Jungle Horses

by Scott Adlerberg

  “Let’s get to Vaughn’s a little late.”

  “What?”

  “You won’t miss the opera.”

  He could hear the rain dripping from the eaves and traffic splashing through puddles in the street. In his head, too, he heard a noise and he recognized this as his pounding pulse, the beat of his excited heart. Yet Jenny--how discouraging--merely looked puzzled and this expression did not change when he walked over to the counter and pressed his body against hers.

  She said, “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Just perfect.”

  “Did you have a lot to drink?” She put her nose to his mouth and sniffed.

  “One ale just now. But before that I.....”

  “Yes?”

  He hesitated. Tell her, he thought. Let her know. Because now she had amusement in her face, a half-smile on her cherry-red lips, and he didn’t want to lose his initiative. Through her blouse, in his hands, he could feel her firm shoulders and he had pushed one of his legs up and forward between her knees. From here many things could be done, many types of moves tried, but this position was so incongruous, so unusual for them, that he began to feel nervous. He lowered his head. What am I doing? he asked himself. After all these years, without any warning, I barge in like she should give me immediate pleasure? No wonder she asked if I’m ill.

  “What did you want to say, Arthur?”

  “Nothing. It wasn’t important.”

  “You sure?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay. I guess we better be going then.”

  She kissed him on the forehead, patted his cheek, disengaged herself from his grip, and Arthur stood sullen by the counter while she finished straightening up. To see Vaughn now, while burning inside, might be a difficult job for him, but the saddest part was that he liked Vaughn and knew that Vaughn liked him. If, for instance, he told Jenny that he preferred to skip the drinks because he had a bit of a headache, Jenny would tell Vaughn when she went and Vaughn would probably cross the street to look in on his friend, Arthur. Vaughn had no relatives left and more than once he had said that he saw Jenny and him as his family.

  At Vaughn’s flat the martinis were cold, the pretzels he served lightly salted. Vaughn had changed from his business suit into a black dinner jacket, and while they sat in his sitting room he recounted an event from his day, describing in witty terms a man he’d met on the exchange. An investment broker for a large firm, Vaughn lived and died by the market, but the paintings on his walls and the cookbooks on his shelves, not to mention his record collection--filled with operas dating back to Gluck--spoke of the wide range of his interests.

  “This Madame Butterfly,” he was saying, “is the best we’ve had for awhile. That’s what all the critics said.”

  And on and on, talking and talking, a silver-haired man with piercing eyes. Jenny chatted with him, sipping her drink, sometimes toying with a long loose curl at the front of her black bob, and Arthur could only sit and suffer, fighting the temptation to shout. He’d never felt angry at Jenny and Vaughn, had never even felt a husband’s jealousy, but never before while living in London had he been so gripped with desire. In Kenya, yes. There he’d been a full husband to Jenny, but here in London, inexplicably, his sexual needs had just died. For quite some time desire had been a dead issue, and now he realized how this was helping to keep his life uncomplicated.

  Finished with their drinks, Jenny and Vaughn rose from the couch. Arthur stood, too, happy to go, and declined their invitation to join them for dinner. Then they all left, Vaughn locking up, and Arthur told his wife and Vaughn that he hoped they’d like the opera.

  “See you in the morning,” Jenny said.

  “See you, dear.”

  They headed off, umbrellas raised, and Arthur trudged across the street. He ascended the stoop and opened the door. Nights alone were nothing new for him, but tonight he found the solitude oppressive and paced from room to room in the flat. At last, becoming weary, he plopped down in the parlor to listen to the radio, but the comedy skits did not cheer him up and he leaned back in the recliner to stare at the ceiling like a dead man.

  Chapter 2

  That night in his dreams he stayed at home, never travelling into the jungle where the wild horses ran. He awoke before dawn and heard rain, the sound of drizzle tapping at his window, and then he dozed off again, thinking of the way the plains smelled when it rained at night in Kenya. You opened your eyes as you lay in your tent and breathed in a freshness that cleared the head; you knew that even though it was raining the sun would be shining by early morning. Dawns in Kenya were glorious, the dazzling sun heating the savannah, the sky becoming pastel blue, and somehow you rose from bed every day keen to do what you had planned. Here in England, by contrast, he never woke up with so buoyant a feeling, and that even went for the frequent mornings when he had a good horse to bet. There was something about the English air, the palpable greyness of the air, that weighed on him like a constant burden, and sometimes he felt that he had to force himself out of bed, pinch his thigh to goad himself, or he would remain all day in bed like a patient lying in a hospital.

  “Arthur? You awake? I put on the tea.”

  From far away he heard the voice and he made himself open his eyes. When he saw Jenny at the edge of his bed, looking at him with her soft kind face, he realized that all these thoughts had been churning in his head while he slept. The rain had stopped and the light past his window had brightness in it and into his mind came the name of a horse that would be running at long odds today, the kind of odds a stinker should have. This was a chance, he told himself, another opportunity for him to score, and if he won big on his bet, he would have enough money to go on a safari in Kenya.

  “How was the opera?”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Did Vaughn like it?”

  “He loved it.”

  And Arthur assumed they’d slept together, spent the night at Vaughn’s flat, since they normally went back there after going out on the town. Flushed deeply pink, relaxed and smiling, Jenny had in her face a familiar look of morning fulfillment, and in the tranquility that came with this, she fussed over him even more than usual, asking whether he had slept well, smoothing down his tousled hair, offering to give him a thorough shave before she went off to the shop. She treated him as if he were a child and though Arthur liked the coddling, reveled in her minute attentions, he resented the attitude behind her actions. In deed, if not word, she diminished his person; she considered him helpless to fend for himself. For her he was a husband who’d become her charge, and often he had to remind himself that he was grown and he was a man.

  “Let’s eat,” she said. “I put out your favorite honey cakes.”

  He grabbed his robe and went to the kitchen and there together they drank their tea. They read the papers, which she’d brought in, and geared up each in silence for the vagaries of the day. For Jenny this would mean dealing with customers, deflecting rudeness, suggesting a sweet for the loved one or the missus; for Arthur it would mean the accelerating pulse as he stood rooting for his horses. When he became wealthy, he’d tell Jenny she could sell the shop and live thereafter without working, and perhaps then, if she was willing, they could embark on a voyage somewhere and he would rediscover what he’d lost. That is, they could go off on a long trip if she agreed to part from Vaughn and Vaughn himself voiced no objections. He had no interest in starting a row or coming between her and Vaughn, but he did want time alone with Jenny as they’d had when living in Africa. Yes, Africa. He kept returning to it in his thoughts, and he knew that in order to persuade her to go, he would have to prove to her that she’d be travelling with a live person, someone possessed of a sexual appetite. She’d made no reference to yesterday evening and his abrupt show of desire, and from this he drew the conclusion that she’d laughed it off completely. His peculiar behavior had passed like a joke, commented on but then forgotten, and sadder even than his wife’s response was what had happened to his body,
how this morning he’d come awake with no fire left in his blood. The lust had flared suddenly, coursed through his veins, and died overnight. This morning in his body he had nothing but ash.

  Jenny dressed, kissed his cheek, said “toodle-oo.” Arthur went out soon after that, buying the racing schedule at the stand, going to the hotel and sitting in its cafe, reading the form while he drank more tea. Then out again, rushing through the streets, a man in a hurry among the umbrellas tucked under arms for the showers to come, and he caught the train at 11:38. He had a routine quite regular now, like a working person, but he was amused that his destination was a less than respectable place. Oh, the track carried no stigma at all if you went sometimes on a weekend or dressed in your finest for the Ascot Derby. But every so often some bloke in a pub would ask him what he did for a living and when he said he played the horses, he would rarely fail to see just that slight flicker in the eyes, curl in the mouth, twitch in the jaw. He would register subtle signs that conveyed the person’s disdain. “You might be intelligent, you might have balls, and God knows I hate my job, but anyone who gambles as much as that has to be something of a misfit.” Mind you, no one had actually said this to him, but he could tell what someone was thinking from those little facial movements.

  Piss on ‘em. Screw ‘em. Bloody conventional types anyway.

  The first race had yet to be run, but all the bookies at their tables were drawing major action already. Arthur squeezed in among the people milling around Smits and his helper and he listened to the resonant voice of Smits shouting the odds and the horses’ names. Arthur’s top pick for the day was Brushwood, running in the 2:30, and he noted the pause that overtook Smits when he unfurled five hundred quid.

  “Arthur......” A skeptical glance from the skinny operator, concern from a bookie he’d known for years, the knowledge that for a couple of seconds Smits could rise above the aloofness needed to take people’s money.

  “I’m sure, Willie.”

  “She’s eighteen to one.”

  “I heard the odds loud and clear.”

  Money accepted, the card handed to him, and the next man in the line stepped up, declaring his own choices. Arthur moved forward and toward the rail. He watched the procession leading to the gate. He saw Brushwood in the six position, a fit, attractive chestnut mare who’d won big races three years ago. Since then, almost nothing, a steady decline in speed and results, but Arthur felt that in this company, in here with the real plodders, she would shine like a jewel just dusted. No other horse in the present field had so much as any class, and he kept hoping that everyone else would continue to stick with the two favorites. Ears stiff, head up, legs full of hop as she walked to post, Brushwood looked eager to run. At the gate, coaxing her in, the jockey Cantor had no trouble, but all the horses then had to wait because the seven refused to enter. The track hands shoved and got her settled while the last two horses slipped in, and at the bell the three broke first, sprinting for the lead and the rail. A mile and an eighth, over damp turf, with nothing but slow fractions expected, and as they approached the quarter pole, Cantor held Brushwood back, six or seven lengths behind. She had no stress apparent in her rhythm, no hitches that he could see, and Cantor kept her clear of the group running along at her flank.

  A win would bring him ten thousand quid. And he had bet with Cantor before, knew from experience and money won that he could trust this veteran jockey to spur his mount at the very right time and use his whip to the best advantage.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Is she lame?”

  “I knew I should’ve bet the three.”

  They went with the territory, vocal bettors, those who counted their money too soon or spoke to the horses as if in prayer. Those who criticized themselves or yelled obscenities at the jockeys. They were always present, and out of the blue Arthur felt that the racetrack was absurd. So frenzied a place, yet so empty. A place where a high percentage of the people let loose their every frustration in the cries they directed at the track. This sort wanted to lose because each loss justified their private misery, confirmed their sense of unfairness in life, and when they went home broke as bums, they’d have an excuse to bitch and grumble, slap their wives, scold their children. But not him. He was different. He was of the type that truly wanted to win and as he stood quiet in the crowd, still in the hubbub, he saw what he had known would happen: Brushwood started to gain on the leader.

  Responding to the whip, extending her stride, Brushwood passed two smaller horses. She pulled within a length of the three. The jet-black three, one of the favorites, didn’t do much to answer the threat, and this even though her jockey was pushing her. They were on the backstretch, nearing the turn, with the three hugging the rail, and Arthur saw that Cantor had relaxed, stopped pumping his arm and the whip, so that during the run for home Brushwood would have plenty left. And, no surprise, she did, shifting it up a notch on the turn, charging by the three on the outside. The five, a brown mare, came up also, overtaking the exhausted three, but neither the five nor any in the pack had Brushwood’s power in the stretch. None on this day were going to catch her. By two, three, four lengths she led, and every purposeful stride she took brought him closer to the ten thousand quid, the enriched bank account, the safari of revival he would take in Kenya.

  Then it happened--the unforeseen, the bad luck that could make a gambler superstitious. One second Brushwood was running, a sure thing to win the race, the next she’d stumbled and thrown back her head. Everybody standing on the grass must’ve heard, heard above their own loud noise the shriek of pain made by the horse. They watched in horror as Cantor was tossed, landed on his neck, and rolled into the path of the five. This horse trampled the jockey, and as the people fell into a silence, they continued to hear Brushwood’s squeals. On three firm legs and a limp fourth, trailing blood from her fractured joint, the mare staggered in the center of the track. It went round and round in helpless circles, and this caused chaos on the track, forcing the approaching horses to slow, to turn, to bump against each other and trip. A few more of the jockeys got tossed. The race had become a frightful scene of horses out of control, stepping on their riders, kicking the air. In their panic some of the horses leapt the barrier ringing the infield and stomped across its landscape garden.

  Arthur kept his attention on Brushwood. He focused his stare on the horse’s eyes. She’d stopped her circling in the center of the track and begun to lurch toward the rail, the outside rail where the bettors stood, and though he knew it was weird to think so, Arthur had the distinct impression that the horse had singled him out. This animal, drooling in pain, was returning his shocked gaze. Taller than the people around him, Arthur had a clear view of Brushwood, and it did seem that her bulging eyes were fixed directly on him. Then it seemed that everything receded, everything fell away from him, and Arthur had no noise in his ears and only the mare’s head in his vision. He saw this head as massive and triangular, gorgeous in its chestnut coloring, and he almost wanted to rub his face through the black shag on the neck. Under different circumstances he would have liked to stroke that neck, run his hand up and down and feel the strength in the cords of muscle, but he could do nothing of the sort right here and merely reached up to touch his own neck.

  Like me, do you? Bet on me, did you? Thought you’d get rich on me, old chap? You’ve been counting on me and my kind for far too long, and let me tell you, we’re sick of it, the way you judge us, size us up. You won’t win a farthing off us any more. Not a one.

  The sound of voices came back to him, snatches of comment from the flabbergasted crowd, and Arthur understood that the moment was over. Hallucination? The onset of madness? He seemed to have had an actual exchange of thoughts with the horse.

  Brushwood collapsed, her knees buckling. Attendants were chasing the horses in the infield, and on the track lay a number of jockeys, writhing and screaming. Coming toward them were horse vans and a horse stretcher, as well as a pair of ambulances, and Arthur
knew that his pick Brushwood would have to be destroyed with poison from a needle.

  Chapter 3

  For a number of days after this Arthur didn’t go to the track. He allowed himself this do-nothing time to recover from his great disappointment. In his head, as he sat in a pub or wandered the streets under dreary skies, he would see over and over that terrible instant when Brushwood had stumbled. He’d see the instant the fluid horse had become an object of pity. The chestnut mare should’ve won the race and he should’ve collected from Smits, but instead the catastrophic had happened and he would have to keep on betting until he had the nest egg he wanted. He didn’t know when he’d find another long shot as likely to win as Brushwood had been, and this alone depressed his spirits. It drove him to guzzle ale for solace.

  Drunk, he’d feel less anger over what had happened. He’d shrug his shoulders and tell himself that these were the breaks when you were a gambler. You learned to live with defeat and the worst kind of misfortune. You took a hold of yourself and regrouped, and then you went on pursuing wins. But would he win? Something in him warned him not to continue with gambling. Something urged him to give it up before he had a losing streak. He had the sense that ahead for him lay a long dry patch, but then he reasoned that nothing rational could account for his premonition. He’d been doing quite well recently.

  In the meantime, he maintained his expected placid demeanor whenever he was with Jenny and Vaughn. In the morning, over breakfast and the papers, he and his wife would make chit-chat; in the late afternoon, after a day of brooding in the pubs, he would drop in on her at the store; in the evening they would go to Vaughn’s for dinner. They’d leave the shop and take a cab home and Jenny would change into slacks and a blouse, and around seven-thirty, when they knew Vaughn was ready, they’d cross the street and let themselves in. There would be Vaughn in his kitchen, cooking while he listened to an opera on his gramophone, and while Vaughn finished preparing the meal, he and Jenny would go into the dining room and pour themselves gin at the sideboard. Jenny would set the table, Vaughn would carry out the food, and Arthur would have to do nothing more than eat what he wanted and wash the dishes afterward. A cozy life with predictable patterns. Arthur supposed he should be grateful to have Jenny and Vaughn as his family, even if to any outsider they would have seemed like the married couple and he like a relative they were looking after. They often brought him along to the cinema, which he preferred to the opera or the theater, and when they stayed in for the night, he’d join them in playing a rubber of bridge, typically pairing with a friend of Vaughn’s against Vaughn and his wife. Most men, he had to admit, would have seen him as pathetic, as a pitiful void of a man, but he cared less for orthodox notions than he did for Jenny’s happiness. He could accept sleeping alone because he had nothing to offer in bed. He could dismiss the idea of fidelity because in the vigorous game of sex he was no longer a participant. To cling to his wife, to cause problems for her and Vaughn, would have been quite petty of him, and after all, she ran the shop and paid the bills on their flat. She’d bought the shop years ago with money put up from his savings, money he’d earned from his horse-breeding venture in Africa, and now she controlled all their finances except what he got through his army pension. That, she said, he could keep for his drinking, never suspecting he also used it to fund himself at the track.