And whether Tug had wanted to hear about gambling or not, every grandstander had blabbed on about some horse race wherein the long shot he’d bet was numerous lengths ahead of the pack down the homestretch; about how, when this long shot was mere feet from the finish line, another horse came flying from out of nowhere to win by a nostril; about how, had this nostril not been flared, this particular grandstander’s life would be far easier than it now seemed cursed to be.
So Tug didn’t bother me with all the facts about his wins and losses during the twelve days he spent at the track after he showed up there with the Corcorans’ second orange forty-gallon drum.
Other than to suggest, by way of his various moods when he’d come home every night, that he, too, had welled with the joy of winning.
And that he, too, had experienced how victory can urge a wounded soul to want to win more.
And that he now no longer questioned his father’s belief that if a man with a modicum of intelligence hunkers down alone and handicaps obsessively, he can know who will win.
And who will win—as Tug had long known—is the track.
And when a guy is down to his last six dollars, and then four, and then two, and he bets those quivering two on an even-money favorite to show, and it lopes along ahead by eight only to pull up lame and finish last, that guy can face the horror of his father’s death all over again—with his own eyes dulled and his lips joined as if one and his heart certainly overworked.
And if it’s not until minutes after this guy’s last possible bet that he realizes he’s just lost the cash he’d once promised himself he’d use to buy a gift for the woman he loves, his heart feels pretty much gone.
And when he therefore flips down his Form to announce to everyone in the grandstand that he, too, is a profound loser, and the bare legs of this same woman appear as she takes the seat directly to his right, wearing shorts and a sweatshirt and a frown across her face, this guy will indeed struggle, like the true bastard he now feels he is, regarding what, precisely, he might say.
And what Tug said, after such a struggle, was nothing. Instead he just faced me directly, tried and failed to make eye contact with me.
But then, in consolation, he had these thoughts to think:
You no longer owe him that fifty.
You gambled it—and more—for him.
You are done.
And then I tried to make eye contact with him, and when I finally succeeded, I pointed at the disheveled Form at our feet and said, “I take it this means you lost.”
“Yes, it does,” Tug said.
“A lot?”
“A good amount.”
“Good as in harmless? Or good as in large?”
You understand now, Tug might have thought then. You understand how your father felt.
And he said, “I don’t know how to answer that, Jan.”
“Then why don’t you just show me your wallet?”
“What?”
“If you’re such the Mister Money Bags that you’re able to sit here betting every day, let’s see your fucking thick supply of cash.”
This is how your mother felt, Tug probably thought then. This is why she and he argued.
And I slumped back in my seat, but still I was glaring, though now my eyes were aimed at the concrete aisle just beyond the Form, as if I were having this lovers’ spat with the charts rather than with Tug.
Then, finally, I asked a question I’d wanted to ask for a while. I asked, “Ever think you’ll have kids, Tug?”
And he, too, glared at the aisle.
And I could almost hear him thinking: Okay. This is it. Don’t waste any more of her time.
And, to me then, he simply said, “Nope.”
“Good,” I said.
He shrugged again, this time making a big show of it, then slumped back, barely behind the line of fire of my eyes.
“Because as much as you’d suck as a husband,” I said, “you’d suck even more as a father.”
Give her that, he probably thought. And let her enjoy having it.
Then he must have felt he owed me an explanation, because he said, “So now you know why.”
“Why what?”
“I grew up wanting a horse farm.”
“Actually, Mr. Tug? I have no idea why being a jerk means a guy would want a horse farm.”
And there, right then in that grandstand, Tug might have finally understood why his parents’ arguments had never ended. The gambler sees more of the picture than his lover does, and the gambler knows that what he sees spans plenty of time—more time than his lover is considering—and the gambler sees that, for all this time, he has never stopped wanting the best for her.
He sees this.
And it’s not so much that she lacks confidence in him.
It’s that she refuses to see.
And no one can make anyone, especially a woman who’s strong enough to love a gambler in the first place, do a single thing, Tug probably thought right then.
Because he said to me, “The upshot, Ms. Price, is that I’m good with horses.”
And I took a deep breath, then held it.
Finally I said, “Uh-huh.”
“As opposed to people,” he said.
“Okeydokey.”
“And I feel comfortable with horses as opposed to people.”
“Gotchya.”
“So why wouldn’t I just take care of horses—instead of fathering some actual human being who I’d definitely raise to be a completely fucked-up member of society?”
Now I was shaking my head no, looking at every grandstander there except Tug. But as I did this, I asked, “Why would you fuck anyone up?”
And Tug’s answer was “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You’re saying you’re fucked-up because you were raised by your father?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I nodded once, quickly. I said, “I’d go along with that.”
“And my mom,” he said, and he shrugged again, a shrug he might have thought I didn’t notice, but now I seemed destined to notice things like that, and I felt smaller as I folded my arms.
I said, “Well, that’s just sad, Mr. Tug.”
“Not if I end up with a horse farm.”
And for quite a while there, we sat like that, side by side as if stuck in those old grandstand seats with each other, watching a green sunlit tractor comb the homestretch dirt free of hoof marks.
“Or so I used to think,” Tug said.
And then—maybe—he noticed that I was holding my head slightly off center, as I had when we’d first met.
I said, “For what it’s worth, my mother thinks you should forgive Douglas Sharp.”
“Who’s Douglas Sharp?”
“Guy who killed your father.”
“They caught him?”
I nodded.
“He confessed?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so.”
“Jan, I’m no expert like your mom,” he said. “But I think the forgiving’s supposed to happen after the guy fesses up and says he’s sorry.”
I sat up straighter. I ran both hands over my clipped-back hair.
I was as calm as ever as I said, “So you’re saying you’re not ready.”
“For what?”
“Lots of things.”
“I’m telling you, Jan. I’ll forgive the man as soon as he confesses.”
“And what if he never does, Tug?”
“Then I’ll do it when he’s convicted. I mean, if you still want me to then. But I really don’t get how this whole forgiveness thing’s supposed to work. I mean, let’s just say I visit this Douglas Sharp and forgive him. How does doing that make my average day better?”
&
nbsp; I shrugged and said, “Hell if I know.”
And here, dammit, I had Tug smiling so hard I was sure I had him hooked.
And I said, “My mother would probably say that, somehow, good would eventually come from it. Like somehow you and this Douglas Sharp might, you know, think about each other more or whatever, and as a result one of your problems gets solved.”
“My problem or his?” he asked.
“Whoever’s,” I said. “I have no idea, Tug. But if you plan to ignore the guy anyway . . .”
“All I said,” Tug told me then, “was I’d wait till we know for sure that he did something wrong. I mean, let’s just say he turns out to be innocent. Forgiveness from me would be kind of rude, right? I mean, think about it, Jan. If this Douglas Sharp is innocent, we both probably owe him an apology.”
“For letting him sit there?”
Tug nodded.
And I said, “I still say having more forgiveness than you need isn’t the worst thing in the world. Because, damn, Tug, people screw up.”
And here was where my voice had gotten shaky, when Tug was probably sure I would cry, but I didn’t. I hadn’t cried at his father’s wake or funeral or burial or at any time since, and I hadn’t cried all summer, not that he’d seen, not with tears falling, and it struck me then that maybe he thought I was one of those people who cry only when they’re happy, and he sat looking at the odds board, apparently ticked off at himself and maybe the world because he, Tug Corcoran, had followed his father’s footsteps and as a result gambled away cash he could have used to buy me a gift.
Why had his family bet? I wondered silently then. Why had each Corcoran continued when everything felt jinxed? There’d been very little good in all that time they’d spent in the grandstand, and now, as always, there was even less time, good time and bad time both. There was never, ever good in not being able to buy something small and nice for a lover you actually loved. Today offered every grandstander there a gloriously clear sky and newly blooming flowers on the infield, but now that Tug had lost, what good was all of that doing us?
Then, to our right, we heard, “Do you need this?”
And there, weak chinned and crouched on the concrete stairs and pointing at one of the strewn Form sections at our feet, was The Form Monger.
“No, pal,” Tug said. “It’s all yours.”
And The Form Monger didn’t thank Tug or me, just reached for the section closest to his grimy self, unmarked past performances worth pennies at most since the eighth race was just now leaving the gate. Using both his purple stump and his good arm, he struggled somewhat, and I, no doubt red-faced, maybe from fading anger with Tug or new embarrassment over how close the purple stump was to touching my legs, bent to help The Form Monger, and he thanked me, once as one potentially kind human being to another, a second time, it seemed, as a man enamored of me if not of gambling only.
Then he and I had roughly all of it gathered, various sections now secured between his torso and the stump, his hand taking the last of it from me when I said, “Wait.”
And I was reading a past performance while his hand pulled at it.
“You can’t have this,” I told him.
“But Tug said I could,” he said.
“But I need it,” I said.
“But—”
“Sir, this Form is ours and I need this particular section,” I said. “Take the rest of it if you want, but please just go away.”
“But you have the ninth race,” he said. “What I have is worthless.”
“I know, sir,” I said. “And we thank you for recycling it. Seriously, mister, I need to study this race.”
And he walked off without even a glance in our direction, no doubt pissed at me for my lack of respect and at Tug for being a cocky liberal who took pride in respecting women to the point of embarrassing every old-school grandstander present, and then I pointed at the newsprint and asked Tug, “Did you—did you see this?”
“See what,” Tug said.
“Equis Mini. He’s running in the next race.”
“Here?”
I nodded. And I will always, always have to admit that, right then, I was excited.
“Today?” Tug asked.
“With morning line odds of fifty to one,” I said.
“Don’t play with me, Jan.”
“I’m not. Look.”
And I held that Form section closer to his face, so he could see that there, beside the numeral nine, were the words EQUIS MINI.
And Tug no doubt again felt stupid for having blown all his cash.
Though of course there was also the thought any gambler could think: Nothing’s for sure anyway.
And Tug said, “He’ll probably get his ass kicked.”
“I kind of doubt that,” I said.
So Tug then went ahead and did it despite his better judgment, skimmed over Equis Mini’s past performances.
“Look at the results of his last real race,” he told me. “He got killed. Twenty-plus lengths behind the pack the whole way.”
“That was a year ago,” I said.
“Which means today he’s rusty.”
“You just saw him fly in that secret sprint, Tug. Which is not listed here as a workout. Which means it’s still more or less secret. Which means his odds will probably stay high.”
“You think so, huh,” he said.
And I hunched myself up to pull cash from a back pocket, a wad rolled tightly and secured by one of those black elastic bands he’d seen me use when I washed my face.
“Where’d you get all that,” he said.
“Fishin’.”
“I thought that muskie money went to your mom.”
“It did. She gave it to me when your dad went AWOL. She was scared she’d disappear, too.”
I pulled off the hair band, uncoiled the bills, the top one a ratty hundred.
“Why would she have disappeared?” Tug asked.
I held the cash against my chest. “Why does anyone?”
And I knew this could be taken as referring to my possibly moving back to Arkansas, though I still suspected Tug figured I’d left Pine Bluff because of all the rumors there about me. Then I realized Tug might have taken it as referring instead to his father’s death, which obviously needed to take precedence over anything else, and for a while right then, both Tug and I just sat. If we could just keep being this honest with each other, I thought during this silence, we could probably make this work.
Lovewise, I then thought.
And then the unsaddled entries for the ninth began trudging from the backside toward us, single file along the rail so each could get tacked up in the paddock, and there, maybe fifth or sixth in line, was Equis Mini, too sharp to wear a blanket, shiny but not at all from sweat, nimble, proud, on his toes about as much as a thoroughbred could be. And now there was no doubt I was holding my head that tiny bit off center, because I was taken more by Equis Mini now than I’d been when I’d ridden him, like he was some son of mine I’d stay proud of regardless of wherever his running days would take him.
And I glanced at the odds board, then said, “Forty-five to one.”
“Those odds’ll drop,” Tug said.
“Not if that sprint stays secret,” I said.
“But like you said, Jan: Gambling is stupid.”
“For you.”
“What does that mean?”
And I said, “You and you only are your father’s son, Tug.”
“Yours didn’t die and leave things messed up also?”
“Of course he did. But he didn’t mess up my head.”
Tug tried not to smile right then. And he said, “You sure about that?”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “The man killed himself, Tug. I accept that. I flat-o
ut forgave him for that in that church in Saratoga, so I’m good with him.”
“Fine. Whatever. I mean, I’m glad to hear that, if it’s true. But you do realize that this talk of yours about him now is just you rationalizing, right?”
“Rationalizing what?”
“That you want to bet, Jan. But, hey, I understand.”
“I don’t care about the betting, Tug. I hate the betting. I will always hate the betting. I just love that horse, Tug. I just love that Equis Mini, and I know he’s going to win. But you know what the main thing is? The main thing is that this cash right here is my money.”
“Actually,” Tug said, “it’s your mom’s.”
“Actually, it’s your father’s. Right?”
“We’ll never know that for sure, sister.”
“Nor will we ever disprove it.”
“Okay, fine,” Tug said. “That cash, right there in your hand, probably did come from my father. But does that mean you need to risk even a penny of it on a forty-five-to-one shot—just because he would?”
“I’m not talking about risking a penny of it.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“If I bet a hundred on Equis Mini to win,” I said, “and he goes off at forty-five to one, I can buy him. He’s a three-thousand-dollar claimer, Tug. He could be ours—living on your farm—for three grand. With cash for feed and vet bills to spare.”
“Yes, but you yourself said my farm needs a barn. Who’s gonna pay for that?”
“Then I’ll bet three hundred. And we’ll have enough for lumber for a barn and a new fence—and for labor to make sure it’s all perfect.”
“You have three hundred bucks there?”
I nodded. And it was fun, being able to nod like that.
“Anyhow, I need to get a job,” Tug said. “This whole horse farm idea: It really was just a stupid kid’s dream. An actual, legitimate horse farm owner needs backup cash for when times go lean—”
“But I know Equis Mini, Tug. I know him like probably no human being in this grandstand knows him. And Tug? That horse simply loves the act of running.”
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