Lord of Misrule

by Jaimy Gordon

  I wouldn't turn the right kind away, you say.

  This way I get you some live ones, deep dough, high rollers, flashy good time guys, accident lawyers and like that, lotsa playing room there. And also I got some people waiting in line right now who don't want their names involved for various reasons. You take their horses, you go down as owner on paper, or the girl can-whichever way you want-they'll pay by the day and meanwhile-we'll be in touch. You know how to get horses ready as good as I do. In fact, better. Big friendly grin here. Only, now and then I let you know about a race that's literally made for them and you might not of heard about it-see what I'm getting at?

  So there it was. You had nothing to lose-asked right away for his ass on the table.

  I want that horse back that Zeno claimed from me. The Mahdi. He's in for two grand on Saturday night.

  Jesus Christ, Hansel, I don't know if I can move that fast. Who's the trainer?

  Jim Hamm, for Mrs. Zeno.

  Not good, not good. Jim Hamm don't do business with me-not directly. I don't think he likes me. He smiled.

  Get me somebody who puts up two grand and dailys and I'll claim him myself. Nobody's going to lose money on the deal, I'll tell you that. If you can get me two thousand-sure, okay, I'll take a horse for you. Those are my terms. Take it or leave it.

  Oooo. Must be a helluva horse, huh. The Mahdi, eh? Joe Dale said, pretending to be impressed.

  He's a piece of junk, but he'll win at the Mound for a while. If he stays sound.

  What's that again-fourth race Saturday night? But of course you hadn't said which race. He was letting you know he knew. You peered at him without answering.

  He shrugged. Hey, you know what you're talking about. I'll see what I can do.

  And he departed. So it looked like luck, which had been doing her best to claw her way through to you, had decreed that you should have The Mahdi back after all, which made beautiful sense-but of course you had no intention of doing what Joe Dale Bigg asked you to do, unless it happened to coincide with your own intention. A small-town mafioso like that couldn't hurt you. You'd have to look out for Maggie now-she wasn't as strong-but Biglia deserved no loyalty. He was dark and rich in flesh like duck meat, but shallow. He talked dirty about women to men he hardly knew. Never mind that Women are more patient crap. Joe Dale, same as Biggy, went into rages at spirited horses and kicked and bullied them-the whole family was famous for it. He didn't even like to come in his barn and dirty his shoes. In fact he hated animals. He was vulgar. He couldn't love. He was nothing but a dark emptiness-the absence of good. He could do you no harm.

  SEEM LIKE EVERY DAY since time he been thinking what a shame and pity it is how the world is coming down, how the pride of work has disappeared, until they just laugh at him, the boys that come on the racetrack now-how the horses is misused and abused, started out racing too young before they bones is hard, not rested proper and dosed with all kind of shots and pills, and so consequently don't last-how these five-and-dime horsetrainers and they ten-cent owners anymore be tighter than the bark on a beech tree, when it come to anything but rush rush rush them horses back to the track and collect a bet. It ain't no real sportsmen round here no more, if it ever was, or either sportswomen. And John Q. Public wasn't no dumber than he used to was, but also he ain't no smarter.

  Seem like since time, that was the most fun old Medicine Ed been having, studying on it every day, every day, how this good thing has come down and this other thing that once was fine, has went to pieces on him. Until he be sick and tired of his own self. And then he land up in his mashed-in trailer in the deep of night, mumbling through his bald gums and mixing up some pocket toby to get his own back. Snatching blind at any thread that maybe tie his luck to him.

  And which is why every now and then when some kind of a good thing come together in nature, it make the whole world new. Seem like once again he have found that harmony, how they is a power in charge and strong secret threads lead around and under, and tie it all together.

  And which is what happened that night with Little Spinoza.

  He might have knowed that Alice Nuzum, who didn't resemble no other human being he has ever seen, man nor either woman, would have to be a luck thrower of some kind. The way she look-not ugly but like something born between mud and river water, like something out of a creek swamp-a person must figure fate has already laid a shaping hand on her and is satisfied. Or can't do no worse. Or maybe mean to make it even to her in some way.

  Nothing in Little Spinoza's routine changed behind that bad race. It was still Alice on Little Spinoza at four fifteen in the morning and old Deucey peering into the fog from the river with her spyglass and stop watch, clocking Little Spinoza's little bit of speed. And which was still there, the speed, but now it ain't even no one to hide it from. Earlie Beaufait has done them the favor to badmouth Little Spinoza and his trainer and three cockamamie owners too. Horse be no count, they say, a killer in the gate and a quitter in the stretch, with a hard, ruinated mouth. One more incident and management gone be stamping his foaling papers NOT FIT FOR RACING.

  And the apprentice jockey them three have found under a rock somewheres, since Earlie quit them! A townie, a female, and ugly enough to scare a hound dog off a gut wagon-and a bugboy at that, you know how they say about a bugboy, he save you seven pounds in the gate and add thirty pounds in the stretch-and this is a horse even Earlie Beaufait couldn't get no stretch run out of him. So this time for two weeks everybody keep that clear of the horse you think he carry that equine selfalitis. Not even Joe Dale Bigg come round. And then Deucey drops him in for three thousand.

  Everybody think they see them coming, everybody figure the plain obvious truth-them are the broke, pityfull owners of Little Spinoza that done shelled out their last two-dollar bill on that horse-the colored groom, the he-she trainer and the lost college girl-them three are gone try and get him claimed for what they paid for him, which was far too much money already.

  But what Alice Nuzum say is this. Whoever come up with that idea that Little Spinoza has early speed? He has speed all right-and it is an exact amount coiled up in him the way a black snake will live snug under your well cover all winter. He is a one-run horse but of a very classy kind, Alice say. He has an exact amount of speed which could last an exact time, from the last possible moment when you call on him, until that wire. But until now he has squandered it early. He is like some corner zoot suiter cut loose with his mama's death benefit before he has become a man, before he has grown sense to put it in the bank or either a choice bit of real estate. He come out the gate going every whichaway in terror and pure foolishness. He go every whichaway and finally he tire and die, and if the boy hit him he wither up besides. And yet he is a dreamer horse who like to look at ducks splashing down on the river and hawks sailing on the wind. Alice say: What if he can sleep like Sleeping Beauty, only on his feet, with no pain, and stay asleep till I wake him up at the quarter pole? And Medicine Ed can follow her idea: As long as the pace up front ain't too slow, as long as the frontrunners be halfway honest, he might could get there.

  To rate him, Alice has to hypmotize the horse a little, and she say she can do it. How can she? O she has her little ways, she say, maybe I sing him to sleep, and she smiles that no-lip smile that put Medicine Ed in mind of a newt.

  Alice couldn't prove it. She showed them, in a little trial with Grizzly and Miss Fowlerville and Railroad Joe, how Little Spinoza come swooping by in the stretch. True, them others wasn't but 2000 or even 1500 dollar horses-and two belong to Hansel, but the young fool had suddenly drove off somewhere for two days to see about a horse, and left Medicine Ed in charge. Naturally a lit-up grandstand and a thousand screaming bettors be something different from dark and silence of first morn-let alone a paddock judge poking in his mouth, and the starter man grabbing his ear or snatching his lip in the gate. All the same, that is Alice's idea, which do have the beauty to tie all the parts together.

  They look for a weekend race, so
it is a decent handle. They don't talk about it, but they all fixing to cash that bet. Won't anybody in the house like Spinoza save for them three, thank you Lord! Of course Medicine Ed must tell Two-Tie, for he will need him a small advance. And Two-Tie have his own people, no way round that. And might probly that old porkypine Deucey have somebody she got to let in, some orphan or hard case. And who can doubt but what the frizzly hair girl gone to tell the young fool all?-though old Deucey may have suspicioned that, and maybe she liked this week on purpose, when Hansel has disappeared somewhere to see a man about a horse.

  All signs saying that Sadday, first Sadday in December, be a fair day and a good track, not wet and heavy nor either too hard froze. And soon's they was a card to study, Deucey and Medicine Ed and Alice went over the entries prepared to scratch if it was no speed in the race. But they was two clear frontrunners for sure gone to fight it out up there, the one horse, Ink Spot, and the six horse, Navy something, and the four horse might be in it too, Medicine Ed disremembered the name.

  Little Spinoza drew post position number eight in a eight-horse race, but this time that high number work to his good. This way Little Spinoza automatically be the last to load in the gate instead of a problem case, getting the starters nervous and mad until they might do something in anger that could hurt the horse, or worse, wake him up. And anyhow Alice Nuzum been with Little Spinoza in the gate three times already since that bad race and say he is cured.

  Lord put me wise. Alice Nuzum say she going to sing Little Spinoza to sleep, and that is exactly what she do.

  Them three are standing in the gap for the post parade when Alice and Little Spinoza tack by, them all three look at each other and they mouths fall open and they close them again. Deucey yanks the stiffened handkerchief out from under her flask and wipes her head. The frizzly hair girl laughs kind of funny-time behind her hand. Deep in his pocket Medicine Ed rubs a red flannel bag between dog finger and thumb. For they have heard Alice singing, it ain't a big voice but pointy and sharp as a stick: By and by, when the morning comes. All-l-l-l the saints…

  Why, it is a song his mother used to sing in church, one he knew long ago. All the saints gone to gathering home. And maybe it is his imagination, but he think Little Spinoza is listening. The horse go along last in line, faraway in his face but collected. His ears prick up tall, quivering-and there is Alice high up on his back with her little bony knees pointed in, hypmotizing him with her small steely voice. Alice lean into his neck in them raggedy silver silks which Deucey bought for four bits from somebody stable that was busting up. Medicine Ed had to pin them together behind her neck with a bandage pin. He never hear no announcement, so many minutes to post time. He hear his mother's voice from the wings of New Life Baptist Church in Cambray, not a little metal threadwire like Alice's, but big as a house:

  In the land of perfect day when the mist has rolled away We will understand it better by and by.

  Then he ain't hear nothing. His mother's voice was all around him. He didn't recall looking at no tote board, but yet and still he knew when the numbers stand at 35, then fall to 22, back up to 25, and 22, and all of a sudden down to 12. And then the horses were at the gate, and in the gate, each by each. He saw Little Spinoza step into the eight slot civil as you please, like a man walk in a cloak room to ask for his hat.

  Then they break, and it was all eight of them in a line. Yes, Little Spinoza was right with the others, on top of his feet, his feet drumming in that cold sand, his head stretching forward, but then Medicine Ed get that draggyfied, sunken feeling that him and Deucey and the frizzly hair girl be the only ones looking. The onliest ones looking where Little Spinoza be at, that is, for where he was, it wasn't no other horses to see. Then they was all together in one small sinking boat, him and Deucey and the frizzly girl and Alice and Little Spinoza. That's how far back Little Spinoza was running.

  They hadn't no strength even to shout his name. Trouble cotton up they lungs. Disappointment sit heavy on they heads. They can just about lift they chin and watch. It was no way in the world that horse could make it back in this race. That Alice Nuzum so far off in her rating until she have to be thinking of getting there yesday. Or maybe tomorrow. Not today. Medicine Ed look up front. It's a whole nuther race gone on up there, the four horse trying to open it up in front, the one horse stalking him two lengths back on the rail and the three horse dogging the one horse at his elbow. And the rest of the field knotted up on the inside five, six lengths back, like soup greens hanging off a long spoon. But even if you want to lose Little Spinoza in this pack, you can't. He is lollergagging along ten lengths back of the others, dead last.

  Medicine Ed is gone to be not two-fifty but four-fifty in the hole with Two-Tie. And Two-Tie himself will take a beating in the race. Medicine Ed will look like a damn fool, more than what he already do, and on top of that, his good credit gone. Just when he want to drop his head in his hands for shame, Medicine Ed hear the words: We will understand it better by and by.

  And that's when Little Spinoza start to make his move. Alice climb up some way on his neck and take hold but she don't use no stick. They have got just three-eighths of a mile to go and they don't even look at that mess on the inside. In their hurryment they go round. And they it is again, gobbling up ground like a black steam shovel-here come Little Spinoza and Alice flying up the stretch. Here come the Speculation grandson flat out, sailing around the six and seven horse and sliding up between the five and the two like a black polish cloth in a mahogany hand, opening, closing, opening out again, inside the four horse, who done faded out of it, and the three horse, who make one last push but it ain't enough, and swooping up on Ink Spot whose boy look round at the wire but it is too late.

  Only Deucey yelled a little. Medicine Ed done lost his voice. He bowed his head for the beauty of it and because it come from his dead mother. Also the frizzly head girl ain't squeal nor holler. Her eyes was wide and shining and she sink her fingers into his bony arm behind the elbow and squeeze so hard it hurt. I can't believe I saw that, she say, it was so… great. For once he almost like her hungry ignorance, which at least it wasn't small or mean. After all she Two-Tie's blood kin. The three of them head for the winner's circle, floating on they cloud through the people towards the gap, just believing they luck, kicking through dead tickets and grease-pearled pizza plates, hardly moving they feet.

  Man takes his picture. Then they waiting to see what Little Spinoza will pay. In that cloud, Medicine Ed ready to feel free. He wished Gus Zeno was alive to see him. Or Charles Philpott. He wished anybody was alive to see him. The young fool was away up north somewheres, seeing about a horse-he hinted it was a owner in the works. The young fool had been let in. In a winking, sporting way he had rode ten dollars on Little Spinoza, but he didn't have no faith.

  Only, when Medicine Ed caught Joe Dale Bigg standing yonder outside the winner's circle, he come down to earth with a thump. For Ed could see it: Joe Dale believed. Joe Dale believed, and it was worse than the other white boss disbelieving that them three were able. Joe Dale Bigg believed more than it was there to believe in. He believed it have all been one big plan, and which was to make him look like a fool.

  Joe Dale Bigg was a half bald man with a big forehead. Just now the forehead glow blue white and push out round and damp in front like a boiled egg. His thick hair stand out a little crumped from his head. His dark eyes were watching them three. His arms was folded across his chest like a judge. Medicine Ed remembered to taken the little red flannel bag between his fingers and softly rub. He knew he couldn't do nothing for Deucey. Her trouble was coming. He knew the frizzly hair girl must suffer too. But he would be safe. Inside his pocket piece used to be anvil dust and a thumbnail of blue Getaway Goofer Powder, dressed with a drop of Jockey Club fast luck oil he order in from Lucky Heart Curios, Memphis, Tennessee. Every dimestore cunjure in South Carolina had the same. But now it's a strong Leave Alone powder in there too. He has the scooped-up going-away tracks of all three of them wh
ite bosses at the Mound who like to scheme and get in your bidness, and can't be satisfied, and want it back, what anymany little bit of anything you finally lay hold of. This speckle stuff give him keepaway power over the stallman, Suitcase Smithers, and Racing Secretary Chenille, and the leading trainer, Joe Dale Bigg. And just in case, his boss Tommy is in there too.

  Medicine Ed taken the red flannel bag between his fingers and rub. He said: In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost, I ask you to take all the bad luck off me and make it go on them who tryna take from me, what I done rightly win, put the harm on them and let it go back to the Devil where it come from. And he rubbed and listened to them clicking softly together in this strong Leave Alone powder, the carefully parched manly parts of Little Spinoza, smoked down to the size of marbles, over a dry wood fire.

  THIRD RACE

  Pelter

  ONE JANUARY NIGHT when snow was sifting white moons into the rusty rims of the kitchen portholes and softening the periscopes of the sewer hookups in the Horseman's Motel trailer park, Maggie realized that she liked this life. Not life in general-this life right now. She was pouring cans of beer over soaked drained cowpeas and all at once she understood she was happy on the racetrack with Tommy.