Belly

by Lisa Selin Davis

  He shouldn’t be here. He wasn’t supposed to be here. The days of bribing jockeys, the tellers not telling, altering the odds, Filthy Phil Weiss and the Four Sons, underestimating golden two-year-olds on purpose, all the tricks were played and gone. He’d gone from a stallion to a spit-the-bit, a worn-out old horse, and there wasn’t a single place for this old man to stand in the whole of the Saratoga Racecourse. His town, his beautiful woman of a town, had spit him out like a piece of gristle. He stood for a long time under the wooden awning of the Big Red Spring; he waited until the sun was high in the sky and he was so hot and he labored out to the end of Union Avenue, thirstier than he’d ever been in his life.

  He walked to the park entrance but he did not go in. He went around it, down Spring Street’s big dip and up again to Broadway. He stood in front of the old library on the corner of Spring and Broadway, wondering where the new library was hidden. The brick building was now an arts center, hovering atop the fault line, the bottom floor of the library—what used to be the children’s section—leaning against the hill and looking out onto the park. Once or twice he had led his pride of daughters through that tamed wilderness, past the duck pond and into the library, let them rub their greasy fingers along the hardcover books and sat with them in beanbag chairs to read them their selections in the late afternoon.

  He crossed the street to the bus stop and stood in front of the ruined strip mall and across from his old bar, and a solution came to him, the answer to a problem he didn’t even know he had. For five days he’d been followed by the Sha-Na-Na theme song, his daughters and parole officer and everyone he met telling him to Get a Job. All he had to do was walk two short blocks to Caroline Street, order up a shot of Jack and show up for Ms. Monroe with the stink of whiskey on his breath. That would be enough to send him back.

  He stood at the bus stop and made a deal with God. He prayed, “If you send the bus here in the next five minutes, I will not go to Ruffian’s.” He had no watch so he prayed, “I will count to three hundred and if the bus is not here by then, I will go to Ruffian’s.”

  He watched an old woman waiting under the glass awning, reading a Harlequin romance. She looked up and smiled at him, her face bloomed into a million wrinkles, and she revealed a mouth of missing teeth. He looked away, and kept counting.

  The bus rounded the curve of Broadway at 179, and he felt a strange mixture of relief and anger circle inside him.

  The doors of the bus blew open and he climbed into the air-conditioning. The driver was a fat man with bushy sideburns wearing a blue polyester uniform with stains along the collar. Belly nodded at him as he walked by.

  “You gonna pay?” the driver asked.

  “How much?”

  “Eighty-five cents.”

  He felt in his pockets but all he had was the paper money. “You have change?”

  The driver pointed to a sign that displayed the fares and read “Exact Change Only.” Adults $1.15 and senior citizens eighty-five cents. The bus door remained open and the driver stared at him and one passenger called, “Let’s go. Some of us have to get to work,” and Belly wondered if the whole world knew.

  He could get off now and drink instead. He could take this as a sign from God not to walk the straight path.

  “Anybody have change?” he asked. No one answered. “You guys want to get going, give me some change.”

  The wrinkly woman with few teeth opened her purse and handed him three quarters and a dime. She said, “This is laundry money, you know.”

  He wanted to say thank you but his mouth was too dry. He took the change and held his hand out to the bus driver, who said, “Put it in the slot,” and he dumped the coins in the machine and it whirred as it ate the change.

  Belly sat down in a handicapped seat near the front and braced himself as the bus jerked forward. He looked up at the sign again and thought to tell the driver that he’d underpaid and then he looked at the strange gray hue of his own skin, the way it was starting to slide off the bone, and said nothing.

  Besides the Greyhound that had returned him home just a few days before, the last bus he was on brought him from the Circuit Court in Albany to Schuylkill, Pennsylvania, and though it was September and the rolling hills were green and the promise of fall was bleeding in the leaves, it had been a grueling ride, for he could see what surrounded the prison: nothing but strip malls and strip malls. There was nothing to escape to, the whole world was one endless series of fluorescent-lit aisles and he just wanted to get back to town so badly, he wanted to be back in his twenty-four-day town.

  He turned to the wrinkly lady and said, “They undercharged me,” and the lady smiled her blank, blooming smile and looked at her romance novel.

  “Where does this bus go?” he asked the woman.

  “To Ballston Spa,” she said, not looking up.

  “But the other way, in the other direction. Where does it go?”

  “Out to the malls, and to Wal-Mart,” she said.

  He felt trapped—his choices were Ballston Spa or Wal-Mart, his choices were the parole officer or back to prison, some shit job or another shit job, and nothing in his future was bright, or open, no door portended light on the other side.

  The bus rolled on down Route 50, past the park and the visitors’ center and McDonald’s and the Chinese restaurant constantly under new management, past the dance museum and the state park and everywhere he’d been in his five-day run as a tourist in his own town. He was going backwards.

  They passed the back entrance to SPAC, where the parking lot overflowed with tourist cars, and he heard someone say, “It’s those Moody Blues in town tonight.” They passed Geyser Crest, the first crummy development to spring up beyond the city limits, where Loretta and Darren used to live. They rolled through the little nontown of Malta, through the countryside, only there was no countryside. It was all gone. It was all strip malls. Bars and restaurants in strip malls, smoke shops and lingerie stores in strip malls, army-navy surplus and ammo supplies in strip malls, and the hills behind the strip malls rolled away as if they longed to escape.

  Occasionally the bus stopped and someone got on or off, Belly didn’t notice. He tried not to look at all these people who couldn’t make enough money to buy their own cars. They were all of them white, a particular kind of pasty white, and everything about them looked poor: their hair, clothes, the way they smelled, how many teeth they were missing, and the things they carried. The nicest black people he’d ever met were not from Jefferson Terrace, the little embarrassment of a neighborhood on the East Side, but in prison. They were drug dealers, sure, but they were decent guys. He spent four years in perfect racial integration and now he was sealed on a bus full of white trash.

  The bus stopped by the old mill at the end of Main Street in Ballston Spa, once abandoned and now remade into apartments, an “Apartments for Rent” sign permanently affixed to the newly repointed brick facade. Belly made a mental note of the phone number, though he knew what his daughters would say, or Loretta, or any of his old pals if they found he’d moved to Ballston Spa, the town they thought of as Saratoga’s inbred cousin.

  The wrinkly woman made her way to the front of the bus, lifting her feet over Belly’s splayed legs. She started to descend the steps and she turned and looked at Belly and said, “You’re welcome,” and he folded his knees up and stared at them.

  He got off at the next stop, stood in front of the blob of beige stucco, smoking one last cigarette—thank God for his good friend the red lighter—before he had to report on his week of nothing, no job, no prospects, before he had to get his wrist slapped by a pretty woman young enough to be his kid.

  “You’re late,” Ms. Monroe said. “Don’t be late.”

  “Sorry.” She led Belly back to her desk and he picked up a Plexiglas cube with pictures of kids on all six sides.

  He picked it up and examined the photographs. “These yours?”

  “Nope.”

  “They’re not?”

 
; She laughed. “I never had any kids. Those are just the pictures that came in the cube.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud, it was a gift from my coworkers.” She lowered her voice. “I’m just trying to be nice. I don’t want the thing.”

  “You want pictures of mine? I have three grandkids.” He reached for his wallet before he realized he carried no pictures of them.

  “I don’t like to surround myself with pictures of people I know,” she said. “It creeps me out.”

  “What’s your first name?” Belly asked.

  “Does this have to do with your parole?”

  “Why don’t you have any kids?”

  “Patty, and none of your business,” she said. “Now, listen, what’s going on with the job?”

  “Do we have to talk about that?”

  “Yes.”

  He said, “I am a senior citizen. Did you know that? I’m retired.”

  “No, you’re not. The government seized your assets five years ago and you’ve got to start over.”

  Belly groaned.

  “Listen, Mr. O’Leary, you should be grateful. Imagine being one of those guys who has to announce that he’s coming, who has to see flyers with his mug shot plastered to every tree in the neighborhood. Imagine getting up every morning and having to face that. You’re off easy, you’ve got the opposite problem, and you’re complaining?” She shook her head. “Some of you guys are unbelievable.”

  “Those men are sex offenders.”

  “Yeah, but they’re men. They’re people. They’re trying to cope with what they did just like you are.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You want me to tell you?”

  “Yes, I want you to tell me what I did wrong.”

  She read from his file. “Violation of New York State Penal Code 225.05 and Federal Penal Code 211.10, Promotion of Illegal Gambling in the second degree; 225.30, Possession of Illegal Gambling Records; 225.15, Profiting from Illegal Gambling. Advancing Gambling. Engaging in a Bookmaking Business. Gambling Across State Lines. I could go on.”

  “Yeah, but that’s what I’m saying, I’m not a sex offender. Why should I feel sorry for those guys? I didn’t do anything.”

  Patty the parole officer looked up from the file. “Let’s see the sheet,” she said, glancing at her watch.

  “I forgot it.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  He took the crumpled paper with Margie’s lone signature scrawled on the top line. He never even got Gene to sign, never went back to Wal-Mart to get their corporate check mark.

  “Doesn’t look like you tried too hard.”

  “Well, I did. I tried too hard.”

  She took a form from his folder and picked up a pencil covered in bite marks.

  “Have you been actively looking for a job?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you been to any establishment where gambling is practiced?”

  “No.”

  “Have you used any illegal drugs?”

  “No.”

  “Have you used any alcohol?”

  “No.”

  “Have you engaged in any illegal activity?”

  “No.”

  She put her pencil down. “So what are we going to do about the job? I gave you a time limit… .” She ran her finger along the file. “Until Monday. That leaves you the weekend.”

  “There are no jobs in August. Everybody knows that. I have to wait till they all leave.”

  “Did you get your license?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  He rubbed the knuckle of one hand with the other and said, “Looking for a job.”

  “What’d you do in the can again?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “How’d you swing that?”

  He patted the sides of his jeans. “Work release. Fake hips.”

  She looked up. “What for?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” and she said, “Tell me,” and he said, “Too much tango.”

  “No way.”

  “It’s the truth,” he said. “Plus, arthritis.”

  “Well, barring the possibility that you’re going to open a dance school in the next two days, you’ve got to find something very soon.”

  “How long do I have?”

  “How long do you need?”

  “How long do I really have?”

  “You have the rest of your goddamned life to screw up if that’s what you want.”

  He felt married after this exchange, and he wanted to hold her hand as she walked him to the door.

  “That’s it?” he asked. “You’re letting me go?”

  “You’re free,” she said. “And listen, I mean this: have a good weekend.”

  He stood in the open doorway, his back frozen with air-conditioning, his front on fire from the heat wave, and he did not want to step into the sunshine.

  When he got home Nora and the kids were gone, and she’d left a note on the table that read Belly, we went swimming. Your statutory rape friend called. Maybelline, it seemed, was still trying to make plans. Women never liked to hear, “Let’s just wait and see.”

  He opened a beer and sat on the couch and was just about to drift off to sleep when he heard a knock. He lifted himself from the couch, rubbed his eyes as he went to the door. Maybelline.

  “Hi,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Can you open the door?”

  “I don’t know. What are you doing here?” He kept his arms folded across his chest.

  “Belly, for crying out loud. Open the door.”

  He swung the screen door open and stepped out before she could slip in.

  “What do you want?”

  “My car broke down. Can you give me a ride home?”

  “I don’t have a license.”

  “So? You always drive my car.”

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “That’s your truck, isn’t it? You’re always complaining about how you can’t drive your own truck.”

  “Stop saying always.”

  “Please, Belly? I can’t afford a cab. I took you out to dinner one too many times. I’m broke.”

  “You took me out for drinks once.”

  “I have no money.”

  He looked at the Bronco in the driveway, quiet and patient like an obedient dog, his loyal little truck. “Okay. Fine. Hold on.”

  Nora’s keys hung on the hook by the sink. He could be there and back in an hour—it was 4:00 p.m. now, Nora usually started dinner around 5:30. She didn’t even have to know.

  He grabbed the keys, locked the door behind him, headed to the truck. She was still on the porch. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  He unlocked his door and climbed in. Maybelline knocked lightly on the passenger window. “It’s locked,” she said.

  She climbed in, her little sparkly purse set on her lap.

  He started the car and backed out of the driveway. Almost five years had passed since he’d driven his own automobile, and he felt like Apollo, mastering his metal chariot across the sky. He thought, I am an airplane. He could go anywhere he wanted. Florida. Mexico. New York City. Or Ballston Spa.

  Maybelline sat staring at her fingernails for the duration of the trip.

  “What’s the matter with you?” he asked.

  “I’m losing my job.”

  Belly laughed. “What’d you do, steal that big white celebrity cake? You getting fired?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not funny. They’re selling it. It’s going to be under new management. They’re putting something else in there. I’m getting laid off.”

  “You’re kidding. They’re not going to shut down the Springway Diner.” He banged his fist on the steering wheel, making it beep accidentally.

  “Yes, they are,” said Maybelline.
“They’re closing it.”

  “When?”

  “Next month. Soon as the track’s up.”

  He frowned the rest of the drive.

  When he pulled up in front of her house, he leaned over her and unlocked her door, kept the car running.

  “You’re not coming in?”

  He shook his head.

  “Belly, come on. Come in. I have Piels in the fridge. Two six-packs.”

  “No, I’ve got to get back before Nora gets home.”

  She leaned over and down, unzipped his fly.

  “Oh, okay,” he said. “But just for a minute.”

  He hated her room when he was standing in it, her ugly cats. “What are their names?” he asked.

  “Birdie and Par,” she said. “I used to have Bogey and Eagle, too, but they got run over.”

  “You’re a golfer? Bullshit.”

  “My grampa was,” she said, but then she put her finger over his mouth to shush him. She pushed him down on her dollhouse bed and straddled him, put her hand on his crotch.

  “What’s the matter?” She cocked her head to the side and pursed her painted lips.

  “Where’s the beer?”

  She brought him a six-pack, and he chugged one beer down instantly and opened another. He kept drinking while she slipped off his jeans and his boxers, he drank all six beers till the room softened and swayed while she tried to get him hard. It never happened.

  “Got to go,” he said.

  “No, Belly.” She sat on his knees and put her hands on his shoulders. She said, “No,” again and he pushed against her, she pushed down, they locked each other in a strange embrace, she leaned down and licked the scars that grinned along his hips and he pressed against the side of her face until she slid off the bed onto her back, her legs in the air like a baby waiting for a diaper change. He stood and put his clothes on.

  Then she said, “Give me some money.”

  He laughed. “I don’t have any.”

  “You have money,” she said, and she started to cry. “You must. All that money from the bar, from the track.”

  And now he understood why the pretty, crazy girl wanted him. He said, “I’m broke, too. Flat broke.”

  He let her cry, let her pull on his arm with the might of a superhero, let her beg, and he watched her mascara run down her cheeks till she looked like the Joker, let her scratch him with those crazy nails, try to unzip his jeans and press her mouth into his crotch. He lit a cigarette with his circumcised lighter and watched her for a minute, took three puffs and threw it down next to her on the shaggy white carpet, twisted the fire out with his foot. He let her lie on the floor, where she pretended she was mourning something that had actually lived. He took her half-empty bottle of Old Grand-Dad and left.