by Maggie Estep
By now I’d been lurking around Belmont for a few days and had finally gotten a job grooming for a trainer named Carla Friedman. She was a tiny chain-smoking gal running a small string of claimers and low-level allowance horses. Of course, I’d asked Robert Cardinal, the guy training Darwin, for a job. But he wasn’t particularly friendly and said he didn’t need anyone right now. I’d then looked for trainers with barns close to Robert Cardinal’s. Which is how I’d found Carla. Even though I still didn’t know much about racing, I could tell that Carla was unorthodox in her training methods. She couldn’t afford to hire exercise riders so she galloped her own horses, in a western saddle. I’d watched her galloping a few that morning and it was the craziest sight you’d ever see. All those riders out there with their butts pointed in the air as they galloped and then here comes Carla, riding cowboy-style in that huge saddle, going full steam. She was the laughingstock of the backside but I knew from looking in the Racing Form that she actually won races sometimes, which, she’d told me right off, she attributed more to her knowing massage therapy than anything. She had been a masseuse—a people masseuse—who loved horses, and one day she just woke up with a bug up her ass and went and worked at the track. No one she worked for would let her massage their horses because they thought she was weird, but she worked as a groom and then as an assistant for a few trainers and eventually took out a training license. Apparently she’d rubbed some goodness into her horses because none of them were much to look at. Didn’t move well and had obscure pedigrees. But Carla massaged the hell out of those horses and, in gratitude, they sometimes won races.
Darwin, I knew just by gazing at him right then, was going to win some races too.
I carefully studied his groom, making sure the guy was respectful of the young colt. I started involuntarily making that noise in my throat, the little chirping noise I used to make to Darwin, and though I was standing more than a hundred feet from him, I swear, the little guy heard. His ears suddenly shot forward and he abruptly turned his head in my direction, nearly pulling his groom’s arm out of the socket. I started slowly walking over toward the colt. I was being real conscious about how I was walking and I was thinking over what I was gonna say to the groom.
“Nice-looking colt,” I ended up saying. I was fighting with myself, holding back from throwing my arms around Darwin’s neck and burying my face in that dappled coat of his.
The groom looked me up and down, like he thought I was going to attack him or the colt. After a few long, awkward moments, he nodded a little. He was a young guy, probably barely in his twenties. He was the right height to be a jockey but too stocky. Had sort of rock-musician long black hair and a nose piercing even though he was Spanish and in my travels I’d noticed Spanish guys were a lot less inclined to pierce things.
I don’t know quite how I did it, but I got the guy—his name was Petey—talking to me, warming to me a little. I guess when I set my mind to something, I can be pretty determined, and I needed for Petey to like me, needed to have access to Darwin.
“Yeah, the boss he got hope for this one,” Petey was saying now, scratching between Darwin’s ears—which I found slightly offensive because Darwin had always been fussy about his ears and I was upset that he was letting this pierced guy touch them.
“Yeah?” I said, trying to swallow my discomfort about that tender gesture between my horse and a stranger.
“Yeah, we’re running him next week, I guess. Be his second start but he’s barely three. February colt.”
Of course I knew this as well as anything. That Darwin had been born on February 13. But I just nodded and looked mildly interested.
Eventually, when I’d gotten a decent eyeful of Darwin and felt I’d cemented the beginnings of a friendship with this Petey person, I had to head back over to Carla’s barn and tend to things before everyone on the backside started getting suspicious about my lurking around Robert Cardinal’s barn.
I found my boss in the horrible little room that serves as her office. Carla had company in the form of a thin blond woman who offered a smile full of teeth.
“Ben, this is my friend Ava,” Carla said, waving her cigarette in the blonde’s direction.
“How do you do?” I said, nodding at the woman.
For some reason, Ava giggled before telling me she was doing just fine.
I sort of got a lesbian vibe off the two women. I’d had a feeling my boss was batting for the other team and, while Ava didn’t look particularly dykey, it seemed to me there was something between those two that certain folks would call unnatural.
Then, as if to prove me wrong on this theory, Ava invited me home that night, though not in a lewd manner. When she heard me and my dog were sleeping in my car, she insisted I come use her couch.
I guess I was pretty uptight about it. I don’t like strangers, and fair-haired women make me nervous. My mother was dark-haired. The girl I’d dated in junior high had been dark-haired. I didn’t trust blondes. But I did desperately need a warm shower and a good night’s sleep, which I hadn’t had in eons—and I didn’t suppose Crow would mind sleeping in a house for a night either.
Ava lived in a narrow frame house with a patch of concrete in front. We entered through the living room, where there was a child sitting on a couch, watching TV.
“Ben, this is my daughter, Grace,” Ava said.
The kid didn’t look up, but that didn’t bother Crow. He immediately jumped on the couch and started licking her face like she was his long lost mistress. Between Darwin letting that groom touch his ears and Crow instantly attaching himself to the kid, this was a day for disloyal animals.
“Where’s Janet?” Ava asked the child.
Grace shrugged. Ava opened her mouth wide and hollered, “Janet,” causing a tiny curly-headed woman to materialize.
The curly-headed woman scowled at Grace then quickly explained to Ava that she’d forbidden Grace from watching TV till her homework was done but the kid had ignored her.
“I don’t know what to do with her, Miss Ava,” said Janet. She was a fortyish white woman with a Southern accent. She had beady eyes and I immediately mistrusted her.
As Ava and Janet discussed various household issues and the kid watched TV and my dog remained planted at the kid’s side, I stood there daydreaming about how good Darwin had looked.
“You look so uncomfortable, Ben,” Ava said, startling me. “Come, let me give you a tour of the house.”
Apparently, while I’d been daydreaming, Ava had told curly-headed Janet that she could leave, because the little woman was fussing with her handbag and putting her coat on. No sooner had she walked out the door than Ava took my hand and guided me down the hall. I was very ill at ease and wanted to just take back my hand, get my dog and go. But I didn’t. Ava showed me her bedroom and then Grace’s room. The latter didn’t look like a little kid’s room at all. It was kind of austere. The only toys were some neatly arranged plastic horses.
I tried to make appreciative noises about the house even though I’d never understood why people expected other people to be interested in their houses. And this one was no beauty. It had a sad, claustrophobic feeling. As Ava showed me the small, depressing kitchen she seemed to feel the need to explain herself to me.
“I invited you here because you seem like a nice man and I hate to think of you sleeping in your car. I hope you don’t think it strange. People tell me I’m too friendly,” she said, laughing. “Must be that innate Southern hospitality.”
“Oh,” I said.
“I’m from North Carolina, you know.”
“Is that right?” I said dumbly.
She laughed again.
“I never had the accent. Guess I wanted out of North Carolina the second I stepped out of my mama’s womb and I must have vowed never to speak like a Southerner,” she said as she led us out of the kitchen and back into the living room. “Funny though, the older I get, the more I miss the South. Maybe that’s why I hired Janet as a nanny. I can’t
say I actually like the woman but something about her Southernness instills trust in me.”
I nodded even though I was only half listening. As I looked around the living room, I noticed some win photos from Aqueduct hanging on the wall. I guess Ava saw me looking.
“My husband,” she said.
It had crossed my mind to be worried that maybe Ava was interested in me so I was relieved to hear about the husband.
“He’s a rider,” she added. “We’re separated though.”
I looked toward the little girl, who was still sitting on the couch with my dog lying worshipfully at her side. Grace seemed oblivious to the mention of her father though. She was absentmindedly patting my dog’s head.
“Looks like someone made a new friend,” Ava said, but neither Crow nor Grace glanced up.
I guess I got a little more comfortable as the strange evening progressed. Ava eventually started pulling out containers of leftover Chinese food from the fridge and reheated their contents for dinner. It wasn’t particularly good but I was grateful for the free food. As we ate, Ava chatted idly about bad weather, my boss Carla, and mortgage rates, as if she’d known me all her life. The kid didn’t have much to say at all and to be honest, didn’t seem particularly bonded to her mother, though she sure as hell bonded with my dog. When, an hour later, Ava started harping on Grace to get ready for bed, to my horror, the kid took Crow with her. Ava didn’t even think to ask me if it was all right, so I just had to stand there, trying to look nonchalant as my dog’s toenails clicked against the wood floor as he followed the little girl to her room.
A few minutes later, Ava handed me a blanket and a pillow.
“You’ll be all right?” she asked, indicating the couch.
I nodded.
“Good night then,” she said. There was sadness in her smile though I couldn’t imagine I had anything to do with it.
I lay there for quite a while listening to the sounds of Ava getting ready for bed. She ran water in the bathroom and traveled several times between the bathroom and the bedroom. At last, I heard her bedroom door close. I hoped to hear Crow’s toenails on the floor but I didn’t. I lay staring into the darkness until I was sure that both Ava and Grace were asleep. I got up, walked softly down the hall to Grace’s room, opened the door and looked in at my dog. He was curled on the little girl’s bed, happy as could be. I went back to my couch, thought of Darwin, and eventually fell asleep.
BIG SAL
18.
Ten Kinds of Trouble
It’s a blisteringly cold morning here on the Belmont rail and I’m feeling useless as I try keeping an eye on Attila. Any number of deadly things could happen to him on the track and I wouldn’t be able to intervene. All the same, short of getting on a horse and riding next to him, this is the best I can do.
I borrowed my wife’s tiny binoculars that she bought when she went on a short-lived opera kick, which at the time I couldn’t understand at all but now, thanks to Mr. Schoenberg, I have empathy for. I put the binoculars to my eyes and focus on Attila, who, between his bright orange safety vest and the fact that he’s on the lone gray horse on the track, isn’t hard to pick out.
I keep my eyes glued to man and horse for a few seconds then peruse the rest of the track. It’s business as usual though, a bunch of horses and riders, all of them looking like they belong there. I put my binoculars down for a minute and fish for a piece of gum in my jacket. I don’t even like gum but lately I’ve been wanting to smoke so I guess gum is better than putting the old poisons back in the old lungs. I’m just starting to get morbid, thinking of my wife’s crazy hormonal desire for me to knock her up, when an excited Attila is suddenly right in front of me.
“You see him go?” he yells down at me from atop the gray horse.
“Looked good,” I say even though my attention was lagging, and in fact I missed the action, which is bad. I’m not much use to the guy if I can’t even keep my eyes on him when he’s on the track.
“Where’d Ruby go?” I ask Attila, wanting to cover my embarrassment at what a lousy bodyguard I am.
“Still off with Violet, I guess,” he says, dismounting.
“With who?”
“Violet, wife of Harry.”
“Oh,” I say. “Whatya gonna do now?”
“Eat,” he says happily, giving me a big smile. He hands the gray horse off to a girl with a ponytail.
I watched Attila “eat” the other day. Five cornflakes and half a protein bar. Which I assume he vomited up shortly after putting it down.
“I’ll join you,” I tell the jockey.
I follow Attila toward the backside cafeteria. We walk over to the counter where a brassy redhead—who sort of reminds me of an aged version of my wife—greets Attila.
“Where’ve you been, Johnson?” she says, offering a coy smile. “I’ve been waiting.”
“Hiya, Dora,” he nods to her, “can I get a poached egg?”
“Anything you want, baby,” Dora purrs. “How you like your chances on Oat Bran Blues this afternoon?” she asks, resting her fists on her formidable hips.
“You know,” Attila shrugs, “we got a chance.”
“You got a chance? You gotta give me more than that, baby, I work hard for my paycheck.” She keeps one fist on her hips while waving at the surroundings with the other.
“Then for you, I’ll win it,” Attila says. Dora grins at him.
Attila and I find a table and sit down. I watch him contemplate his poached egg and container of skimmed milk.
“You sure you’re not hungry?” he asks me.
“Nah, I’m good.” I lie because the fact is I’m starving but I feel uncomfortable about eating in front of this guy who subsists on air.
Attila stares at me for a moment then finally takes his spoon to the poached egg. He consumes the thing in two bites then takes a swig of milk.
“How you gonna stay alive on that kind of diet?” I ask him.
“I’m used to it,” he shrugs. “You got a cigarette?”
“Cigarette? No. I haven’t smoked in close to a year.”
“Me either,” he says.
“And what, you’re gonna start back now?”
“Just wanted a drag,” he says. At which I find myself launching into a lecture on the nature of addiction. How one drag will lead to one cigarette will lead to two will lead to two hundred. After a while, I catch myself and shut myself up. Attila is looking at me with wonder.
“Thanks, Sal,” he says eventually, “I’m not gonna take it back up. Just a little nervous about this race today.”
“Oh yeah? How come?”
“Wanna win it,” he shrugs.
I’m getting the feeling there’s more to the story here, that Attila is nervous about something other than the race. He’s not forthcoming though and truth is I’m finding it hard to talk to the guy at all and am relieved when we leave the cafeteria and head over toward Henry Meyer’s barn to look for Ruby.
The temperature seems to have dropped and the wind’s gotten wilder, throwing straw and trash around. Everyone on the backside is moving quickly, ducking from the wind. Attila and I walk in silence and I feel myself sighing with relief when we get to the barn and find Ruby there, standing outside one of the horses’ stalls, nuzzling with the beast like it’s a damn kitten.
“There you are.” Ruby turns to grin at us.
“I’m gonna take a nap in Henry’s office,” Attila tells her. “Wanna join me?”
I suddenly get embarrassed because there’s something deeply sexual in that question and I look away, pretending to be fascinated by the horse Ruby was snuggling with. Actually, he’s sort of a sweet-looking horse, has his ears pointed forward in a friendly way and has very gentle-looking eyes. I start to pet the horse and have become somewhat absorbed in this when I realize Ruby’s talking to me.
“Huh?” I say.
“I was saying we’ve got to go over to Aqueduct in about a half hour. Henry and Violet already shipped Muley ove
r a while ago. You want to give us a ride?”
“Oh, sure, yeah, I was planning on it,” I tell her.
“Thanks,” she says. “You like him, huh?” she asks.
“Like who?”
“Jack Valentine.”
“Who the hell is that?”
“The horse, Sal, the one you’re petting.”
“Oh, him, yeah, seems like a nice horse.”
I can see that Ruby is smitten with this horse. That’s the thing with her, she’s so goddamned enthusiastic. Makes you want to fall in love with her just to get a little bit of that enthusiasm coming your way.
I leave Ruby and Attila to their business in Henry Meyer’s office and I head back to the cafeteria because the truth is, I’m starved.
This time, I notice a lot of people looking me over. Like I don’t belong here in their little world. I don’t suppose I do belong, but I’m hungry as hell. I go over to the counter, to the redheaded woman who was fawning over Attila. I order a burger but the woman’s less chatty now that I’m alone. I think a lot of women figure that since I’m a big guy, I’ve got big appetites. In everything. And particularly in women. Females either come on to me like crazy or just ignore me completely. The redhead seems to be falling in the latter category. If she’d talked to me, I might have tried to sound her out, get a feeling for what kind of gossip is circulating about the jockey. But, like I said, she’s not paying me no never mind.
I get a burger, a Coke, and a coffee and I’m just getting ready to bite into the burger when a young woman catches my eye. She has a broad, freckled face and a wild mane of blond hair. She’s not overtly beautiful but something about her gets my attention. I assume she’s some sort of rider since she’s wearing horsey boots and has a smudge of dirt on her face. I study her high round ass as she selects a box of cornflakes and a juice, pays for these, then goes to sit at a table directly across from mine. I keep an eye on her as I down my burger and Coke. I watch her inhale her food in a few seconds flat, after which she sits looking forlorn, like she’s deliberating about a second box of cornflakes but probably has to keep her weight down for riding. I have an urge to talk to her but I shouldn’t. My wife may be a nutjob and maybe we’re close to over, but still.
