Each and every time I read one of Barry Yourgrau's remarkable stories, it hits me like a powerful drug. In the spirit of celebrating my very favorite Barry collections, below are two of the shorter pieces, the first from A Man Jumps Out Of An Airplane and the second taken from Wearing Dad's Head. Even if you enjoy these pieces a fraction as much as I do, you will be overflowing with enjoyment.


HORSE OPERA
A man is awakened from a nap on a muggy afternoon. Someone is trying to be an opera singer. The man swears groggily and sticks his head out the window.

There is a police horse across the street. The policeman is standing beside it, red-faced and confused, his hat in the gutter. The horse sways its flanks and tail, and paws the ground with a hoof and tosses its head -- all this in time to the aria it is bellowing out-of-tune with its wide-open horse's mouth.

The man blinks at this extraordinary sight. He pulls his head in from the window and rubs his fists in his eyes and goes over and empties the water glass over his head. Cautiously, he sticks his head out again. The horse is still at it. The cop is nowhere to be seen. The man hears sirens now, in the distance. The horse seems to hear them too, because it stops for a moment and cocks its head. Then it starts up again at an absolutely frantic pitch of expressive fervor. It rears back on its haunches and crosses its front hooves over its heart and squeezes its eyes shut; its great epiglottis throbs in the depths of its throat.

The onrushing sirens quickly drown this heartfelt song. But they don't stop the singer. The horse continues to croon its heart out even after the patrol cars skid up and the angry blue figures swarm out and throw ropes all over it and haul it up a ramp. It is still singing, as the big metal doors swing shut and the orange light flashes, and the big black van goes rumbling away.



UTTERS
I get involved in a game of strip poker. The others have somehow persuaded a cow to join in. The cow stands stupid and uncomfortable in the cigar smoke. My tablemates ply it with booze. it is decked out in a pathetic catalogue of bedroom apparel. Naturally it always plays a losing hand. It can't manage with its garments, and everyone makes full use of the opportunity to handle it, in the name of assistance. I watch in disgust as a beefy bank-manager type fumbles with a lacy garter on the cow's flank. His hands are trembling. "Will you look at those udders, will you look at those udders," he keeps mumbling. His face is flushed crimson. The cow shifts a leg, quaking, big-eyed. "Count me out," I mutter finally. I throw in my cards, for good. Without further ceremony I push back my chair and go out onto the patio. i take a couple of deep breaths. The salacious laughter rises behind me. I hurry off unsteadily down the steps, feeling unclean and despicable. "These package vacations are a nightmare," I think to myself. In this frame of mind I wander about the lakefront for an hour. Not a soul is about. Lugubriously I make my way back. I stop at the foot of the patio steps. The sound of mooing goes out into the night, above the swarming of abandoned laughter, the yelps and the cries. Silhouetted shadows come and go in the French windows' curtains; horns toss about and disappear. Sourly I turn to leave again, when the French windows burst open. The bank manager staggers out into the moonlight. He wheels down the steps, his shirt tails loose, his suspenders flapping at his knees, and lurches straight into me. "Oh my god, oh my god," he moans, half in ecstasy, half in horror. I shove him away from me. His face is smeared with milk.

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