Flamethrower

by Maggie Estep

  Ruby patted the old gelding. Captain let out a sigh but Alicia wanted more. Ruby spent another half hour teaching the girl how to ask the horse to stop, start, back up, and walk in figure eights. Captain, gentleman horse that he was, took care of the little girl. Ruby was starting to wonder if Alicia would ever get tired when finally the girl announced she was thirsty.

  Ruby walked over, took hold of Captain’s bridle, and helped the girl down.

  Alicia raced ahead into the barn, and Ruby expected that would be the last she’d see of her. But as she led Captain into the barn, she saw Alicia standing there, clutching a can of Coke and beaming.

  “Now what?” the girl asked.

  The other kids were all long gone by the time Ruby had shown Alicia how to groom the horse, clean the tack, and pick the droppings out of Captain’s straw. Ruby suspected the girl would have stayed there and slept in Captain’s stall if they’d let her, but it was close to 6 P.M. and Coleman announced it was time for him to give Alicia a ride home.

  “I can come back tomorrow?” Alicia asked, her mouth forming a hopeful O.

  Ruby realized she’d just helped create another victim of Horse Fever.

  NIGHT WAS FALLING by the time Ruby finished her chores and went into Jack Valentine’s stall to canoodle with her horse for a few minutes. She’d already turned the lights off and could barely see her inky gelding in the shadows. The dim light was soothing. She fed Jack a mint and watched him roll it over his tongue. He even closed his eyes, giving it the ultimate taste test before finally biting down into it.

  A slice of yellow moon was rising as Ruby closed up the barn and started walking down the dirt road, heading toward the subway. Triple Harrison was out on his sagging front stoop, smoking a cigarette and staring into space.

  “Hey, Triple,” Ruby said.

  “Where you going?”

  “Home.”

  “Need a ride?”

  “Sure, I’d love a ride to the train.”

  “I’ll do one better and give you a ride home. I wouldn’t mind some Nathan’s fries.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Let me get my keys.”

  Triple got up and disappeared inside his house for a few seconds, emerging with a mysteriously overstuffed backpack.

  “You gonna camp out at Nathan’s?”

  “Nah, just needed a few things,” he said cryptically.

  Ruby didn’t press it.

  Triple’s Chevy Caprice Classic had once been blue but was now dirt-colored. Inside there were empty soda cans, candy wrappers, and, on the floor of the passenger side, a pair of women’s panties.

  “Triple, you’ve got panties on your floor.”

  “She meant nothing to me,” he said, smiling. “You’re the only one.”

  “Be that as it may, would you mind putting those somewhere else?” Ruby wrinkled up her nose.

  Triple reached down, plucked the panties from the floor, and stuffed them in his front pocket.

  “Greta,” he said as he turned the key in the ignition.

  “Greta?”

  “Owner of the panties. Lives in Brighton, hence the backpack. I might stop in and see her. She’s an animal psychic.” He nosed the car forward, up the little hill and out onto Linden Boulevard.

  “Ah,” Ruby said.

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “Okay,” Ruby said.

  “Greta told me my mare would like it if I got her a new goat.”

  Peanuts, the goat that had lived with Triple’s mare, had died of old age a few weeks earlier.

  “I could have told you that. You could have told you that.”

  “You’re such a pessimist,” Triple said.

  “How does that make me a pessimist?”

  “You just don’t believe in magic.”

  “Sure I do. I’m just leery of incompetent animal psychics.”

  “You’re calling my girlfriend incompetent?”

  Now Triple looked genuinely pissed off, and Ruby realized she’d gone too far.

  “No, Triple, I’m not. It didn’t come out right.”

  “Uh huh,” Triple said.

  She tried backpedaling. Asked for more details on Greta the Animal Psychic, but Triple was hurt now and would answer only in grunts.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve had a bad few days, Triple.”

  “Whatever,” Triple said.

  Ruby tried to exude niceness for the rest of the ride. She told cute anecdotes about Alicia and Captain, but it didn’t help.

  Triple looked gloomy as he nudged the Chevy to the curb near Ruby’s building.

  “Thanks, Triple. I appreciate the ride, and I’m sorry to be such a downer.” Ruby scooted closer to him and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Please don’t hate me,” she said.

  Triple finally looked at her. “I won’t,” he said, giving a tiny smile.

  7. RATS

  Ruby opened the door to her apartment, and Stinky tried to trip her. As she bent down to pet the cat, she smelled something good coming from the kitchen.

  “Where were you?” Ed was standing in the kitchen door, holding a giant spoon covered in tomato sauce.

  “You’re home? And you’re cooking?”

  “Evidently,” Ed said, leaning down to kiss her.

  “I was at the barn,” she said when the kiss was over.

  “Oh. Right,” he said, looking down at Ruby’s muddy barn boots. “I’m making pasta,” he added.

  “Nice,” Ruby said. She watched Ed stir the pasta sauce. She had told him thousands of times that pasta after 5 P.M. did strange things to her body and made her feel stupid the next day. Ed had either forgotten or didn’t believe her since he thrived on late-night pasta in spite of not having any Italian ancestry. Ed was of German and Irish descent. There shouldn’t have been any predisposition for nighttime pasta. Unless you factored in the German people’s love of Italy. There was a long history of college-age Germans going to Italy to find themselves. Or so Ruby’s German ex-boyfriend had once told her.

  As Ed tasted the sauce, Ruby tangentially thought about the German ex-boyfriend, Axel. He had married a Chinese computer programmer moments after he and Ruby had broken up. The Chinese computer programmer had not been fond of Axel’s exes, so Ruby hadn’t heard from Axel in six years. She missed him slightly, the way she slightly missed most ex-lovers. Attila was the only one she missed violently. The only one who haunted her. Of course, he was the only one who’d been murdered. Ruby had no idea what she’d feel for him if he were still living.

  Ruby ate a good portion of pasta and felt it like lead in her belly. She mentally cursed her boyfriend but outwardly smiled. He’d made her dinner.

  Ruby did the dishes then went into the living room, where she found Ed on the couch, eyes closed, a Law & Order rerun on the TV. As Ruby sat on the edge of the couch, Ed opened his eyes. They were bloodshot with exhaustion.

  “Any idea why your shrink’s husband is selling that colt?” he asked.

  “What?” Ruby feigned complete ignorance.

  “I saw Violet earlier. She was acting mopey and didn’t want to tell me why. I finally dragged out of her that she’d just finalized a sale on Fearless Jones. I asked her why the hell Jody’s husband wanted to sell the horse, but Violet didn’t seem to know.”

  Ruby worked at looking stunned and disappointed. She was all that and more. And on the verge of telling Ed about The Psychiatrist and the leg when Ed reached up, pulled her to him, and kissed her deeply. The Psychiatrist’s story could wait.

  ED WAS LONG GONE when Ruby woke up the next morning. She fed the cats then read a few pages of Rats while sipping a cup of very black coffee. Once the caffeine hit, she rolled out her mat and did forty-five minutes of yoga. At the end, she sat in lotus attempting to meditate. But all she could see was Jody’s husband’s leg floating before her eyes, bloody and ugly. She gave up on clearing her mind, untwisted her limbs, and went into the bathroom to shower. She got dressed for work and pulled her wet hai
r into a high ponytail in spite of the fact that wearing her hair that way seemed to inspire more catcalling than usual from teenage boys and construction workers, who apparently equated ponytails with slutdom.

  Outside, the sky was teal blue and the air smelled salty. Ruby wanted to walk onto the beach and put her feet in the water. She looked at her watch. Seven minutes to eleven. She had time. Sort of.

  She crossed Surf and saw Guillotine, the kiddie-park operator, walking his pack of dogs. The Frenchman had three pit bulls, an Australian cattle dog, and a balding Chihuahua.

  “Guillotine, hi.” Ruby nodded at him.

  Guillotine glanced up and grunted. He had grown a beard over the winter. Long gray and ginger hairs curled and swooped all the way to his collarbone. He was thin and unhealthy looking and his blue eyes were small. Still, Ruby was curious about him and sometimes wished he’d talk to her. Not today.

  Ruby walked onto the beach. A few old white guys were wading into the water. A jogger with headphones was running along the shoreline. Some kids were swimming, their mothers sitting on the beach smoking cigarettes. They looked as though they were really enjoying the cigarettes, and it made Ruby want one. She’d been working on a wad of Nicorette gum all morning, aiming at getting through the day without a smoke. But smoking looked so lovely just then. Ruby stared at the pack of Marlboros right there on the beach towel. She hoped one of the women would notice her staring and offer her a smoke. This was a ludicrous fantasy considering the price of a pack of cigarettes.

  One of the women felt Ruby’s gaze and glanced up. It wasn’t a friendly look. Ruby moved on. She walked to the water, took off her red sandals, and waded in. The sea was warm and soft. Ruby saw several Styrofoam peanuts floating nearby and it depressed her. She figured trash was like rats. If you saw a little, it meant there was a lot lurking under the surface. Ruby took her feet out of the water and walked barefoot on the sand for a few paces. After narrowly missing stepping on a shard of glass, she put her sandals back on.

  The beach at Coney Island had never been clean, but it seemed to be getting dirtier. Since the zealous Republican mayors of New York City had managed to reduce crime and eradicate the overt sale of drugs in neighborhoods where white people lived, surely they could do something about Styrofoam peanuts in the sea.

  Ruby glanced at her watch. She was now ten minutes late for work. She didn’t think her boss, Bob, would mind. But she was wrong.

  8. WRONG

  Ruby climbed the stairs to the museum and found Bob standing in the middle of the darkened front room, frowning. At his feet were dozens of boxes filled with books and Coney Island souvenirs.

  “Hi. Sorry I’m a little late.”

  Bob lifted his frown and aimed it at Ruby.

  “Hi,” he said without cheer.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Is there something you’re not telling me?” Bob asked. He looked angry. He’d shaved his head recently and his skull was bullet shaped. He usually looked pleasantly deranged, but today he looked frightening.

  “Something I’m not telling you about what?”

  “You got money problems?”

  Ruby squinted. “What? What are you talking about?”

  “You know you can be honest with me. I can loan you money if you need it.”

  “What? Why are you bringing up money?” Ruby glanced down at her clothing, wondering if she suddenly looked impoverished.

  “I’m gonna be all right on my own today,” Bob said then. He’d stopped looking at Ruby.

  “On your own what?” Ruby asked, confused.

  “Working. You can go home.”

  “Go home?” she asked, bewildered. “But we’ve got that shipment to unpack.” Ruby motioned at the boxes.

  “It’s okay. I’m fine here on my own,” Bob stated.

  “Why are you asking me about money, Bob? Is there money missing or something?”

  He still wouldn’t look at her.

  “Just go on,” he said, waving her toward the door.

  Normally, Ruby would have had some fight in her. But not after what had gone on in the last few days. She stared at Bob. He glanced at her then looked away.

  “Okay. I’ll go.” Ruby paused, expecting Bob to recant. He didn’t.

  “You want me to come in tomorrow?” she asked.

  “I’ll call you.” He turned his back to her.

  “Bob.” She tried one last time. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Just go,” he said in a small voice.

  “Fine,” Ruby said. “If you decide to tell me what’s wrong, you know where to find me.”

  She slowly walked down the stairs, waiting for Bob to call her back. He didn’t. She continued down and out to the street. The sky was too blue and the carousel’s organ was screaming.

  Ruby let herself into her building and climbed the stairs. Ramirez and Elsie’s door was open, and she braced herself for interaction. Neither of them was in the kitchen though. Ruby unlocked her door and went inside her apartment. Stinky didn’t even come to greet her.

  Ruby sank onto the couch and put her head in her hands. She really needed to talk to Jane. But Jane was presumably sound asleep behind a swath of mosquito netting in her room in Mysore, India. Living without a phone and glad for it.

  Ruby toyed with the idea of calling her mother. Her mother didn’t believe in psychiatry, analysis, therapy, or even doctors, and though she’d never say it aloud, she’d think it was all Ruby’s comeuppance for going to a shrink in the first place. She would listen to Ruby, but she wouldn’t know what to say and would be vaguely appalled at the whole thing. And then feel guilty for being appalled. Make a stab at being solicitous. They would both hang up feeling guilty for not better understanding each other.

  As soon as Ruby decided not to call anyone, the phone rang.

  “Hello,” Ruby said, making it sound like What the hell do you want?

  “Ruby.” Jody Ray’s voice sounded lifeless.

  “Oh. Hello,” Ruby said.

  “I need help,” Jody said.

  “You’re not the only one.”

  That shut her up. But she didn’t ask Ruby what was wrong.

  “This is absurd, Jody. You ask me for help then you kick me out.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve been irrational. You’ll admit that under the circumstances, it’s understandable.”

  Ruby did have to grant her that much.

  “Will you help me look for Tobias?” Jody asked.

  A mosquito had gotten in through one of the defective screen windows and was buzzing near Ruby’s head. She started swatting it with last month’s Velo News. There was almost nothing Ruby hated more than mosquitoes.

  “Ruby?”

  “There’s a mosquito,” Ruby said. She knew it sounded crazy. But no one involved in this particular conversation was in a position to judge levels of sanity.

  “I’m not sure,” Ruby added when The Psychiatrist failed to offer sympathy over the mosquito.

  “Not sure about what? About helping me look for Toby?”

  “Right,” Ruby said. She saw the mosquito land on a Daily Racing Form on the end table. She swatted it with Velo News but missed.

  “All right. I understand,” Jody said in a tiny, weak voice.

  “What do you want me to do?” Ruby was angry, but she was curious too.

  “Help me.”

  Ruby paused. “Yeah, okay, I’ll do it.”

  “You will?”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, there are a thousand reasons why not,” Jody said.

  Ruby interrupted: “It was a rhetorical question.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “What do I do?” Ruby asked.

  “You’re familiar with the Rockaways?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “I need you to go there.”

  “You think Tobias is in Rockaway? Where?” Ruby saw the mosquito again. Back on the bike magazine. She decided to tolerate it and its horrible little disease-ca
rrying body.

  “He seems to have bought a house there. I found the deed and some other papers in his safe-deposit box at the bank.”

  “And why can’t you go?”

  “I imagine he’ll be keeping an eye out for me. Providing this is in fact a self-orchestrated kidnapping. And of course if he has not had himself kidnapped, if this isn’t some idiotic scheme, then he won’t be in Rockaway at all.”

  Ruby couldn’t think of a single reason not to report her psychiatrist to the relevant governing bodies. Nor could she think of any reason to do what Jody was asking.

  The mosquito was still on the magazine.

  “Okay. Give me the address,” Ruby said.

  Lulu, the calico cat, strolled into the living room and flopped down on the floor, exposing the spot of orange fur on her otherwise impeccably white belly.

  “Just a moment,” The Psychiatrist said.

  Ruby heard Jody shuffling papers. Lulu was staring at Ruby, apparently expecting a cuteness award.

  Jody recited an address on Beach Seventy-ninth Street. Ruby pictured stubby buildings close to the water. Boats and couches in front yards. The kind of trashy, wild neighborhood that reminded Ruby of what New York City had been like fifteen years earlier, when it was still irreverent and untamable, before Times Square became Disney World, Manhattan a shiny plaything for Young Republicans.

  “Are you there?”

  “Oh. Yes,” Ruby said. Normally, this bitterness over the taming of New York would have been exactly the kind of thing she’d have discussed with her shrink. Not now though.

  “You’ve never been to this Rockaway place?” Ruby asked.

  “Been there? I didn’t know the bastard owned this dump.”

  “It’s a dump?”

  “A hundred and fifty-two thousand does not buy much in the city of New York in this day and age.”

  Ruby agreed that it did not.

  “Why would he buy something out there?” she asked.

  “How should I know? He’s nuts,” Jody said.

  “‘Nuts’ is better than ‘mental defective’?”

  “Yes,” Jody said. “It’s a little less jarring.”

  “Ah,” Ruby said.