And it was then that I stepped toward him and stood smack in front of him like I was pretty much saying:
Do it.
Kiss me.
And after several consecutive moments that each could have been perfect, he took a step back. Later I’d learn he’d done this because he’d seen that jerk hitting on me at the secret sprint and figured I maybe needed a break from men, but just after he stepped back, I wondered if he’d just blown our chances for a best-in-a-lifetime first kiss. And then, the longer we stood, with no summer breeze or starlight between us, the more I felt disappointment and doubt and an irksome new nervousness.
And I should probably also admit that it was then, as we stood there, that Tug realized he’d always cherish me for telling him to let light from stars guide him, so he wanted to thank me—though he was wise enough to know that thanking me out loud right then might ruin whatever good moments we had left. So he decided to instead thank me with a gift as soon as possible, not with anything near as risky as an engagement ring, just something to let me know he cared for me, maybe even believed that, despite our weirdnesses as horse folk, love between us was possible.
The problem with gifts, though, diamonds or not, was that they cost money, of which Tug never had more in his pocket than the few dollars luck had spared him if Tom had just won big. Yes, Tug had saved cash for college thanks to the horse farm’s best days, but that cash had long been untouchable, sitting as it did in his parents’ savings account.
What Tug needed—and soon, he realized—was work, any kind of work, even a low-paying stint like mucking stalls for some trainer who’d recently won a few purses and could now afford an extra hand. Though for Tug, employment had never come easily. Just after high school, when he’d hunted for a job painstakingly—before his parents had relented and let him use their meadow for his horse farm—owners of the most lucrative horses and the thriving shops on Main had often asked him one question, a question whose unfriendly undertow now made him cringe:
“You’re that Corcoran guy’s son, aren’t you?”
25
DEESH
THE COP LIES ON ASPHALT less than five feet from me, and, from the sidewalk beyond him, a teenage brother eyes me. He is not Jasir, but he still makes me realize how I, Deesh, look sitting right here, in this pickup beside this fallen cop with a bullet-torn cheek.
“Go!” Bark screams, the barrel of his gun now up against my ear, so I drive off, freaked by death’s quickness, by Bark’s now undeniable bonds with violence, by the hundreds, hell, thousands of nights I’ve hung with him. Were we ever blood-brother tight, even when we won state? There has always been this tendency of his to end our conversations, to not even answer my most direct questions. There has always been this unvoted-on rule that, somehow, Bark is in charge.
Hell, right now, up against his gun, I am taking lefts and rights and swerving exactly as he tells me to. I am speeding all the way to the GW Bridge, where I accelerate onto the lower level, to hide us from the helicopters he fears. Maybe, I realize, he’s played pals with me for those times when, against my better judgment, I’d accept UPS’d packages full of baby powder and crack for him at my address, or I’d answer his phone when common sense screamed it was stupid to help him lay low.
And now, on the dash radio, there’s this white dude saying, “police activity in the Bronx,” which means Bark and I aren’t far from millions of people wanting our faces torn by bullets, too.
But the broadcast gave no descriptions, I tell myself, and to calm myself I try to picture Mississippi, but Mississippi, right now, means nothing to me, no fellow tenants sure to smile, no women I’ve slept with, certainly no Madalynn and definitely no Jasir, and now Bark and I roll from the GW into Jersey, approaching overhead signs for Fort Lee, I-95 South, the Palisades, Highway 1, Highway 9, I-80 West, something about the end of I-95, and Bark is screaming since I’m screaming since I’m clueless about where to steer. The lane-lines are all screwed up, some new, some faded, some crooked, some suddenly ending, a trucker in front of us veering as if to say he’s the boss of this stretch, so when I see his flushed-pink face in his side mirror I scream at his move, at any racism in him, at the dead cop’s racism, at all of the white hatred in the world.
26
JAN
THE FIRST TIME TOM TOOK ME to the backside of the Finger Lakes racetrack, he drove up to the wooden arm keeping us from the parking lot, and the guard in the booth said, “Got your ID?”
“You serious?” Tom asked.
“Track policy, sir. Always has been. Just got a new boss is all.”
Tom glared straight ahead. Tug sighed so hard his shoulders rose and fell.
“Your phone work?” Tom asked.
“Sir?” the guard said.
“Does your phone work.”
“I think so.”
“Call your new boss and ask him who Tom Corcoran is.”
And the guard made that call, which took an embarrassing while, but then the wooden arm rose and he and Tom exchanged nods, and we parked and Tom strode toward the shedrows, Tug following, me following Tug while I tried to pretend I wasn’t excited as a mutt pup to be on a real racetrack’s backside. Near one barn, Tom lingered for no reason apparent to me, and then, as if to show someone what a fun guy he’d been when he’d jocked, he stole a carrot from a feed bin and told a couple of chatting owners there was such a thing as a free lunch, so there were chuckles then, even a few laughs.
And there were a few people he knew enough to say hi to, some of them owners, though mostly we gossiped with stable hands, and, for a while, Tug talked to one of them about his horse farm, but if you asked me, people on that track’s backside soft-pedaled Tug kind of like folks in Pine Bluff had done with me.
Then it was just Tug and Tom and I standing with paper cups of coffee on a freshly hosed sidewalk, and Tug glanced past Tom and said, “Think you could lend me some cash?”
“For what?” Tom said. He stuffed his fingers into his front pockets.
“Thought I might join you in backing a horse today.”
Tom glanced at the grandstand. He cleared his throat, maybe to make Tug wait. Then all he said was “Why?”
“Just to join you,” Tug said. “And just for one race. I just want to bet one horse and cheer it in for you. You know, like when you rode.”
Tom set his hands on his hips, a man wise enough to know a kissing-up son when he saw one.
Finally he said, “What if we lose?”
Tug forced a smile, and Tom frowned, as if to etch that question—What if we lose?—into Tug’s soul.
“You guys won’t lose,” I said, and they both stared off.
And it was maybe a second or two later, as I remember it, that Tom Corcoran cussed—only one word, but the bull’s-eye.
Then he said, “How much you want,” and he pulled money from his pocket, an inch-plus wad of bills folded once. The sight of so much cash put a stir in me, and his finger and thumb gestured the cash toward Tug, who could, or so it seemed, have as much of it as he wanted.
“I don’t know,” Tug said. “Twenty?”
Take it all! I thought. Use it for your farm!
“Wanna start small, huh?” Tom said. He unfolded the bills and thumbed out four hundreds to expose a fifty, then thumbed fifty after fifty until a ten showed. “No twenties,” he said. “Tell you what. Take one of these and owe me the rest.” He held out a fifty like some magician. “Just don’t get bet happy on me.”
And with a small nod, Tug took the fifty.
“‘Bet happy’?” I asked.
“That’s when you think you know something about horses when in fact you’re just lucky,” Tom said. “Happens to young men who grow up around tracks.”
Tug shook his head, barely but more than once, and rolled his eyes.
“Rememb
er,” Tom said. “The best smartness comes from your heart, so once you lose sight of your heart, you’ll end up betting for betting’s sake.”
And here he again shot me the look he’d given me on my first night in his house, the look that suggested he was trying to tell me something, which now seemed to be Don’t mess with gambling—don’t even start, and, yes, I appreciated him for that, but mostly I wished it was well past dusk and I was out running with Tug.
“But here’s my simplest and best piece of advice,” Tom said. “And this goes for both of you.”
I widened my eyes: Yes?
“Always remember there are only seven important words.”
And Tug walked off in a huff, like any adult child fed up with his father’s advice.
Though he did then call over his shoulder, “Go ahead. Let’s hear the big seven.”
And Tom said, mostly to me, “All you have to do is win.”
Tug was again shaking his head, well on his way to the grandstand, and then I heard:
“Hey, loser.”
And there, maybe sixty feet down the shedrow, in shade created by a warped plywood overhang, stood a man I would come to know as Arnie DeShields. The darkness between us barely dimmed his smile, which was white and thick and fake, and he, arms crossed, was also white and thick—and tall, six feet if he slouched. So I could have looked at him as a fount of insight about how I, a young wannabe jock already considered overweight, might succeed at this track; here was a person whose size had always meant he could never jock, yet he’d figured out how to be a player here.
“Watch his hands when I talk about Devilette,” Tom whispered, and he led me toward Arnie while calling, “What’s the word, Arn?”
Arnie was all eyes on me as he spoke: “Pietro let us down hard yesterday.” He spat tobacco juice, an orange shot raising dirt in an empty stall, and I knew—by the way he kept his hands in his back pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet, along with his deft but searing inspection of my breasts—that I’d better play it tough around him.
“Pietro didn’t force you to put money on it,” Tom said.
“Who said I put money on it?” Arnie asked. And here he checked out the rest of me with no apparent shame, as if he’d heard those rumors spread about me in my high school, then said to Tom, “Alls I’m saying is that the man said he was going to send the horse—and then the thing don’t even land in the money.”
Tom kicked down dirt. “Can’t control the jock once the gates open,” he said. “Right, Jan?”
I nodded, and sunlight bore down through a hole in the roof.
“I suppose,” Arnie said, “you’re here to ask if I’m sending Devilette tomorrow.”
“It’s his third maiden race and he won’t be favored,” Tom said. He tucked in a side of his shirt. “If he’s tight and you don’t send him, you’re insane.”
“Maybe I was insane to begin with,” Arnie said, and he folded his hands over his paunch and cracked his knuckles, then let his fingers settle on his fleshy hips.
“Maybe we all begin insane,” Tom said, with a wink at me. “Anyway Jan wants to make her first bet ever tomorrow. You can’t help her out with some information?”
He’s using me to get a tip, I thought, and I held my breath, trying to play it all off.
“You want to jock and you’re already telling strangers you back horses?” Arnie asked.
“You’re not a stranger,” I said. “And I ain’t telling no one anything.”
He smiled so eagerly I could have slapped him right there. “Just remember me down the line, girl,” he said. “After you collect on your first win bet ever.”
Then he gave Tom a quick, sheepish nod, as if it killed his male pride to even imply what he was clearly saying: I’ve gifted you. Now keep this secret so it pays off well.
And with that and nothing else, he walked off.
Tom followed for a step or two, stopped quickly and completely only to follow all the faster, and encouraged by his speed as well as my curiosity about how a winning horse looks the day before it wins, I followed Tom.
And the first part of Devilette I saw clearly was the white Texas-shaped blaze on his snout. Then, as we headed for his unlit stall, I saw more of his head, coal black and sturdy, the whole of him calm as a statue, mane braided too tightly. He didn’t flinch when I petted his neck, but his eyes struck me as flat and mean, and he stood easily three hands higher than Equis Mini had.
“He’s a monster all right,” I said, and Arnie and Tom nodded as if I, little Janette Price, had out of nowhere been named resident expert on what it took to win.
“Filled out in the chest,” Tom said.
“Tight as a drum in a freezer,” Arnie said.
“You got his front ankles wrapped,” I said, remembering the wraps the hot-walker had used on her gimpier trail horses.
“To keep Pietro guessing,” Arnie said.
“Gonna miss the post parade and unwrap at the last minute?” Tom asked.
Arnie shook his head. “I’m leaving ’em on. They won’t stop him from winning. I want to beat that bastard Pietro and keep him guessing at the same time.”
27
DEESH
“BARK,” I SAY. “I’M PULLING OVER if you don’t put that thing down.”
“It’s down,” he says.
I glance. His finger is off the trigger, the gun aimed down, to his right. How long has this been? Am I now aiding and abetting? And in this truck still hangs the wisdom acted upon by James: Bail on a brother before he bails on you.
Still, I drive on. You are, I remind myself, helping a man who shot a cop in the face.
And this man might still love the mother of your son.
An exit approaches. I pass it. You are a friend, I think. You are Bark’s friend, and you don’t bail on a friend.
And now here goes Bark, gun still aimed at the floor, working folded cash from a front pocket.
He says, “We don’t ditch this truck soon, we’re screwed.”
“Agreed.”
“So take the next exit,” he says. “Then we’ll have a running start on whoever might look for us.”
Is looking for us, I almost say. “You think we should hide in Jersey?” I ask, then, after his nod, add, “Jersey’s not far enough, Bark. I say we run far. Remember, we do have that cash.”
“So you’re saying Newark Airport.”
“Too risky,” I say. “With all that security? I’m thinking a bus depot, a small one. And we find it fast so we buy our tickets before we’re on every TV in America.”
Bark says nothing.
“And no gun,” I say. “Just talk. Just whatever we need to say to get tickets.”
“Fine. I mean, right? They’re not gonna pull over every bus in the country to hunt us down.”
Yeah they will, I think, but I stay quiet. And for a good half a mile, the skinny scared kid in me wants to be caught and arrested and kept far from Bark for the rest of my life.
“I’m also thinking,” I say. I try three quick glances to make my point, but Bark doesn’t get it—or doesn’t want to get it, so I say it: “I’m also thinking we go different directions.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We need to be smart, Bark. Someone saw two brothers drive away from that dead cop. So as much as people will think black, they’ll also think two.”
“So where for me then?”
“You wanted Mississippi, so I’d say south. North too damn soon means Canada, where they’ll check any bus at the border, so that leaves me with east or west.”
“And east means back home,” Bark says.
I nod, then picture myself asking for a job on some ranch in Wyoming. I might never hoop again, in a future like that.
Bark says, “You should take the
gun.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re gonna need it, man.”
“Not as much as you will. You killed a cop, Bark. You kill a cop, you need to go down shooting.”
And here Bark stares longingly out his window.
I think of Jasir and say, “Plus I can’t be found with that gun.”
“Well, I sure can’t,” Bark says. “So get in the right lane—I’ll toss it.”
“No-no-no, Bark,” I say. “Do not open that window.” This is the advice of ex-cons talking: No other street smarts in me want the gun near.
“But it’s evidence!” Bark screams.
“Which is why you don’t want it out there.”
“So where, then?”
“I don’t know,” I say. Flustered by a sudden sea of brake lights ahead, I say, “Just, just—let me take it. I’ll toss it when my bus stops someplace remote.”
“Like where?”
“I don’t know, Bark,” I say, shaking my head in disgust of him, of the gun, of what has become of my once stardom-promising life. “Pennsylvania?” I say. “There’s bound to be a stretch in Pennsylvania that’s nothing but trees.”
“Fine,” he says, and we go quiet, and I change lanes.
Then he says, “Here’s yours.”
“My what.”
“Profit share. For being my blood.”
I glance over and see green. I realize that, yet again, Bronx-style poverty is forcing me to sell myself out. I’ve done this so often it feels almost natural, and this time it will tie me even tighter to a cop shooter, this acceptance of cash that looks to be less than a grand. Very stupid, the goody-two-shoes core of me warns in some teacher’s high-pitched voice, but here goes Bark recounting Benjamins as if he’s always been into fairness, folding them as he hands them over, and here I am taking them, maybe but maybe not such a stupid move since, yeah, yeah, this does strengthen my ties to at least one murder, but cash, I know damned well, can be lost easily. Plus: As Bark places the gun on the floor just behind my feet, I tell myself I’m no longer the fool I was minutes ago, when I was one pothole away from having a bullet whiz through my brain. And then here I am, cruising down an exit ramp into Passaic, no small town but no Newark either, and the main thing is that Bark is right: These wheels need to be ditched pronto.
Watch Me Go Page 9