Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Thinking that all expensive horses are beautiful, their expense is the point of the beauty.

  Everyone crowded around, murmuring praise. Lodestar held his ground, blinking steadily, twitching his nostrils. The stalls were so clean in the paddock, there wasn't a fly to be seen.... In the stalls beside Lodestar were horses, rivals, seemingly more spirited than he: taller, broader-chested, more assured. Iris murmured in her mother's ear, "He seems so sad."

  Now Persia says, "I thought Mr. Yard's horse looked a little well, quiet. And sort of small-boned too, compared withDuke says, "He isn't a giant. But he's very fast, and he's very smart." The mobile starting gate is moving down the track, a parade of horses close behind. Skeins of braided light move across the track like part-formed thoughts. "He's conserving his strength.

  Biding his time. You'll see. You have a surprise in store. I've seen that horse in action, don't forget."

  "Yes," says Persia. "I know."

  'And Cal Yard is my friend."

  "Yes."

  "He wouldn't mislead me."

  "No."

  Persia feels mildly dazed as if Duke has suddenly begun to speed their car... inching them toward 100 miles an hour.

  Persia and Duke aren't quarreling and are not going to quarrel. Not now that they are together again, more in love than ever before.

  But Duke persists. "Cal's impressed with you. I knew he would be."

  Persia says, "He doesn't know me.

  Duke says, "He knows what he sees."

  Persia has no idea what they are talking about.

  Beside her, Iris is listening, though pretending otherwise.

  Persia knows very well that her daughter is keenly aware of what's being said, sly child, smarter than she lets on, knows more than she should know. In the past year or so Persia has sometimes heard Iris crying in the bathroom or in her bed, a muffled coughing sound, and it worries her (as she complains to Madelyn) that Iris won't cry in Persia's arms... refuses to cry with her. In fact, seeing Persia in tears, she's impatient, jeering, stamps out of the room, Oh, Mother, will you for God's sake stop that!

  Madelyn says, Now that Duke is back there won't be any need for crying.

  How they stare, these thousands of spectators, as the horses run the mile track, each race a miracle of concentration, building to almost unbearable suspense in the home stretch.

  Iris too is caught up in the collective excitement, the horses' straining necks, the colorful head numbers... legs, manes, tails drivers and bikes plunging in a single straining motion. For the approximate two minutes of each hard-run race, a gigantic happiness.

  A happiness she'd like to swallow swallow swallow.

  "But it seems such a pity to disqualify that horse if he could continue with the race. Why is it so important to keep the gait?"

  Persia asks. Duke exclaims softly, "Darling, is that a serious question?" And Mr. Yard, two seats down, leans over to say, "But Mrs. Courtney, that's the point of the sport: the discipline, the training, the gait. You are either a pacer or you are a trotter."

  "Yes," says Persia, laughing, rummaging in her purse for her pack of cigarettes, "but why?" Failing to find her cigarettes she slips a hand into Duke's inside coat pocket and extracts, like an expert pickpocket, his pack of Camels. It is a half-hour break before the Eastern States Sires race and everyone is tense, no one more tense than Duke Courtney.

  .. though, as he's said, he has bet only $ 100 on his friend's horse.

  They talk about harness racing: the history, the tradition. Mr. Yard says, "Chariot racing is the oldest form of racing and the most noble.

  It doesn't dehle the horses figure by putting some 5 little monkey of a man on his back." Persia says, "But why are Standardbreds trained to run so"-she searches for the word she wants "artificially?

  You force an animal to run against the grain of his nature, then he's penalized if-" Mr. Yard laughs in protest, saying, "But Persia, dear, that's the beauty of it, don't you see? It's like poetry, or music, or... whatever. The way the horse runs.

  Persia persists. "But it's so artificial. The pacers especially, swinging along like that. If I 'were four-legged, I'd go mad having to run that way. She shivers and laughs and exhales smoke from both nostrils, as if the vision of herself, down on all fours, naked, right arm and right leg in tandem, left leg and left arm in tandem, has gripped her imagination. The men are laughing at her, but their laughter has the ring of affection. She says, 'An animal should be allowed its own nature!"

  Duke says, 'All sports are artificial, Persia. Sports and games.

  That's how we tell them from life. They have beginnings and endings; they have rules... boundaries... absolute winners and absolute losers, most of the time." He's speaking rapidly, aware of the time monitored on the payoff board; he's starting to sweat inside his clothes, thinking of the upcoming race. He forces himself to smile at his wife; he squeezes her fingers in his... these many fingers surprisingly cool, considering the heat of the discussion. 'As far as that goes, sweetheart, who isn't an animal? On two legs or four?

  Aren't you? Inside your clothes? Inside your makeup? Inside you?"

  Less than ten minutes before the start of the Eastern States Sires competition, Duke Courtney groans aloud as if in sexual frustration: God, how he'd like to up his ante on this race: to $300! to $500!

  Persia, mistaking his tone, says, 'Are you crazy?"

  Duke laughs angrily. "To try to please you, yes.

  Just before the race begins Iris glances over, sees that her father's eyes are mad-gleaming yellow like the reflection of fire in glass.

  Lodestar and his blue-silked driver begin in an outside, disadvantageous position... but the colt is fast and his driver shrewd and he advances quickly, until by the half-mile point he appears to be in fourth or fifth place out of the pack of fourteen... by the three-quarters point he is in third place... until, at the finish line, amid a confusion of plunging hooves and bright colors and gaudy spinning wheels-and deafening screams-he ends the race in second place, six tenths of a second behind the winner.

  Second place!

  Amid the handshakes and embraces and ecstatic congratulations Persia Courtney remains in her seat, stunned...

  realizing that, had it not been for her cowardice, Duke would have made far more money on the race than he has.

  But he seems forgiving. Hauls her to her feet. Seizes her around the waist like a hungry young lover. Laughs, kisses hereven as she protests, "Oh, God, Duke, I'm so sorry -and the others are looking on, wide happy smiles. What is it? Persia loses her balance and nearly falls. She and Duke like a drunken couple on the dance floor. What is it?

  "We're rich!" Duke cries. "Going to be rich!"

  It requires some minutes for poor Persia to comprehend the significance of the document Duke has drawn out of his pocket with a flourish to present to her: a legal form of some kind? a contract, sealed, signed, notarized? CorndiusCourtney, Jr in partnership with Belvedere Farms, Inc of Lancaster, Pennsylvania..

  Duke has bought a one fifth interest in Lodestar, he tells her.

  Cal Yard was generous enough-highearted enough-to allow him, a small fry like him, to invest... Just a few thousand dollars in a potential champion, and already, today, in Lodestar's first big race, they've struck it rich: the second-place purse is $25,000, and one fifth of $25,000 is... ?

  Staring at the document, Persia Courtney bursts into tears.

  uddenly, they're everywhere.

  She's running. No, she's walking... not fast, not slow.

  Mmmmmmmmmm sugar. Lookit that.

  Oh, man, man... hey!

  Sheeeee-it!

  Hey girl... ?

  Every sunsplotched space she crosses-sidewalk, street, trashy alley behind the apartment building, following the dirt path across the weedy lot by school, drifting just to be alone in the railroad yard, staring wet-eyed at the river-hey girl! mmmmmmmm girl." The boys, the boys' faces, the boys' bodies leap right into her head.

  She laugh
s aloud, she's crazy with it. A fever driving the blood up, up. Chubby Checker bawling from car radios, Fats Domino bawling 'Ain't That A Shame!"

  This is the season it begins. Like climbing into the roller coaster at Crystal Beach and no way out until the ride is over..

  . no way out. She wonders, Will it be for the rest of my life?

  It's as if, thinking of other things-and Iris Courtney has many things to think about-she blunders blind into bright empty patches of sunshine where forbidden thoughts are waiting.

  Delicious thoughts.

  The thoughts sliding in the boys' eyes. Mmmmmmmm honey where're you going' so fast? Hey girl where you headed? Sweet saxophone whistles wet and sliding you have to listen hard to hear...

  have to know what to listen for, to hear.

  Friday evening at the Rialto Theater, the shabbier of Hammond's two movie houses, upper East Avenue a short two blocks from the river.

  Whispers Nancy Dorsey into Iris Courtney's ear, "Oh, God, look. You think... ? Don't look."

  Nancy Dorsey's hot damp Spearmint breath. Iris Courtney's hot damp ear.

  On screen, Ava Gardner's face immense as the side of a freight car leans above Robert Taylor's ashy face on its deathbed; at the top of the carpeted aisle, easing into the shadows, there's Jinx Fairchild and his friend Bobo Ritchie. Why would anyone come in now ten minutes before the end of the main attraction... tall skinny longlimbed black boys with walks swooping as if they're on stilts, eyes greased as ball bearings scanning the dark?

  Iris Courtney squints back to see it is Jinx Fairchild.

  That's the neighborhood boy who makes her think, each time she happens to see him, of the jackknife a boy had, years ago..

  . a white boy boastful of his wicked little knife where secret blades and even a corkscrew opened out like parts of the body you'd never guess were there.

  Iris Courtney, Nancy Dorsey, Jeannette McNamara ninthgraders at Hayden Belknap Junior High sweater sleeves uniformly pushed up their forearms, mildly tarnished identification bracelets on their wrists, skin glimmering ghostly white in the dark. They stare unblinking at the screen as, seemingly by chance, the black boys veer in their direction... whispering, giggling, shoving each other... stumbling over legs into the row of seats just in front of the row in which the girls are sitting...

  uncoiling the stained seats and throwing themselves down as if, though not really trying, they wouldn't mind breaking the seats or dislodging the entire row.

  Immediately their white-glaring sneakers, ankle-tops, Jinx Fairfield's size 12A, swing up to press against the backs of the seats in front of them. And that row of seats rocks too, like a subtle shifting of the earth.

  Both boys tear open cellophane candy wrappers with their teeth.

  Both boys chew fast and hard as if they haven't been fed for days.

  Of course, the boys aren't sitting directly in front of the white girls. Just to the side, so it's easy to talk. What's going on in the movie, they ask, why's that dude dying, who's she, anybody like some M&Ms? The girls ignore them, staring at the screen as if transfixed.

  At first. Ghost images washing over their prim pale faces, reflected in their eyes. Then they begin whispering too.

  Can't resist. Can't stop laughing. The M&Ms are passed back, sticks of Spearmint are passed forward. There are spasms of mirth, and adults in nearby seats begin to glance back annoyedmurmuring Shhhh! or Quiet please! or Shut up."-which only intensifies the joke, whatever the joke is.

  There's the News of the World, bomber pilots in formation, an obese maharajah being weighed on a scale, President Eisenhower gaunt as death... everything hilarious... the boys hunched and rocking in their seats and the girls spilling tears out of their eyes.

  Then an usher comes and shines his flashlight into the boys' faces and tells them to quiet down, which they do for a while; then the usher returns and shines his flashlight again and Bobo Ritchie growls, "Get outta my face, man," like it almost isn't a joke, though the girls break into peals of shocked laughter; then the usher returns with the manager, a heavyset white man in a business suit, no nonsense about him, and he orders Jinx and Bobo out of the theater: an order the boys obey sullenly, lazily... rising and stretching and yawning..

  .

  preening for the three white girls and for anyone else who's watching.

  Everyone in the Rialto, white and Negro, is watching.

  "Out you go, boys. Out!... Out you go!" the manager says, loud and nervous.

  "OK, man, cool it," says one of the boys. "Yeah, man, we be going'," says the other, tall outlaw figures blocking the Technicolor screen, the Fairchild boy zipping up his sheepskin jacket like it's a razor he's wielding, the Ritchie boy, mean as the ace of spades in profile, tugging his wool knit cap low on his forehead like Joe Louis in an old photograph. Jive-talking and loud-laughing, the boys amble up the aisle, followed by the blustery white manager and the young white usher with his flashlight, and when they're gone there's a collective wave of relief in the audience. The Technicolor figures on the screen flood back in.

  But Iris Courtney whispers to her friends, "Come on! Let's go!"

  She's fierce, she's angry, snatching up her coat as the other girls stare at her astonished. "Come on," she says, and Nancy Dorsey hesitates, saying, "I don't know..." and Jeannette hesitates, "Oh, Iris... we'd better not.

  Iris is on her feet pushing out into the aisle, as determined as her friends have ever seen her. "The hell with you, then," she says, running blind up the aisle... into the bright-lit foyer smelling of stale popcorn and sugary soft drinks... out into the street where a light snow is falling and the sky beyond the streetlights is invisible.

  The resolve with which Iris Courtney runs out of the Rialto, the strangeness in her pale face and pale eyes, you'd think someone had called her by name or was waiting for her, in the street, in the damp light-falling snow.

  But there's no one: the black boys are gone.

  /want to do good.

  God, if there isaGod. help me to be good.

  At the rear of the fourth-floor walk-up at 372 Holland Street, Iris Courtney's room is a cramped twilit space even on bright days, a cave where light enters only obliquely, as if grudgingly, and is soaked up immediately by the density of the air inside; it has only a single, square window and this window is permanently shaded by an outdoor stairway that slants rest it like the edge of a hand shading one's eyes.

  Recalling this room, the strangeness of its architecture, the accidental nature of its being "hers," the injustice-to be forced to live for years in a room into which sunshine came so meagerly!

  with such an air of being unnatural, unearned!-Iris will wonder, as an adult, why her adolescent self did not protest, why she was not resentful or embittered. But only rarely, those years, does she complain to Persia about this room, or perhaps it is the flat itself she complains of, or the building with its rundown facade and illsmelling stairways and "problem" tenants, or Holland Street, or the neighborhood: Lowertown. When she enters high school at Hammond Central, which is Uptown and miles away, she feels keenly the disadvantage of her address, a social embarrassment that might after all be remedied... if things were otherwise.

  But in truth this room is the room of her imaginings, her memory, her plottings, calculations, hopes; she spends a good deal of time squatting at the window head lowered as if meekly, watching the alley, the backs of the apartment buildings across the alley; at night she studies the lighted windows, those windows hidden by shades and those windows exposed; she knows the names of some of the tenants, especially those with children her approximate age, and it gives her comfort of a kind to see them in their homes eating meals together, watching television together, preparing for bed-in their homes where they are meant to be.

  Her uncle Leslie has a series of photographs taken years ago: office buildings, apartment buildings, private homes photographed at night, compositions of dark spaces and illuminated spaces, the camera's eye ground level and distant. You feel the
uncrossable distance from here to there.

  Sometimes Iris gets out of bed to crouch at her window in her pajamas, watching lights across the alley as one by one they go out; if she crouches low craning her neck, pressing her cheek against the splintery windowsill and looking up, she can see a patch of nighttime sky...

  sometimes even the moon.

  The moon: that fierce face with its look of interior radiance.

  The moon: that evidence of a celestial distance truly uncrossable. A space where human preoccupations have no dominance, not even any language.

  God, help me to be good.