Horse Heaven (42 page)

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.

I
T 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.

But just as he didn’t have a horse to bring for Saratoga racing, he didn’t have an owner to bring for Saratoga buying. His owners these days were as cheap as his horses. The ones who had some class personally, like the herbal-supplement people, happened to be fiscally cautious, and others, who were more eager, just happened not to have any money. He looked at the yearlings anyway, but as the hours wore on, Farley felt his spirits dip lower and lower. It didn’t help that some of his past owners, two or three that he had found especially child- or even toddlerlike during former associations, were here, howling on the arms of Buddy Crawford and others, beating out the old refrain, Kentucky Derby, Triple Crown, Breeders’ Cup, I want I want I want.

Cellular phones were ringing everywhere, but his was not. Who am I? thought Farley. Where am I? What am I doing here?

And then he fainted dead away.

When he came to, Buddy Crawford had his hand on Farley’s forehead, and when Farley looked at him, he said, “Jesus Christ, what the fuck, you bastard, you okay?”

It was reassuring, in a way.

Buddy was immediately replaced by an attractive smooth-faced boy of about thirteen who identified himself as a cardiologist with one of those hyphenated hospitals in New York City. Behind him loomed the face of Ralph Halliberton, a trainer at Belmont and Aqueduct whose picture Farley had seen in
The Blood-Horse.
Ralph said to the boy, “Did he have a heart attack, doc?,” and the boy said something that sounded unaccountably like one of those Mozart flute solos he had heard three nights before, and that was that, he closed his eyes. The only thing he could make out was the voice of Buddy
Crawford, rattattattatting above the din, who the fuck what the fuck why the fuck how the fuck when the fuck.

Time passed. Farley sat up. Someone brought him a chair. He took a few deep breaths and a sniff or two, rubbed his face with his hands. The first things that came back to him were odors—the ever-familiar odors of horses and hay, of men sweating. After that, sounds—people talking, hooves clopping, whinnies and snorts. Smells and sounds, the evidence of life resuming. Farley put his hand behind his neck and gave his head a twist, first one way, then the other, then he smoothed down his beard and heaved a deep sigh. At last, what he was seeing took on significance. The face of the boy cardiologist rose before him like a moon, and the mouth said, “Well, I don’t think you had a heart attack. But let me take a little history.”

He answered the usual questions. His age and gender were against him, his weight and life-style were for him. His cholesterol was low, his family background was unsuspicious. Still, you never knew. Farley nodded. Buddy’s head bobbed behind that of the doctor, his eyes still full of longing. Farley shook his head and closed his own eyes. Then he said to the boy doctor, “Can I get up? I think I would like to go back to my hotel.”

“I don’t see why not.” Then, almost shamefacedly, “I’ve got some more horses to look at myself.”

“You’re an owner?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve got one or two. No Derby prospects, though. At least, not yet.” He grinned.

Farley sighed, then said, “Did you save my life?”

“No. Your life wasn’t in danger.”

“Well, I’m grateful to you anyway, so I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told anyone before about the horse business.”

“What’s that?”

Farley opened his mouth. The boy cardiologist looked at him expectantly, sweetly.

“I’m sorry,” said Farley. “I can’t remember.”

He got up from his chair and headed for the parking lot, where he almost bumped into a woman who was standing like a statue at the end of the shedrow. Smoothly blonde, pale of complexion, of no discernible age, dressed in shades of ecru and beige, in sunlit contrast to the dark green of the wooden barn, she caught him as he stumbled toward her. She seemed to set him back on his feet with no effort, though he was tall and she wasn’t. Her grip was solid, deceptively strong, and reassuring. He continued to feel it, on his elbow and his chest, after she had removed her hands. He said, “Thanks! I’m so sorry. I just—”

Rosalind gave one of her slow smiles and said, in a serene, vibrant voice, “It’s all right, dear.”

R
OSALIND WAS WAITING FOR
A
L
. They did everything together now. She heard and saw everything Al Maybrick did, hour after hour, day after day, night after night. They were never apart; Eileen trotted at Al’s heels as if pasted there. Here he came now, from the men’s room. He looked a little florid today, but that was okay, an improvement. He had looked nearly apoplectic the day before. “I don’t know,” he said when he came up to her. “There’s something going on. You got any of that Immodium stuff?”

Rosalind opened her bag and handed him a packet of tablets. Eileen, right behind Al, cocked her head upward and snapped Rosalind a glance, then flopped down on her belly, all four legs stretched out. Rosalind said, “That A.P. Indy colt we saw in the catalogue should be right in this barn.”

“Huh,” said Al.

They turned together. Rosalind put her hand through Al’s arm and they walked like that down the barn, their progress counted out by the passing stall doors. Eileen trotted behind them, whirring along as if on skates. “What’s that hip number?” said Al.

“A hundred and four,” said Rosalind.

“Say,” said Al, “I heard a story about Nureyev. Seems this guy in Texas got himself a zebra from somewhere, some kind of special zebra, and he had his heart set on breeding her to Nureyev.”

“Oh, Al,” said Rosalind.

“This guy swore to God. Anyway, Nureyev breeds at night, you know, so, when the Texan offered them a million bucks’ stud fee, they were tempted. He’s not all that fertile anymore, they say.”

Step step step. It was interesting to Rosalind to place herself inside Al’s personal space. It felt like being inside his body, especially since he himself focused so intently on his body. He had pills, tablets, lotions, ointments, lozenges, drops. Rosalind carried all of them in her purse, along with his crushable hat. She might have thought this would be unpleasant, but it wasn’t. Al was so focused on his body that she could look past it perfectly well. Perhaps he had personal qualities still. Others reacted to him as if he did, but Rosalind didn’t experience them any longer. Perhaps she experienced nothing in the normal sense anymore. No past, no future. Perhaps if she should experience things in the normal sense, she would be afraid of what was happening. But she wasn’t. She was curious. She was fascinated.

“So the studfarm agreed to accept the zebra, and they brought her there
after midnight, and they took her in. Well, Nureyev pawed and squealed and, you know, showed a bit of an interest, but he seemed a little scared of her, so they let it go. Next night, they brought her in, brought him in, same thing. So the stallion manager went up to the horse, most expensive horse in the Blue-grass, they say, maybe in the world, and he tried to calm him. Took him over to the zebra and let him sniff her and all. She was receptive. But, still, he wouldn’t mount, and they didn’t want to get a lot of guys out there, you can understand that, with the Jockey Club and all, so they let it go another night.”

Step step step. The barns at Saratoga seemed very long this year. Eternal. That was okay, too. Every experience of endlessness gave you time to review all that flux you had given up. Most dramatically, you had given up the flux of presence and absence. Where was Dick? Was he here yet? Was that his step? No? How soon? Now? What was he doing if he wasn’t here? Was he late? How late was he? Here he came. Here he was. Did he look the same? What was he going to do now? What did that mean? Was it what she wanted him to do? How could she know what she really wanted him to do? In the room. In her arms. In her. And then not in her. And then not in her arms. And then not in the room. And then not in the vicinity. And then, it felt like, not in existence, as if love itself had died away. Try as she might to tell herself that he was only a man, working, earning a living, conditioning horses, and subject to his own perplexities and anxieties, whenever he left there was an utter goneness about it that emptied her out for a day or two, until, bit by bit, she put herself back together, retrieved from some distant region of her mind an intention, then a plan. Would she see him tomorrow, the next day, next week, in two weeks? But, after all, plans were the worst. They drained you of every bit of present life, until all you were was a containment building, and the ghost of yourself was lost on the vapors of the future, waiting to exist. Enough of that. Better to give up all personal qualities, all hopes, all plans, all dreams. Better to exist in a permanent startle, moments lighting up like sparks and flashing out, goodbye, good-bye, good-bye.