Fucking Horse Essay

I am currently reading a biography on Jerry Lee Lewis, 1950’s ‘boogie-woogie’ extraordinaire, and I am struck by a motif which, author Nick Tosches, weaves brilliantly throughout the book. Tosches introduces Lewis’ story by chronicling the Lewis family history with apparently mundane details, one of which describes his great-grandfathers ability to knock a horse to his knees with one punch. Such a blow is surely impossible, I think, but the way Tosches writes, the reader cannot help but wonder. A horse to his knees with one blow?—Tosches doesn’t bother arguing the truth or fiction, he simply moves on with the story.

Many chapters later, after eloquently describing Jerry Lee’s rise to fame in the face of a condemning Pentecostal faith, Tosches describes the rocking piano player’s demise. Lewis never filled the ‘King of Rock’n’Roll’ vacuum created by Elvis’ draft into the military. Instead, he married his thirteen year old cousin while still not legally divorced from his second wife. The English press had a hay-day with such a scandal, and the paparazzi paper trail followed Lewis home to the United States. Circumstances faded to black for years, right along with the life of his newest baby boy and the bottles of pills he devoured to placate his conflicted thoughtfulness. Finally, describing Jerry Lee as sitting next to his backyard pool in a contemplative state, longing for redemption through resurrected popular support, Tosches writes, ‘[Jerry Lee] would sit their, gazing at the tame, purling water, and he would know that [it was only a matter of time till he would once again be redeemed]. And he would make a fist, wishing that there were a horse that he could knock to its fucking knees.’

I not only sometimes wish for the horse, but for the ability to knock that horse to its fucking knees.