Horse Heaven

by Jane Smiley

  The next day, she went with Audrey to Los Angeles, to visit Richard’s parents for the first time since his death. She knew she would miss Marguerite, but, on the other hand, the rapidity with which Marguerite was forcing change upon her was exhausting, and she needed a break. She also didn’t know why she was being required to change, since it was entirely possible, and even desirable, for her to go along looking exactly the way Richard knew her for the rest of her life, alone with Audrey, supported by the taxpayers, and her mind blank with overwhelming grief.

  On the plane, sitting next to Audrey, who was perusing the Thoroughbred Times, Florence added up what she had spent on her appearance so far, none of which was covered separately from her living expenses. The answer was six hundred dollars, about five hundred dollars more than she could afford to spend on shoes, underwear, and hairdressing. She sat back and looked out the window, wondering if she was trying to improve her appearance, or simply to have one. Next to her, Audrey said, “Do you think Grandpa will take me to Del Mar? They’re running five stakes races Saturday.” Speaking of appearance, Florence thought, Audrey was no longer a slender little girl with a narrow face and lank, dark hair. Her shoulders were broadening, her hair was thickening, and her chin was beginning to square up, as if the first step in instituting her life plan was coming to look more like Richard.

  “If you want to go, I’ll take you, Audrey,” said Florence. It wasn’t that Florence gave Audrey whatever she wanted. It was that Audrey, like Richard, had a mission, and Florence did not. Taken all in all, Florence thought Audrey’s mission was fine enough.

  What Richard’s father did, though he had to work that day in his clothing store, was to give Audrey a hundred dollars to bet, and so, once they made the long drive to the track, Florence found herself following Audrey back and forth from the paddock to the betting windows to the stands, watching the intensity with which Audrey made her choices. Of course, it was Florence who had to place the bets. Audrey coached her. She said, “Now, you go up, and you say, ‘First race, ten dollars on number five to win,’ and then you give him the money and take your ticket. Don’t forget to check your ticket before you leave the window.” Florence didn’t mind what most mothers would call Audrey’s imperious tone.

  Horse number five in the first race was dark and the jockey was wearing red and white diamonds on his shirt. That was all Florence noticed, but Audrey was informative. She said, “This filly’s by Rainbow Quest out of a Gone West mare. I don’t know. She looks good, but the jockey I’ve never heard of. He’s got a double bug.” She looked up and scrutinized the boy again. In fact, she glared at him, Florence thought, as if reading his mind. And then, oddly, he looked straight at her, and smiled. Without taking her eyes off him, Audrey said, “That’s his apprentice weight allowance. But okay. He’s okay. Let’s go place the bet.”

  The horse came in at eight-to-one. Florence barely had time to get her ninety dollars back before they were headed for the paddock again. The weather was pleasant and Del Mar a garden of colorful flowers. This was, Florence thought, very similar to, in fact almost indistinguishable from, a vacation. Had she not known better, she would have said she was having a good time. Audrey said, “Put the ninety dollars we won in one pocket and the ninety left from what Grandpa gave us in the other.” Florence did so. Audrey took up her post again, and made her pick. She chose a red horse with a jockey in purple on its back, but then, when the jockeys were going out of the paddock to the track, that apprentice jockey, who was on another dark one and wearing green, smiled at Audrey and waved, and when she went in to bet, she told Florence to put fifty on that one, and only ten on the other one. “But it has to be fifty out of our winnings from the last race. The ten has to be out of Grandpa’s.”

  “What’s the difference, Audrey? Money is—”

  “Please, Mom?”

  When they got back their three hundred dollars on the green horse, Florence wadded it up and put it into her pocket without question.

  For the third race, Audrey’s pick was the favorite, who was going off at only three-to-two, a bad bet, but Audrey wanted to put ten of Grandpa’s money on him anyway. But the young jockey, whose name they had discovered was Roberto Acevedo, looked for her again. She stood right where the paddock gave onto the path under the stands. As he went by, this Roberto leaned down quickly and touched Audrey on the top of the head. Audrey didn’t have time to react right then, but afterwards she pushed Florence ahead of her as they ran to the betting window. They put a hundred out of the right pocket on Roberto’s horse. He came in at twelve-to-one. Florence could hardly breathe when she picked up the thirteen hundred dollars after the race. They had won $1,580. Audrey looked Florence firmly in the eye. She truly was Richard all over now, with the look he’d had the day he told her they were going to France. She said, “We’re going to bet a thousand dollars, Mom.”

  But Roberto wasn’t in the fourth race, and all Audrey did was bet ten of Grandpa’s money on a gray filly who came in fifth.

  When they were standing by the railing before the sixth race, Roberto came out of the jockeys’ room, stopped, looked around, saw Audrey, and came straight for her. He was cute—Hispanic-looking, Florence noticed, and young. He was about Audrey’s height, about Florence’s own height, five three—when had Audrey gotten that tall? He walked right up to Audrey, put his hands on her cheeks, and kissed her full on the lips. Florence was startled, but Audrey was not. When Roberto turned and ran over to his mount, laughter and murmurs following him as he went, Audrey turned and raced for the betting windows. Florence ran after her. They put down their thousand dollars.

  The horse came in at three-to-one. They had now won $4,580. Florence said, “Audrey, I want to go home. We’ve got a lot of money, and it scares me to carry it around.”

  “One more,” said Audrey, in Richard’s commander voice. Florence licked her lips. Mostly, she wondered what Roberto would do to follow up that kiss. She said, “That was quite a kiss, Audrey. You don’t even know him.”

  “He’s a jockey.”

  “So what?”

  “I’m a rider, too.”

  “So what?”

  “So everything’s okay about that. It’s not about kissing, Mom. If it were about kissing, it would be disgusting. You know that.”

  Well, Florence had to laugh, just out of gratitude that Audrey wasn’t so grown up after all.

  So they stayed around for the eighth race. The horses came out. The owners and trainers came out. The jockeys came out. Roberto looked around for Audrey, who was already staring at him, waiting for his gaze. When they saw each other, it was a long moment, and after he mounted, Audrey stood there for a while, indecisive. “Well?” said Florence. The odds on the horse were five-to-one. They could bet two thousand, keep two thousand. Florence was excited the prospect, already counting the fourteen thousand dollars they were destined to go home with. The horses paraded out of the paddock. Roberto gave Audrey a kind smile as he went by. “Well?” said Florence.

  “No bets. He’s lost it.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t like the horse. Roberto’s lost it. Bad race. Too many horses, and they’re all old. Let’s go home.”

  “Don’t you even want to see it?”

  “No. Let’s go.”

  “How do you know he’s lost it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does he know he’s lost it, or just you?”

  “He’s wondering, but I know. That’s why I didn’t really look at him. I don’t want him to go into the race knowing he’s lost it. He might get hurt or something.”

  “Audrey, I don’t understand this.”

  “Well, jeez, Mom. I don’t understand it, either. But it’s true.”

  “Don’t say ‘jeez’ to me like that. It’s rude.”

  “Sorry.”

  This, Florence thought as they looked for her father-in-law’s car in the parking lot, was something she understood, rudeness between a twelve-year-old daughter and h
er middle-aged mother. And it was sort of a relief, to tell the truth. In her right pocket, the wad of cash bulged like a lightbulb. They got into the car and bore their winnings northward.

  AUGUST

  37 YEARLINGS FOR SALE

  YOU HAD TO KNOW the hell of Keeneland in July to recognize the heaven of Saratoga in August. Even if it got hot, which wasn’t very often, thought Buddy, the trees were so large and shady that you were inspired with thoughts of earlier, pre-air-conditioning times, and were led to believe that you could not only endure but thrive on the heat, become one of those nineteenth-century men, like Colonel Bradley, who raced Man O’ War, men who had fewer conveniences but more energy, less education but more intelligence, and shorter lives but longer days than poor late-twentieth-century sinners like himself. Saratoga was the one place he’d been to lately that didn’t make Buddy Crawford wish he were dead.

  Buddy distinguished this wish from a desire to commit suicide, which he had none of, because he was not a depressed sort of guy and never had been. He was an angry sort of guy, and always had been, and Jesus fully understood that, and, you might say, even sympathized with that, because hadn’t he himself gotten mad at that tree, whatever it was, that didn’t fruit out or something when he ordered it to? Buddy wasn’t much of a reading man, either, and even though he’d gotten himself one of those Bibles that were written in regular English, he tended to fall asleep over the stories unless he skimmed them, but the fact was, if you read really fast, your eyes picked up the main points and then Jesus came into you and told you what was important about the rest. The difference between wishing you were dead and wanting to commit suicide was that wanting to commit suicide was a kind of sad-sack impulse characteristic of losers, and wishing you were dead was just a choice, like oatmeal for breakfast instead of a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Especially now that Buddy knew that his eternal reward was waiting for him, wishing he were dead seemed more like, say, wishing to move to Hawaii or something.

  If he were dead, Buddy thought, he wouldn’t go on mulling over this dilemma he had. Yes, he had gotten rid of both Epic Steam and Residual, but it had made no difference. He was still winning, winning, winning. The Hollywood meet: 103 runners, thirty-four winners, twenty second, twenty-six third, a not quite 30-percent win average, there in the Form for every loser at the track to see. And so far at Del Mar, only two weeks, things were going about the same. However, Jesus, it was well attested, liked a loser, especially a good loser. That was his dilemma. He could not seem to become a loser, but the meek blah blah blah. It was perfectly clear. Still, it was a toss-up, when you woke up in the night and told yourself that Jesus would like you better with a 4-percent win average, whether that was enough to compensate for how much you wouldn’t like yourself. But the reason he didn’t wish he were dead in Saratoga was that it wasn’t polite to do so, and so nobody did. Also, his owners were traipsing after him in a herd, waiting for him to designate his chosen future winners. The fact was that every racing man who had ever been to Saratoga had made a fervent wish never to die, so that he could return to Saratoga year after year until the oceans dried up and Thoroughbreds became extinct.

  The yearlings looked good this year, Buddy thought, at least they maybe sort of looked good, but he found himself having odd feelings. For example, they’d stand up a yearling and he’d bend down in the time-honored way and check to see if the animal’s legs were straight and correct. Yes, he’d think, or no. Yes or no. A man like him, a trainer for decades, knew correct. Not only did he know correct, he was known for knowing correct, otherwise why did he have a herd of owners? But then something about one of the legs would throw him off and he’d start to doubt his own expertise. Did the knee turn in? Was the leg a little bent? Yes? Or no? Was the fact that the white sock seemed to vibrate in front of his eyes throwing off his judgment, and then was the white sock really vibrating? If the white sock was vibrating, what did that mean? It was like back in California and you woke up and you thought sure the bed had been shaking, but now it wasn’t. Was it an earthquake? Was it a heavy truck on the highway, a dog under the bed, a dream, his heart beating its way to a heart attack, an intruder trying to wake him up, a horse in his barn miles away keeling over and shaking the ground, Jesus asking for his attention? In that moment just when you woke up, you didn’t know. Any of these things was possible. So yes or no? And then so what? Horses with straight legs often ran like fat women, and horses with corkscrew legs often ran like cheetahs. And, given his dilemma, which ones did he want, winners or losers? And by the time all these thoughts had gone through his head, he couldn’t remember whether the animal’s legs had looked straight to him in the first place, and he was squatting there staring like an idiot, so he stood up and went on to the next, and the whole thing was a blur, sort of like his life had become since the day he’d accepted Jesus and thrown out the drugs and the buzzers and the toegrabs and the steep turndowns.

  So he stood up and went to the next horse, closely followed by the click of Andrea Melanie Kingston’s high heels and the flap flap of Jason Clark Kingston’s big feet. They thought nothing of nearly treading on the counters of his shoes in their eagerness to buy buy buy. This was a big chestnut colt, and here was Farley Jones, all by himself, exhibiting his usual coolness, stroking his beard, keeping himself to himself. Farley squatted down, then stood up, and said in tones of perfect lack of self-doubt, to himself, it seemed, “Good feet. Straight in front. Good hocks.”

  Buddy noted the hip number, and when Farley moved off, he turned to his owners’ gallery and said to Jason Clark Kingston, “That one might fit your program.”

  Taken all in all, and knowing that he would wish he were dead again as soon as he got back to southern California, Buddy hoped the Saratoga sale lasted an eternity. You could do it—horses getting shipped in, horses getting shipped out, money getting shipped in, money getting shipped out, but the trainers and agents and owners just wandering around day after breezy day in a fog of yearlings until Jesus came and put everyone out of their misery.

  IT WAS ALWAYS TRUE, Farley thought, that avoidance bred approach. For example, he had been avoiding Buddy Crawford all day, and all day Buddy Crawford had been right there. Back in southern California he didn’t see Buddy Crawford for weeks, but here in Saratoga he couldn’t turn around without seeing Buddy looking at him, flanked by a regiment of owners who were also looking at him. And in Buddy’s eyes Farley thought he saw, could it be, longing. Farley tried not to feel uncomfortable about either the owners or the longing, but pure naked longing, unleavened by irritability, anger, spleen, resentment, aggression, and the other invigorating hot-headed emotions, was clearly a painful feeling for Buddy, and posed a social challenge for Farley, probably, he thought, because he felt a touch of that longing himself. He had come to the sale without a single owner in tow, and he didn’t really have a purpose here, except the usual Saratoga purpose, which was to enjoy oneself. And so he had attempted that very thing—he had strolled around downtown, strolled around the sale, strolled around the grandstand and watched some races, taken his rental car up into the Adirondacks a bit, driven over to Tangle-wood and taken in some Mozart, even though none of the other trainers knew this, gotten out of his car and taken a little hike. And though he was originally from the East, New Jersey, the humidity had surprised and wilted him. No, he wasn’t having a good time. Yes, he was out of place—he should be in Del Mar. The regret he felt about this mistake swelled with his every attempt to relax. The owner he didn’t have in tow, hocking him, nagging him, worrying about money, having bright ideas, showing off, having to be restrained and guided, followed him around, a black, owner-shaped hole, much like a shadow, and blindingly visible to every trainer who did have an owner in tow. The fact was, it was an owner who made you what you were as a trainer. Without the owner’s greed, impetuousness, ignorance, and money, you, the trainer, had no need for experience, skepticism, or wisdom. Without an owner you were just a guy.

  Farley had thought he
was making it. All around southern California he had been walking, talking, and acting just as if he knew what life was all about—virtue being its own reward, taking the bad with the good, letting go, rolling with the punches. He probably counseled Oliver in these precepts every single day. But as he idled around the sale, pretending to look at the yearlings but not really seeing them, he knew that, in the end, you really did have to have that egomaniacal owner right at your elbow, yammering in your ear about his needs, in order to know yourself by contrast.