by Jaimy Gordon
She knows things is falling apart, that's all she know. Deucey and her and Medicine Ed standing under the eaves Sadday last in the steaming hot rain, and the young fool look in and say, Nebraska, k, n, a, sumpm, sumpm, he spelled it out-even Medicine Ed knows Nebraska don't start with no k. That spells knacker, he say, you see how it's almost the same word? Medicine Ed, he don't say nothing. He don't want to get in no disputes with his boss about how you spell this and how you spell that.
But Deucey say, Nebraska spells b, u, t, e, bute, you mean. That's the only thing they got going for them up there, I been there, I know what I'm talking about, and that's the only reason that horse still wins. They pickled him in bute.
It's more to that horse than bute, Medicine Ed put in.
Bute or no bute, the young fool say. Bute is the work of man. We'll see who the forces of good like on race day. Anyhow, bute is not entirely unknown here at the Mound.
The young fool's woman don't pipe up like she used to: Don't they test for bute?
She know better. She knows that spitbox a sometimey thing anymore at all these half-mile tracks. Nobody told her. She finally figure it out for herself. Working for the young fool all this while, she learn to say I don't know nuthin bout no needle with the rest of em. These last years everybody creep closer and closer to post time with that needle, and lessen the office tryna rule somebody off who done made a nuisance of hisself some other way, very very seldom do it come up positive.
Yet and still, the frizzly hair girl too has her entry in that special race. Pelter. Pelter will run and collect his two hundred dollars and maybe even a few more dollars to show, she say. Soon as this race is done, we're going home in dark of night out the back gate if necessary, she say, going back to Charles Town, that's why we need us every dollar I can lay in. Do that us include him, Medicine Ed? Don't count on it.
Now of a sudden she say, I gotta get him out of here, Ed, before he hurts somebody or somebody hurts him. But I don't know if he'll go. Of a sudden she let it out.
He have his own idea about things, Medicine Ed agreed.
He's got it all worked out now where everything fits. I don't know what to do.
She looks at him like he can tell her something. It gives him a peculiar feeling, like inside his throat is tryna grow wings. He tries to think what he can say. From what he know of doctoring, he could tell the frizzly hair girl various ways to set a person crazy. A drilled coconut with his name inside and thrown into a river put a person on a long drag and a drift until his mind get to wavering and go away. A rayroad spike through his clothes keep him a-going and a-going, can't get no rest and never satisfied nowhere he goes. Or his name on a paper in a rotted apple and buried, then he just fall. Can't figure out nothing. Get what you call like mindless before he do go.
But the young fool? Something have made him think he big when he small and strong when he weak, something have set him thinking he the king when he ain't nothing. Long as he think he king, he can't see how low he is, don't know to ask the bad luck to leave him while it's still time, and put it back on them that brung it, and send it back to the Devil where it come from.
Medicine Ed could tell the frizzly hair girl about all that, and even if she don't end up thinking he the crazy one, what she gone do about it? What can he say to give her hope for better? Old Deucey declared the other day it was certain medicines now for crazy people, to clarify they mind. A hospital doctor could write you a prescription for that. But he didn't hold with it: If it was so, and you could cure the insane with a little pill, why was all the state hospitals full as a tick, them for white peoples same as black?
He wished to help the girl. He tried to put his lost home out of his mind and think how he could help her, but what could he say to give her hope when he don't hope himself. He felt her shoulder start to shaking and he knew she was crying. He put his hand on her frizzly head. It was a little stickly, like a old feather pillow, and anymany shades of brown, like the baby sparrows squawking this time of year under the barn eaves, ruffling their small wings and holding their mouths wide open for their mothers to come feed them.
LIKE EVERY RACETRACK DUMMY, Jojo Wood considered himself a prognosticator. Like, he could of wrote the tip sheets, if he hadna been so busy losing races on the same horses. So, in possession for once of a universally touted sure thing, on the way out the door he drilled Two-Tie, the only holdout, between the bow ties with a stubby pointer finger. Lord of Misrule in the seventh, grampop, he said, and don't forget who told you.
Like Two-Tie could forget-he smiled patiently-and the mutt pack trailed with its usual beery racket down the wooden stair, into the summer dawn. Every one of em was getting down on Lord of Misrule. However they could, and whether they owned up to it or not. D'Ambrisi, whose credit was not good, had had to get off his lime green silk shantung suit to borrow a quarter. Deucey Gifford was banking on the entry percentage for Little Spinoza. Little Spinny had a bonafide shot in the race, she said shiftily, running a flat hand over her crewcut the same as she did whenever she was holding better than a pair. She was a worse liar than Elizabeth. And Jojo was riding Pelter, which Two-Tie took it to mean that even little Margaret must be investing in Nebraska. Even if an intelligent person would put Jojo Wood on any horse that could figure, which they wouldn't, everybody knew the jocks, too, were going with Lord of Misrule. They didn't even bother to make no secret of it, though few were as indiscreet as the ever blabbing Jojo, whose dexedrine jitters went straight to his jawbone.
Two-Tie yawned, straightened his two bow ties in the glass doorpane and picked up Elizabeth's leash. He had to wait while she splayed her front feet and stretched herself down like a bridge cable, first the front end, then the back. She couldn't quite get the old altitude, glanced over at him embarrassed, and he politely looked away. Then they were off. Elizabeth thumped and bumped her way down the stair. Anymore she went down like a wooden pull horsey, reared back a little and let down the two in front, bump, then came the two behind, da-bump. For the last three years she was losing the spring in her hind legs and now she was off in her left front too, since she had chased a squirrel into a board fence by the old natrium plant. Usually anymore she only went after the squirrels in first gear, if that, and he had the feeling when she did give chase it was a issue of self respect, so she could call herself a dog, not with no hope of catching nutting. Which was only reasonable. In twelve years she had not caught up with a single squirrel. Then again he did not encourage the killer instinct in Elizabeth. She was more of a thinker, not a athlete, nutting like one of those idiot fox-running dogs, all yap and slobber, which the good old boys from Wetzel County turned loose from their station wagons to tear all round the country while they stayed behind and reclined their seats, drinking Carling Black Label Beer.
Outside on Ohio Avenue already the air was pearly with the heat to come, the sidewalks had that dry gleam and Elizabeth dropped behind. Two-Tie looked at the two of them in the window of Mouser's Furniture. His own face shocked him, gray and hanging over his neck. He was dragging worse than she was. Something was eating him-why, when he finally knew his niece, little Margaret, and might be able to do something for her? Something about that race-knowing Lillian's Donald was in town and the boy, who must be after all 45, 46 years old now, hadn't even come to see him. He had a feeling that helping Margaret was too late, and maybe even the wrong person. Sure he had made this race for Donald, but back then too he had bought plenty of stuff for the snarling boy, with his little lady's eyebrow of a first mustache, who hated him, whatever he needed, underwear, a winter coat, plus for his birthday in April educational models he never built, puzzles he never took out of the box, and used to give him a couple bucks whenever he asked for it. But there was no getting out of it: When Lillian had put down her foot about getting married, before the Pimlico Futurity or else, and the morning after (Privileged lose it on a foul), she had packed her valise, and told the boy to pack his, and called a taxi for the train, he had watched from their bed
. He let them go. Then in 1940, when he heard that Lillian had died in a Catholic nursing home in South Chicago, he never even picked up the phone. He should have asked right then if he could do something for the boy. But he already knew that Donald blamed him, and he was afraid.
Two-Tie sat down on a concrete bench at the edge of the cemetery. Today Elizabeth didn't even poke her nose in the yellowing grass at its foot but let herself down at his feet with a grunt. Whether we take a piece of Nebraska or not? he asked her. After all he had practically wrote the race, he had as good a right as anybody, but he had a funny feeling about it. He lined up the reasons why he should keep his money in his pocket. True, the public had no way of knowing the race was made for Lord of Misrule. The outside bettor was not going to like the horse, who had finished, if you called that finishing, 64 lengths out of it last spring at Aksarben, when he had took that spill. Fell, said the chart; it didn't point out that the horse got up and walked home. And then there was a long nutting in the paper, and finally two more outings since Memorial Day, one emptier than the one before. So the public was not going to bet the horse, but every racetracker in the Northern Panhandle was. Every horseman in the know, every groom who had a horse in the race, or every groom who knew a groom who had a horse in the race, every big-eared loafer and sponger and hanger-on, which covered about everybody. There was far, far too many k'nockers involved in the race already, loudmouths up and down the line. The word was out. Around here two hundred bucks to enter didn't happen every day. In short the odds on the horse could only be none too good, and worse in the event the betting public was swifter than usual and a late falling price on such a fabulously sorry animal from a kingdom far away tipped them off.
But it wasn't even the price that troubled Two-Tie. The game was funny, not funny ha-ha, funny like green lunchmeat. It had to be tainted, maybe not for everybody but for him, Two-Tie, personally. By the time she left Baltimore, Lillian did not wish him well. And the grownup boy, her son, Donald, still did not wish him well. He don't come by or even call, though Two-Tie hears he's been at the Mound three days already.
Then he sees Donald in the Polky Dot Cafe last night. They didn't expect to meet and suddenly they're face to face, each of them with a round plate of meatloaf in his hand. And the look in Donald's eyes was terrible, before he checked it. Then he grinned, a big freckle-face grin. Say, Two-Tie, how's it kicking? A cowboy, straight out of South Baltimore. It wasn't Irish, smiling like that when you hated somebody-the boy's father might of been part Italian.
Moreover last night Two-Tie hears from Deucey and others that Standish Chenille himself had come out of the racing secretary's office to pump the kid's hand when he rolled in with that museum piece of a horse. True, Lord of Misrule was a great horse in his day, but only a individual who was fundamentally cold, very cold would still be throwing the horse out on the track and racing him. It was different when they first found out Misrule had bum seed and brung him back to racing. Then he was only five, six years old and had plenty of tread left, and he liked to run, anyway that was the story, which some horses do. But after a while he got sorer, and slower, and his bigtime owner fell on hard times and the horse passed from hand to hand. Ever downward, of course. Two-Tie had figured Donald must be in some kind of dire personal need, but no-the word was that Donald was doing good, very good, at Aksarben where he had ended up. At Aksarben, alone on the planet, bute was a mitzvah, one hundred per cent legal. The boy didn't have to come here to play his hole card, that was clear, so why did he? Keep away from that race, Two-Tie advised himself out loud. It was a funny feeling he had. Elizabeth in the rough grass picked her head up off her paws and gave him a worried glance. He could fly down to Gulfstream for a couple weeks, or show his face at Fort Erie, or catch the end of the meeting at Ruidoso Downs. Anymore nobody knew him from Adam at those tracks. But what would he do with Elizabeth? He picked himself up off the concrete bench, brushed off his trousers and set out for home.
Now it was hot, and Elizabeth was poorly, dragging two lengths behind as they crossed the sun-bleached ferry landing, but as soon as they turned onto Ohio Avenue she passed him at a trot. He had to whistle to make her wait at B Street and then she was off again, with even some creaky lightness in her hocks, some remnant of a coltish bounce in the way her old feet touched pavement and curled up behind her. She was always faster back to the barn.
She turned the corner of the alley by the Ritzy Lunch and when he caught up, she was climbing in the open door of Roy's Taxicab, which sat idling by the garbage cans as usual. Elizabeth putting herself in the taxi coulda been a sign, if you believed in signs, if you were a prophet instead of a businessman. But he was no prophet, and he had definitely made up his mind not to ride one dime on the horse, nor even to go by the Polky Dot and find out, if he could, which way the action was going. Come on, Elizabeth, let's go home, he said without conviction. For he was interested, his niece to say nutting of the whole mutt pack was in it one way or another, he had some other people's dough to lay off, and Elizabeth was always up for a taxi ride. But no, he had a funny feeling about the race. Stay away. He whistled sharply. Elizabeth still didn't come. It was a fact her hearing wasn't what it used to be. Time was she could hear him peel a banana two rooms away-strangely enough the dog liked bananas, whatever he ate she wanted to eat, with the exception of pickles-but she wasn't above playing his sympathy now and then and pretending she didn't hear him when she did. If some suggestion didn't suit her. He leaned inside the taxi. Come on out of there, Elizabeth.
Can't you see the dog likes it where he is? A heavy body was pushing him from behind. But you get in. That's right, get in the car. He felt a hardness against his kishkes that he knew was a gun. It wasn't too late to get away, he could twist clear of the door or fall down in the gutter where he was, even a bulvan like Biggy-it was Biggy he saw over his shoulder-wouldn't shoot him in the public street, not in Carbonport. The moron would have strict instructions. Biggy and who else? Two-Tie peered into the inner shadows of the sunlit cab. Only Roy. He saw Elizabeth sitting up at the far window, panting happily, ready for a ride. Roy was leaning over the driver's seat, patting her, sliding his hand under her collar-fucking faithless mutts the both of em-just in case she decided to listen to Two-Tie, for once, and get out of the car. Only it wasn't Roy. It was Roy's cap and jacket on D'Ambrisi. Elizabeth lets that ten-cent nutting make up to her, he thought jealously, and at the same time: It's all over for both of us. He realized he had been expecting this. He couldn't believe that such inconsequential lowlifes like these two would be the ones to take him out. But they had Elizabeth. He got in the car.
Nice doggy, D'Ambrisi said, nice dog, and Two-Tie saw that his hands were trembling as he twisted them in her collar.
She ain't gonna hurt you, Two-Tie said. Let her alone.
I swear it wasn't my idea, D'Ambrisi whined.
What's it about?
Shut up, Biggy said, and nudged Two-Tie with the barrel of whatever he was packing.
Possibly it was only a warning, not that he was taking any warnings, not from these two, not from nobody. Maybe they were supposed to bring him to Joe Dale, or to Donald. He would have thought that Donald, or Joe Dale, being the type of men they were, would wish to take care of such a thing themselves. Sew the matter up with their own hands, so to speak. Tell him in his face where he had went wrong, try to make him whine how sorry he was, let him beg for a break, now that he was a dead man, then burn him anyway. He had been expecting this for some time now. He sat back in the back seat of Roy's Taxicab and watched the blue cables of Powhatan Point Bridge dip down and tick by, one by one, like magic wands that weren't working. He didn't want a break. He didn't have to degrade himself. Only, there was Elizabeth to think about.
In the crack at the bottom of its steel-plate railing, the river glittered like broiler paper. Then they were off the bridge. Bushes whizzed by, and trees. If this was what he thought it was, he should be looking at Nature for the last time. But, maybe he wa
s a klutz at heart, Nature didn't interest him. Even when he was a young man, what he liked was taking care of somebody. The big picture wasn't like a painted picture on a wall, it was more like a scroll, an ever unfolding piece of goods, pulling forward so many lives, the living threads. He liked to be the shuttle what touched them all and brought them together, whether they knew it or not. When he was young he had never really moved out of his family, not even once he hooked up with Lillian and settled her in an apartment. By then his parents were old and they needed him and he had the money from his finance business, so he never even noticed he was doing it, taking care of somebody. Maybe he didn't do that good a job of it, Lillian would have said so, she did say so, but still it must be what he was put on earth to do, considering how much he'd ended up doing it, one way or the other. Then Mickey went to jail and Lillian took Donald and flew the coop, not that he blamed her for quitting him, and pretty soon Alvin was dead and his mother in Levindale and his sisters scattered. After that it was just the money, his various partners and business deals, his protection, the tarnish odor of money and the mutt pack for company. For a few years he had low-grade muscle around him all the time, getting into scrapes in bars, bad crap games, brainless rhubarbs and shoving matches in his kitchen. The boys didn't have enough to do. After a while, around when Ike was elected the second time, he let the protection go.
That was when he got Elizabeth. For protection. What a laugh. She would have looked after him if he'd let her. But he was too afraid she would get hurt. Like now, she knew something was wrong and she was worrying-looking across at him with a dent in her black forehead, her gold-pointed eyebrows bunched together, just like a mother. He put his hand on the back of her neck. She was an old lady, a little slow on the uptake, anymore she didn't see so good or hear so good, and she didn't like her routine interrupted, but she was clocking now and ready to rumble, if it came to that.
