by Jane Smiley
“Leo—”
But his dad was out the door, throwing on a jacket, before his mom finished her sentence. She got up and went into the kitchen without looking at him. Jesse sat down at the table and focused on the eggplant parmesan. It was red, with white cheese over the top, and there were orange streaks of grease on the cheese, blackish crusty things around the sides. It had a strong smell, probably not a bad one—he could imagine its even being a good one if you were in a certain mood. But he wasn’t in that mood. He knew that he should look away from the eggplant, that he was making the eggplant look worse to him than it had to, but he just kept looking at the eggplant anyway.
His mom came out of the kitchen with some bread in a basket and a smile on her face. She set the bread down and then sat down herself, and pretty soon a big spoon went into the eggplant, and a big lump of it went onto his plate. Steam rose around it like a ghost. A big lump of it went onto his mom’s plate. She was still smiling. Jesse knew all about that smile. It was a smile she was doing a good job at, and it was all she could manage for right now. As Jesse incorporated most of the eggplant into his system, he thought about the jockeys at the track, their stomachs, and he thought about the eggplant going around the knot in his own stomach, just sliding around it, and it got down okay. After they had finished, she said, “I’ll clear this up, honey. It isn’t much. Why don’t you go do your homework right now, and then maybe we’ll play a game before you go to bed.”
He didn’t have any homework, so Jesse read a few chapters of an old Goosebumps book that he had under his bed. Then he cleaned out some of the stuff under there—there were lots of candy wrappers, some popcorn, and a couple of withered apple cores, as well as shreds of this and that. He didn’t understand how things under the bed got shredded like that, but okay. Finally, because his mom seemed to want him to, Jesse came out of his room and walked across the living room and sat down beside her. She smiled instantly, and then said the very thing that Jesse had refused to say to himself all evening: “I hope your father doesn’t get hurt.”
“I didn’t know he had a gun,” said Jesse.
“Let’s play Uno Stacko.”
“Okay.”
She went over to the shelf and got the game, a tall stack of red, green, yellow, and blue plastic pieces shaped like I-beams. The point was to try and remove the lower beams and place them on top of the stack, until you had a very unstable tower that suddenly fell over. Leo would always give him a dollar if it fell over on his turn. But, then again, Leo would always take a dollar from him if it fell over on Jesse’s turn. Leo was a believer in justice rather than mercy. He had said that over and over for years, since long before Jesse knew what either justice or mercy was.
She carefully set up the stack, aligning it with the cardboard piece that came with it, then she handed him the dice. He rolled a two and pulled one of the number-two pieces out of the middle of the stack, then set it on top. Then his mom pulled out a four, and so on and so forth. He was terrified that she might say something about Leo, but when she started talking she said, “I called up the place tonight, and I’m going to learn to drive.”
“You are?”
“He said it would take longer because I’m thirty-five, but I think now’s the time.”
“Why?”
“Well, sweetheart, I don’t think I’ll ever get back to New York, you know?”
“I never thought we would get back to New York, Mom. Dad grew up here, and he hates Aqueduct.”
“I’m joking, honey. I know we won’t get back to New York. I wouldn’t want to go, either. But I’m going to learn to drive. It’s kind of exciting, really.” She had two turns, and pulled out a one and a three. Jesse pulled out a four. They kept going quietly, and Jesse felt himself get a little into the game. A long time ago it had been his favorite game, say when he was four and five. He’d found the growing tower almost scary, but he’d been quite proud of the stillness with which he could place those I-beams. He was really into the game, which was why it surprised him when he himself said, “There’s something wrong with Leo.” He didn’t say “Dad,” either, he said “Leo,” just like he didn’t know his own father very well.
“Oh, Jesse,” said his mom.
“There is. I think he’s got a brain tumor.”
“Why is that?”
“Because there’s something wrong with him. The things he says don’t go together right.”
“I don’t think he has a brain tumor, darling.”
“But you do think there’s something wrong with him.”
“I do.”
“Tell me what it is.” Jesse thought sure she was going to use some word he didn’t understand, some kind of disease word, but she said, “He’s just so full of longing.”
“What does he long for?”
“To stop longing for things, I suppose.”
This Jesse understood perfectly. In the first place, he knew what longing was, and in the second place, he could easily imagine this endless circle of longing to be freed of longing. He said, “Do you think Leo is handsome?”
“Yes.”
“Me, too. Is that why you married him?”
“Maybe. He was different then. He was only twenty-two. None of this stuff had taken hold. And I was only twenty. The thing is, Jesse, Leo needs someone to tell him that he didn’t do anything bad.”
“But he did. He’s done lots of bad things.”
She sat back on the couch and looked at him. She said, “I know, Jesse. That’s the problem I can’t solve.” She looked at him. She said, “You can’t solve it, either, honey.” Jesse said, “I know.” And he did know. So many times, he had said, “It’s all right, Dad,” but Leo had never believed him. Here was the thing, Jesse thought: On the one hand, there was the track—money, signs, horses, getting out of school, sunshine, and a general nice feeling to begin with that could get better or worse by the end of the day. Jesse knew all about that. But now, on the other hand, there was a gun and the will to use it and the men who might have to have it used on them. And it was all the same thing. What was Jesse supposed to think about that? He said, “Are you scared, Mom?”
She nodded, and then she said, “Not all of the time, though,” and Jesse understood that all along there had been more going on than he had known about, that all along he had been in a car in the fog on a winding highway, and he was the only one in the car who didn’t know that sometimes, maybe quite often, the car veered toward the edge of the road and only just kept going out of luck.
Fortunately for everyone, whatever had happened with Park Min Jong, it had been all right, because Leo was in a terrific mood when he got home. He came into Jesse’s room and got him up and sat down on the bed and told him some things he had to know. Jesse’s mom came to the doorway, and one time she said, “Leo, it’s two a.m.,” but Leo said, “When a boy has to learn something about how the world works, it doesn’t matter what time it is, honey.” Leo never spoke to Jesse’s mom in any voice but a loving and kind one.
The first thing Leo did was take the gun out of his shoulder holster and lay it on Jesse’s bed, carefully pointing the end of the barrel away from everyone, toward the corner of the room where stood Jesse’s clothes tree with Winnie-the-Pooh on the top. “Son,” Leo said, “I’m going to tell you what happened tonight, because I want you to know exactly the kind of man I am. If you’re going to judge me, and all sons judge their fathers, that’s part of life, then you need to have the whole story.”
“Okay,” said Jesse.
“Now, son, there was once this guy named Henry David Thoreau. He lived near Boston, but they didn’t have Suffolk Downs then, so he wasn’t a racing man, but he said some good things anyway, and one of the good things he said, well, not good in the sense that it is a happy thing, but good in the sense that it is a right thing, was that the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation, and of course he meant women, too, since in those days ‘men’ meant women and men and children. The first real racetrack in th
e Northeast was Jerome Park, you know, that was started by Winston Churchill’s grandfather—”
Jesse thought it was safe here to show interest by asking who Winston Churchill was.
Leo said, “Winston Churchill was a British politician who was short enough to be a jockey, but of course he couldn’t keep his weight down. There’s a famous picture of him with two other guys, Franklin Roosevelt, who was our president, and Joe Stalin, who I don’t believe was a racing man, either, but all sorts of interesting new information is coming out of Russia now, so we could be surprised. Anyway, that’s beside the point.”
Jesse decided it was better to keep his mouth shut.
“My father lived a life of quiet desperation, and this is why. He let the bookies walk all over him. I can’t tell you the number of times my father came home and the bookies had changed the odds on him, or failed to pay him off, or even just ignored him by not taking his bets. You know, when a bookie dies, they always write in the paper, ‘Joe Schmo made his fortune in questionable investments.’ That’s a fact.” He turned to Jesse’s mom, who was still standing in the doorway, and said, “Did you know that, Allison?”
Jesse’s mom shook her head.
“I always thought that was funny. I mean a funny phrase, but the way that they try to skim money isn’t funny at all, and is very like the way that rich and powerful people in general try to take more than their share. You know, speaking of Joe Stalin, I just remembered a funny thing. Once I was thinking about Joe Stalin for some reason, this was back in the East, and right there on the program for some race was a horse named ‘Marxist,’ so I put a hundred bucks on his nose to win, because I was thinking of Joe Stalin, who was a Marxist, of course. Do you know what a Marxist is, Jesse?”
Jesse shook his head.
“Well, they don’t have Marxists anymore, but they weren’t all wrong, you know, because they knew about how money works, and bookies work, and how the track always gets too much of the bet pool, and another thing, too, which is that power always comes from the barrel of a gun. Marxism, you might say, was a whole philosophy about the vig. You know what the vig is? It’s the takeout, what the middleman gets, and how the little fish always pays the vig and the big fish doesn’t.”
Meanwhile, everyone was looking at the gun on the bed.
Leo sighed. “Anyway, son, that Marxist horse paid off thirty-to-one that time, so I always had a soft spot in my heart for Joe Stalin, who came into my mind just at the right moment for me to go with one of the best long shots I ever bet.”
Jesse wasn’t quite sure where all of this was going, but he didn’t want to introduce any other possible digressions, so he kept his mouth shut. Leo continued to stare at the gun. Jesse’s mom finally stepped into the room and sat down at the end of Jesse’s bed.
Leo went on, “I made up my mind when I was your age that I wasn’t going to live a life of quiet desperation like my dad. Now, that is saying that I judged my dad and found him wanting. I know that, and may I be forgiven for that, but it is a natural thing to do, and someday you will do it, too, and you will be forgiven for it, too. Today, when I went to see Park Min Jong, I had that in mind. That I had judged my father, and that, in order for me to be justified about that, I had to act on my judgment. So, you see, when I ran out of here, I was doing that for you, son. And for my father. And for your mother, too. Now, here’s another thing. Korean society is a very patriarchal society. Do you know what that means?”
Jesse shook his head.
“That means that the father rules the roost and everybody pays attention to him. And when I went to see Park Min Jong, and I had my gun with me, I had all of these things in my mind, and also my fourteen hundred dollars. If there is fourteen hundred dollars coming to my family, that I have earned for them, then, as a man and a father, I have to get it, you know.”
Jesse hazarded a nod.
“That’s one of my principles. And”—he drew a wad of cash out of his pocket—“I got it.” It was a biggish wad, so Jesse thought he must have gotten it in small bills. Leo peeled a five off the outside of the wad and laid it on the covers, on Jesse’s knee. He said, “There’s something for you, son.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“I learned a lesson with that money, son. Ask me what it was.”
“What was it?”
“I learned that the Koreans will respect you if you stand up to them. The Chinese won’t, and you never want to stand up to a Russian, you know, just stay away from a Russian bookie, no matter what. The Jews are still the best, taken all in all, and I don’t say that because we’re Jewish, you know. It’s just all lessons. Life is a set of lessons, and if you pay attention every day, you’ll learn them.” He stood up. “Got that?”
Jesse nodded.
“You’re a good boy,” said Leo. And he pulled Jesse’s mom up by the hand, and put his arm around her waist. She said only the second thing she’d said all night, which was “Don’t leave the gun, Leo.”
Leo turned and picked up the gun, looked at it, weighed it in his hand, and said, “Son, when you come to judge your father, remember that I had the guts to take it, but I wasn’t dumb enough to shoot it, okay?”
“Okay.”
Leo hit the light as he went out of the room. After a moment, when he knew his parents’ door was closed, Jesse got up and opened his curtains, but there was nothing to see, no moon and no stars. He lay down again, on his back, and pulled the covers up to his chest. Leo didn’t have to tell him anything more about Park Min Jong in order for Jesse to know for a fact how it had gone there. Leo, of course, thought that when the bookie gave him the money he was also giving him respect, but, Jesse realized, how could that be true? Right then, in the middle of the night, it was as if he saw Leo through the bookie’s eyes, small-time. All the talk. The whole system. The racetrack itself. Everything about it was very small-time. All the theory in the world, and even all the money in the world, couldn’t change that.
56 / CHICKENS
NOW THAT ROSALIND had realized that her function in life was simply to follow instructions, she had many fewer problems. One offshoot of the Information Revolution was that instructions everywhere abounded, and most of the time you could follow them in any one of three to ten languages. And, then, people came into the gallery, workmen, artists, other dealers, customers, friends, and they were full of instructions, too. Artists, for example, were paragons of instruction. Following their wishes on exactly how and where to hang each of their pieces was a Zen exercise in discipline, futility, patience, and, finally, removal of the self from the material plane of existence. Friends and other dealers were full of instructions on how to deal with various artists, and Rosalind noted them all. The telephone rang all the time, and voices from all over the world told her where to pick things up, what to pay for them, where to ship, how to wrap, what to expect. Rosalind nodded and smiled and knew exactly what to do and what spirit to do it in.
It was with this practice under her belt that she was standing in her gallery toward dusk one evening, appreciating a moment of calm comfort (the February weather on Madison Avenue was gloomy and chill, therefore the gallery was bright and warm), when she answered the phone, and was instructed by Krista Magnelli to go out to Belmont the next morning and see Limitless. “He’s been at the track for two months now,” said Krista. “I just have a niggling worry. For one thing, I don’t like to call your trainer and pry, and for another, I’m sure nothing’s wrong.”
The fact was that Rosalind knew exactly how to follow this instruction. She had driven out to Belmont Park countless times. No consultation with any authority in any language was at all necessary. But it was a good thing she had been following instructions so carefully for such a long while, because otherwise she would have felt her heart jump at the thought, and not for joy. She might even have reeled backward a centimeter or two at the very idea, or had to shake her head to clear any small fog that settled there. But because she was so practiced now, she just said, “Well, Kr
ista, it probably is time for me to check on things out there. Thank you for reminding me. Al has been back and forth to Russia so much, and I’ve been—”
“You know,” Krista said, “it’s not like I’ve had a bad feeling or anything, I mean, no more so than the usual bad feelings that I get about everything.”
“We certainly would have heard if anything were off with the horse. I’m sure he’s fine.”
“Well, the thing is, I don’t have a bad feeling.”
“I’ll be happy to go see the horse.”
“It’s very reassuring to talk to you, Rosalind.”
“I’ll take care of whatever needs to be taken care of.”
“Thank you so much.”
The important thing to understand was that, if you were simply going out to see your former lover because you wanted to or needed to, then of course you would be uneasy, but if you were going out there because you were instructed to, then there was no need to be uneasy, because your instructions, as they evolved, would also include instructions about how to know what to say and do in your former lover’s presence. And so there was nothing to worry about.
Eileen, who had been sleeping in the broom closet, nosed open the door and came into the wide space of the gallery. She stretched deliberately backward, then deliberately forward. She seemed to propel every mote of stiffness from her tail through her shoulders, then out through her upraised black little nose. Then she shook herself vigorously and looked at Rosalind. Rosalind hardly spoke to her anymore, at least not to give her commands. Each of them had taken full measure of the other and arrived at a permanent understanding. Eileen would not under any circumstances give up certain modes of expression that she deemed necessary to her well-being. On the other hand, she would come, sit, stay, lie down, be quiet, be affectionate, and respect Rosalind’s belongings without being prompted. For a Jack Russell, Rosalind had been told, this verged on sainthood. Rosalind picked up her coat. Eileen came over and sat down beside her. Rosalind turned out the lights in the office and the storeroom. Everything else was buttoned up tight. Eileen followed Rosalind’s clicking heels down the stairs, out the door, down the street. At the restaurant where Rosalind had agreed to meet friends, she paused outside the door, leaned down, and opened her totebag. Eileen jumped in, lay down, curled up. Rosalind opened the door and walked in. Of course the maître d’ had seen the dog get into the totebag, of course the totebag bulged suspiciously, but the maître d’ said nothing except “Let me show you to your table. Your party is already seated.”