by Lincoln Cole
She smiled and gently touched his arm. “I’d love to.”
“To…go out?”
She nodded.
At that moment, Calvin realized there was something sweeter than anything the race track could offer. He felt invincible, unstoppable. The world was his.
“Hey, did you save us our spots?”
They turned as the others approached and nodded. “Yep, of course,” Calvin said. Mary locked eyes with him for a second and then smiled knowingly.
“That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good.”
Calvin felt a tug on his arm and glanced down. Mikey was holding up the ticket for him. It was the last money from this week’s paycheck. Calvin patted Mikey on the shoulder and laughed.
“Keep it.”
Edward White
Picking up the pieces
Present day
I rub a hand across my cheek and let out a breath.
This is not how I was planning on spending my day off.
I didn’t exactly have huge plans (store for milk and bread, bank to deposit a check), but that’s not really the point, is it? The point is, when Bethany called me, I didn’t think it was to go talk her father out of…
…this.
And there’s no way Bethany knew.
“I won’t let you walk, either. I won’t let you do this. Sorry, Calvin, it’s nothing personal…”
Calvin waves his hand to stop me. The gesture is vaguely reminiscent of swatting at a bug. In this moment, he looks older. Sunk into his chair, barely more than skin and bones. He looks older than he has in years.
I’ve known him on and off for almost my entire life. My brother married his daughter over thirty years ago. Calvin was the bedrock of the family from the time I knew him until now. He worked sixty hour weeks and spent the rest of his time at the track with his horses. He was the foundation on which his family was built.
I’ve been busy with my own family, so I haven’t really been paying attention to him. He’s hurting. I never imagined Calvin to sink this low. He’s done a lot of stupid things in his life: drinking, gambling, smoking. The trifecta. He’s always been a tortured soul, but this is something different.
I think he really means to kill himself.
And that scares the shit out of me.
“No, Edward,” Calvin says. He can’t look me in the eyes. “You’re right, I shouldn’t ask that of you. But…”
“You don’t want me telling Bethany,” I say. It’s not a question. Calvin looks shocked, that look that only a man can get when he’s cornered doing something he shouldn’t. Young men learn that look at a young age from dealing with mothers.
Calvin lets out a shrug, his hunched shoulders bobbing up and down a few inches. It’s over eighty degrees today, and he’s wearing a white sweater, a work shirt, and two undershirts, and he still looks cold. Maybe I should grab him a coat.
“You can tell her,” he says. “Just not today.”
“I have to tell her. She’s your child. My brother’s wife.”
“And you’re my friend.”
“Don’t play that card on me,” I say, shaking my head. “I would do anything for you, Calvin. You know I would. Of course I’m your friend. But this is different. I can’t just not tell your daughter something like this.”
“It was a moment,” Calvin says, waving his hand again. “Just a moment of weakness. I didn’t mean it. I won’t kill myself.”
I sigh and rub my eyes. “Do you want to know how I know you’re lying?”
“How?” he asks.
“Your mouth is open.”
For a long minute he’s quiet. Just staring at me with rheumy eyes. Piercing intelligent orbs, slightly muddled. It is like looking through a stained glass window at the soul of the man that lies beneath.
Then he laughs. It’s a belly laugh, not unlike shaking a bag of tools. I smile softly at the corner of my lips.
“Mellie always said that,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “That’s where I heard it.”
He keeps laughing for a good thirty seconds, rubbing at the moisture in his eyes.
“Did I ever tell you about that time we went down to Kentucky for the race and it started snowing?”
Only a thousand times.
“No,” I say politely.
“It started snowing, and it’s just me and Mikey in the truck. Mikey was, God, couldn’t have been older than sixteen. We’re taking three horses up to a race, and Mellie kept telling me to be careful. Drive slow. She made me stop and call her every gas station we passed.”
He pauses here, gathering his thoughts. I read a study once that you can test for Alzheimer’s with a smelling test using peanut butter. Hold it up to someone’s nose, and depending on how far away they can smell it you can determine if their memory is going or not.
I don’t think Calvin has any peanut butter.
I also don’t think we’d need it.
“So we are driving, and we get to a hill,” Calvin says, grinning, “and I start down. And Mikey says ‘You’re going too fast,’ and of course I was.”
“What happened?”
“The axle broke on the rear left tire. Popped the tire out about three feet. We start swerving back and forth, snow’s coming down, Mikey’s screaming, I’m screaming. We finally crash to a stop in a snowbank on the side of the road. The trailer’s sideways across the road, blocking traffic.
“Anyway, we’re stranded. Three unhappy horses in the back. It’s snowing like crazy. And all Mikey can say is ‘Em’s going to be pissed.’”
I laugh.
“So I have to walk to the next gas station up the road. Mikey stayed with the horses. Eight miles. By the time I get there I’m soaked, miserable, can’t feel my hands. And the first thing I do is call Mellie. She picks up, asks why I haven’t called in hours and if I’m okay. And I say ‘yes, I’m fine.’ And she says that. She says: ‘You know how I know you’re lying, Cal? Your mouth’s open.’”
He smiles at the memory. The smile fades. They always do.
“That was before the kids,” he says. “Before Rickie.”
It’s a sore spot. Rickie abandoned the family, more or less, and fell out of touch. I don’t know if Calvin took that personally (what parent can’t?) but Emily did. She took it very personally and hadn’t seen Richard for at least two years before she died.
“Must have been a long night,” I offer.
He shakes his head and stares at me. “When?”
“When you got stranded. How’d you get back?”
He shrugs. “Mechanic towed the trailer for us. We missed the race. Spent two days huddled in the trailer with three miserable horses.”
I nod. I’d never heard that part of the story before. Funny how some things get stuck in the mind and won’t let go. Things that seem completely unimportant can become our easiest memories to recall, and some of the most important things that happen to us pass out of existence with nary a flicker.
A minute passes in silence.
Some kids fly up the road on skateboards. That’s something I haven’t seen in a while. What happened to the good old days when kids were yelled at for riding one of those? Now it’s a miracle when you can get them off their computers or phones to go outside.
I don’t really miss being a kid. I don’t think many people my age do, really. Don’t get me wrong, my childhood wasn’t too bad. Strange, I suppose you could say, but not bad. My sister always made things interesting. I don’t blame her for that. She couldn’t help it.
“Do you want to know how I would do it?”
The words hit me like a sledge hammer in the stomach. I blink and look back over at Calvin. He’s staring at me with those rheumy eyes, tired. “No.”
“I’ve thought about it—”
“I said ‘no,’” I reiterate firmly.
I can’t shake it. The image of him in the cemetery, flowers in one hand and gun in the other.
“I don’t want to talk about that.�
��
“You think you can talk me out of it,” he says. I say nothing. “Or maybe I’ll forget.”
Again I’m silent.
“But this is important to me.”
“You aren’t thinking about everyone. How would your children feel losing both parents instead of just one?”
“Relieved.”
“Bullshit.”
“They should,” Calvin says. “Less to worry about. Get all of their goodbyes out of the way at the same time.”
“Damn it, Calvin, this isn’t a game.”
His eyes turn dull. “You think I don’t know that? I have no reason to be here.”
“You should be here for your children and grandchildren.”
“What, so they can parade me around when they feel like it?” he asks. “Or come visit me occasionally when they remember I’m still alive? I’m a burden. I hate being a burden.”
“Then stop thinking you are one.”
“Edward, don’t bullshit me,” Calvin says, shaking his head. “If you’re just going to sit there and bullshit me, then you should leave now.”
I hesitate. “And if I leave?”
“I’ll start walking to the cemetery.”
“Then I’m not going anywhere.”
“So you’ll just stay here? Stay and keep me from killing myself until I die from old age?”
“If that’s what it takes,” I say.
He snorts. “See? A burden.”
I shake my head and let out a sigh. “So I guess we’re at an impasse.”
“I guess so,” he says, leaning back in his chair.
We stare awkwardly at each other for a minute.
Like I said, not how I was planning to spend my day off.
“Tell me about your family,” I say. “Tell me about your kids. What was Beth like before she married Adam?”
He shrugs. “Difficult. She’s always been difficult. But a great kid.”
“I didn’t meet your family until I was almost nine. Tell me what it was like before you guys moved. Or before you had Bethany. What was Ricky like as a kid?”
“Why?” he asks. “Why bother?”
“Humor me,” I say. “I’m not leaving anytime soon, so we better find something to talk about.”
He thinks about it for a minute and then shrugs. “Suit yourself.” He’s silent for a long minute, and then he looks me directly in the eyes: “How much do you think parents matter?”
“You mean for a child?”
“When they become an adult,” Calvin says. “Rickie was older than the others. We were younger. We weren’t the same parents when Bethany and Jason grew up.”
“And you think it’s your fault that Rickie turned into an asshole?” I ask, laughing. “No, at a certain point kids become responsible for their own lives. They have to take responsibility for their decisions.”
Calvin thinks about that, then snorts. “But I guess that doesn’t mean they’ll have to like their parents.”
I smile. “No, I guess not. Tell me about Rickie. What was different with his childhood from his siblings?”
“The difference,” Calvin says, leaning back in his chair, expression thoughtful, “is he remembers when things were bad…”
1963 - Rickie Greenwood
How did we let that happen?
“How bad did it get?” I ask. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
Calvin waves noncommittally. “Bad. Mostly about money.”
“Isn’t it always?”
“Most people argue about money,” he agrees.
“I know me and my wife do. Not often, but it gets bitter.”
“I was stubborn,” Calvin says. “I thought I could handle things with the horses. It took me a long time to learn that the horses weren’t going to pay the bills. I guess it took me a while to grow up. To stop buying my toys and wasting time.”
“You figured it out,” I say. “That’s more than can be said for a lot of people.”
“At a great cost,” Calvin replies. “To Rickie…”
***
“I’m hungry,” Rickie said, grabbing his stomach. His mom dragged him along through the fairgrounds at the racetrack. They weaved past a family of six and around a puddle of water on the ground from a recent rain.
The scents of cooking food wafted in the air, enticing in their complexity. Right now he would have eaten them, even the fried vegetables he hated so much. Even they seemed good.
“I know,” his mom said. She was dressed in trousers and a loose fitting blouse. Her hair was hastily drawn back into a bun and loose strands of black hair fluttered across her face. “I’m hungry too.”
Rickie groaned. “When can we get something to eat?”
“Tonight,” Emily said, then smiled down at him. It was a sad smile. “Tonight we can have a big dinner.”
“Why not now?” Rickie asked. He pointed at one of the stands with funnel cakes and fresh squeezed lemonade. “They’re selling stuff in that booth right there.”
Emily dragged him past, weaving her way through the crowd. She didn’t respond, pretending she never even heard him. He was used to his parents pretending they didn’t hear him when they didn’t like what he had to say.
It was a cloudy day with the sun only making the briefest of appearances. At least it wasn’t too cold this late in the season. His dad said that was a good thing, and he agreed. He really, really didn’t like snow.
The place was packed and they had to stop to let large groups pass. Emily looked neither right nor left, studiously ignoring the entertainment around her. Rickie couldn’t believe her. It wasn’t fair to bring him to the excitement and activity of the fairground and deprive him of any enjoyment. He loved coming to the fair, and usually he got to play games with his mom and eat while his dad raced his horses.
But now she wasn’t letting him do anything. That was like torture.
There was delicious smelling food everywhere around them. That was part of why he enjoyed the county fairs so much: caramel apples, corn dogs, funnel cakes. They had the best treats.
But his mom kept telling him that he couldn’t have any of it.
They moved through the midway quickly, passing the booths and grandstand and weaving around the turn in the track. They were heading for the barns on the far side, along the backstretch. That’s where his father was at, getting ready for the eighth race when Mountaineer was up.
Emily pulled Rickie to a stop near the race entrance, letting a few horses move past them onto the tracks. There were a dozen out there right now, some jogging to stay loose, some doing warm up laps or sprints. The driver’s wore colorful uniforms, some green, some blue, usually backed with white or gray. Someday Rickie would grow up and be a professional race driver. And he would be the best driver around.
“Calvin,” Emily called, rushing across when the crowd thinned out. Rickie spotted his father up ahead, sitting on a tack trunk and feeding Jason.
Baby Jason had his eyes closed. He wasn’t even one year old. Rickie was almost four. He’d liked Jason at first when his parents brought him home. He was neat. But after a while, he just got annoying. He cried a lot, wouldn’t shut up no matter how many times you told him to, and got all of the attention.
“Hey Mellie,” Calvin said, handing the baby to his wife. He was dirty, covered in oil from the tack and dirt from the track and there were smudges of black stuff on his face. He rubbed Rickie’s hair and stood up. “Good timing. I have to get Mountaineer ready to race.”
“How’s he doing?” Emily asked, gently rocking Jason. Rickie climbed up onto the tack trunk next to his dad.
“He’s ready,” Calvin said. “And the purse is enough that we can pay all the bills even if he gets second.”
“He better be because some of those bills are a few months late and if we don’t—”
Calvin reached forward and put a dirty finger across Emily’s lip. “Shh,” he said, gently. He smiled. “He’s going to win. He’s the best horse in the race. He has
to win.”
Emily smiled back at him, but it was a strained smile. “Okay, Cal,” she said. “Did you ever talk to Dan about that job?”
Calvin shrugged absently. “I have his number. But it won’t matter. After tonight we’ll have enough money that I won’t have to worry about it.”
“You should anyway,” Emily said. “I don’t like having to worry about whether…”
He shook his head. “Trust me, it won’t matter. After he wins we can pay off the bills and buy that other horse I told you about. Then we’ll have three in the stables and enough money coming in to sit comfortably.”
Emily took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Calvin,” she said, her voice soft. “We have children now. We’re hungry, and—”
“The seventh is about to start,” Calvin interrupted. “Only one more until Mountaineer is up. Don’t worry, he’s going to win. Everything will be just fine.”
He leaned in quick and kissed Emily on the cheek. Then he turned and rushed farther into the barn, weaving around horses lined in the halls and around drivers and trainers getting ready for the seventh race.
Rickie watched him go and then looked back at his mom. A tear ran down her cheek and she looked sad.
“Now can we get food?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not yet, Rickie,” she said, looking helpless. “Come on, let’s go watch the race.”
***
Mountaineer was a big horse. Rickie liked him because he was bigger than the other horses. That meant he was stronger. Calvin told him so when he first bought the big gelding. He was also a fast horse, winning most of the races he was in.
But he hadn’t raced in a while. He’d hurt his leg in his last start and hadn’t been able to compete for a few months. That sucked, because Rickie loved going to the track to watch him race. One day Rickie would be Mountaineer’s sulky driver and race in all the county fairs. And together they would win all of the races.
Rickie watched Calvin lead the horse to the track beside the fence. There were seven in this race, but Mountaineer was bigger than any of them. He would win easy.
“Why do we have to watch from here?” he asked his mother, standing up against the fence and trying to see over. It was no use. The fence was too high. “The finish line is on the other side of the track.”