by Jaimy Gordon
The Mahdi, redeemer of this world, is a perfect actor in the gate. The gods so design that he has your lucky number, the number of her beauties and her sorrows: 7. And he has the blessed early speed to cross the racetrack in front of the noble old bums in the middle. But in this world the Devil draws a better post position. The Devil is tight with Racing Secretary Chenille, he runs stall man Smithers, Joe Dale Bigg is one of his pet flunkies, ergo, Lord of Misrule gets the post position, God, echod, ONE, 1. Disguised as God, the Devil is pretty damn cool in the gate too.
Her horse has the witch's number, 9. She would have liked to do better-she isn't a bad witch, she is only a stupid young witch but she has been taken in. She has taken your horse and now he is her horse, Pelter, a spirit of mischief, neither good nor bad. In this kind of contest, he has no chance.
But Spinoza, the three horse, TRINITY, could figure, out of the 3 hole. God likes this horse. It isn't His horse, it isn't the redeemer of this world, but He's always had a soft spot for that number.
Everything else is bums. Underlings. Dust. Assorted lost souls.
Ehe bell rings. (You recognize that bell: it's a school bell, Falls Elementary, Trempeleau, Wisconsin. Miss Swearingen is there, she was always one of the good, she calls out: Tommy? Tommy Hansel? You smile at her but are careful not to say: Here.)
The bell rings. The gates to each little jail cell fold away. The Mahdi digs in right out of the gate, going to where the Devil is, Lord of Misrule, a shiny black beetle of a horse, running along the rail. In fact he's almost leaning on that rail. His action is rocky, jerky like an old-time silent movie, something is wrong there but he stays up anyhow, easy, no effort, he's floating above four broken legs is why-if you didn't believe in the Devil before, wait till you see the corpse he's running around in now! Never mind, The Mahdi is there, he's got his teeth in the Devil's neck by the clubhouse turn, but, face it, getting there took something out of the redeemer of this world. Now he's got to work.
Something, a comet, shoots up in front of them, it's the big roan mare with the number 2 of a bad marriage (irreconcilable differences) getting it over with, burning herself out to a pinkish gray clinker. She has a little bit of terrified speed and, amazingly, she's still up a length when they come out of the turn into the back stretch, not coming anymore, just hanging. Mahdi wants to keep the Devil honest and press the pace but the hero has come too far, he's a big red muscleman glittering with oily sweat, the Devil looks small and cool, but as for The Mahdi it's all he can do. The pace ain't breaking any records.
Five lengths back is the whole middle world, Sudanese and all the old platers, the solid citizens, the moderately corrupt-a whole platoon of them churning up a bunker of dust along the rail, out there to collect their only slightly dirty two hundred a piece-and her horse, Pelter, on the outside. And stuck behind them, not that he's trying to get through, wrapped up in himself in that holy way he has under his tadpole-girl jockey, the 3 horse, TRINITY, Little Spinoza. The gray mare sinks back through the pack like snow when she finally dies at the half, then the dull burghers drop out of it too, one by one. Except Pelter. Her Pelter. At the far turn he's still camped there four lengths back of the hung match between Misrule and The Mahdi, not trying, just being a spectator at the last great contest.
And now here goes. Little Spinoza wakes out of his dream and runs, bounds, leaps like a holy fool after the Devil and his harrower. Earlie brings up his viper-entwined stick and busts on The Mahdi, reminding him why he is here, and the expected one opens his stride and surges in front of Lord of Misrule at the quarter pole, gets his whole body by and then something is wrong, he bunches oddly or crumples in the last turn, some kind of spasm maybe only you can see, and hits the stretch trying to die. You feel his pain. You have sent him too far. (But of course you knew all along you had sent him too far, him and yourself too. Courage, son. All we can lose is this world.)
Still, dying is hard. You feel his pain. He wants to die, he needs to die, needs to back up, has nowhere to go. The Devil is right behind him and won't slow down, and on the Devil's right side at the sixteenth pole is Little Spinoza, trinity, still coming. That crazy little one-run Speculation grandson that lost his nuts before your eyes, who you knew could figure but didn't ride a nickel on, comes driving, driving, driving. You hear a sob and she is standing there next to you at the rail, crying for the glory of it, or maybe she played the wrong horse too.
So the Devil goes down after all, you are thinking, roughly satisfied. Though the redeemer doesn't pick up the win, still he's outdone himself, used up the Devil and died a hero-and there it is, the Mahdi's backwards fade-why then to And then he does go down. The small, glittering, patched-together black devil, Lord of Misrule, rolling, skidding in the dust, scarred black legs flailing. Because the dying Mahdi has backed into him. Bumped him. And Lord of Misrule, only a phantom horse, twisted together in haste in the Devil's workshop out of abortionists' black wire hangers and the patent leather raincoats of pimps and whores, can't possibly move like a living thing, change leads, get out of the way. Down, down he goes and rolls away from the rail-into Little Spinoza, who goes down too.
Only Pelter, the Darkesville Stalker, never in a hurry, laying five lengths back, watching the show, is still on his feet. The boy takes him wide around the two horses thrashing in the dirt. He crosses the finish line.
Sudanese and the pack of venerable routers straggle in.
Lord of Misrule gets up, shakes off, and, riderless, jogs across the finish line. What can you expect from the Devil? He looks no worse than when he started.
The ambulance comes onto the track. It's for the horse of the three feckless innocents, the acey-deucey hag, the ancient black groom, and her. He's finished, Little Spinoza-you heard the crack like a rifle shot, see the flopping bloody wedge at the end of the cannon bone.
But now you run for the gap. Earlie leads the Mahdi, bug-eyed, limping, embossed with glistening veins, and bleeding from his great red nostrils.
SHE WAS IN THE winner's circle when Little Spinoza became a soul, his body hauled away, his eye gone out, a great warm death in a horse ambulance going to the processor. Medicine Ed, so old and dried out he couldn't cry, was the only one left to stand behind the screen they folded around the horse, to lean on his stiff leg and see the horse off. Margaret saw only the flapping canvas, the squeaking winch, the vets in seersucker, the hurrying ambulance drivers who knew the way to the place behind the maintenance plant in their sleep. Meanwhile bettors of all shapes and sizes crowded the rail, so well paid by the sight of the dying horse on the track that for once they forgot to swear at the jockeys. (It was always the jockeys they blamed.) Then more commotion-The Mahdi jogged through the gap, nostrils bubbling red, trying not to drown in his own blood. Big and red and now, in a way, more ordinary than ever-a cheap wreck of a horse, being led away to his barn, maybe for the last time. She heard Tommy's weird singsong: All part of the plan. From where I sit, to lose is to win. Who was he talking to? No one she could see.
Then another sight she would not soon forget-Alice Nuzum, who didn't know where she was, crawling on her hands and knees in a blind circle in the gritty blond dirt of the finish line. Two valets lifted her off the track by her elbows. Deucey, kneading her mesh cap, faithful as a dog-or you might say the only real gentleman there-followed them away. Would care for Alice. Deucey always did the heartfelt thing. I never been afraid of dying. This world ain't been so good to me I can't stand the thought of leaving it. But I can't leave it yet, Margaret explained to Deucey in her mind-as she watched them disappear through the little green door to the jockeys' weight room at the back of the paddock. I am attached to this world, she said, and when she looked up again in the winner's circle, there was Joe Dale. Maggie stood at Pelter's head, holding the shank like a groom, while Joe Dale stood at his tail, looking fixedly at her, his arms folded across his thick chest, a bit of gold glittering inside the open collar of his black polo shirt, his legs planted apart in lemon silk slacks, his f
ace unreadable. The photographer took him for the trainer. The flashbulb popped, with Joe Dale still in the picture.
She must have blinked up too grimly at Jojo. The jockey began to speak: We wasn't even trying, he whined, I never called on him but he wasn't that far out of it and then it opened up and he just strolled across the finish. She wanted to say, Schlemiel, I can't even count on you to lose when our two lives depend on it, but she knew he was telling the truth. Jojo had surely bet his pushke on Nebraska like everybody else. Forget it, she said. Jojo slid down from the horse, took his saddle and slunk away.
Joe Dale was still staring at her with an oddly empty face. I'll catch you later, baby, he finally said. I'm going to try not to waste you. I'm going to try to keep each part of this thing in the right box where it belongs. I'm going to give you a chance to work your way out of the deep hole you're in. Then he walked away in his slacks that were sleek but puckered at the hip-just a little too tight. Maggie looked around for someone, but all the others, Deucey, Tommy, Alice, Medicine Ed, were seeing to their horses, or themselves.
The worm white kid went by with Lord of Misrule, whom outriders had finally cornered in the backstretch. The small black horse pranced loopily, somehow off whenever he moved-could he be nerved in all four feet? As they passed through the crowd the kid, showing off, snatched at the shank, the horse threw up his head and by chance his liver-flecked, oddly malicious eyes swept over Maggie. She felt an electrical crawling at the back of her neck. He was so far past the point where other horses quit that he had come out the other side. They would have to shoot him to stop him. But you see, I do have to live, Margaret explained to Deucey. I do want the world. I can't die yet. I need to find out how it all ends.
Then there was nothing left for her to see there, no one left for her to talk to. Two men from the spit box loafed politely in the gap, waiting for her. Slow as she could drag him, she started up the gravel path with Pelter, towards the test barn. Pelter was in a fine mood, and why not-he'd had an easy outing, he'd just been getting going when the race ended, and his blood was silky with bute. He blew gusts that smelled like flowers out his handsome nostrils, shook his head, maps of rich sweat broke out along both his flanks. His winner's number dangled under his throatlatch. The two men from the spit box had hung it there. Now they scuffed along, one at his head, one at his tail-Lyle and Johnny were their names, she recalled-the Odom brothers, supposedly on the lookout for cheats, though they themselves were cheats, somebody's cousins from the secretary's office, or worse. Were they what you bought, if you bought the spit box? Who knew? They were ordinary looking country boys, round leathery faces and short weak chins, one blond and going bald, one dark with a stringy pompadour. The dark one looked sullen, the fair one, smug, but they had faces like gravediggers, not murderers.
Whether they were crooks or not, she knew she was dead, at least as far as the purse went. So much for getaway money: For a race she hadn't even meant to win, she would come up positive. She could make it easy for the boys and drop a tablet of phenylbutazone in their specimen cup right now. Plop. She had one on her: ran a finger down her pocket, felt the carbuncle of the big white horse pill studding her hipbone. By now bute would likely be found in every cc of blood or urine the spit box took at this low-rent bullring-or would be if they bothered to test for it. This time they were sure to test for it. Weren't they? Of course, lost money was only money, shame was moonshine and maya, and getting ruled off the track would be a relief. It was the other kind of death that had her worried.
So she was in no hurry. She even hoped that Pelter would stretch and piss on the gravel path like a nervous filly, done before the boys could get the plastic wrap off the cup. Then maybe she'd be safe in the test barn all night, walking round and round and round behind the razor-wire fence, letting the horse lead her while she slept with her eyes open. But of course no such thing would happen. Pelter was a schooled gelding with exemplary manners. They walked slowly on. Some bettors had had enough. Their automobiles, leaving early, mashed over grass and pebbles in the ruined meadows that were overflow parking lots. Headlights swept the path, then it was dark and quiet again as only a racetrack is quiet-munching, scratching, glimmering. In the dome of false dusk over the still-lit racetrack, a million bugs were whirling, and from time to time, slow and studious by comparison, came the fluttering swoop of a bat. The eighth race went off. Surge of voices like a big rolling surf-the rest of the bettors, at it again.
This here hoss bought me my '56 Chevy pickup, the blond brother suddenly remarked to the dark brother, over Maggie's head. Yep. Pelter, the Darkesville Stalker. First Horse of West Virginia. The truck that would not die. Good little truck. Blue. Was that the one had a hole in the floor by the gearshift where you could see the road going by? the dark brother asked. I remember that freezing piece of blue shit. Well now. You go on and be that way, said the blond brother, rolling the ends of his mustache in his fingers. I reckon quite a few people are in a sour mood because they lost money tonight. But not me. The dark brother said: Aw, you bet like a girl. Put twenty dollars on Pelter to show, please, Mr. Two-Tie, sir. You bet like a damn girl and except for a miracle you can't win enough to buy you a grease job.
The blond brother turned to Maggie. Who's signing the card on this horse? You work for that Hansel fellow? The brothers exchanged sly grins. I can sign, she said, starting to shiver in her little striped jersey. The black damp rising from the river had rolled away the heat like a stone. Is them goose pamples? said the blond brother said, running a finger along her arm. She drew her arm away. I wasn't planning to be here this late, she said. Let's get it over with.
On they walked around the rim of the test barn, Maggie and Pelter as slow as they could go, the brothers strolling behind. She peered into the glinting, clanking dark beyond the test compound and asked herself why she had medicated the horse for a race he couldn't win. She didn't seem to know anymore how an animal would act if required to live on the racetrack in its own nature. In fact she wished she, too, were padded right now in a good gray cloud of drugs-a dome of false dusk with Gothic bats in it, a soft pearl of the mind. She feared disfigurement. Death next. Pain least. But she feared pain too.
She was in no hurry to go back to Barn Z, but Pelter was. He drank, they walked a turn, he drank again, and before she could whistle, the horse was pissing into the steaming sand. Then there was nothing else to do but to head for the gate of the compound. They passed a tiny office lined with dusty bottles where a light was shining. The long flickering fluorescent tube hung a greenish mask on a small man hunched at a desk. In front of him was an open fifth of some off-brand bourbon. She saw the familiar lariats on his cowboy boots. It was Kidstuff.
Howdy, Miss Margaret, he said.
What the hell are you doing here? she whispered.
Filling in for my friend Rollie. I believe there was some horse he wanted to play.
This place is crooked as a dog's hind leg, Maggie said.
It's just for the one race, Kidstuff smiled. It was a special race. He passed her the open bottle. She took a swig and so did he. It was clearly not his first.
Tell me, is Indian Mound Downs going to send my urine sample to the lab with its usual diligence?
Now why would you ask that question? Kidstuff said. Yall haven't been trying that new B vitamin out on this horse, have you?
Certainly not, Maggie said, although I must say at his advanced age it would be a kindness.
Kidstuff cleared his throat. I believe the racetrack will handle that test with just as much care as every other day. Nobody in racing needs a positive.
I might not be in racing too much longer, Maggie said.
Anyhow, plenty of old geezers liked Pelter in that race. Not everybody was as smart as we was. He smiled again, his good teeth glowing like lightning bugs in the queer green light.
Kidstuff, if I make it off this racetrack alive, I will always think of you fondly, she said.
O? Why is that?
Because you were the best of them, she said.
He looked at her sadly and she noticed for the first time-but maybe it was the light-that his handsome face was drawn into fine lines by something more than hard weather, and the whites of his eyes were the color of putty.
I hope I ain't the best you can do, Maggie, he said. I'm a-going down the drain.
MEDICINE ED, LIMING DOWN Little Spinoza's stall, looked for the frizzly girl to come back with Pelter, and meanwhile he listened to the crazy talk of the young fool, the whapping of tie chains against the wall and the bashing and thrashing of the big horse still bleeding in his lungs and tryna catch air. Tommy Hansel had shut hisself and the horse up in they stall over on the far side of the barn. Medicine Ed pressed his ear against the wall to make out what he could. He fear to hear them and fear even more not to hear them-what it might mean. He was scared to the roots of his hair, and woolgathered all in all as to what the night was trying to tell him. I went to the goofer and even so the prince of darkness taken my horse and my money, I never see the gray gentleman but I feel him all around me. And all this while out the back of his eye he have to watch that midnight blue gangster car purring like a big black cat in the dirt road, set back a little ways for once from the light pole and the thin skirt of light it throw round the back gate. Of course he couldn't see through the dark glass who was in it, but he could guess. Medicine Ed raked and strewed white Zs of bitter lime about the stall until his eyes teared up, and all the while out the side of his eye he watched for any roll of the black glass, any hand or either long small barrel out the window or the door.
And that was how he come to seen it at the last hose of Barn Z, the hose pulled tight round the far corner of the barn and the river of water pooling and muddling there where no horse was. He had more sense than to walk round the shedrow and eyeball that in the open. He went to his tack room, leaned to the chink in the back wall and tried to make out what it might mean. It was that yellow taxicab from downstairs of his apartment in Carbonport that Mr. Two-Tie use to rode around in. Roy's Taxicab, from the lunchroom, what it was, with all four doors flapped open in the skrimpy light of the darkest corner of the fence, getting hosed up and down like a hot horse, only it wasn't no horse. The soap bubbles crawled to the big puddle by the back gate in a rusty fuzzy line, and before he could even see the color of blood in that foam he had a bad ugly feeling why they would wash the car that way with the doors wide open. Then he seen the hose run inside, the low pinkish waterfall across the running board and he knew. He knew what happened to Mr. Two-Tie. To the creeper crawlers in the roots of his hair he knew what he knew: the Devil ain't taken his money, the Devil don't need his money, for his money was all markers in Mr. Two-Tie's pocket. Now Mr. Two-Tie is gone and Little Spinoza is gone. The young fool's reason is gone, soon his horses be gone, and his woman too, and Medicine Ed's home with them. But his bankroll still wrapped up tight as head cabbage in the Peoples Savings and Trust of Wheeling. His money, not much, but yet and still not nothing-the same like it was before. And hisself alive and working, working forever, world without end. O god, soul of the world, foe of the Devil who taken the young fool's reason, so help me god, I have learned my lesson, stop now, spare my life and spare out them others life and I will never practice medicine no more.
