Flamethrower

by Maggie Estep

  As Ruby led Jack toward the barn, Triple wished Ruby a nice day. She grunted without turning around.

  Once she’d finished her chores, Ruby spent a pleasant half hour grooming her horse. He was an agreeable, friendly horse. His niceness, his very horsiness, soothed Ruby. Almost enough to take away the image of the severed leg. Almost.

  It was dark by the time Ruby wheeled her bike out of the stable yard and locked the gate. She stood staring at the little barn as she tried to remember if she’d forgotten anything. She hadn’t fed the barn cat, but he hadn’t been around and probably had gorged on mouse corpses and passed out on a bale of hay somewhere.

  Ruby got onto her bike and started pedaling. Her leg muscles had stiffened during the time she’d been at the barn, and the first few revolutions of the wheels were painful. She was riding up the incline to Linden Boulevard, cursing her legs for aching, when she felt a car behind her. At the top of the incline, she put one foot to the ground and turned around to see whose car it was. She was expecting Triple. Maybe playing at following her home. Mock stalking the way he liked to. But it was just some random blue car with a random dark-haired man at the wheel. There was something vaguely familiar about the man’s broad face, but he didn’t show any signs of recognizing her so Ruby got back on the bike and pedaled away.

  Night was coming on like heartache.

  4. HEIGHTS

  R uby rode home to Coney Island the back way avoiding the madness of Surf Avenue. Its chaos was one of the things Ruby loved most about Coney but not tonight, not at the end of a day that had featured a severed leg in a fish tank. No. Tonight Ruby needed quiet backstreets.

  She rode up onto the sidewalk in front of her building and got off the bike. Her lungs were sore and her ass hurt slightly. She liked that. She liked the various pains and indignities she inflicted on her body. Helped keep her mind quiet.

  As she fished her house keys from her backpack, Ruby looked up at the recently renovated Stillwell Avenue subway station. She did this almost every day but never got used to it. Not that it was bad-looking. Just slightly futuristic, almost German, and at odds with the decaying community it served. Coney had been declining for a long long time, and for just as long there had been rumors of casinos and Disney and Donald Trump. Now though, it seemed that something major was truly on the verge of happening. Something that very possibly would destroy Ruby’s home. Either literally, if the building she rented in was sold, or figuratively, if Astroland were razed and Mickey Mouse put in its place.

  Ruby hoisted her bike onto her shoulder and climbed the uneven stairs to the second floor. She glanced toward her lone neighbors’ door. Pietro Ramirez and his wife, Elsie, usually left it open, especially in summer when the top floor of the old two-story building was a sauna. Not tonight though. Ruby wasn’t sure if she was relieved over the avoided social contact or not. She liked her neighbors, was sometimes even grateful for Elsie’s borderline busybody-ness that forced Ruby to confess whatever was on her mind. Tonight it would have been awkward. Intuitive Elsie would have prodded and been hurt when Ruby failed to come clean with the details.

  Ruby unlocked her apartment door, put her bike against the wall, and nearly tripped when Stinky, her enormous black and white cat, launched himself at her calves.

  Ruby sat down on the floor, scooped the cat into her arms, and squeezed him. The rest of the cat pack came to stare at her, politely willing her to prepare their dinner as they likely counted their blessings that the human wasn’t trying to squeeze them too.

  Once she felt vaguely restored to sanity through the grace of her fat cat, Ruby got up and went into the kitchen. She flicked the light switch but nothing happened. Ed had forgotten to replace the bulb. Ruby was too short to reach it, and climbing up on the table to do it would make her weak-kneed since she’d developed a fear of heights after turning thirty.

  She fed the cats in the dark, banging her shin into a table leg in the process. Another pain to catalog next to the sore lungs and stinging ass.

  As the cats made their savage meat-eating sounds, Ruby retrieved her phone from her backpack and flipped it open to make sure Jody hadn’t called. She hadn’t. There were several thousand things Ruby needed to do, but she was suddenly bone tired. She dropped down onto the couch and lay on her back. She reached over to the coffee table for the book she was nursing that week. Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants was a splendidly entertaining tome, but Ruby nodded off after two pages.

  RUBY WATCHED in horror as an enormous rat crawled up her leg. She felt a hand on her shoulder and heard a voice in her ear.

  “Ruby, hey, Ruby.”

  She opened her eyes. Ed was peering at her as if she was a medical curiosity.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “You were screaming.”

  “I was having a nightmare.” Before nodding off, Ruby had gotten to a passage about rats getting onto crowded subway cars and riding to the next stop. This notion had successfully distracted her from the image of Jody’s husband’s leg, and she’d fallen asleep. Dreaming of rats.

  Ruby scooted her body back on the couch, making room for Ed as she told him about the dream rat crawling up her leg.

  “Why are you reading about rodents?”

  “It’s fascinating.”

  “Rats?”

  “Very primal.”

  Ed smiled and shook his head. He looked exhausted.

  There were crevices around his mouth, valleys beneath his eyes. His glasses were filthy. His hair needed cutting. Still, Ruby liked looking at him. This was one of the things that made her think she was in it for the long haul with Ed. She always found him beautiful. Even when he wasn’t.

  “Is Juan okay?” Ruby dug her fingers into Ed’s forearm, kneading the tight narrow muscles there.

  “I think so. He’s eating good, not acting like anything’s bothering him.” Ed looked worried while saying it. He hadn’t convinced himself that his prized little horse was truly all right.

  “I didn’t make dinner,” Ruby announced.

  Ed was relieved but tried not to show it.

  “We’ll go out.”

  “It’s late.” Ruby had just looked at the little clock atop the TV. It was nearly ten.

  “Brighton Diner?” Ed asked.

  “Okay.”

  The place was loud, the food was lousy, and the waitresses were hostile. But Ruby didn’t mind. Just as she enjoyed brutalizing her body, Ruby liked stoically weathering waitresses’ minor abuses, figuring she was getting her quota of pain from the universe for the week and could ward off anything worse happening.

  It was after eleven by the time Ruby and Ed walked back from the diner, both a little queasy and sleepy from greasy omelettes.

  Astroland was still thriving. Girls in tight jeans and belly-baring tops. Hipster white kids looking nervous at being vastly outnumbered by dark-skinned folks. Here and there, an old Russian couple, disgusted at what the world was coming to.

  Ruby fell asleep spooning behind Ed, marveling that they’d gotten through the evening without her telling him what had happened that day. It almost seemed like any other night. Almost.

  5. MAGIC

  At three-thirty in the morning, Ed got up and went into the kitchen to poach four eggs. It was Wednesday, one of Ruby’s days off from the museum, the day when she usually accompanied Ed to the track, spending a few hours at Belmont before going to The Hole. Today though, her body was protesting the lack of sleep. Her eyes wouldn’t open and her legs were stiff. She slowly got out of bed and started stretching. She hated imagining what getting older would be like. At this rate, she’d need a full body cast by age fifty.

  Ruby went into the kitchen and fed the cats and ate her poached eggs while Ed showered. He was ready long before she was and waited at the door, drumming his fingers on the door frame.

  “I’m sorry I’m slow—don’t be impatient,” Ruby said.

  “I’m not impatient.”


  Ruby kept feeling as if she was forgetting something, but she couldn’t figure out what. Maybe it was just the secret she was keeping from Ed. Maybe the secret was disorienting her. She followed Ed into the hall and locked up.

  Ramirez, who probably hadn’t been to bed yet, had his door open. He was standing in the middle of his yellow kitchen, looking put out about something. He’d gotten paunchy lately, evidently having sympathetic swelling with his pregnant wife. Though he’d outdone her by now. Where the diminutive Elsie still barely showed at six months, Ramirez looked ready to birth a basketball.

  “Morning,” said Ruby.

  “Morning,” Ramirez said, barely more than a grunt. He nodded at Ed then turned his back and started fiddling with the stove.

  Ruby and Ed walked to the lot where Ed kept his twenty-year-old red Ford pickup and Ruby kept the 1974 Mustang she never drove. Ruby climbed in the passenger side and pulled the squeaking seat belt around her waist.

  The sun hadn’t dreamed of coming up yet.

  ED WAS LOST in thought, and Ruby spent most of the ride over to Belmont dwelling on Jody’s husband’s leg. She tried to think of other things. Food. Sex. Bicycles. Space and Time. World Travel. Cholera. But she kept seeing it. In the fish tank. On the floor. Unceremoniously tucked into Jody’s Carnegie Hall tote.

  The moment Ed drove in through the main stable gate though, the magic happened: Ruby absorbed the sight of horse buildings, horse people, and horses, horses, horses as far as the eye could see. A sea of horses. And all was better.

  Ed parked the truck at the end of the shed row he shared with Blake Reta, a successful trainer who had a small army of grooms and assistants working for him. All Ed could afford was Nicky, a part-time groom who was always late. And Nicky was definitely late this morning. Ed’s horses hadn’t been fed, and every last one was standing stoically still and looking more than a little wounded. Ed barely glanced at them though. He made a beeline for Juan the Bullet’s stall and immediately knelt by the colt’s bandaged leg.

  Ruby stared at the horse and the horse stared back. He wasn’t much to look at. A dullish light chestnut, barely fifteen hands. Where other two-year-olds were already rippled with muscle, Juan looked like somebody’s backyard horse. But Ruby had to admit he had a good face. A thick white blaze started under his forelock and ended in a blur near his nose. The oversized nostrils were a little ungainly looking, but some people theorized that big nostrils meant a horse could take in more air—and run faster. What really distinguished Juan the Bullet were his eyes. He had beautiful, intelligent eyes. Most of the good ones did. And this is what made Ruby think that just maybe her boyfriend’s lunacy was justified. That this funny-looking little horse might do some running at some point.

  Satisfied that the horse’s leg hadn’t fallen off during the night, Ed stood up and came out of the stall.

  “Help me feed?” he asked Ruby.

  “Sure,” she said. She liked being put to work. For a few minutes anyway.

  By the time Nicky finally showed up, Ed had Ruby mucking out stalls. Nicky stuck his head into the stall where Ruby was working and flashed his gap-toothed smile. Ruby gruffly handed him her pitchfork.

  “Thanks,” Nicky said brightly. No apology, just that smile.

  Ruby had her doubts about Nicky. He was a nice-looking man in his early thirties. He was well spoken, had all his teeth, and didn’t seem to fit the profile of the kind of guy who suddenly got frustrated with his dull little life and gave it all up to go rub racehorses. Ed had never seen a reason to probe Nicky about his intentions or origins though, so Ruby left it alone.

  “Nicky took over,” she told Ed, finding her boyfriend back in Juan the Bullet’s stall.

  “Good,” Ed said, even though Ruby suspected he liked watching her muck out stalls.

  “I’m going over to see Violet,” she said.

  “You coming back?”

  “Probably not. It’s getting late. It’ll take me a while still to get over to The Hole.” Ruby would call a cab after she’d visited with Violet.

  “Why can’t you just drive that car of yours?” Ed asked.

  “Don’t want to.” Ruby had gotten around by bicycle for so long that she had trouble seeing cars as anything other than evil machines out to kill her. She knew this was unreasonable, but she didn’t really care.

  “Okay.” Ed surrendered. He leaned over to kiss Ruby good-bye. “You okay?” he asked as he pulled back.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You seem funny.”

  “Funny?” Ruby tried to look innocent, like she’d never seen a severed leg in her life.

  “Never mind.” Ed said, “Call me later?”

  “I will.”

  VIOLET’S OFFICE DOOR was wide open so Ruby walked right in. And nearly choked when she found Jody Ray there, sitting on Violet’s dirty couch. Ruby blinked.

  “Oh, Ruby,” Jody said listlessly.

  The Psychiatrist was wearing a knee-length lemon-colored dress made of translucent material. She was holding a large yellow purse. She was paler than ever, and her bright hair had dulled. She looked as if she’d been up doing coke all night.

  “I was looking for Violet,” Ruby said.

  “Yes, she’s around.” Jody waved her hand. She seemed small even though she wasn’t.

  “I guess I’ll wait for her,” Ruby said.

  “Oh. Yes,” Jody said weakly. This was probably the last thing she wanted. But she didn’t have the strength to protest. She busied herself digging through her purse.

  Outside the office, there was the sound of hooves against dirt as a hotwalker guided a horse past the door.

  “I’ve been asked to come up with money,” Jody said after a thick three-minute silence.

  “A lot?” Ruby tried to seem casual, as though she’d fully expected Jody to start talking.

  “Of course.”

  “I’m sorry. And you still haven’t called anyone?”

  “No,” Jody said without moving her lips.

  “You’re endangering your husband. If he’s even alive.” Ruby was surprised she’d actually said it aloud.

  Jody finally looked Ruby in the eyes. “I’ve been through this before,” she said.

  “Your husband’s been kidnapped before?”

  “No. Me.”

  “You were kidnapped?” Ruby was incredulous.

  “When I was younger. My parents did as the kidnappers asked, and I was returned unharmed.”

  Ruby instinctively knew further revelations were forthcoming.

  “What did your parents do for a living?” Ruby asked. It wasn’t what she’d meant to ask. It had just popped out.

  “They were psychiatrists,” Jody answered as if it were a natural question.

  “Both?”

  Jody nodded.

  “Oh,” said Ruby. No wonder the woman chewed her fingernails. “So you’re planning on coming up with the money?”

  “That’s why I’m here. I have seventy-two hours to get it, but I don’t have many resources. There was a substantial offer made some weeks ago for one of Tobias’s horses, and I’m here to see if Violet can sell the horse and collect the money in such a short time. Violet doesn’t know why I need the money so quickly, and I’d like to keep it that way.” Jody was staring at Ruby but she didn’t really seem to see her. Her blue eyes were bloodshot.

  Ruby struggled for something to say. Then was saved by Violet coming through the office door.

  “Oh!” Violet said, “Ruby!”

  Violet looked drawn. This was hardly a shock. Jody’s husband’s colt, Fearless Jones, was hands down the most exciting horse Violet and Henry had trained in years. Ruby knew it had to be a heartbreak. She wished she could tell Violet that Jody had an extraordinarily valid reason for doing something this rash.

  Ruby stood up to hug Violet.

  “You might not want to do that.” Violet pulled back. “Our shower is broken. I’m afraid I’m quite ripe.”

  “You smell fine to me,”
Ruby said, realizing this sounded peculiar. No one seemed to notice though.

  “Violet, you’re very kind to help me,” Jody said, rising from the couch and smoothing her dress down over her thighs.

  Violet nodded. She looked as if she was about to cry.

  “Could I have a word with you, Ruby?” Jody asked.

  “Oh,” Ruby said, surprised, “sure.” She looked at Violet.

  “I have an awful lot to do, Ruby,” Violet said weakly. “We’d better have coffee another time.”

  “Okay.” Ruby felt overwhelmingly useless for not being able to console her friend.

  On her way out, Ruby touched Violet’s shoulder. Violet tried to smile.

  Ruby followed Jody Ray over to the dirt road behind the barn, where Jody stopped walking and turned to Ruby.

  “I’m sorry for this,” she said, looking past Ruby.

  “For what?”

  “For what you’ve seen in the last twenty-four hours. For what it must be putting you through.”

  “It’s not putting me through anything. Though it is frustrating. And horrible for poor Violet.”

  “Yes,” Jody said, “poor Violet.”

  Suddenly, Jody’s face folded in on itself, and she started crying. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.

  Her mascara had streaked a little.

  “You have streaks,” Ruby said, touching under her own eyes.

  “Thank you.” Jody dabbed at her eyes, gulped air in, then started crying again.

  To her own amazement, Ruby draped an arm around her psychiatrist’s shoulders. She felt Jody stiffen. She considered removing her arm but didn’t. Instead, she started talking. Reiterating that Jody should call the cops. Jody didn’t move or say anything. After a while, Ruby removed her arm. She felt like an idiot.

  “I know what I’m about to ask is probably wrong,” Jody said, “but I desperately need help.” She pushed a long strand of hair off her forehead.