by Maggie Estep
“Did you need Henry for something?” Violet asked. “He’s at the racing secretary’s office, probably back in a half hour.”
“Just wanted to go over any special instructions for Muley’s race.”
“You know Muley He means well but he’s spooky. We’ll have a shadow roll on him this time, ought to help. Just keep him out of traffic and let him do his thing.”
I thought back to the first time I’d seen a shadow roll. Someone had had to explain its function. How you put it on the noseband of the bridle and its fuzzy bulk prevents the horse from seeing shadows on his own nose—which might frighten him.
I nodded at Violet, then told her I was going to go have a little chat with Muley.
“Good.” Violet smiled, pleased.
I walked down the aisle, stopping to greet Ballistic, running a hand down his white blaze. The horse doesn’t have the best barn manners though; he pinned his ears and showed me his teeth.
“Yeah yeah,” I told him, “you’re the boss.”
I went down to Muley’s stall and let myself in. He was truffling at his empty hay net but he put his ears forward and lifted his head to look at me. “Hey you,” I greeted the horse as I went to stand next to him. He bumped his nose against my forehead and nuzzled at my hair.
“Easy, it ain’t hay,” I told him. He obligingly kept his teeth behind his lips.
I spent about ten minutes with the big gelding, feeling the way I always do around a horse I like. Like I’m a kid. Untouched by the world and all my self-made problems. Nothing to cloud me, just the warm inquisitive presence of the horse. A lot of jocks don’t spend much time hanging out with horses. To them, horses are vehicles for income and stimulation. Sure, they feel them on some level—they wouldn’t be good riders if they didn’t—but they’re not prone to hanging around the barn much. To me, that’s the gold. Horses are intensely social creatures. They’re often frustrated at humans’ failure to understand them, but if you just put in that extra something, scratch that special spot behind their withers, pay attention to what they’re telling you, they let you into their world.
After socializing with Muley for a while, I headed home to change into jogging clothes. I walked the two miles to where I rent a basement from an insane Irish family. I hadn’t been there in a while and Mrs. O’Rourke, the matron of the family, was hanging out on the glassed-in porch like she’d been waiting for me all week.
“Where you been, Johnson?” she demanded—not that I was tardy with rent or had perpetrated any tenant crimes. The woman was just nosy. She wanted to know about my life, hoping its hardships would make her own shine in contrast.
“I met a lady,” I said, jutting my chin out a little, trying to indicate that this was no mere girl, but a lady, a class act, a woman worth bragging about.
Mrs. O’Rourke’s eyes seemed to bulge more than usual. “You’re not legally separated from that nice wife of yours.” She curled her lip in disdain.
“She’s not so nice. And no, I’m not legally separated, but that’s just a matter of a very short time. Have a nice day.” I turned and marched down the three steps to the basement.
I flicked on the overhead fluorescent, illuminating my little dungeon. The floor was strewn with muddy clothes and boots. In the corner was a twin bed with flower-patterned sheets, next to this a small pressed-wood dresser. Above it hung a Powerpuff Girls mirror, bequeathed to me by my daughter. There was one window and a tiny toilet and shower stall behind a curtain in the back. When I’d rented the place, I’d been so anxious to get away from Ava it had looked like heaven. Now, after the dilapidated glory of Ruby’s place, it didn’t seem like much. But I wasn’t planning to spend a lot of time here.
I went right to the scale to see how much weight I had to get rid of for tomorrow’s races. I actually kept my eyes closed then finally braved looking down. One-thirteen. I had to lose seven pounds by tomorrow.
I bundled myself in half a dozen layers of sweat suits and long johns and was sweating profusely before I’d even stepped outside to start on a quick eight miles.
As I broke into a jog, my body protested. After all the inactivity of last week, I’d made the body ride three horses and now this. Under normal circumstances it’d be nothing, but there was nothing normal about anything anymore.
I ran. Through the entrails of Queens. Past row houses and warehouses, marshland and shacks. I considered hauling myself all the way over to the Queens/Brooklyn borderline to check out the Hole, a place Ruby had told me about. She and a racehorse she’d been trying to protect had once been held captive there, in the Hole, a little cul de sac near some projects where members of the Federation of Black Cowboys had erected stables. Ruby’s telling me about it was the first I’d heard of the Cowboys or this Hole of theirs and I was curious. Apparently, a fair number of retired racehorses are saved from grim fates and end up at the Hole where members of the Federation work with them patiently, calming them down and teaching them until they become mellow round-bellied horses even a child could ride.
Considering that my knees were about to buckle, my many layers of clothing were soaked, and I had already run four miles, I decided to visit the Hole another day. I headed home.
Mrs. O’Rourke was thankfully not at her post on the glass porch and I didn’t have to contend with her scrutiny. I went down into my cave, peeled off my wet clothes and got into the shower. The water was rushing around me when I thought I heard something. I poked my head out and heard pounding at my door. I suddenly felt cold under the shower’s hot water. The knock was either Mrs. O’Rourke wanting to give me grief or somebody far more nefarious wishing to do me harm. No one knew I lived here.
I didn’t answer the door. I finished showering, dried off, and then peered out the filthy Venetian blinds. I didn’t see anyone standing there.
I turned my cell phone on. Seventeen messages. I checked the call log. Fifteen from Ava. One from Ruby and one from Sal. I skipped through all the Ava messages since the only thing that mattered was if something had happened to Grace and, had that been the case, Ava would have left word with Henry Meyer or John Troxler, the trainers she knew I spent the most time with. I listened to Ruby’s message—she’d heard I’d ditched Sal and was calling to check up on me. She was at work at the Coney Island Museum and I was welcome to come hang out with her there. Sal had left a grouchy message offering his services again. Services that I considered more seriously in light of the knock at the door. I decided to at least call him. He picked up before it even rang.
“You all right?” he barked into the phone. I could hear a loud string section swelling behind him. Didn’t sound like Beethoven though.
“Fine thanks, Sal. Sorry if I was rude earlier. I just needed to do my thing at the track.”
“Good thing that didn’t involve gettin’ capped.”
“Yeah,” I laughed halfheartedly, “how you doin’, Sal?”
“Good,” he said, though it didn’t sound like that was entirely true.
I told him I was going to get on the subway and make my way over to Ruby’s.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “I’m coming to get you.”
“By the time you make it out here, I could be at Ruby’s already.”
“As a matter of fact, I’m in Queens right now.”
“You are? What are you doing?”
“Driving. Little problem with the wife.”
“Oh,” I said. I knew how that one went. I gave Sal directions to my basement.
“I’ll see you in ten minutes,” he said as a chorus of voices rose in the background.
I stared into the Powerpuff Girls mirror and considered myself. I had enormous purplish circles under my eyes and new lines etched into the sides of my mouth. I turned away from the mirror, packed some clothes into an overnight bag, and finished getting dressed. I then found myself drawn back to the mirror. I’m not a vain guy. I know I’m decent looking and women give me the once-over. But I’ve never spent a lot of time looking at mys
elf and it was startling to see what was there. The man staring back at me was frazzled and his decently put together features were getting lost under a map of new wrinkles. The eyes looked haunted. Or maybe hunted would be more accurate.
Before I had time to get too macabre dwelling on my unsavory personal appearance, I heard a horn honking outside. I peered through the blinds and saw Sal’s truck glowing red against the gray day.
As I hopped into the truck, I saw Mrs. O’Rourke come tromping onto her porch to see what the honking was about. The matron tolerated honking about as well as marital separation. I think she shouted something at me but Sal’s window was down and the music was blisteringly loud. It was some sort of opera and it drowned out whatever recriminations were issuing from Mrs. O’Rourke.
I got into the truck and settled into the passenger seat.
“Thanks, Sal,” I shouted over the music.
“No problem,” he shouted back.
He drove.
We made it to Surf Avenue in no time at all. The Cyclone roller coaster stood steely gray against the matching sky. Sal found a parking spot right in front of the museum entrance. He checked in his rearview mirror, presumably scanning for hit men. He craned his thick neck and looked all around the vehicle.
“I’ll come up with you for a while,” he told me.
We climbed the dark narrow stairs leading to the museum. The place smelled musty and a little salty. The paint was peeling like sunburned skin off the ancient walls of the hall.
The sight of Ruby gave me an electrical charge. She was an ember in the museum’s dimness. She was wearing her red fake fur coat thrown over her shoulders and her hair was spilling down wildly. As she stood up to throw her arms around me, I noticed that her lower half was gorgeously packed into a tight-fitting black skirt.
I held on to her until we both started to feel self-conscious. It was only then that I noticed another woman sitting there on a stool behind the dark little counter.
“This is Jane, my best friend,” Ruby said, making me think of a little kid the way she said best friend.
“Jane, this is Attila.”
Jane offered a smile. She wasn’t your femme fatale type by any stretch and she was too slender and elegantly boned to be called handsome. Her black curls were cropped close to her head and she wore no makeup. Ruby had referred to her as a natural beauty and I concurred.
Sal and Jane knew each other but there didn’t seem to be any great love going on there. As I gave Ruby details of what had happened on the track this morning—Sal of course had immediately called in a report to Ruby—Jane and Sal seemed to pointedly ignore each other. Just as I was wondering if I should tell Sal and Ruby about the mysterious knock on my door, a strange-looking man came up the stairs hauling two big laundry bags.
He frowned at the lot of us.
“Hi, Bob,” Ruby said nonchalantly. “Attila, this is my boss, Bob,” she said.
Bob shook my hand. He looked like a diabolical clown. He was bald on top and wore the rest of his hair long. He was sporting pink-tinted eyeglasses, bright green pants, and an orange sweatshirt.
“Anybody come in?” he asked Ruby.
Ruby had told me that the Coney Island Museum wasn’t exactly a thriving emporium. During winter, sometimes only three or four people came in all day and usually just to use the bathroom—for which Ruby charged them a dollar. Ruby brought in her laptop and whiled away the hours working on her notes for the book she and Bob were thinking of writing about the history of Coney Island. The only existing histories were dated and one of them was out of print. And both Bob and Ruby were passionate about their seedy home’s history.
“Two German guys from Berlin,” she told Bob now. “We did all right,” she said, opening the cash drawer and showing him a little stack of twenties, “they bought three copies of Sodom by the Sea and a shitload of mugs and T-shirts.”
“Nice,” Bob beamed at her, revealing a row of irregular but white teeth.
“I’m going to throw my wash in,” he said, picking his bags back up and heading to the front of the place. I knew he lived somewhere in the building. He’d bought the beautiful old structure fifteen years earlier for a song. He’d offered Ruby one of the empty floors, but the walls were full of holes and there was no way to sufficiently heat it, so she’d elected to stay in her own apartment.
Ruby and Jane had launched into some sort of discussion about yoga. I knew from overhearing some of Ruby’s phone conversations with her friend that these two could go on for hours about intrigue and personnel shifts in the world of New York City’s yoga centers. A world that, for all its promise of physical flexibility and spiritual equilibrium, was evidently as cutthroat and fraught with drama as horse racing.
Sal was getting restless. I had a feeling he wanted to tell Ruby his troubles, but not with the rest of us present. Eventually, he announced that he was going to go visit a friend over in Sea Gate, the strange gated community south of Coney.
“I’ll keep my phone turned on if you need me,” he told us.
Ruby and I both nodded at him. The big guy was hesitating though. His face clouded over and he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. Then he reached in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet.
“I’d feel better if you two went and stayed in a motel for a while till this crap blows over. I can give you some money.”
Ruby and I protested both the motel and the money but Sal insisted.
Eventually Jane piped in. “It might be prudent,” she said.
We all stared at her.
“Yeah?” Ruby squinted. “What about my cats?”
“Take them,” Jane said.
“Yeah?” Ruby seemed to be warming to the idea.
She looked at me. I shrugged.
“Okay, Sal,” she said, “we’ll do it. Put your money away though. We’re fine.”
Sal grudgingly put his wallet back in his pocket. He contemplated us for a few moments longer then grunted his good-byes and walked heavily down the stairs.
“I think he’s got a problem with his wife,” I told Ruby after we heard the door close behind him.
“Yeah,” she sighed and tilted her head, “he usually does. He’s desperately in love with her. He’s always telling me he never should have married someone he was that much in love with. Which is ridiculous.”
Ruby frowned now, clearly miffed with this notion. I tended to side with Sal on the matter though I didn’t volunteer this opinion. I’d been desperately in love with Ava and it had led to fifteen years of torture. I was crazy for Ruby now, but it was different. A little saner. Thinking about her didn’t make my heart stammer with doubt.
Jane announced it was time for her to head back to Manhattan. She rose from her stool, stretched her arms out, then unceremoniously bent at the waist, put her palms on the floor next to her feet and wiggled her butt.
“Stop that!” Ruby exclaimed. Jane ignored her.
“She’s always stretching in public,” Ruby said, turning to me. “It’s embarrassing and disgusting.”
I didn’t think it was either of these things, but I was a little surprised when, continuing the display, Jane suddenly propped her foot against the wall, at the same height as her head, then leaned forward, draping her torso along the extended leg. Ruby protested a bit more and finally Jane, her muscular kinks evidently dispensed with, began putting on her many layers of sweaters, coats, and scarves. She wrapped the final scarf, a brown thing with pink polka dots, around her head, draping it under her chin. She looked like a demented Russian farm girl.
After extracting a promise that Ruby and I would in fact go stay in a motel, Jane bid us farewell and descended the creaky stairs. At last, I was alone with my girl.
I folded her into my arms, nestling my face into her dark hair that smelled of cigarette smoke and salt.
“Wanna go to a motel, baby?” I said into her ear.
“Yes,” she said in a soft voice.
“What about that place in S
heepshead Bay? You know, that weird little motel we passed by the other night?”
I felt her body stiffen.
“No,” she said, pulling away from me
“Why, it’s a dive?”
“No,” she said again.
“What’s the matter?” I looked down into her gray eyes. They’d turned black. Something I’d said had touched a nerve.
“What is it?” I asked, worried now.
“Nothing, just some history I have with that place. I don’t want to go there.”
“What do you mean, history? What, you stayed there with some other guy?” I was joking but she winced and I saw it was true.
“Oh,” I said, feeling like a balloon someone had stabbed a fork into.
“We’ll go somewhere else,” I said quickly. “Don’t worry.”
She still seemed frozen though and I hated it. Hated that she had memories of another man. Memories that still meant too much to be spoken of. She’d mentioned an FBI guy she’d met when she’d saved that racehorse nine months earlier. She’d told me she’d had something going with the guy but she never mentioned how it ended or why. I’d tried to turn a blind eye to the whole thing. After all, I was technically still married and my unbalanced wife was calling me fifteen times a day. But the way Ruby had winced indicated that there was still a live wire there someplace. Hopefully I could diffuse it soon.
I scooped her back into my arms and held her until I felt the stiffness leave her body.
RUBY MURPHY
11.
Counting Horses
Someday I may actually have to break down and learn how to drive. It’s getting frustrating to have to take car services every time I need to get somewhere beyond biking distance. It’s just that cars seem like bad magic to me. I don’t entirely understand how they work and it strikes me as nothing short of miraculous that people aren’t constantly careening into one another. I have trouble even being a passenger. I keep imagining trucks colliding with whatever car I’m in, sending me flailing, severing limbs, cracking my skull open. If I were actually driving the damned contraption, I would probably go into cardiac arrest. I realize it’s profoundly un-American of me not to drive. But I never felt profoundly American to begin with. I’m from Brooklyn.