Bullet Work

by Steve O'Brien

  O’Kelly opened with a group prayer. Dan couldn’t focus on anything he was saying. He only heard words being spoken. Several of the women were crying quietly. A few of the hard boots scratched the floor with their heels and looked down. When he’d finished, he asked Kyle to come forward.

  Kyle stood behind the podium and couldn’t look at the group. “I, uh, I went to the hospital this morning and got to see Jim.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “He’s a tough guy.” People nodded in agreement. “Anyway, he’s got a busted collar bone, punctured lung, and three broken ribs. Oh, and a concussion.”

  He paused as if reflecting upon the fortune, the fragments of bones and matter, and the pressure that would place him in that hospital bed rather than Dagens. “He wanted me to send a message to the jockey colony. He said he’s going to keep track of everyone who takes any of his mounts, and he’s going to kick their ass when he comes back.”

  The crowd laughed nervously. As if catching himself, Kyle looked at O’Kelly and said, “Sorry, Father, but that’s what he said.” O’Kelly nodded. Being around the racetrack, he’d heard every form of profanity, but this one had the potential to actually heal some people.

  Kyle continued, “He wanted me to thank everyone for their prayers and good wishes. And he’s coming back just as soon as they let him out. Thank you.”

  He nodded to the crowd and stepped away from the podium. O’Kelly moved to the podium and pointed at Dick Latimer. “Dick’s going to say a few words.”

  Latimer stood behind the podium like he was paralyzed. There was no more sympathetic audience, but he struggled to come up with anything to say. He rubbed his hand over his face and scratched the stubble on his cheek. “He was a good kid,” he said; then, he stopped.

  Latimer looked like he knew he was going to cry if he kept going. He looked down and rolled his head slightly, searching for any kind of composure.

  “He was a good kid. He was a quick learner.” Latimer paused and cleared his throat. “He was never a problem.” He looked out at the audience, and the fear was evident in his water-filled eyes. Then he froze. The audience’s heart tried to will him to go on, but he could not. Caught between the courage to display emotion publicly and the pride of a hard boot, he opted for the pride. He couldn’t go on. “I’m gonna miss that kid.” Then he walked away.

  O’Kelly stepped back up. “Thank you, Dick. Tough time for all of us. I know he meant a lot to you. Next, I’d like to have Dan Morgan come up and say a few words. Dan?” He pointed to him near the back of the room.

  Dan walked forward and scooted between two tables to get to the front. Beth jumped up, pulling him forward and tightly wrapped her arms around his neck. She was as tough as they came, but tears streamed down his neck and into the fabric of his shirt.

  She mumbled something that sounded like a mixture of “I’m sorry” and “don’t get it.” She pushed back and held a tissue up to her nose, sucking in and holding her breath. He stroked her hair, looking down at her, then inhaled deeply and moved toward the front of the room.

  He rested his hands on the podium and leaned into it. He had given closing arguments; he had given speeches in grand conference rooms. He had even given eulogies at massive funerals. This was the only time in his life that he was preparing to speak and had no idea what he was going to say.

  “I’m Dan Morgan. I own a few horses. Jake trains for me.” He gestured over to where Gilmore was standing. “I didn’t know AJ very well. Would like to have known him a whole lot better, but—”

  Dan looked to the back of the room and noticed Romeo standing against the wall. Scenes flashed through his mind, from that first day in Crok’s kitchen with the men hassling AJ to that satisfying gut punch to the haymaker that caught AJ unaware. Too much violence, he thought—too much hatred borne of fear.

  Romeo was pale, disheveled, and confused. Rings under his eyes evidenced a combination of lack of sleep and hard-scrubbed tears. In a few tragic seconds he had lost a promising filly, and in his grief risked losing his liberty, but he was here.

  Dan turned toward Latimer. “He was a good kid, Dick. He cared so much for those horses. Anyone’s horses. We work in an industry that exists only for competition. We live to beat the other guy, to get the purse, to win the stake, to—” He shrugged. “To get there first.”

  He took a deep breath and leaned into the podium. “AJ came at life from a totally different angle. He cared singularly about the horse. Now, we all do, but he cared about them in a way we’ll never comprehend. He had a gift. I don’t understand it. I can’t explain it. I saw it with my own eyes, and I still don’t get it. But he could connect with horses.”

  “When he put his hands on a horse, they communicated. He gave them a voice. And in doing that, he gave them peace. He could calm a frightened animal, he could sense pain and discomfort, and—”

  Dan shook his head. “And he could feel what they felt. I believe he could actually experience the emotion of the animal. No one will believe you when you say that. You had to see it, and even then—” He looked out and only saw faces of people trying to comprehend what they’d witnessed. Tears were flowing, and few looked at anything besides the floor.

  “AJ and I had many things in common. First and foremost, we love these animals. We love the backside. We all have our personal problems and challenges, but we’d rather be right here than on any stretch of earth on this planet. Here, the horses are kings, and we’re their servants. Sure, we have plans and dreams for them, but unless we treat them like royalty, they’ll never achieve their potential. It occurred to me that we’re all like that.”

  Dan took a deep breath and re-gripped the podium. “This would be a better place if everyone thought like that. When you meet strangers, you never know what to expect of them, nor what they expect from you. If we try to understand them and treat them with respect, maybe we both win. AJ was a—a boy of few words. He didn’t have to say a lot. He spoke through his actions.

  “I’m convinced that he knew what was going to happen when Arestie was put down. I think he knew the significance of having his hands on her when the needle hit the heart. He just couldn’t let go. He couldn’t let that horse down, not for one second. He’d committed to help a distressed animal. His commitment, though fatal, was one he couldn’t bring himself to relinquish.

  “He was a boy—he was a man of his word. We’ve all heard it, and we know it’s true. These majestic animals give their lives for our pleasure. AJ gave his so that one of those creatures wouldn’t endure one more second of pain.”

  He paused and gathered his breath. O’Kelly motioned to him like he was going to move to the podium. Dan waved him off.

  “What we don’t understand frightens us. That won’t change after today. But I know that, whether I understand or not, I can always help. It’s that simple, and it’s all we need to take away from this.”

  He stepped back from the podium. A groom in the back of the cafeteria slowly pounded his hands together. A few more joined in, and soon the room exploded with applause. It wasn’t for Dan, though. These people, these witnesses needed to express themselves somehow, and clapping was the most primal release.

  Dan joined them in the applause. He needed it, too.

  Chapter 57

  dan made his way through the crowd of people, who were milling about following the service. It was what people did: milling around. The trauma of the past several days, mixed with the emotion of the moment, caused people to freeze up. They would stay this way until something jarred their system, and then they would go back to their lives. But for now, they milled about.

  He wanted to get over to Jake’s barn so he could be alone.

  His path intersected with Romeo. “Heard they’re looking at you for AJ?”

  Romeo nodded, trying to regain some of the toughness lost through the tears.

  “Call me,” Dan said, handing him a business card.

  Romeo studied the lawyer’s card. “Why? Why’d you help me?”r />
  “Let me be straight about this. I don’t like you. As a matter of fact, I’d like to repay the shot you gave AJ right here. But you didn’t kill that boy. I’m likely the only guy with a legal degree within a hundred miles of this racetrack who can believe that.”

  “But you was friends with that kid. Wha—”

  “Didn’t you listen to a damn thing I just said up there?” Dan said, pointing over his shoulder to the podium.

  “I’ll—I’ll think about it.”

  “You’ll go down for assault. Hell, there were only about twenty thousand witnesses to that. You’ll take that plea and whatever comes with it. But you got to worry about manslaughter. I’ll help if you want. If you don’t, that’s fine, too.” Dan turned and walked away.

  An older woman in a bright red St. John’s knit outfit reached out an arm toward him. “Dan? Do you have just a moment?”

  Her hair was perfectly cropped as a blonde helmet, not a hair out of place. Streaks of mascara were the only things to disrupt an otherwise perfect picture of grace and composure. She held a wadded-up tissue under one eye to soak up a tear. A lanky, gray-haired man in a pinstriped blue suit accompanied her.

  “I’m Madeline Kaine. AJ’s mother. And this is—”

  “Josh Kaine,” Dan finished for her. He reached forward and shook the man’s hand. Josh was the CEO of Kaine Enterprises, a Fortune 500 company in the retail industry. Dan had recently read a feature story on his acquisition of Bid-Mart in Forbes magazine.

  “You’re AJ’s parents? I had no idea.”

  Madeline nodded. “Thank you for all you did for AJ. He told us about you when he would call. We were so glad he had someone to look out for him.” She paused and swallowed hard. “A friend.”

  “I wish I could’ve done more. He was a nice young man, and I’ve never seen anyone with his level of care and skill around horses.”

  Josh put his arm around Madeline. “Dan, thank you. AJ had a difficult time making friends. He lived in a world of his own. Kids like AJ can become fixated on things. Some like trains or trucks—”

  “Or horses,” Dan added.

  Josh nodded. “From the day he was born, he was all horses all the time. And as AJ learned more about them, it wasn’t enough to read books or watch programs about horses. He had to be around real horses. All the time. I’m not proud of this, but AJ ran away from home several times. When we’d find him, he would always be with horses. He was happiest when he was around them.”

  “We had to do a lot of soul-searching and research. So, Madeline and I decided we had to do something, both for AJ and for our sanity. Dick Latimer is Madeline’s cousin. We agreed to let him work for Latimer. We wanted to set AJ up with an apartment, but he wouldn’t leave the barn. So we did what we could to make sure he was safe and in a somewhat controlled environment, where he could be with horses.”

  Madeline pushed the Kleenex under one eye and said, “We finally realized we had to let him do what he wanted, not what we wanted.” She sniffed and put the Kleenex under the other eye. “He had to call us every day, and we checked in with Dick a couple of times per week,” Madeline said. “Always made sure he had what he needed. I was so scared at first. Neither of us knows anything about horses or horse racing. And to send AJ off—” She extended her arms and looked around the cafeteria. “Into God knows what. I was a nervous wreck. But he called every day. That’s one of the things about AJ; his routines didn’t vary. I’m just glad that calling his parents was one of his habits. I think I would have gone crazy otherwise.”

  “AJ didn’t have many friends,” Josh said. Dan could see this was hard for Josh to talk about. He was starting to choke up. Dan needed to interrupt him.

  “Mr. Kaine, I was proud to have been his friend. I wish I could’ve spent more time with him. Gotten to know him better,” he said.

  Josh cleared his throat and gathered himself. “Please, call me Josh. We were so excited when AJ told us about you. Of course, we had to have you checked out. I hope you understand. Dick said you were an all right guy. Not one to take advantage of AJ or get him into trouble. And I appreciate your efforts to help him when the police took him in.”

  “Not sure what I said, but we got him out on his own recognizance,” Dan said. “Honestly, I couldn’t explain why they changed their mind so quickly.”

  “I admire your candor. Probably had something to do with me being a close friend of the governor,” Josh said. Dan thought his persuasive argument had carried the day. Turns out it was a phone call to the governor from Josh Kaine.

  “Dan, I understand you’re in private practice here in Virginia. I had our general counsel check out your practice and experience. Occasionally, we have a need for local counsel in Virginia. If it’s okay, I’d like to have our GC set you up on our preferred list for legal services. No guarantees—but, Lord knows, we always seem to have plenty of work for our outside counsel.” He smiled and handed him a business card.

  “Thank you, sir. I’d love to help out any way I can.”

  Madeline reached forward and hugged Dan. It was like she didn’t want to let go—like Dan was her last connection with AJ. “Thank you,” she whispered. Then the tears came again.

  They started to move away. “Mr. and Mrs. Kaine? I have one other thing I want to ask you. His name? Ananias Jacob. Where did that come from? Is it a family name?”

  Madeline brushed away some tears and said, “We had always planned to name him AJ. Actually, it was going to be Andrew Jacob. He was born six weeks premature. He was sick and weak. We went through all the grief stages while he was in the neonatal intensive care unit.”

  She paused and seemed to reflect. “We had kind of an awakening. He was such a fighter. He wanted to live despite his size and the odds against him. Watching him struggle inspired us. He opened our eyes to what life was all about. I mentioned that phrase to our minister, and he shared the story of Ananias from the Bible, and we thought it fit. So he became Ananias Jacob.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dan said. “Uhm, how does that tie in with the biblical story of Ananias and Sapphira? I don’t get it.”

  “Oh, not that Ananias,” she said. “The other Ananias.

  “The other Ananias? What do you mean?”

  “There are two Ananiases in the bible. The one you mention—but also Ananias of Damascus. Totally different people. Our Ananias was the one who touched Paul and helped him see.” Dan gave her a puzzled look. She continued, “God asked Ananias to touch Paul and cure his blindness. Whether that was allegorical or physical, who knows? But after Ananias touched him, it changed Paul’s life.” She took a deep breath and held it for half a second. “AJ changed our life. He changed the way we saw the world, so it made sense to us. He was our Ananias.” Then the tears came freely.

  Josh patted Dan on the shoulder, and they walked away. Dan simply stared as they moved through the thinning crowd.

  Chapter 58

  dan walked the mezzanine inside the grandstand. It was an hour to the first post, and only the true die-hard handicappers were present. Of course, he spotted Lennie down below in his box, scribbling and examining his computer sheets. Dan stopped by the nearest vendor and ordered two large black coffees. He slowly descended the steps and handed one of the coffees to Lennie. He nodded and accepted it. Dan sat down and pulled the lid off the steaming liquid and stared out into the infield.

  “Wasn’t your fault,” Lennie said. “Wasn’t anything you could do.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Dan, if it wasn’t this Saturday, it would have been another time when you weren’t around. You couldn’t protect him from himself.”

  “Protect him from himself? He had a gift. He shouldn’t need to be protected from himself.”

  “That’s the nature of the world, Dan-o. We all need to be protected from ourselves, but in the end, we’re on our own, and the decisions we make are sometimes disastrous. That’s the world we live in. Friends help friends, spouses help spouses, sometim
es strangers even help strangers, but in the end we’re on our own. We can’t always be protected from ourselves. And you can’t blame yourself for that. You didn’t make the rules.”

  Dan blew on the coffee and took a sip. Neither said a word for a long time. The steam from the java swirled upward into Dan’s eyes as he hunched forward, holding the cup with his hands between his knees.

  Dan couldn’t help himself. He thought of AJ.

  He had a gift so big—why a life so short?

  Dan couldn’t change anything. He was sad, angry, depressed, and, maybe worst of all, just missed the kid. There was his simple innocence and his laser-like focus to serve these four-legged athletes. He didn’t deserve this. He was taken while trying to relieve an animal from pain. It was a sacrifice he didn’t have to make but at the same time one he was compelled to make. Did he know it would kill him? Was that what he wanted?

  Dan could sense Lennie wasn’t studying his sheets. He was looking at him. Finally, Dan turned his head and said, “I’m okay.”

  “Yes, you are, my friend.”

  “I just don’t understand it.”

  “Well, join the club.” Lennie stacked some pages on his lap and turned to Dan. “Thomas Edison was one of the brightest inventors in our nation’s history. Hell, the world’s history, for that matter. You know what he said, don’t you?”

  Dan looked at him, not saying anything. He knew Lennie would continue.

  “He said, we don’t understand one millionth of one percent about anything.”

  Dan smiled.

  “And Dan-o, he was a smart guy, so if that’s the way he looked at the world, what chance do you and I have?”

  “Still bothers me.”

  “Means you’re human,” said Lennie. “And last time I checked that was a good thing.”

  They both sipped coffee and watched the grandstand start to fill.