Gargantuan

by Maggie Estep

I go into the bathroom and start the water running in the tub even though the tub looks a bit dirty and I’d probably do better to shower. I’ve stripped down to my boxers and am about to close the bathroom door when Ruby finally comes in from the parking lot.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she asks.

  “What? What did I do?”

  “You’re in a horrible mood.”

  “I am?” I ask innocently—though of course it’s true.

  “Was it something I said?” She furrows her brow.

  I shrug.

  “What’s that mean? Was it?”

  “I fed your cats,” I say.

  “I see that. Thanks. But what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” I look away because I feel like I’m going to start crying.

  I can’t remember the last time I cried. Even when things were going terribly wrong with Ava and I knew Grace was affected by it, I didn’t cry. Or the first time I held a horse back in a race for a few lousy bucks. I didn’t cry. And maybe I should have. Because it’s all catching up to me now. And I don’t know how to tell her. This woman with violent red toenails. I don’t know quite how I’ve ended up here with her or how to tell her what’s wrong. So I just tell her I’m sorry and then close the bathroom door.

  RUBY MURPHY

  20.

  The Sadness of Humans

  Attila pulls the bathroom door shut gently, as if trying to soften the harshness of his refusal to talk to me. I stare down at Stinky as he inhales his food, oblivious to the sadness of humans. Lulu, who picked at her food and then walked away disdainfully, jumps up onto the bed next to me and bumps her head against my arm. I absentmindedly pet her and look around at the horrible brown hotel room with its soiled curtains and furniture, all of it evenly synthetic and appearing to have sprung from the thigh of some malevolent Zeus. As I let my fingers make little ridges in the soft fur of the cat’s head, I suddenly realize I have to get out of here. Immediately. Though I feel like my being near Attila will keep him safe, I know that’s not true. My presence isn’t doing either one of us any good. I feel like he’s shut the door on me in more ways than one and I need to go home and clear my head.

  I shove clothing into my overnight bag and pack all the cat products into a shopping bag. I take the Yellow Pages from the nightstand and thumb through until I find a local car service. I call and order a car.

  I’m ushering Stinky into his carrying case when my paramour emerges from the bathroom wrapped in a towel that was probably once white but is now a depressing gray.

  “What are you doing?” Attila asks, looking at me with violently bright eyes.

  “Going home.”

  “Just like that? Why?”

  “I’m not doing you any good here and I really want to go home.” I stand up and carry Stinky’s case to the door.

  “Ruby!” Attila shouts behind me as if I were fifty feet away.

  “Attila.” I turn around. “I have to go home. I need rest. I’m sorry.” I add, softening, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “We will?”

  “Unless you don’t want to.”

  “I want to,” he says.

  He picks up Lulu’s carrying case and the bag of cat products and brings these out, like he’s suddenly resigned to my desertion and trying to hurry the process along.

  I see the car service pull up in front of the motel office. I shout, trying to get the driver’s attention. When this fails to work, Attila, clad only in his towel, sprints out into the parking lot, over to where the cabbie is parked. It’s thirty degrees out and parts of the parking lot are frozen over but Attila doesn’t seem fazed at all and I suddenly feel I’ve made a mistake. How could I lose patience with someone who’d sprint into a frozen parking lot in a towel just to save me from walking a few extra steps?

  I’m dumbstruck. By Attila, by the fact that I’m so moved by the gesture.

  As the cabbie turns around and pulls up in front of the room, Attila returns and stands in front of the open door, jumping up and down to warm himself.

  I load cats and bags into the backseat. The cabbie frowns. “You bring animals?” he asks in an accent of indeterminate provenance.

  “Cats. Nice cats. I’ll tip you well.”

  He growls. I notice great tufts of white hair sprouting from his ears.

  Attila has stopped jumping up and down and is just hugging himself for warmth. His eyes have turned a cold dark blue.

  “ ’Bye,” I say ineffectually “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Yeah,” he responds.

  I turn and get into the car. I give the driver my destination. He grunts and pulls ahead. I look back at Attila, who is still standing in the doorway, hugging himself.

  IT TAKES A Herculean effort to haul both cats’ cases and my bags up the stairs to my apartment. Ramirez has his door open.

  “Ramirez,” I nod, looking in at him. He’s sitting at his kitchen table, staring down into an empty soup bowl. He has a yellow plastic flyswatter sitting by his right hand.

  “Flying cockroaches?” I ask as I set the cats’ cases down and pull my keys from my pocket.

  “No,” my neighbor says humorlessly “just flies. I hate flies.”

  I can see he’s not in the mood for conversation and I mentally chastise him for leaving his front door open when he’s in a foul humor. I’m also slightly miffed that he doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about where I’ve been or why I took the cats there.

  “Have a good night,” I say, opening my door.

  He grunts.

  I turn back to look at him, feeling badly that he’s so depressed. “Elsie will be back soon,” I tell him, even though I have no way of knowing this.

  “I sure as hell hope so,” he says sadly.

  I go into my place, release the cats from their cases, and walk into the kitchen to fill their water bowls. My apartment is a mess. There are clumps of cat fur all over the rugs, CD cases on the floor, and dirty dishes in the sink. I water the cats then go into the living room and sit on the couch. I hold my head in my hands and think. I stare at the phone for a moment then walk over to the piles of CDs. I tentatively pull out a recording of Schoenberg piano pieces played by Glenn Gould. Then opt for Townes Van Zandt instead. I’m about to hit the Play button when the phone rings. I stare hopefully at the caller ID, wanting Attila’s cell phone number to appear there. But the little screen reads: Hildebrandt, Jane A.

  I pick it up.

  “Jane.”

  “Ruby?” She sounds surprised. “I tried your cell phone and it was turned off. I thought I’d just leave you a message at home. I didn’t expect to find you there. What are you up to? Don’t tell me you’ve got the jockey with you, attracting trouble.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, I left him at the motel.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “He was being difficult.”

  “Ruby,” she says sternly, “I thought you were going to stop being fickle with men.”

  “I was. I am. I’m not being fickle. He won’t talk to me and I’m not doing him any good. You don’t like him anyway.”

  “I haven’t formed an opinion about him. I’ve barely even met the man.”

  “Well, I’m not being fickle. He puts me in danger and furthermore I think he still covets his wife.”

  “He’s married?” she gasps.

  “Technically yes.”

  I tell her what I know about Attila’s marital status and about all other developments, including the accident on the track.

  Jane is upset.

  “Ruby, why are you doing this?”

  “I’m doing what I need to do. Don’t yell.”

  “I’m not yelling.”

  “Can we change the subject?”

  “I’d prefer not to.”

  “Let’s talk about Liz,” I insist.

  “What about her?” Jane asks. Liz, who I met last spring at Belmont when she was working as a groom, has become a good friend.
Not long after I met her, she stopped working at Belmont and took a less taxing job at a riding school in Jamaica Bay. We’ve stayed in touch though and sometimes go to the races together. I was with Liz the day Attila came to find me in the grandstand and introduce himself. In fact, she’s the only one who didn’t disapprove of my dating him. She’s long coveted jockey Shaun Bridgmohan—though she refuses to actually ever try to meet him since she’s idealized him to a degree that borders on spiritual. Liz insists that watching Shaun ride is a nearly mystical experience for her. But she doesn’t want to meet him and I think my dating Attila has given her some sort of vicarious jockey thrill.

  One night a few months ago, I invited Jane and Liz and her young daughter, Georgeann, to dinner. Strangely enough, Jane and Liz recognized one another. They’d apparently met in college some fifteen years earlier. The two never really got to know each other in those days but, after being unexpectedly thrown together again, they’ve grown close and now seem to spend more time together than I spend with either one of them.

  “Where is Liz?” I ask Jane. “I’ve tried to call her a few times and I’ve left messages but I haven’t heard back from her.”

  “Oh, she went to Florida for a week,” Jane says.

  “Florida?”

  “Yeah. I think she recently broke up with a guy and you know how she gets.”

  “No, how does she get?” I ask. I hadn’t even known Liz to date anyone since breaking up with Georgeann’s father.

  “She likes to travel after a breakup—whereas you just take up with the nearest jockey.”

  “I’m not sure why you’re being so spiteful today.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jane sighs. “I’m just worried.”

  “I’m worried too,” I admit. “I don’t really know what the right thing to do is.”

  Jane offers a few suggestions, such as calling the police or the FBI or, specifically, Ed Burke of the FBI. I tell her I’ll take it under consideration and, after a few more minutes, we hang up.

  I look around at my messy apartment and, fearing I’ll get permanently glued to the couch, I get up and walk over to the piano. It’s close to ten now and Ramirez won’t abide my practicing for long but I might be able to get in a couple of Bach Inventions. It’s actually good for me to have to play within earshot of an irritable neighbor. He seems to complain a lot more when I make mistakes than when I get through a piece with a minimum of flubbing.

  I sit down, and, failing to heed my teacher Mark Baxter’s command to play twenty minutes of scales before doing anything fun, I launch into the first Invention in C.

  I get through it smoothly, which is no great feat since I’ve been working on it for seven months. I’m about to try a more difficult piece when the phone rings again. I get up and walk over to the caller ID box, again hoping to see Attila’s number there. Florida, the box announces, not bothering to tell me the caller’s name though I know it’s Ed. My heart rate accelerates. I pick up the phone.

  ED BURKE/SAM RIVERMAN

  21.

  Radiance

  I study Lucinda from across the breakfast table. She’s looking down at the Racing Form. Her hair is hanging in two lank black curtains. Her nose is twitching as if an insect has flown in and is buzzing through one of her nostrils. It occurs to me that this isn’t what I’m supposed to be thinking of a woman I’ve bedded on two consecutive nights. I ought to be seeing a glow around her. But there’s no radiance coming from this girl and I don’t think Lucinda actually even likes me much. We’re just both lonely.

  Suddenly she gets up, goes over to the oven, pulls open the broiler door, and removes two pieces of maimed toast. She smiles as she deposits these on my plate. I stare down at the charred bread. She stares too and, after a moment, finds a knife and scrapes off some of the blackness. It still doesn’t look appetizing.

  “Thank you, that’s lovely,” I say. “Sure you won’t have some?”

  “I’m sure,” she says.

  “You’re gonna ride Mike for me this morning, right?”

  She looks at me. Her nose twitches again. “Sure,” she says.

  As I take a bite of charred toast, I reflect that something is obviously wrong with me. I know there are men who make sport of screwing women they’re not that fond of, but I’m not one of them. I ought to be screwing the woman I do like. Ruby.

  “What are you thinking about?” Lucinda asks me. Her dark eyes have gotten small.

  “Ruby,” I say flat out.

  “Ruby? Who is Ruby?”

  “Sort of my girlfriend,” I say, immediately regretting it.

  “Oh,” she says.

  “She’s not officially my girlfriend. Lives up north.” I backpedal a little.

  “Well that’s lovely,” Lucinda sneers.

  “I’m not trying to disrespect you, Lucinda. You asked what I was thinking about and I told you. I should have told you about her sooner. I wasn’t sure how much you wanted from me. We’re both just lonely, right?”

  “Thanks a fucking lot,” she says, pushing her chair back and standing up.

  “Hey, Lucinda, I’m sorry,” I say, but she’s stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her.

  Moments later she emerges with her clothes on. She doesn’t look at me.

  “Lucinda, I’m sorry,” I say weakly.

  “Fuck you, Sam Riverman,” she says, walking out the front door.

  And now I feel like total shit. Treating people badly just isn’t necessary. I hesitate for a minute, unsure of what to do. If I go after her she might think I care. Of course, I do care slightly. Just not that much.

  I put my shirt on and go out the door. There’s no sign of Lucinda. I don’t know where she could have gone since she doesn’t have a car. I go back for my car keys and, a minute later, I’m driving out of the complex. Within a few moments I see her, walking briskly along the side of the road. I pull alongside her and roll down the window.

  “Hey, Lucinda, get in the car.”

  “Fuck you, Sam Riverman,” she says, and keeps walking.

  “Lucinda, come on. It’s not that bad.”

  She stops walking, puts her fists on her hips, and looks at me.

  “You’re a creep,” she says.

  “No, not really. We should have talked sooner.”

  She looks like she’s considering reaching into the car and ripping my head off. Then her fury turns to a pout. A coquettish gesture I wouldn’t have guessed was in her repertoire.

  “Come on, get in,” I say.

  She stands pouting a moment longer then comes around to the passenger side and gets in.

  “Why were you such a jerk to me?” she asks.

  “I’m sorry, Lucinda, I wasn’t trying to be a jerk.”

  “Well, you were!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Okay,” she says. Her eyes are so sad.

  “Come back to the apartment with me while I get ready then I’ll give you a ride to the track?”

  “Yeah,” she says, “okay.”

  I pull the car back onto the road, make a U-turn, and head back to my apartment.

  A HALF HOUR later I’ve showered and dressed and fed Cat. Lucinda has spent the whole time at the kitchen table, reading the Racing Form.

  “You ready?” I ask her, picking my car keys up off the table.

  “Yeah,” she says darkly.

  I feel like if I try talking to her she’ll reach in the kitchen drawer, get a knife, and stab me. So I say nothing.

  She is quiet during the ride to the track. As we pull into the backside, I ask her again about giving Mike’s Mohawk a workout later that morning.

  “Yeah, I said I’d do it,” she answers bitterly.

  “Okay then.”

  “I’ll be ready for him around nine,” she says.

  I drop her near Jack Jenkins’s office, where she’s meeting with the trainer to talk over a few horses he wants her working. She looks at me briefly, says nothing, and walks away.

  Lu
cinda’s hoopla has put me behind schedule. I’m half an hour late feeding my three horses and they look depressed. I think of the horse joke: A horse walks into a bar. Bartender says, “Why the long face?”

  My horses’ faces all look longer than usual.

  I go into the feed room and prepare their grain.

  I let them finish eating then I muck the stalls, clean the waterers and feed tubs, and start grooming Mike.

  I’ve long finished wrapping and tacking up Mike’s Mohawk and there’s still no sign of Lucinda. It would probably be a good idea to find a new rider for my string but I’ve already made the poor girl feel like shit, no need to add to it. Particularly since she’s hypersensitive about her riding skills.

  By the time nine-thirty rolls around, I’m feeling frustrated. My horse needs his work and the girl did say she’d ride him. I go walking off to look for her and am storming around, eliciting curious looks from grooms as I poke my head in at various shedrows. I’m about to turn and head back to my barn when I see Sebastian Ives, a groom who worked for me in my previous incarnation as an assistant trainer up at Belmont. He’s walking a liver chestnut horse in front of a very well kept barn. I duck my head to avoid his noticing me. He knows I’m a Fed and though I look different, Sebastian and I worked side by side for four months and he might well recognize me just by my walk. Just as I’m passing him, he stares right at me. I quickly look away.

  “Hey!” the thin black man calls after me.

  I keep walking, feeling shitty about it because I liked the man a great deal. From the looks of it though, he’s doing just fine. Don’t know whose outfit he’s working for but the shedrow seemed very classy.

  I go back to my barn and find Lucinda sitting in a plastic chair she’s pulled over in front of Mike’s stall. She’s a little dirtied up from riding and has her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She’s drumming her long fingers on the plastic chair.

  “Hi. I was looking for you,” I say, glancing down at my watch.

  “Here I am,” she shrugs.

  “So. Mike. I want you to do a mile with him. I had the chiropractor work on him yesterday. His back should feel better.”