Whitechurch (14 page)

“Yes!” I insist.

“Maybe!” Pauly insists.

Adam breaks off in the middle of what he’s doing and comes rushing toward the front. I hold the ticket out in front of him, as if Adam’s coming by on his carousel horse to grab the brass ring.

But he doesn’t. He sweeps right on by and heads to the counter, to the phone. Picks up and dials madly.

“So exciting, so exciting,” Adam Everly buzzes.

“So exciting,” I repeat, not to mock Adam, but because Adam’s fever is contagious.

Pauly is immune, though. “I’ll be outside,” he says in a hard-boiled bored voice.

“Ya, Dad,” Adam shouts into the phone. “I sold it. I sold it to him last night. First one first one I ever—” Adam stops talking, starts nodding at the phone. “How much?” he then asks me.

“Fifty.”

“Fifty, Dad. Ya.” Pause. “Well it is much. I think it’s much.”

“I think it’s much,” I say, loudly, leaning toward fiber-optic Asa Everly.

“He thinks it’s much. Oakley thinks it’s much. You know how much that is? At fifty cents a pound, I gotta do …”

I rush in to shore up Adam’s momentum dip. “A hundred pounds.”

“A hundred pounds of people’s laundry, Dad. That’s like a million pairs of underwear I gotta fold. And touch. Sweaty and stained and … even
after
they come out of the washer, Daddy …”

I no longer want to be here for this.

“Dad? …Yes, I know what time it is. I thought you would want to …”

The moment when Asa hangs up on Adam registers clearly on the son’s face. He holds the receiver to his ear a few seconds longer. “Okay. Okay, I’ll talk to you later then,” he says while watching me.

We stand there staring at each other. Adam, red-faced, pops open the cash register and starts counting out the cash.

“I woke him up,” Adam says to the money drawer. He is apologizing to his father and to me at the same time. “He wasn’t awake yet, and the phone … our phone has a real screechy ring … he’s not feeling well either….”

Then he looks up from the counting.

“I d-d-d-don’t have enough,” he says. “M-m-m-money in the till …” It seems very likely that Adam Everly is going to cry. “Th-th-this afternoon, I s-s-s-swear …”

I hold my ground, which is exactly what I do not wish to do. I want to fly, to evaporate, to leave Adam Everly in peace, or as close to peace as he can get.

“You can bring it to King’s,” I say calmly, as if this is just one more guy who’s come up a little short when he owes another guy. “Dinner tonight like I promised.”

Hard to buck Adam up. “I think it might be a f-f-f-federal o-f-f-fense, for me not to have your m-money.”

Pauly starts banging on the window, waving me out. I start for the door, point mock-menacingly at Adam. “You’re lucky,” I say. “I’d drop a dime on ya … but you got all five hundred of my dimes.”

Outside, I want a laugh now. “He didn’t have my money.”

Pauly’s eyes bug. “Is that typical, or what? You didn’t win like seventy million … you want me go break his legs?”

I shake my head. “Thanks anyway. But he said he’d get it this afternoon and bring it with him later. The important part though, Paul, is that he’s got it by tonight, because I also get to take Lilly to dinner as well.”

“My Lilly?”

“Yup. Just like Adam, she said if I win I gotta take her to King’s. It’s a matter of principle now.” I start walking a little bit faster, so Pauly has to talk to my back.

“You don’t make me jealous, y’know, Oakley. You might be the only guy in this town—you might be the only guy on
earth
who doesn’t make me jealous.”

“Damn,” I say. But I already knew that. But that doesn’t stop me from trying. “Two dates for dinner. I’ll be getting all kinds of sex tonight.”

“Well,” Pauly says coolly, “both kinds, anyway.”

Lilly tells me when I call that she can’t make it to King’s tonight. Says she’s got a date.

“The rat,” I say.

She laughs at that.

“He knew I was taking you … so cancel Pauly. Better yet, stand him up.”

“Maybe it’s not with Pauly,” she says mysteriously.

Right. She’s even acting like him. “Fine. Your loss.”

“Good luck,” she says, chuckles, then hangs up.

When I walk into King’s I am further thrown. Adam Everly is there, fretting himself into a puddle. And sitting with him is Pauly.

“Don’t you have a date?” I say to Paul as I sit down across from him. I hand my napkin immediately to Adam. He mops his brow.

“No, I don’t have a date,” Paul says.

“You have a date with Lilly, don’t you?”

“No, I thought you had a date with Lilly.”

“All right now, what’s going—”

“She’s baby-sitting,” Pauly says. “She stood you up. Get used to it.”

“I d-d-don’t have your money,” Adam blurts.

“Oh, friggin’ spoil it, why don’tcha,” Pauly maps.

I sigh. “I’m not eating tonight, am I, guys?”

“See,” Pauly says, pointing at me. “See, Oakley, there it is right there. Your constant negativity. You have no faith, no optimism. That’s why you need me.”

“You’re the reason I’m so negative. What did you do to me now?”

“You’re going to hurt my feelings any minute now, Oakley.”

“He m-m-made me do it, Oakley.”

“Where’s my money?”

Pauly smiles. Sometimes I get the feeling my primary function is to play into his hands. “It’s right in here,” he says, pointing to a canvas bag at his feet. The bag is wiggling.

Chellie King comes over to serve us. She’s a bit of a relief. Chellie King is an endlessly optimistic person, nearly positive spirited enough to offset my attitude.

“You guys ready to order?” she asks, pencil poised.

“Go away, Chellie,” I say. “I’m gonna kill somebody.”

“Why is that bag moving?” she asks.

“D-d-don’t kill me, Oakley.”

Chellie King peeks into the bag. “Ugh! Pauly, you are so freaking weird. That is a health code violation.” She grabs Pauly by the shirt and pulls him out of his chair. “You and your bag of rats get the hell out of here.”

“I’m sorry,” Adam Everly pleads. “I’m sorry, Chellie. I’m sorry, Oakley.”

Pauly is laughing.

I speak with exaggerated calm, the way you do when you’re going insane. “You spent my fifty bucks on a bag of rats?”

This only makes him laugh harder. “It’s not rats. It’s only one rat.”

Chellie King is shoving him with both hands, out the door.

Adam Everly and I follow him. The only possible explanation is morbid curiosity.

“You’re going to thank me for this eventually,” Paul says, backing away from me.

I am not going to thank him. “Ever wonder what it would feel like to have a fifty-dollar rat up your ass?”

“Been there, done that,” he says just before I snag the bag.

I am staring into it. “It is. It’s an actual rat.”

“Not just any rat,” Pauly says. “A thoroughbred.”

“Ya, Oakley,” Adam Everly says.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” Pauly explains as I stick the bag back in his hands. He scoops the little creature out and cradles it. It is not all that little actually. It is big, and white. It is fat. It has a big rear end. “He’s a racing rat.”

I turn and start walking away.

Pauly grabs me. “Listen. I knew a guy … he was cash strapped, and he had this rat. They race them on the circuit, you know, all through the six counties. Anyway, this is the famous White Rabbit.”

He’s looking at me like he’s just introduced me to Babe Ruth.

“I’ll d-d-do your laundry for free, Oakley, or, like, a year. I’m sorry….”

“Sure you’ve heard of the White Rabbit. Son of the Galloping Ghost and the Silver Fox?”

I am staring at him as hard as I can, but if anyone was ever immune to the power of staring, it’s Pauly. “Fifty bucks,” I say. “For a racing rat. For a fat racing rat.”

“Don’t be a dope, Oakley. For bloodlines like he’s got? Plus your license … he’s got papers, you know … and his colors….” Pauly holds up some tiny emerald-colored racing silks with the number thirteen on them. “It was a steal, really.”

“Good word there, Paul. How much of my money is left?”

“You owe me fifteen.”

My mouth drops open. I look to Adam Everly.

“K-k-kicked in fifteen myself.”

Pauly’s beaming as he tucks our little athlete and all his gear back into the bag. “Fine, you don’t have to pay me back. We’re all investors. We’re a syndicate.”

Morbid curiosity. Again. How much of my life has been driven by nothing more than morbid curiosity? Before I know it, we are at … the track. It is a barn about twenty-five miles north, off Route 95. There are grizzled old Yankee types scattered all over the place, putting
their
little investments through their paces. Rodents running wind sprints all over the place.

“The
buzz
of this joint,” Pauly says. “Don’t you love sports?”

“Why, Pauly? Please, why are you doing this to me?”

“Because, Oakley, because I am the only person who really cares about you. See, you were going to take that fifty bucks and do what? You were going to eat some crap food, have some boring conversation just like every conversation you try to have without me, then you’d finish up by having sex with my girlfriend and Adam Everly.”

“What?” Adam says. “What?” He is having trouble prioritizing. Should he be more freaked about all the rats all over the floor, or about having sex with me?

“But,” says Pauly, “instead you have Pauly. Thinking-about-you-all-the-time Pauly. And I know all about your disturbing lack of ambition, and I am determined not to let you rot in your own inertia. You need a catapult, something to propel you into bigger and better things.”

“Bigger and better?”

“Hey, listen. I tried to get you a racehorse, but none of the available fifty-dollar stallions seemed likely to win much. With White Rabbit, though, you can make your money back
tonight
, and go on to earn lots more. Stop laughing, Oakley, I’m serious.”

You know, he is. He is deadly serious.

“Ahh,” Adam yelps, running a quick small circle. “A damn rat just ran over my f-f-foot.”

“So what,” Pauly says. “These are all clean celebrity rats.”

“This was not a racing rat.”

“Ah, well, probably just a groupie then.”

It is getting so that I am having to work hard at remaining angry. “How often do they do this stupidity?”

“Three nights a week, and what, are you afraid this stupidity is going to cut into your going to the Laundromat to watch strangers fold their undies?”

“I suppose you may have a point in there someplace.”

“Now you’re thinking. And remember this—when his racing days are over, there’s still serious money to be made in stud fees.”

I have to laugh. This, finally, is what I am aspiring to. “Ah, my ticket to the bigs. Pimping for rats.” And the laugh feels good. The laugh alone may have been worth the fifty bucks. “Not that I’m gonna take this seriously,” I say, “but just for the laugh, how much can we win?”

“Five bucks to enter, twelve rats, winner take all. Sixty clams per race.”

“Th-th-that’s why I did it, Oakley,” Adam Everly says. “The upside … the upside, it’s really high. We could, you know, really do well … show people, show people we can do something, we can win something, we can make, like, s-s-s-something….”

Poor Adam Everly is getting all frothy. Poor Adam Everly wants to show his dad he can manage a champion rat racer.

A small portable stereo plays the silly bugle call that they do at the beginning of horse races. This is soooo stupid. I am relieved that nobody I know can see me here. Then I look over to my syndicate-mates, pep-talking White Rabbit. I’m glad no sane people I know can see me.

But as he lines up in lane three, I have butterflies in my stomach.

What the hell am I doing with butterflies in my stomach?

“I got butterflies,” Adam Everly says.

“I got flippin’ butterfuckinflies in my stomach,” Pauly says.

And why not? Why couldn’t we make something out of this? It
is
better than watching laundry tumble. Just because it is a patently Pauly idea doesn’t mean it can’t bear fruit.

“You fired up?” Pauly asks me, bumping up against me as we hang over the rail of the oval tabletop track.

“I am,” I say. Then I notice, “So is he.”

White Rabbit is acting the fool among his peers. As they await the start, all the other competitors are doing ordinary rodent things, licking their little hands, slicking back their hair, shitting. But our boy is going off the charts, doing like, back flips and handstands, chasing his tail and trying to eat the AstroTurf carpeting of the track. “What’s his problem?” I ask. “I thought he was a pro at this.”

Pauly looks a tad nervous as well. “Ah, he’ll be fine. He’s just a little excited … ’cause you’re here watching.”

I shove him away. Then the gun goes off, and so do the rats.

The first lap of the oval goes very well, as White Rabbit is off like a bullet. There’s nobody close to him. I cannot believe the noise level in the barn, like the Indy 500 is going off here. Coming into the second lap, White Rabbit is creaming the field, and I’m thinking, My god what a rush. Pauly was right. This rat is a thoroughbred. This might really be something. I turn to my mates. Pauly is whooping like a madman. Adam Everly is biting his lip, looking more like an expectant father than a fractional owner of a racing rat. I can’t stop nervous goofy laughing.

Until the event. All White Rabbit needs to do is cruise through those last three laps, collect the food bits that have been sprinkled in front of him, and then we’ll take him out for champagne. But he goes haywire.

First he reverses. Goes back where he came from. Stops. Starts jumping into the air. High into the air. On his third jump, he goes over the barrier and lands in lane four, where he comes face-to-face with his nearest competitor.

Whom he attacks, with as much fury as he can muster. And he can muster plenty. It is a pretty ugly sight, as White Rabbit turns out to be just as good a mauling rat as he was a running rat.

My stomach fills again, with something not at all like butterflies. As White Rabbit, son of Gray Ghost and Silver Fox, puts his opponent to merciless death. And then proceeds to eat him.