My leg’s broken, he thought as he lay in the hospital, aged thirty-eight. Not broken, amputated. That’s it, that’s why I don’t feel anything, because it’s been amputated.
I can’t feel anything. Bang, bang.
Then, blessedly, the leg began to hurt.
3
He was out of the hospital, the cast was off and he was walking toward the stadium. Limping, that is, for the plaster had been chipped away only four weeks ago and it would be at least that long again before he could walk straight. But he must remember, when he got inside the stadium corridor and en route for Polk’s office, to hide the limp and walk unhaltingly. At whatever cost in stab and sting, don’t falter.
He smiled at the irony; how different it was now. When he was nineteen, with his leg broken, the trick was to limp as dramatically as possible so that the boss and the other punchers would say: a lot of guts, that kid, roarin’ and ridin’ with a game leg like that. But if he limped now, what would they say? The old man’s had it now, old bones don’t heal. Shit, he’d show them. He was practically all mended now. Even his arm, the pain in his elbow, all gone. Two injections, that’s all it took—just as he had hoped it would happen—and forty-eight hours after the second shot, the ache in the arm was almost forgotten. He felt better than he had in years . . . except for the dizziness.
He opened the door into the wide hallway of the stadium building. It was Monday, the rodeo’s usual day off, maintenance day. The corridor was cluttered with supplies and equipment, leather and saddlery to be repaired, company chaps and show duds to be refurbished. The maintenance man, Earl Knobley, square-headed and humorless, was checking things out with Marge, a middle-aged secretary. Mike hoped he could pass them unnoticed as he heard Earl murmuring, “Four to be cleaned, one to be mended and cleaned.”
But Marge saw him. “Why, if it isn’t—! Holy!—How’s the leg?”
Mike affected a smile. “What leg?”
Earl said something that sounded like attaboy and they all laughed excessively, and hollowly. Mike heard the empty ring of it and walked twice as briskly as before toward Howard’s office. He knocked on the door and Polk’s voice told him to come in.
Howard’s office always made him feel ill at case. There was always an elusive trace of scent in the air as if Polk had used an atomizer the instant before Mike’s arrival. And the furniture was too delicate, antiques too spindly for men of leather to sit in; Mike was sure the Easterner wanted the punchers to be uncomfortable in them.
Howard didn’t rise from behind the desk; he rarely did. “Well! Michael! Up out of the dirt, huh? And the limp’s all gone.”
Mike said, too heartily, “Christ, that was gone over a week ago.”
Howard watched him narrowly. “Good.” The word was slow in coming.
“I figured I’d go back in tomorrow,” Mike said.
Howard let Mike’s sentence disappear. Then he said evenly, “You’re through, Michael.”
There was hardly any inflection in his voice. So little, in fact, that Mike wasn’t sure he’d heard it right. “What do you mean, I’m through?” Mike was smiling, pretending he had heard a joke, his voice as level as Howard’s. But the latter didn’t answer, just let it sit there, gathering meaning around it. “Because I had a cast on for a few weeks? Hell, I’ve ridden in plaster. Dozens of times. I won the Dallas Buckle in plaster.”
“You were ten years younger.”
“I can still outride any seventeen-year-old snot you’ve got in the show.” He hoped the smile was still on his face; he was doing his best to keep it there.
With a cutting edge, “Outride him, yes. But he’s got the big muscle.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You won’t take the chances he’ll take. Oh, an accident, yes—like a horse stomping on you. He’ll do it on purpose. He’s out there to give the crowd a bang.”
“I am too,” he said. “Christ, I do the Ride-Out!” He could feel himself being defensive, but he hoped his voice wasn’t showing it. He was trying to be as cool as possible, and managing. Then he heard himself make a meaningless little boast. “You heard them yelling for me.”
“Of course they yell for you, those idiots,” Howard said evenly. “But when you’re not in the show, they don’t walk away from the box office. While you were gone, I bet we didn’t lose ten tickets.”
Mike tried to step back a little, not lose his temper. But his voice was rising. “I’m not through, Polk. I’m not crippled and I’m not sick—and I’m not old. I’m as good as I ever was! I’m better—I—”
His loss of equanimity was costly. Dizziness. His hand went to his head, he took an unsteady step.
Howard slowly rose from his chair. “Sit down, Michael.”
“No,” he said.
“You’ve been getting dizzy spells.”
“No . . .”
“The hospital report says . . .” Howard was leafing through a pile of papers on his desk.
Damn them for giving out such a confidential report. Wasn’t there something about medical ethics? “What do they know?” he interrupted Howard’s search for the report. “I’ll get over it. I got over the limp and I’ll get over this.” He said it before it really happened. “There, goddamn it—it’s gone!” Almost at the instant of the utterance, it was gone, his head as clear as it needed to be, his equilibrium restored.
Howard stood there, relaxed but unapproachable, watching the puncher.
When Mike spoke again there was a sound in his voice he hadn’t meant, something too conciliatory. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll work off salary for a month—a whole month—no salary at all.”
Howard was mordantly quiet. Then: “You’re not getting the point, Michael,” he said. “I don’t regret firing you—I’m happy to do it. I don’t want you hanging around.”
A naked silence. He’s going to shove the knife in deeper now, Mike thought. I should get out of here and not give him the pleasure of cutting me up. But if I turn now, he’ll see me in flight.
“The only reason I kept you,” Howard went on, “was because of the Ride-out. But while you were gone Frank Sherett did it—twice. Not very well, I admit. But he can get better—you can only get worse.”
Mike felt it, the cold blade. “Thanks,” he said. “Serves me right for coming with my hat in my hand.”
He turned to go.
But Howard hadn’t yet done it all. “You need a few bucks?” he said.
He answered quietly, “I’m thinking it over, whether to smash your face in a little.”
“You’re broke, aren’t you?” Howard said. “Like every cowpoke in the world. Blew every buck on loud cars and loud dames.”
“And alimony,” Mike said. It was a petty revenge, but he wasn’t scorning anything that would get him even the tiniest requital.
Howard’s smile was more crooked than it should have been and Mike realized he had hit him harder than he had expected. All Mike knew about Howard’s divorce was rumor, a vague newspaper account years ago, with overtones of corruption and viciousness and a bloody battle over property settlements in Mexico, and the custody of a son.
“No,” said Howard with less equanimity than he pretended, “we can’t forget alimony.”
“I thought I’d put a little thorn up your ass too.”
Polk smiled thinly. “It’s there, all right.”
Howard’s vulnerable moment was over. His face became as impassive as if he had never suffered a single troubled moment over the divorce. And perhaps he hadn’t. Perhaps the loss of the wife and son hadn’t really bothered him, hadn’t left him scarred. The man was passionless. And with that same unruffled coolness he now opened the drawer of his desk and reached for his checkbook. “Here. Let me give you a check for a few hundred.”
“You can stick that where the thorn is,” Mike said. “And thanks for g
iving me a chance to say that.”
Mike left the office, walking without the faintest sign of a limp. But when he got to the parking lot the ache in his leg worsened and, surrendering to it, he hobbled a little, no need to conceal it anymore.
It wasn’t until he got home that the shock hit him: he was fired. As he walked up the outdoor stairway that led to his apartment, he realized he was, for the first time in his life, a man without a future. Washed up.
No, that was Howard’s appraisal, not his. He hadn’t been totally canceled, not yet. It might take him a few weeks to find something, but he would land a job, he was bound to. He would have to get right down to it.
But he didn’t. He paced back and forth from the bedroom to the kitchen, from the living room to the small bar in the alcove. He wasn’t tired enough to lie down or hungry enough for lunch and it was too early for bourbon.
Should he call Nat Willis in Houston? Willis was an old friend and Mike could count on the rodeo owner to find him a place in his company. But he knew there’d be no need for a Ride-Out man in a regular competition outfit, and he’d have to tell Nat he wasn’t choosy, he’d take anything—pickup man, hazer, even chute boss. Could he bring himself to do one of those jobs?
Toward two o’clock he called. Willis’ daughter answered the phone and said her father was on the road with his company. He’d be getting to Oklahoma City in an hour or two. If Mike left his number she’d see that her father called him.
He phoned the owner-manager of the Lone Star Arena, Purdy Mathison, who had given him his first rodeo prize, years ago. The man who answered the telephone was a Mr. Mathison, all right, but with a much younger voice.
“My father’s retired,” the voice said. “And we only book rodeos three, four times a year. Are you a friend of his?” There was no cordiality in it.
Yes, Young Voice, I’m a friend of his, but not of yours, I guess. “Just say hello to your father,” he said.
There was nothing doing at the Cow Arena near San Francisco; Bill Rush, just leaving Omaha, had heard rumors Mike wasn’t riding at all anymore; the Three Cities Company had gone broke; and the crud who was the new general manager of Rick’s Rodeo suggested snidely that if Mike was not out to pasture, why wasn’t he? He thought fleetingly of calling the Rodeo Cowboys Association to ask for judging jobs, but he’d been out of competition so long he was sure they would turn him down.
It was nearly five in the afternoon and Nat Willis had not called him back, so Mike was certain the man hadn’t received his message. He called Houston again. By six o’clock he still hadn’t heard from Nat. . . . Maybe Rick’s general manager was right. . . .
It would be good if he had a little extra money now. Not that he was stone broke, but his few thousand dollars wouldn’t last very long. Not with his payments to Donna . . .
. . . and the continued burden of the lost year.
Damn, it had been a long time since he had allowed that term to enter his mind: the lost year. He thought he had successfully driven it out of his consciousness. It had no right to plague him anymore, that one terrible year. Bad enough that he was still paying for it, discharging his debt at a high rate of interest. Remorse was an added penalty; it made the interest rate go higher. Donna had once said that regret was usury—he’d have to get over it. But the regret he knew he wouldn’t get over was Donna herself: what to do about payments to her?
Just after six the phone rang and Nat Willis’ assistant called. He said that Nat was very busy breaking in some new people and was there anything the assistant could do for Mr. Milo? No, said Mike, tell Willis thanks very much.
He wanted a drink and when it was starting to get dark outside, he poured himself a stiff one. But just as he was about to drink it, the dizziness came on again and he decided not to risk it.
* * *
• • •
Mike sat at right angles to Donna, sharing her coffee table, and realized that if someone had asked him to describe his ex-wife he’d have been unable to do it. Physically, yes: a body without angles, all curves, but slender, endless legs, eyes too dark for a blonde face, quietly beautiful. But even the beautiful part wouldn’t be true all the time. Right now, for example, she looked like a spinster. How neat she was, even the way she sat, with her coffee cup in her lap, her knees together, her ankles together; the way she uttered words, each one clean and separate, dryly, as if she had no spittle in her mouth. Yet, that wasn’t Donna—she wasn’t coldly spinsterish—she was a warm woman with a genuine smile and an open hand available to anyone, especially those in pain.
If he had known, before he married her, how different she was from what she seemed to be, would he have walked away? Would he ever have fallen in love with her? Like many pointless questions about love, the answer was built in—he still loved her, even today. And she still loved him, he was sure of it. But it didn’t mean a damn, for their marriage was tainted by the one incurable ailment: they no longer wanted to live together. Even seeing her briefly, at meetings like this, was becoming increasingly painful. No reproaches; something more deeply grievous, pity.
“Does that mean you’ll give up your apartment?” she asked.
“I’ve thought about it.” He was purposely vague, to let her know it wasn’t a sensitive point. “Maybe . . . I don’t know.”
“You won’t be going back to the rodeo at all?”
She had a stubborn quality of mind that refused to comprehend misfortune. He tried to treat it lightly. “Only to empty my locker.” He smiled at himself; no merriment. “Funny, I’ve had all this time on my hands, but no time to go back and empty my locker.”
He could see that she hurt for him. “I’m sorry, Mike. . . . Have you figured out what you’re going to do?”
“No.” Then, quickly, “I didn’t want to bother you about it, Donna, but I know how much you count on the check every month. And I didn’t want you to be shocked when it started getting a little . . . irregular.”
“It’s nice of you to tell me, Mike, but . . .”
The “but” seemed to go on forever.
She finished the sentence. “I may not need it anymore.”
She’s been promoted, he thought, they’re letting her write ad copy now. He didn’t guess at the bigger thing until she said it.
“I’ve quit going to the doctor.”
She had a curious reluctance to saying head doctor—as if she might be communicating a contagious disease.
Mike asked, “Did he tell you don’t have to come anymore?”
“No, I told him.” She smiled. There was worry in it but also hope—an uncertain hope, the kind a child shows when it’s afraid the gift is meant for someone else.
“That’s wonderful, honey.”
“So I won’t need your money anymore,” she said. “Besides . . .”
Another of those silences. She didn’t have to fill it.
He knew. The last time he had come to see her, and once before that, he had met the man, a stockily built fellow with darting eyes and quick responses. He was in the advertising business and spoke formidably about television and demographics, and always, just as he was about to sound stuffy, he’d make a funny, self-deprecating remark and invite them to laugh at him. A friendly man. Walter Something-or-Other—yes, Norman. Or was it Norman Walter?
“So you’re going to get married after all?” he said.
Her voice was measured, she was careful not to sound too conclusive. “Well, Walter really wants to . . .”
“Good,” he said. “That’s good, Donna. I’m glad.”
“Thanks, Mike.”
How ironic that she was well enough to get married again, he thought, with the help of a doctor his alimony had paid for. Well, he would stop thinking of it as alimony—rather, a wedding present.
“I’m sure you’ll be happy, Donna. This time.” He hadn’t meant to add the last two words, so
he hastened to say, “I hope you will.”
“Thanks, Mike,” she repeated.
Then they were still again. They had so little to say to one another. Even with this news, so little to say. And so distressingly careful with each other. The constriction they felt was like tight bandages.
Slowly he got to his feet. He reached for his hat on a side chair. As he passed the mental he saw the picture—he had never noticed it there before—of a little girl, possibly seven. He didn’t recognize her for an instant. Then he did, with a pang.
“I never saw that picture of Laurie.”
“Yes,” Donna said. “When I finally got around to emptying her room. It was in that little camera you gave her—in a roll we never developed. It’s good, isn’t it?”
He couldn’t answer a question put in those words. What would a good picture of Laurie be, one that brought her alive, or one that made a stranger of her, a little girl who had never lived? “Did she really look like that?” he asked. “Yes, I guess she did.”
“Do you want a copy of it?” Donna asked. “I still have the negative.”
He suffered a difficult moment. “No. No, thanks.”
“It’s no trouble.”
He was still too disturbed so he had to make a joke of it. “No, I’d only lose it. I’m always losing things.”
He hadn’t meant so self-revelatory a statement. Hoping she hadn’t caught it, he turned to go. She had caught it. She put her hand gently on his arm.
“Mike . . .” As he turned. “Try not to be so . . . alone.”
He couldn’t stand her commiseration and he was sorry he had brought it out in her, sorry to have thrown a shadow on her good fortune. He patted her gently on the cheek. “If I don’t see you—be happy, Don.”
“You too . . . please.”
“Sure.”
He hoped she wouldn’t see him to the door, and she didn’t.
When he got out into the night there was a soft mist in the air and he didn’t put his hat on because the dampness soothed his head. Contrary to most sprains and breaks, his mending leg felt better in wet weather. He was glad he hadn’t come in the car; it was only a mile to his apartment and he wouldn’t mind walking.
Cry Macho Page 4
