Lord of Misrule

by Jaimy Gordon

  Contraries of rank and body-ditto the spirit. She was intelligent. She had crisp clean logic to throw away, like a harbor of sunny, empty warehouses, and the value of this, besides that you could put into her with very little trouble anything you wished to teach her, was how lavishly she let it all go for you-O the sight of all those beautiful shining granaries receding into the distance! How willingly she put your shambles in place of her order, although she was smarter than you were, and often remade your mess into her order without even knowing it. Then you had to shake her out of thought altogether (for a time), which was easy to do, because of her matching stupidity.

  Her stupidity. Her unruliness. You loved it best, for it gave all the other traits their reference to you. She needed someone to fight, her mirror image, only upside down-her twin, and that was you. Her unruliness seemed to lie just under her skull, at the roots of her kinky hair, and to be the continuation of that hair, or its germ. It was natural, then, to sink your whole hand in her incredibly thick, coarse hair, to bind her to you that way, all five fingers, with animal bluntness. Her own unruliness made it impossible for her to get loose from you, and if you whispered obscenities into her ear then, and reached the other hand between her legs, she was always wet.

  And that was the seventh beauty, her perfect willingness to you, which was the basic ingredient of this particular Menu by Margaret, the tie of ties. The little key was pain, which turned the lock of every pleasure. No great credit to yourself, who had been born with it in the palm of your hand. It had taken a long time to realize what luck it was-how rare.

  And not that that willingness was unique to her-it was in fact the commonest, the vulgarest quality of woman. It was the universal oil. It was the wonder of women, all in all, their willingness to receive you-you had that golden key-and why you in turn had to have a woman or you were lost. Your twin sister carried your soul in her little box, it came down to that. True, other traits, particularities, beauty, unruliness, were dissolved in her. Uniqueness drowned itself in her-all for you.

  Betting her own money on Zeno's horse-that was a gorgeous, supreme bit of unruliness-well, you could hardly have taken away her last pathetic paycheck from that recipe writing job, now could you? Or have pounded the barrelhead for the cash from her dead mother's dining table. But who could have guessed that she would jump in with both feet-and even so how much were you talking-a hundred, two hundred bucks? So she walked back out with maybe eleven hundred dollars-all as if to say she wouldn't stop you, or even ask you how much of the common roll you had staked and blown-none of that low-grade wifely nagging for her-but if you could do it, by god so could she, she wasn't going to sit home and roll out biscuits.

  And not that she was above nagging. She just dragged it up to her monumentally unruly level, drilling you with green-yellow monkey-witch eyes every time you came back from the racing secretary's office, wanting to know whether you had entered Pelter in a race yet, and if so for how much? None of this out loud, of course, at least not yet, but it went without saying you were a chicken and a liar too if you ran him in anything better than a 1500-dollar claimer after all this.

  But if you lost that horse wouldn't all your hidden luck go with him? Wouldn't the magic of a chosen one desert you? Your twin sister carried your soul in her velvet box, but after all it had been Mr. Hickok who picked you out, gave you a job, saw something in you. It was better than winning any race, that red, beautiful, melancholy autumn afternoon, when the old man had limped around the corner and sat down on a bale of hay by you, seeming idly to want to talk horses-you always knew how to get him going, he liked your respect for the old ways-the subject of bute, luckily, hadn't come up. And suddenly turned and offered you, resignedly, wearily, for 1500 dollars, what was left of his one great horse-and so hooked to you that silken thread of merit that bound you forever to him as it had bound him to his famous father before him. Class. A month later he was dead.

  Hickok himself had run Pelter in low-grade allowance races, non-winners of a bologna sandwich in their last three starts, that kind of thing, no fear of a claim there, but now and then in a 1500-dollar claimer too, for a two-grand purse, and the horse win easily at that price. Hickok had so much class he could put up the legend of that horse against the risk of an upstart claim, and no one dared to take him, and no one cried lese majeste. It was a kind of gallant joke, on the racetrack at that time, to let the old stakes horse pay for his own dinner. Now she challenged you with her monkey green eyes to do the same, but she didn't understand what it was to have no glorious family ties, nothing and nobody knitting you into this world but a grimy snarling gnome of a so-called father in the shop of a used car lot in Trempeleau, Wisconsin. What sort of class could you use to fend off an upstart's claim, when you were an upstart yourself? She didn't have to know what you knew, that if you lost that horse, you would lose her too.

  WHEN MEDICINE ED FINALLY HAD Little Spinoza alone, he tell it into him: Get ready, son. The women gone to take your manhood, he broke the news, not like it was the end of the world, and next come disease, hospital cases, and death, but like it was a thing the horse ought to know. The first cold had come and they were walking round and round the shedrow in a silver fog that beaded up the cobwebs and the horses' eyelashes.

  Wasn't no idea of mine. I say wait a short while, see how he do. Nothing ain't gone change that horse much at his age. I say he a little bit of a crybaby, that's all, but easy to settle once he riled. You be surprised, I tell em. Ain't even all that interested in the senoritas compared to what you would think. They don't want to listen. They don't want to take no chances. They don't want to lose they edge. I say what if casteration change him the other direction, into a chucklehead girl? They start to laughing. Pretty soon they cackling like witches. Got me outnumbered, what it is.

  Medicine Ed checked himself. This was a stab-back and two-face thing to say about the women. They don't mean no harm, he added. He didn't want to be a wrong influence on the horse. What good it do if the horse love him and hate them others? They a bidness now.

  Little Spinoza don't fuss. Ma' fact he had to admit the horse taken to prancing and corvetting round lately, high in his nature compared to how he used to do. He was always in a good mood these days-could be too good. Maybe it was the change in the weather. Maybe he don't rightly follow about his manhood. He always was a baby. He scoping round at the cats, the raindrops pimpling the puddles, the sparrows hopping up and down and cussing each other in the eaves. He stopped and had him a long sniff of Grizzly's goat. Now that Deucey had the two horses, she bought Grizzly a ten-dollar goat to keep him company. When the goat wasn't in the stall he was tied up like now on a chain in the grass patch between the shedrows, but he always pulled it out tight as a fiddle string if folks was around, for he was nosy.

  Medicine Ed returned to the subject at hand. It's one thing you can count on, son. When they gone they gone. You never know what you missing. Onliest thing, you be lighter of heart. Anyhow, he say into the horse-first he spied round to see what devilborn varmint might be listening, a crow, say, or Deucey's slit-eye goat-you know I be a little of a doctor-man. I take them things and do you good with em, you hear? You don't got to worry, you in good hands.

  But Little Spinoza was only interested in that satchel-bellied ten-dollar billy goat. First he jumped back like insulted when the goat lift his head at him and stare. What you think this is, son? Ain't nothing but a spotted he-goat, good for nothing save to be the horse's friend. He gone urinate in you hay and shove his head in you feed bucket and race you to you eats. You don't mind out, he win too. You want that? Medicine Ed reached down and touched that peculiar armor-plate forehead of the goat between his coin-slot eyes, and shuddered. But Little Spinoza dance around and look happy and want a billy goat all his own.

  …

  The time to call Mr. Two-Tie was nine in the morning from the payphone back of the track kitchen. Midnight until four, Two-Tie be taken up with his after-hours card game. Then the backside com
e alive and Medicine Ed himself couldn't get away, and if he could, Two-Tie's line be always busy. At eight he out walking his dog. By noon he be fast asleep.

  Two-fifty will be no problem at all, Edward, your credit is always good. May I ask do you need the cash in front of any particular race? Possibly sumpm I shoulda heard about it but ain't? I can have one of my associates bring over the dough any time.

  Naw, Medicine Ed reply, it ain't no race, but then it go quiet, too quiet, save for a little itchy noise deep in the phone.

  Gone to the dentist, Medicine Ed explained. Toothache.

  How soon you say you need that two fifty?

  Soon's I can get it.

  I'll send somebody over this afternoon. How you like that new job, Edward?

  It all right, Medicine Ed tell him.

  I hear that Hansel fellow shipped in here from the Eastern Panhandle. Charles Town.

  That's right. Two-Tie was silent and Ed understood he should give up more. Four horses. Zeno claim one the first night out. Hansel he still talking bout that horse.

  This seemed safe to say. He couldn't believe the young fool would be so fool to claim the horse back, nemmind what he say now.

  You don't happen to know where he was before that?

  Hansel? Well, Medicine Ed said slowly, surprised and a little worried at Two-Tie's interest in the young fool. I believe he work for Roland Hickok oncet. Before he have his own string. I don't know when. He say he spend last winter selling cars.

  Selling cars! Where the hell was that?

  Some cold place way it's no horse racing. One of them states up by Canada. I disremember the name.

  Selling cars, Two-Tie echoed in disgust. Edward. You and I have done plenty of business over the years.

  Sho is.

  We understand each other, ain't it?

  Sho is.

  Like you already know, I look on it as a pleasure to do business with people that has a mature insider's view of life on the backside. I find their conversation highly educational. I prefer to forgo interest for such preferred individuals when I can. Like you already know.

  Sho is. Thank you, Mr. Two-Tie.

  Edward, I would like to know more about that young man.

  Hansel? Medicine Ed said again, in surprise.

  Hansel. It's a personal thing, a family thing. How does he get along with his girl?

  So it was the young fool's woman after all. But this was highly disputatious territory, for if blood run thicker than water, and which it always do, then even sensible Two-Tie will come down blind on her side.

  Does he treat her right? Does he act like a gentleman? Two-Tie was inquiring.

  Look to me like them two go pretty good together, Medicine Ed said carefully. When it come to training horses he look young but think old. You know he have old Mr. Hickok's Pelter in his string.

  You don't say, Two-Tie said.

  Medicine Ed saw himself laying down track away from Little Spinoza and felt a pierce of regret. If he get over on the old gentleman it won't be for long. Then he have to face him when at last he colly.

  She crazy bout that old horse, he say. She care for him too. You be surprised. She can work like a man. You ought to see her haul them buckets.

  Umbeshrien, Two-Tie talk in his Hebrew language, not sounding all that pleased. A little thing like her? She'll ruin her back.

  Yet and still. You see what I'm saying. They gets along, Medicine Ed continued. She like them old classy horses and he like the old ways best.

  What are they-twenty-five years old? Thirty? What do they know from old? Come on, Edward. Toches on the table. Is he a smart horse trainer or not? You know what I mean. We're talking money coming in, regular money, per diems, like that. Does he get paid to train somebody else's horses for them or is he in the business so he can sit in the track kitchen and cross his legs and tell people I'm a horseman?

  He all right, Medicine Ed say darkly. He free-handed. I don't know where he gets it.

  He's a bum. What does she see in him? What's the girl like, anyway?

  It was a note of genuine misery. Medicine Ed felt called on in some new way, for something he ain't never have to dip out the well before in his life. He want to come up with it, but he don't know where to look. He suddenly remembered Bernice, who worked in the kitchen at Whirligig Stables-her daughter Marie. Bernice had worked and worked for that girl. Not worked. Slaved. Marie was neat and quiet and never sassed and she had even started to college up at Coppins, but soon's she meet that Diamond Doug in some club she want to throw herself away after him. Then the more you talked to her, even though she know you right, the more she felt the pull. The more she want to give herself up to the hot melt of that Diamond Doug dragging his net in the deep water. What it was-something strong and washed in the blood like religion done got her. Some old romance story. Then nothing work on her, not sense, not money, not nature feelings, not her mother begging her, not even the twenty-dollar spell from some root woman, nothing.

  It ain't him, Medicine Ed said. She caught in the net of romance. It's a deep thing. Horses is part of it, he say, but she don't have it like some. In my judgment it is a passing thing. I believe it pass off her afta while.

  What is she like. He had never in his life been asked a bald-headed question like that by a white man. She frizzly like old rope, Medicine Ed told Two-Tie. She like a old knot. She tie herself to this and that. She strong and hard to hold. She stronger than he is. You soon see.

  It was dead quiet in the phone save for that deep down green-bottle buzz, then Two-Tie say, Don't say nutting to her, you hear? She don't know me. Just lemme know if she needs any help, you understand?

  Sho is.

  Thank you, Edward.

  Thank you, Edward. He felt pity for Two-Tie, and pity for the white man was rich and sweet. He hung up the phone and sat there, thinking of Bernice. Diamond Doug went to jail, a twenty-year bit, and the big romance story run out. Marie went to see him a few times, then sat around in her bathrobe, watching TV. She didn't have to get rid of the baby, Bernice wanted it, she had a sense it was a girl baby, but Marie say if she have to look at it she might want to harm it. Later she went to secretary school. Funny part was it wasn't even no love in it. It was the gray drain of love. It use up everybody's love, not only Marie's. When it was done, Bernice hadn't had no love left. Not for him, Medicine Ed; or either for any man.

  He pictured Bernice's Marie in front of the TV with her angry scowl and pink robe and comb-fried hair every whichaway, and that frizzly gee-whizzing white girl who somebody else done raised-she could harden against a man too. Something had happened, he looked at the two of them in his mind and he saw the left-behind toughness and meanness that tied them together. It come to him how everything was tied to everything else by secret ties invisible or as thin as cobwebs. It amazed him that he could see such a thing. It give him such a sense of knowing the frizzly-haired girl that he almost liked her a little-after all she kin to Two-Tie.

  Later that day he hear the young fool and her arguing on the other side of the tack room wall, and afterwards he had the nerve to say to her: You hagride that young man long enough, you lose your happy home.

  And she don't even sass him back. She push her braids behind her ear and say: You're right, I know it. I should never have quit my job. I can't just take my whole brains and talent and everything I got and invest them in somebody else's work and then shovel shit and keep my mouth shut.

  Why you can't do that? That's what working folks does. I done fifty-eight years of that. It didn't kill me.

  She cut him an evil eye. How could you stand it?

  He was a little affronted. Ma' fact, young lady, he said with dignity, the way I always see it, I ain't have too much choice in the matter.

  No wonder you wanted to buy that horse.

  And which was true. He faded off between the shedrows to study the thing.

  WHEN HASLIPP, THE VET, finally showed up with his little bag in the afternoon, in the rain, looking
mud-spattered and harassed, Deucey happened to have taken a ride into town to buy a pair of reading glasses at the dimestore. Tommy, who had been asked to help if this happened (Maggie winced-somehow she hadn't got around to telling him yet whose-all horse Little Spinoza actually was), paraded them all out to the grass patch at the end of the shedrow, where it was cleaner and they would have more room, and then they stood there in the cold drizzle, shifting from foot to foot while Tommy dragged away the ten-dollar goat that Deucey had bought for Grizzly. They had forgotten about the goat.

  Maggie held the interested but unsuspecting Little Spinoza, who despite his notorious encounter with a racetrack dentist (everyone knew that story) seemed more drawn by the weird blue crucifix eyes of the goat than troubled by the brusque stranger with the black bag.

  Little Spinoza was still looking over his shoulder into the empty stall (his own) where the small but smelly and baa-ing goat had disappeared, when a little commotion happened at his neck and suddenly the earth fell up to meet him, his blood turned to warm solder, his penis dropped limp out of his body and his knees melted. He sank to the grass. His elbows and stifles drained away. He rolled over on his side. His huge tongue wanted to fall out of his mouth. He was not sleepy but gravity had won a great victory and he wished never to get up again. He watched incuriously as the two men went around behind him and squatted, and one of them somehow picked up his leg and moved it a little and held the great black riverine tail out of the way. There was a pleasant tinkle of metal, a feeling of deep and strange but painless emptying, another not so agreeable snip snip, snip snip-two grayish-pink, wet, egg-like bodies, sparsely threaded with blood vessels, lay in the grass. That was it. Already his face looked less alien and goofy. They stood there waiting for his legs to come back under him.