Lord of Misrule

by Jaimy Gordon

  Medicine Ed smiled inside of himself with deep contentment when he recalled that hot afternoon. First he had had to hear it on the far side of Barn Z, Biggy screaming and kicking the animal in the belly, and the fool dentist Fletcher up at his head jimmying the speculum into the horse's jaws and snatching the shank on him, trying to work in his file-the horse just up from the farm that morning-and soon that crazy black light come on in the horse's eye and his whole back end fly at Biggy's face in the corner. And left a deep print of his bar shoe on Biggy Bigg's forehead, where they say you could still read it.

  Well, wouldn't nobody know it to look at you now, son. The horse shuffled dreamily on, back into his babyhood of not knowing nothing, slow as any sane animal in August if nobody push him.

  That was his name, it come back to him now-Baby something-no, Little, Little Spinoza. He was little, one of those little prince-looking horses, dark bay with bourbon whiskey color lights and a big round panic eye, a bird eye. People like to say how every Speculation grandson was a killer in his heart, but this one just childish-one of those terrible babies that never learn nothing and know they're never gone to learn nothing, for once they scare, they don't wait, they take wing.

  And he was a horse. For some reason they never taken his nuts. Joe Dale Bigg used to notice him down there on the farm one or two times a meeting, enter him for five thousand or sixty-two hundred, and have one of his boys carry him to the track in the afternoon. Then the animal would worry and sweat out all his speed bouncing over potholes on the road, jump out the gate like a rabbit-if he come out at all (a few times he didn't)-and land up running fourth or fifth against horses that didn't have half his class. Maybe he win oncet at that price. If so, it was a long time ago.

  Medicine Ed round the shedrow of Barn Z back to Deucey's stalls, and there she was, talking to Deucey, the young fool's woman, hanging on the corner post like grim death.

  Oooo, look at that, she say. Gee whiz, what a beauty, I've never seen a horse like that on a half-mile track before.

  That's right you ain't, Deucey told her, grinning, puffing up like a chicken in a stiff wind. This is what you call class, girlie. This is a Speculation grandson, out of Little Dutch Girl. He's called Little Spinoza.

  Little Spinoza. He looks like a baby.

  He ain't no baby. He's six.

  He's made so very perfect-he has those golden highlights near the black at his points-like-like tortoise shell, you know?

  O yeah, I see what you mean, like tortoise shell specs or sumpm, Deucey said, kind of egging her on. She took the horse from Ed for a moment, like to show him off. They stood sideways in the dirt road.

  He is small, though, isn't he?

  That there is a optical illusion of horses with perfect conformation. He ain't large but he ain't small. He's just got everything put away in the right place.

  You are a very beautiful boy. The girl got her hand right in his face and for some reason he ain't bite her. She slipped her grubby gray fingers under his halter and scratched. He leaned his head over them, snorted and tried to go sideways but Deucey snatched on him and led him off around the corner. Oooo, let me walk him for you, say the girl, following after.

  Deucey looked her up and down. Well, usually Medicine Ed walks him for me, she say, weakening, though she know better. He can be a handful sometimes.

  Around the corner she whispered to the girl, but he could still hear it: Medicine Ed can use the couple bucks. You gotta learn to think about things like that, girlie. You ain't in this world by yourself.

  O Ed can have the money. I'll walk him for nothing. Lil Spinny, she crooned, you want me to walk you, don't you?

  You just follow along with Medicine Ed. He can teach you plenty.

  But he's so slo-ow.

  Downright insulting, and she don't know the power of money. And them is the people he's working for now. The which, to be honest, was not all bad. He'd say this for the young fool, he paid good. He asked Medicine Ed what Gus Zeno paid and, good to his word, he paid ten dollars better, 110 dollars a week plus the lot for the Winnebago. But Zeno had been paying more than a groom, something like a assistant trainer, though he wouldn't call him that in the papers. That was the job Medicine Ed always done for him. But Zeno wanted his own name up there on every race.

  Zeno had had a string of owners you could see with your own eyes. They used to come round the barn in their silk neckties and shiny fur coats, trailing airs of perfume and whiskey and getting in the way until Zeno steered them off to the clubhouse. Where was the money coming from in this operation? Here it was no sense of the value of money, spending like the Hares and the Ogdens, best grain, best hay, best veternary, how long could they keep this up? So that's what he had to put up with now-suchlike foolishness from the young fool's woman, good pay on a sinking ship, and him farther from his future home than ever.

  Round and round the shedrow they went for thirty minutes, Medicine Ed and Little Spinoza, and the girl weaving in and out of them like a puppy dog.

  Did you ever rub a Speculation baby?

  Um-hmm. Sho is.

  They shuffled on. Now she was in front looking back. Now she was in back of him catching up. The girl waited for Medicine Ed to yacky-yack to her about famous horses he have known, but he wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

  Who was it? she finally ask. The Speculation baby.

  Platonic.

  Gee whiz, Platonic. Whirligig Farm?

  Um-hmm.

  Didn't he win something big?

  This was too much for Medicine Ed. Cobweb Futurity. Rising Sun Cup. Trellis Handicap. Greenbriar Realization. Seashell Stakes.

  My god. What's it like working for billionaires?

  She done run up ahead of him again and was walking backwards, which was bad luck. He looked at her round green blindman glasses and her foolish pickney braids.

  Do they at least pay well? she want to know.

  He looked at her. He sucked in his hollow cheeks. Halfway good, he finally say.

  Then they was all back in front of the stall again, Deucey making sweet eyes at the girl and the girl making sweet eyes at Little Spinoza.

  Oooo, let me brush him for you, say the young fool's woman. I'll bring up his dapples.

  I don't know if he'll stand for it, honey. He ain't used to that good treatment. I guess you can try. But you be careful, he could bust your head.

  Oooo goodie, the girl say. Don't worry, he's going to like it. Deucey laughed and Medicine Ed just shook his head.

  But you better hurry if you want to tame him, Deucey say. I ain't keeping this horse.

  What! said the young fool's woman. What do you mean? Is he for sale?

  No he ain't for sale, Deucey snapped. She had better judgment than to try and explain.

  Medicine Ed shrugged. He ain't have no dog in this fight. Nobody ain't ask for his spare change. Nobody ain't begged him to take a Speculation grandson off they hands. But then he say: It's a sorry shame. Ain't every day a six-thousand-dollar horse come along waving a three-thousand-dollar price tag, no claim necessary. A horse like that. That horse been abused. You could fix that horse.

  You're gonna tell me to buy this horse? Deucey say. I'm a gyp. You know I don't got luck enough for two horses, Ed. Every time I ever had two horses I end up with none.

  Why don't you give that other old boy his rest? Medicine Ed said.

  I ain't got three grand, Speculation grandson or no Speculation grandson.

  I thought Joe Dale done fronted you the animal no strings attached.

  Come on, Ed, where'd you ever see a deal on the track with no strings attached? Sometimes, you know, when times was very very tough, I have took this or that service on the cuff from some prince among men-like Kidstuff for example-and even then they own you a little…

  Sho is, sho is, Ed said slowly. He knew how it was-your operations was not quite your own. Somebody might want to know something, somebody might put you a question about something you ought not to be telling-even if
they never bring it up about the money, not for months, or years.

  So how much more don't I want to get tangled up with thirty-horse strings. Now, I ain't high class. If I need a quick couple bucks, me and Two-Tie, we see eye to eye. But I can't see to the bottom of Joe Dale Bigg.

  Sho is. Them boys can be mean, Ed had to agree, remembering that enjoyable hot afternoon and the imprint of Little Spinoza's heel calk rising up on Biggy Bigg's forehead like a meat stamp.

  And I don't want to, either. Some of em's-speak well of the devil The big car come crunching over the gravel at a slow rate of speed, raising a low cloud, more floating on the dried-out puddles and potholes, the way it looked, than driving-a Cadillac Sedan de Ville with purple-tinted windows and gangster doors, midnight blue with a brushed stainless steel top like silvery fur, and white wall tires that one of Joe Dale Bigg's boys have to be washing down regular, because the pink dust of the backside never sink into them but was new every day, like a thin smear of lady's face powder. When it was right beside of them, a yard off the shedrow and that big in the middle of the dirt road as if it just have to block the way wherever it go, the passenger's side window slid into the door with a silky whirr and, deep inside, where it was dark like a saloon, a finger crooked.

  Hey, Deucey! Get in! Joe Dale wants to discuss sumpm wit ya.

  Deucey got in the car, pulled the door closed after her, and it just float there, everything invisible behind the blue glass, motor on, humming.

  This place is too weird for me, the young fool's frizzly hair woman announced to the world, and not in no soft voice neither, but luckily Medicine Ed had already did his fade-had ducked back in the stall with Little Spinoza and hung him on a tie chain and busied himself in one corner, where he could eyeball the midnight blue Cadillac through a chink in the wall without Joe Dale's boys looking at him. The girl was standing there with one hand on her head, just blinking at that car. Geez, she say, is that car real or did I make it up?

  After a while Deucey bundled back out the passenger door, her bottom jaw lumped up like a boxing glove, mumbling cusswords through her teeth.

  And right then the backseat window purred and dropped into the door. And there, to Medicine Ed's amazement, sat Two-Tie, who everybody know is ruled off. Two-Tie don't even look round to see if somebody else be watching. He stare at the girl, just stare at her. Her hand is still on her head. Good morning, Margaret, he finally say. I must say you are the picture of your lovely mother at twenty-but for the hair-she had the most beautiful auburn hair.

  Then his eyes rolled up in the air as if he sooner remember than look-and the window rolled up too-and slow as a funeral, the car drove off.

  That hick-town bully, Deucey says, he thinks he's Al Capone.

  You done backed out?

  No I ain't backed out and I ain't gonna back out. I'm in to stay. I'm gonna pay that bloodsucker off free and clear so he can't crawl back in nowheres. Then I don't owe him nothing and I can do what I want to, which I was going to anyway.

  Maybe you best give up that horse if Joe Dale gone come back in and tell you where to run him.

  That ain't all. He wants me to do sumpm else for him. Even Deucey wouldn't shout what she say next. She leaned over and hissed around her black front teeth: He means me to be the owner-trainer for somebody else's horses, some jailbird I guess. I don't want to front for a bunch of ruled-off crooks. I won't have no parts of it.

  Medicine Ed cut his eyes at the frizzly-head girl to remind Deucey they was in company, discretion not guaranteed.

  Was that baggy-face guy in the back seat by any chance Rudy Samuels? the girl asked, looking from one of them to the other, but nobody answered her, for that was not a name familiar to anyone present.

  Now if I can just figger out where to lay hold of three grand fast. I got some. If Grizzly win one more for me for fifteen hundred, and I don't eat but out of a can for a month, and the feed man will wait…

  Feed man always wait, Medicine Ed said.

  Deucey mopped her head with a bunched up but clean man's handkerchief, and walked around in circles. I can't ask Two-Tie-he was in there with them. Although if I didn't see it with my own eyes I wouldn't believe he let them lowlifes sneak him on the grounds. He ain't said a word to me or even looked at me. I don't think he knew I was there. You think he's slipping, Ed?

  Mr. Two-Tie ain't slipping, Medicine Ed said firmly. But he was worried. Generally Two-Tie was strictly law-abiding, down to the smallest details, except of course for his main business, which was finance. He would never bust through a gate if he was not invited. That would run completely against his nature and business practice, or so Medicine Ed would have said. Medicine Ed did wonder what a gentleman like Two-Tie could have to do with the young fool's woman, wayward, ignorant and obviously raised all wrong. Two-Tie had spoke of her mother. Could they be blood kin? It was too vexing to think of it.

  Two-Tie ain't even old, Ed said.

  I don't ask Father Time who's young or old, Deucey said.

  The young fool come striding round the corner in his fedora hat and polished boots. The pack of them, Ed, Deucey and the frizzly hair girl, just naturally fell silent. His eyes flashed over them, half pleased, half suspicious, and he went his way.

  That horse win for 3500 easy, Ed said. He wondered why nobody ask him to front as the owner-trainer for some fine animal. He'd be only too glad, for the right price-he'd even come cut-rate. But nobody don't even think of asking.

  I've got a little money, the frizzly-head girl say.

  Medicine Ed looked hard at her. He knew where she had that money from-from betting against her man. Did that make it unlucky money? Money was money.

  I got a thousand, the girl give up in a whisper.

  Well, I got a thousand too. Don't you need that dough to run your outfit? Won't Hansel be mad at you? Deucey asked her.

  The young fool's woman turned red in her cheeks like the back of a steam crab. He doesn't want that particular roll, she say.

  So it was that bad luck money, sho is, sho is, but it buy a horse just as good as any other money.

  I bet Halloween Ed over there got a grand squirreled away, the frizzly hair girl said. I see him going to those windows.

  Maybe she was just trying to be fresh, but old Deucey looked up in surprise.

  Naaa, Medicine Ed needs his money, he wants to move down Florida some day soon, she say. But then she must have seen something in his face. Whaddaya say, Ed? Am I wrong?

  He's the one keeps talking up this horse, the girl say.

  It was a good thing he had the barn behind him. They couldn't see how he have to lean on it to stand upright with his weak leg trembling inside his pants. Right now he only have 750 dollars, if like a fool he take and throw behind this horse every nickel he has scraped together towards a new home since Zeno pass. Maybe somebody has run him crazy. Maybe somebody has fixed him good. Yet and still. Ain't nobody ever asked him to come in with them on a horse. And this a good horse. Baby-minded, but a very very good horse.

  I study it, he say. I don't have it. I could get it.

  SHE HAD SEVEN BEAUTIES like Mary mother of God, three sets of two, dexter and sinister, and one seventh universal oil that melted them all down and bound them together for you in a magic recipe-one ultimate Menu by Margaret, as she used to call her recipe column in the Winchester papers.

  She had her highborn air, this came of being a Jew, of an ancient, select, and secretive people, though she didn't think anything about this herself. (You could sometimes catch her, though, idly picking out the Jewish names on any list-opera patrons, plane crashes, Nobel prize winners, This Week's Marriage Licenses, KNOWN FELONS WITH MOB CONNECTIONS REPORTED TO BE CURRENTLY OPERATING IN THE BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON AREA.) Whether it made her easy or uneasy to count herself one of this family, she was of it-she could bother to count or not, she had that luxury-and a great old family was deeply to be coveted. So much the better if they were an outsider race and small in number. They were never far from th
e centers of power.

  This is another way women were luck and she was the luck of the luck. You could suck up family from them, even as you loosened them from it. Blood bound her and you together even as you commanded her, Leave your father's house and follow me. They would do it, too, that was the wonderful, the amazing, thing. On her own, she hadn't telephoned her father in eighteen months. She had even had to be told at Rosh Hashonah and Thanksgiving, Maggie, call your father. (Such courtesies might be of value later on, who knew.)

  She had her highborn air, dexter, and right next to it she had her lowborn air, sinister, which also came of being a Jew, an outcast, a gypsy, and not giving one goddamn. She could up and follow a racetracker, a coarse adventurer, if she so chose. Moreover you could get to her through her body. It was a black, rich, well-watered way, between rock faces. The word podzol came to mind. The word humus. Soil. Slut. You could ask all you wanted of that flesh, you could whisper outrages into her ear and, no matter what she said, the flesh would tremble and fall open to you.

  She was a slut, and not only that, she was a Mediterranean slob. She picked at scabs, she picked her nose, it was nothing to find one of her bloody tampons forgotten, stuck fast in a pool of browning gore to the side of the bathtub. Small as she was, she loved to eat and could put it away like a peasant. She had learned to cook from one of her clever lowborn boyfriends and now made free with that clown's excellent rustic cuisine-beans, ham hocks and rice, fish fried in golden dust, earthy bread, corn fritters light as bugs. Nothing was by definition too sweet for her. Once she discovered an old jar of crystallized honey in the back of the pantry-it had little black specks in it. Those are mouse turds, you pointed out, and she laughed, and ate the whole thing with a spoon. And her face was peasant, less Jewish than Cossack, even framed inside those prickly braids.

  The beauties of her body dexter and sinister echoed the contraries of her breeding, the elegance of her shoulders and long neck as against the extreme punishable insolence of her ass. You didn't often see an ass like that on a white girl, a long flexible back ending in a short round bulb-like structure that really was rather rude. How dare it try to hide anything from you? The muscular lobes under its dimples begged to be pried apart, and of course you obliged.