He wanted so badly to understand and he cursed the cheap psychology books that did nothing but raise questions in his mind, questions that were rubber stamps about guilt and self-punishment. Why couldn’t he work it out in his mind, why couldn’t he fathom the depths of the torment that had racked her into punishing herself by performing a sex act so sickening to her? He had read somewhere, he couldn’t remember where, that in the minds of some women the words penance and penis had more than a coincidental similarity—what could that mean with respect to Donna? Was it the loss of the three children? Could she really blame herself for that? Or maybe the self-blame went further back. Maybe it was earlier, much earlier. Maybe even when he first met her . . . a virgin not by choice but by affliction. Make me do it, she had said, rape me—give me the pleasure and give me the punishment, make a capsule of it. . . . Later, when the children were lost, she was punishing herself, and doing a good job of it. But why? She had committed no crime she had to punish herself for, she had hurt nobody . . . except him.
He tried to get her to go for help but she wouldn’t. (It took somebody else to convince her to do it, at Mike’s expense.) His suggestion got her angry. She was not about to pamper herself, she said, like a sick person, an invalid. She was all right, she was perfectly all right, she did her work, she kept her house, she wasn’t degenerating into a slob. She did all things well except the one, and she did not expect perfection of herself. Did he, of himself?
They slept in separate bedrooms, but that increased the other distances and made him resentful in a way he was ashamed of—the mores of his cowpuncher society, a testicle society, said get rid of the wife who won’t do it. It was like a motto blazoned on leather chaps for every female to see: put out or get out. Yet he couldn’t move out of the house; he still loved her.
By degrees, when the cries of sexual rage died down, a makeshift peace settled into their lives. They began to talk again, they were friends. They were also strangers. And they had a tacit agreement that Mike would take his women where he found them.
He didn’t have to search. A star of the arena, an attractive ruttish male who wasn’t being satisfied at home, trumpets blew to herald his arrival. Many women answered the call. While he didn’t flaunt his haphazard infidelities, he never felt any obligation to be dishonest about them. It was part of his unspoken understanding with Donna. Anyway, none of the petty adulteries mattered. The first time he was overtly dishonest about one of his women was when she did matter.
Her name was Rachel Perry and she was the widow of a bronc rider who had been killed on the very day he won the first cup at the Cattlemen’s Exhibition Show. Mike had come in second, but when his cup arrived it was the wrong one—by some error he had received the dead man’s trophy. He took her husband’s award to Rachel and, having liked the man, said he didn’t mind coming in second to him. Although the remark was innocent, it seemed to bother her. Then, a second misunderstanding and a third—and suddenly they were understanding one another.
Mike never intended to go to bed with Rachel. She wasn’t pretty, even seemed a little dowdy, but she was at peace with herself and made him feel that he might get to be. She was a deep-rooted woman with a quizzical sense of humor. Sometimes he wouldn’t catch on to a quip she had made until days later, then find himself laughing at last week’s joke. Occasionally her comical barbs got under the skin—under her own skin as well—for she considered the human race a ludicrous blunder and herself a typical example of its preposterousness. But the sting of her wit, nearly always self-directed, never kept her from being kind. She was the first woman he’d ever met who was brighter than he but didn’t make him feel inferior.
He never realized he could fall in love with a woman who didn’t excite him sexually. When he came upon this unexpected discovery in himself it gave him a perplexing but profound joy. Suddenly he felt he loved, not only Rachel, but all women—he absurdly loved all women!—and was rewarded by loving himself. There was an extra reward. When he finally did go to bed with Rachel, it was wonderful beyond every expectation.
He wanted to marry her and started thinking about a divorce. He went through nearly a year of turmoil. At the heart of his indecision was this simple fact: Rachel wanted children. And he suddenly realized it wasn’t Donna alone who didn’t want more of them—he was as unwilling as she was. The dread of loss was now terrible in him.
But could he marry Rachel and deprive her . . . ?
Finally, impulsively, he told her. It didn’t seem to bother her. “You’ll change your mind later,” she said, full of hope. “You’ll see, Mike—after we’ve been married awhile, you’ll change your mind.”
He knew he’d have to change his mind before they got married or he’d put her through a misery neither of them could handle. He kept on worrying, delaying and worrying.
One afternoon he went to the stadium, picked up his mail and opened a letter from Rachel. She had gone back to her home town, Shreveport, to spend a few weeks with her sister and brother-in-law, to think things over. A month later she was married to her high-school sweetheart.
The morning he heard about Rachel’s marriage, when it was too late for his action to mean anything, he left Donna. She wasn’t angry, neither was he. She helped him pack, she reminded him that two of his sport jackets were still at the cleaners, she insisted on his taking a number of books she knew he cherished. While he was putting a rope around a damaged suitcase she made a reservation for him at the hotel he was going to stay in temporarily. When he was about to drive off she kissed him gently, not as if he had been her husband but as if he were her son going off to the army. For a long time they hadn’t ached for each other as they did in parting.
Toward evening he was drunk and in the rain, standing on Laurie’s grave and pounding on it with his feet, pounding on the wet earth that covered his dead child.
“It’s your fault!” he kept yelling in a bourbon rage.
The rain was a fine mist that afternoon, just as it was now. That afternoon, that evening, that aching night—the beginning of his lost year. Was he about to have another lost year? A lost forever?
It’s your fault, he had said to the child.
And now, aged thirty-eight, was he still saying it? Why not? The ache was still there.
Again he had the impulse to go back for the picture of Laurie. But what would he do with it? Hang it in the alcove? . . . No, he would leave the space blank.
4
Around dinnertime the following evening, when he felt there was little risk of running into anybody, Mike went to the stadium to empty his locker. The tackroom was deserted, as he hoped it would be, and although it was getting dark he had no inclination to turn on the lights.
He pulled the trash receptacle close to the open doors of the closet, dragged out his rigging bag and, after a cursory glance, dumped its contents, the leathers, the chamois glove, the rosin container, spurs, everything into the trash can. Then the clothes—silk shirt, beaver hat, iguana-skin boots; odds and ends: a jar of pomade, a Sports Illustrated with his picture on the cover, an empty bourbon bottle—into the rubbish.
All that was left was what hung on the inside of the doors. On the left one, a picture of himself—an advertising throwaway—when he first came to work for the Macmillans. He hadn’t adopted the white costume yet and his garb in those days, all of it, even the gaudy purple neckerchief, seemed drab; only the face was brighter. He tore the picture off the door, crumpled it and threw it into the can. Now the final remains: the awards, buckles, trophies, bronze, silver, gold, ribbons of red and blue; it was easier to imagine he had never won them than that he would never win anything again. He took them down as quickly as possible and, one after another, tossed them into his rigging bag.
The bag was heavy; he walked slowly to his car. As he got in, with the canvas sack beside him on the seat, he wondered what he would do with himself this evening, what he would do with these things . .
. prizes . . . how precious they had once been to him.
He drove to the Red Rio Bar.
He hadn’t been there for over three years but the café was exactly as he remembered it. The jukebox played the same country music at deaf-making decibels. The same stench was in the air, of cigars and old beer. The men were all cut to the same pattern, young, spermy and a little mean. The girls were hewed to the same pattern too, young, nubile, tight-panted, good-natured and a little scared. Beer sloshing on the bar, hard liquor in plastic cups at high prices. Behind the bar, on the walls, even on the ceilings, ineptly painted pictures of naked women. And everywhere the pride of youth, muscle, gonad. A young buck, with a teen-age girl, had his hand under her skirt, feeling her ass. A muscle man held a chair with one hand: in the chair a doxy, giggling, screaming for him to let her down or she would pee in her jeans.
Mike stood in the doorway, the rigging bag ungainly on his shoulder, uncertain whether to enter. But when Robbie, the new boy, gave him a guarded wave, not knowing how to greet the fallen hero, Mike slowly crossed to the bar. Only one other person greeted him, Barrows the chute boss, but Milo was sure they were all aware he was present. When he got to the bar, he set his rigging bag on it, loosened the drawstring and emptied the stuff on the counter. The medals and buckles clattered and glittered. The noisy room went still. The punchers looked at him and at one another, the girls seemed bewildered, namelessly nervous. They knew that whenever anything unusual occurred at the Red Rio, something wild got in the air, something violent; something happened you couldn’t take back. And here was Milo, looking not quite right, maybe ready to do something crazy.
Mike held the stillness. Then, silent and deliberate, he separated the large Dallas Buckle, glistening gold, from the rest of the heap. He indicated to the café world at large that the heap was for sale.
“What am I bid for this stuff?”
Nobody responded.
“Come on,” he went on. “Who wants to buy it? How much?”
Robbie said, “Everything?”
“Everything but this,” Mike indicated the Dallas Buckle pushed to one side, away from the other trophies.
A voice near the wall said, “I’ll give you five bucks.”
Somebody laughed at the insulting joke. Mike turned his annoyance not to the bidder but to the laughter: even a low bid would be taken seriously. Then he peered into the dim light, at the bidder.
“In cash?” he asked. “Or will you pay it off?”
It was a cheap quip but this time nobody laughed, for they didn’t hear amusement in Mike’s voice. When they realized he was serious, the bidding started.
“Seventy-five . . . A hundred . . . Hundred and twenty-five!”
The bidding stopped. “Come on, come on,” Mike said irritably.
“Hundred and thirty . . . Forty . . . Fifty . . . Sixty!”
Silence.
“Come on!”
The silence held. There were no further bids.
“Is that it?” Mike asked. “Hundred and sixty?” He waited a breath’s worth. “Sold!”
The buyer was a rangy lad with a silly, half-drunken grin on his face and beer down the front of his shirt. He put his empty beer glass on the bar and unsteadily counted out the money which he lay beside the glass. Mike took the money, pointed to the boy’s loot and started to put the Dallas Buckle back into his rigging bag. He heard somebody call his name and saw Buxby, a heavy-footed steer dogger, push his way through the crowd. He walked lumpishly and smelled thickly of the starplug cud in his mouth. When he got to the bar he poked a finger at Mike.
“How ‘bout the big buckle?” he asked.
“Not for sale,” Mike said. “It’s got my name on it.”
Buxby grinned unpleasantly. “They all got your name on them. They’ll all rub off.”
He was trying to provoke Mike and had touched the nerve. The next step, from Milo, had to be a counterinsult and, ultimately, either sell or fight. Mike held the Dallas Buckle up. “How much?” he asked.
“Hundred bucks,” Buxby said.
As if the buckle were a scrap of junk, Mike threw it on the bar. Buxby counted out the bills and tossed them there. Mike took them. He suddenly found himself alone at the counter. He was glad of it, for something was going on in his head. He moved it from left to right, then back again. I hope I’m not getting dizzy, he thought. Inconspicuously, unasked, the bartender put a shot glass of whiskey beside Mike’s hand. He downed the liquor, gave the bartender one of the bills and a grateful look and turned from the bar. I’d like to talk to somebody, he thought; no, I’d like to be alone. He started for the door.
Then he saw her. It wasn’t that she was attractive, although she was, and it wasn’t that he wanted her. He simply wanted to be with her. She had struck a note of memory, a happy one. She looked like somebody he knew. Laurie? No, Laurie’s beauty was quiet, this girl’s was vivid, as if she had just come into full color, like mid-July, with everything blooming. Donna? No. And not a bit like Rachel. Who then? Somebody, somebody.
The girl was alone at a table. He started toward her. It might be that he’d make a pass at her, he thought, but more than likely, not. Just talk to her . . . make a continuity between her and someone in a happier past.
He was halfway across the room, halfway to her table. It seemed somehow terribly important to him to have some kinship with the girl, any kind, if only for an hour. He had a surge of hope: he knew she would sense his need. A few more steps and he felt his heart go faster than it should have gone. Then, just as he was within arm’s length of the table, she was not alone anymore.
The young man appeared from nowhere. He slipped in out of the darkness and slipped down into the chair beside her, and they kissed. Mike stood right there, over them, as close as a waiter might stand. The girl noticed him, then the young man looked up, seeing Mike stare at her, and his glance turned hostile.
Mike walked away, saying nothing.
Retreating, he felt more than embarrassed—unaccountably guilty as if he had been caught shoplifting. He wasn’t doing things well, and not feeling well. Better get out of here, he thought, get some air.
He went outdoors. He must stand still, absolutely still, until the dizziness was gone, otherwise he might fall. Falling in the arena meant failure; in the street it could mean disaster. He dreaded it might happen.
* * *
• • •
When he got inside the apartment, it seemed stifling. He threw open the windows, reopened the door to make a cross draft, took his coat off, mopped his forehead with a damp towel. He started to empty his pockets, preparatory to going to bed. Including the proceeds from the sale of the trophies, he had three hundred and nine dollars and some change. He put the money on the sideboard.
He didn’t hear the footsteps. He had no idea how long the man stood outside the open door, unidentifiable in the darkness. He was certain he was about to be robbed.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
The man moved forward into the light. It was Howard Polk.
“May I come in?” he said.
Mike simply stared at him. Howard had never come visiting before, but the riddle went beyond what the man was doing here. His presence was just a jumble in time, place, circumstance. Howard obviously saw Mike’s perplexity, smiled and, not waiting for the invitation, entered the room.
“What do you want?” Mike asked.
“You said something about alimony . . .” His voice trailed off, as if he hoped Mike would take up the slack. Mike didn’t. Howard continued. “It got me thinking . . .” Again, the slack.
Polk filled it himself, with a movement. He put his hand into his breast pocket, pulled out a wallet, extracted something.
“I’d like you to look at a picture,” Howard said.
He held his hand out, offering the snapshot. Mike couldn’t make it out at first. C
arrying it to the light, he saw the picture was a head shot of a little boy, of preschool age, perhaps older. A handsome boy, dark, Latin, with a twinkling face that might be hiding a private deviltry, a nice kid, well dressed, well fed.
“What you’re looking at is a picture of my son,” Howard said. “His name is Rafael. He was six years old when that picture was taken. He’s now about eleven.”
Mike handed the picture back. “Good-looking kid.” Standard comment. Noncommittal.
“Yes,” Howard replied. “I haven’t seen him in five years.”
“Long time.”
“I miss him.”
Mike couldn’t imagine Howard missing anybody, not for five minutes. Polk seemed to have guessed the thought. He sounded more amused than defensive. “It’s possible for a father to miss a son for five years.”
“If there’s a point to it.”
Howard nodded, giving Mike a high grade for perception. “Exactly.”
“What’s the point?”
“I want you to kidnap him.”
Without inflection. Calmly. Watchfully.
Mike tried to match Howard’s manner. “Kidnap? From his mother?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Ransom.”
“You’ve got all the money there is—how much more do you want?”
“Only what’s mine,” Howard said. Mike wondered if he was hearing resentment in the man’s voice, or if he was imagining it. “She’ll be paying ransom—with my own money. It seems only fitting.”
“I see,” Mike said. His guess had been right: resentment. A little telltale sign of Howard’s rancor. It might be saying something about money itself, or about the spites of divorce. “Well, I don’t see exactly,” Mike said.
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