Chains of Time

by R B Woodstone

  “Oh, no, child,” she would tell him softly as she patted his arm, “I’m fine right here, watching over all of you.”

  And she did seem fine. She had Regina. She had her piano. She never complained. She never showed any sign of anger at being almost completely bedridden for eleven years. He wished that he could force himself to spend more time with Willa, but there was always something off-putting about her. He could never quite place it. Was she too calm? Was there something hidden behind that calm—something that everyone in the house seemed all too willing to ignore. He thought of the day Regina was born. So much had happened, yet no one ever spoke of it. Why, he wondered, is there so much silence in this family? And so many secrets.

  “Too many damned secrets,” he said aloud. He put the truck in reverse and started backing out of the driveway, but he heard the front door creak open and saw Regina coming toward him with a severe expression, as if she’d suddenly remembered a point of contention. As she walked, she scribbled furiously on her pad. Jerome stopped the car just as she slammed her pad hard against the dashboard window. Then he read the message through the pane: “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  She smirked and wrote, “About Warren!”

  Jerome’s foot nearly jumped from the brake as he rolled down his window, and he managed only a stammered “Uh” in response.

  Regina looked hurt as she wrote in her pad, “You’ve been seeing him!!” As he read, she pointed her finger at each word to give them even more emphasis than the exclamation points had already afforded.

  “Yeah,” he said, “well…I don’t think he wanted anyone to know we’d been in touch. Did Terry tell you?”

  She nodded no and folded her arms across her chest, pouting.

  “Gina, you know Pop would be pissed if he found out that Warren was coming around us. It’s just…”

  But she was already running toward the house and slamming the front door behind her. The bolt slid across. Soon she would be upstairs, and the bedroom door would close, leaving Regina alone with her grandmother again.

  Jerome backed the truck out of the driveway, but he couldn’t take his mind off Warren. They had been so close when they were young. Warren and their father had been inseparable too—back in the old house in Saratoga—but the seeds of discontent had already been sown. Jerome remembered when he first saw the change in Warren.

  Jerome was six. He was in the garage with his father, who was teaching him to box. Carl was holding the heavy punching bag, instructing Jerome how to strike the bag with maximum force.

  Warren was fourteen, but when he burst in, sweating and frantic, he already looked much older. He seemed almost to be shaking.

  “Pop,” Warren pleaded, “I need…”

  “I’m busy right now,” their father said. “Good, Jerome. Now step into it. Use your weight.”

  “Pop,” Warren tried again, “it’s important.”

  Jerome was extremely large for his age—almost five feet tall. He grunted as he stepped forward, striking the bag harder.

  “Yes, that’s it,” said Carl. “Warren, did you see that? He’s making dents in the bag.”

  Warren’s eyes were shifting back and forth, but their father seemed not to notice. “Yeah, Pop. Jerome’s really strong. I’ve been telling you that for months, but…”

  “Yeah, but you didn’t say how strong. This isn’t just strong for a six-year-old. This is strong for anyone.”

  “I know, Pop,” said Warren. “Listen, I need to show you something…”

  Jerome threw several punches at the bag, putting all of his body weight into them. The bag resounded with each blow, and Carl, not ready for the force of them, was knocked backward.

  “Damn,” grunted Carl.

  “Sorry, Pop,” Jerome apologized. “I guess you weren’t ready.”

  Carl glared up at Warren. “If your brother weren’t bugging me, I wouldn’t have lost my footing. Now let’s try that again.”

  Warren turned and walked off. “Fine, I’m gone.” He climbed onto his bicycle and rode off toward the heart of the city. When he returned several hours later, he was no longer anxious, though his expression seemed oddly tranquil and his eyes seemed not to focus on anything. He entered the house and walked straight up the stairs toward his room.

  “Where’ve you been? We’re eating dinner in here,” their father called out to him, but Warren just kept on walking. He entered his room and shut the door.

  Jerome hadn’t thought about that day in years. It surprised him that he could still see it so vividly. But he didn’t want to see any more of it, so he averted his thoughts, turning them instead to the issues at hand: work and training.

  Jerome knew it would be useless to look for his father at Stilson Stable. It was a Monday, which meant that the Stilsons were still at their house in East Hampton, so Carl Kelly was in charge of the stable. And the only place to look for him at 5:00 in the afternoon would be in Macombs Dam Park with Hippolyta, his favorite.

  As the car crossed Macombs Dam Bridge, Jerome tried to spot his father near the running track in the park, but the traffic was thick, and Jerome knew he’d better keep his eyes on the road. Still, he thought it shouldn’t be difficult to spot a Black man and a white horse, even when looking down on a dirt track from fifty feet above. He remembered how his father had taught him to drive on this bridge, which stretched across the Harlem River to the Bronx. Jerome had been behind the wheel only a handful of times when his father told him, All right, kid, you’re ready. Drive me to work. Only fourteen at the time, Jerome was in a state of panic. His previous driving had been limited to parking lots and deserted streets. The bridge suddenly seemed narrower than it ever had from the passenger seat; the steel post dividers between the two lanes threatened to sideswipe the truck; the oncoming traffic looked too wide for its lane. But once he’d made it across—without hitting cars or dividers—Jerome sensed in his father a trait that had previously been undetectable: trust. His father trusted him.

  Jerome parked the truck on 155th Street, exactly halfway between the stable and the park, and proceeded on foot toward the park entrance. Before he’d even made it down the block, he heard a loud neigh and saw Hippolyta’s regal head rising up the hill toward the park entrance, Carl Kelly at her side. At the sight of his son, Carl slapped the horse lightly on her back, spurring her into a slow trot. Carl ran hard to stay with her, keeping one hand on her all the time. The horse wore no saddle and no bridle. Jerome sighed at his father, though he had trouble keeping his eyes off the awesome form of the elegant, white quarter horse.

  “Pop,” Jerome said as Carl and the horse came to a stop, “you know those cops are gonna give you a ticket again if you keep taking her out unsaddled.”

  His father grunted, stroked the horse’s mane, and turned away. Jerome stared up at Hippolyta. The horse was truly magnificent. Greg Stilson had purchased her when she was only a year old, ostensibly as a gift for his daughter’s birthday, but Stilson had high hopes that Hippolyta could be trained to race. The Stilson family had made a name for itself as a keeper of horses for New York’s elite. Most of the horses they tended actually belonged to Westchester families that had purchased horses as trophies to impress their neighbors. Periodically the owners would drop by the stable, bringing friends and relatives to ooh and aah before being offended by the smell and promptly leaving. Sometimes a family would request that their horse be delivered to their home so they could watch it strut uncomfortably in the backyard for a party. There were a few owners who actually took the horses out themselves, but that was rare. Eventually, most of the horses were sold to the Stilsons at a fraction of market value. And then Jerome’s father took care of them until Stilson could resell them at a profit.

  “Did you take her around the track?” asked Jerome.

  Carl’s eyes gleamed for a moment. “A few laps.”

  “How’d she run?”

  “Hippolyta doesn’t run,” Carl winked. “She f
lies.”

  Hippolyta was unusually tall for her breed. Too tall. Quarter horses were bred to race short distances. The Stilsons had spent a small fortune on trainers and jockeys for her. They had paid to have Hippolyta boarded and trained in Saratoga for nearly a year, but her running times were never too impressive, so she had returned to the Harlem stable to stand around looking pretty. Jerome’s father, though, had always harbored a suspicion that Hippolyta’s shortcoming as a racehorse wasn’t that she was too slow but that she just wasn’t cut out for quarter horse racing; she was meant to be a long-distance racer. Carl had ridden her around the quarter mile track in the park, and she seemed never to find her stride until the second or third lap. He and Jerome sometimes pondered whether—even at four years old—she could still be trained to race. But they held their tongues. The Kelly family had been horse caretakers for generations—since the slave days. While Carl was an outspoken man, there was one sterling rule that had been passed down: Don’t ever tell the boss he’s wrong.

  “No saddle again?” asked Jerome.

  “She doesn’t like it.”

  Jerome raised an eyebrow. “Told you that, did she?”

  “Yes,” said Carl, ending the discussion, “she did.”

  Jerome loved hearing—and often asked his father to repeat—the story of the day Carl had accepted the job from the Stilsons. Carl Kelly didn’t quibble about salary or benefits. He knew it wouldn’t make much difference anyway as the Stilsons had a reputation for being cheap. Besides, they were willing to pay him off the books. His only demand of his prospective employer was to “Let me see the stables.” It was a sunny afternoon when Greg Stilson led him into the barn. Carl Kelly didn’t stop to look at any of the horses. He didn’t check the cleanliness of the facility. He didn’t inspect the feed or the equipment. These were all things he could improve later. He simply walked to the center of the stable and stared up at the ceiling. Then he turned to Stilson and said, “Good, I’ll take the job.”

  “A horse caretaker cares about only two things,” Carl Kelly taught his son. “One, the barn’s gotta be large enough, and two, there can’t be any electric lighting.” Carl was adamant that animals don’t respond naturally unless they’re treated naturally. It was hard enough on the horses just living in an urban environment. Why make matters worse by confusing a horse’s inner clock? Electric lights mimic sunshine, which was horrific enough when used to force chickens to lay eggs several times a day. Even domesticated dogs and cats, though, suffered from minor irregularities such as excess shedding when conned—by unnatural light and heat—into believing that it was always the warm season of the year. A horse was a big animal with a stubborn nervous system—a nervous system too difficult to repair once damaged. Carl’s father and his father before him had taught the same lesson: We don’t confuse the horse.

  So the stable was rather dark when Jerome and his father entered. It was late afternoon, and the eleven skylights spread out across the forty-foot high ceiling offered the only light therein.

  As they closed the stable door, a hansom cab wheeled by—different from the one Jerome had seen earlier. The horse was younger, and there was only one man at the coach. Again, though, it was a young Black man. He wore gold jewelry over his white t-shirt.

  “Why the hell are there so many of those things around here lately?” asked Carl. “Who in this neighborhood is gonna pay twenty-five bucks to ride in a carriage?”

  Jerome agreed—he, too, was curious about the carriages—but he had an agenda and wanted to act on it while he had the courage. “Pop, I wasn’t going to say anything. Terry probably wouldn’t want me to tell you, but something happened at school today.”

  His father stopped walking but remained with his back to his son. He took his hand from Hippolyta’s mane. The horse stood still, her head resting against his shoulder. “What happened?”

  “At lunch today, there was a fight…”

  “What happened?" The tension in his father’s voice was growing.

  “No one got hurt.”

  Carl spun around. “Just tell me what happened.”

  “Some punk from Terry’s class picked a fight with him.” He stopped and looked down. “I heard later that the guy and his girlfriend were picking on Regina.”

  Carl glared. He was livid. “And where were you?”

  “I didn’t see anything till the dude had already jumped on Terry. I got over there and stopped it.”

  His father’s breathing was still elevated. “Is Regina okay?”

  “Yeah,” Jerome said. “Nobody touched her.” He paused before answering the question his father hadn’t asked. “Terry’s okay too. This kid Stephon and his girlfriend were just trying to piss off Terry by making fun of Regina, and Terry got in his face about it.

  “So Terry started it?”

  Jerome shrugged and nodded. “Look, I didn’t want to make a big deal about it. I only told you because it just seems sometimes like you never give Terry credit for anything, and I wanted you to know that he’d do anything to protect Gina.”

  “Yeah?” mocked Carl. “Well, what difference does that make if in the end he’s gonna lose the fight? He’d be better off just walking away and getting his sister to safety, not trying to play hero.”

  “You know, Pop, maybe you should spend some time with Terry, teach him how to fight. You did it for me. You did it for Warren.” Carl said nothing. He just stared at his son, seething. The mention of Warren’s name had clearly angered him. “Or if you don’t want to,” Jerome went on, “I can teach him…”

  Carl’s voice grew louder. “No, you can’t! You don’t have the time. And I sure as hell know I don’t have the time. Terry’s not like you.” He paused. “And he’s not like Warren either.” He riveted his eyes on Jerome’s. “I’ve watched him closely since he was born. He’s not a fighter. There’s nothing there. I wish there were, but there’s not. He and Regina are better off just staying at home with their grandmother and doing their homework.”

  Jerome tried to keep his tone civil. He didn’t want to aggravate his father any further. “Pop, it’s not going to get any easier for Terry at school. He’s a target. He’s weak. He’s not…Kids make fun of him because of his eyes.” His father flinched. “We could at least teach him how to defend himself. If he could fight…”

  “Trust me: he doesn’t have it in him. Just look at him. Skinny as a toothpick. The last think he needs is to think he’s strong enough to defend anyone. Would be waste of time.”

  “A waste of time? That’s what you said about Warren, and look what happened to him.”

  Jerome’s father approached him slowly and stopped directly in front of him, looking up at his gargantuan son as if they were equal in height. In deference, Jerome lowered his eyes to the ground. “Now you listen to me, son, ‘cause I don’t want to have to say this again. I didn’t abandon Warren. He abandoned us. He abandoned this family.” The words were coming out choppy, sliding between anger and gloom. “I did my best for him. He walked away because he’d rather get high than face up to responsibility.” He spit on the ground. “And his mother died for his choices.” He stopped and nodded his head back and forth as he continued. “Fine. Fine. Go ahead and help Terry. Go ahead and teach him how to fight if he’ll let you. But don’t you ever mention Warren to me again. He’s dead to me.” With that, he turned and headed downstairs to his office in the cellar.

  After returning Hippolyta to her stall, Jerome patrolled the stable, patting the horses’ heads, sneaking them carrots and sugar cubes, and talking to them softly. Since he was a child, Jerome had heard his father speak to the horses. Jerome had always made fun of him for it, so he wasn’t quite ready to admit that he’d adopted the same practice himself. He kept his voice hushed.

  “When you’re done slipping candy to the breeds,” his father’s voice echoed from the intercom, “you can brush down Hippolyta.”

  The stable was almost the size of a city block. It housed forty-three horses, each in a
twenty-by-twenty stall. The stalls were spread out in a rectangle around the edges, thus creating a huge ring in the middle where the horses were allowed to wander from time to time. Jerome considered letting a few of them stroll there, but his father had given an order. As he brushed Hippolyta with the water and alcohol mixture, he decided it was a good time to broach the subject of Regina—from a safe distance. He remained in Hippolyta’s stall and switched on the intercom, opening the channel to his father’s office in the cellar.

  “Pop, I was talking to Coach Dodge…”

  “About your stupid play this morning in practice?” his father quipped.

  Jerome stopped stroking the horse and lowered the brush. “What do you…? You saw…” Jerome stared at the intercom on the wall as if it were animate, as if it were his father’s face, scowling, accusing, hardened by time and tragedy.

  “Yeah, I saw. And I didn’t like what I saw, so don’t let me see it again. I let you play football because it’s important to you, but if you’re gonna play, then play…”

  Jerome knew that his father sometimes watched practice from afar through a pair of binoculars that he kept in his car. For a moment, Jerome worried that his father had seen what had come afterward—Warren at the fence. But that wasn’t possible. Had he seen that interaction, Carl Kelly would have charged into the park and interrupted it. Warren was off-limits in every way. “Pop, I’m just trying not to hurt anybody…You’re the one who told me to go easy on the other kids…”