was the relationship between dad and zan. It was close and grew closer.