Jaimy Gordon - Lord of Misrule

Somebody pulled his sleeve. What do you know, Ed? It was the frizzly girl. She sat down on the haybale next to him, she say What do you know? and then she don't say nothing. Since she come back from Joe Dale Bigg's farm with Pelter, the hot sauce was gone out of her, the longnose newsbag too. She taken care of her horse, that was about it. She showed up in the morning before even Ed and mucked the stalls and set out the feed buckets and don't say nothing to nobody, and by the time Ed dragged in, and he ain't lay in no bed past four in the morning in forty years, she walking her horse. Pelter-he her horse now. She walked him slow, slow as the horse in front, whosomever it happened to be.

She say, Ed, what do you know? and the rest of the time she quiet. Or what she will say: I gotta get us home. All I want is to get us home in one piece. Who is us, Medicine Ed want to ask. Do that count him, Medicine Ed? But he don't ask and she don't say.

She knows things is falling apart, that's all she know. Deucey and her and Medicine Ed standing under the eaves Sadday last in the steaming hot rain, and the young fool look in and say, Nebraska, k, n, a, sumpm, sumpm, he spelled it out-even Medicine Ed knows Nebraska don't start with no k. That spells knacker, he say, you see how it's almost the same word? Medicine Ed, he don't say nothing. He don't want to get in no disputes with his boss about how you spell this and how you spell that.

But Deucey say, Nebraska spells b, u, t, e, bute, you mean. That's the only thing they got going for them up there, I been there, I know what I'm talking about, and that's the only reason that horse still wins. They pickled him in bute.

It's more to that horse than bute, Medicine Ed put in.

Bute or no bute, the young fool say. Bute is the work of man. We'll see who the forces of good like on race day. Anyhow, bute is not entirely unknown here at the Mound.

The young fool's woman don't pipe up like she used to: Don't they test for bute?

She know better. She knows that spitbox a sometimey thing anymore at all these half-mile tracks. Nobody told her. She finally figure it out for herself. Working for the young fool all this while, she learn to say I don't know nuthin bout no needle with the rest of em. These last years everybody creep closer and closer to post time with that needle, and lessen the office tryna rule somebody off who done made a nuisance of hisself some other way, very very seldom do it come up positive.

Yet and still, the frizzly hair girl too has her entry in that special race. Pelter. Pelter will run and collect his two hundred dollars and maybe even a few more dollars to show, she say. Soon as this race is done, we're going home in dark of night out the back gate if necessary, she say, going back to Charles Town, that's why we need us every dollar I can lay in. Do that us include him, Medicine Ed? Don't count on it.

Now of a sudden she say, I gotta get him out of here, Ed, before he hurts somebody or somebody hurts him. But I don't know if he'll go. Of a sudden she let it out.

He have his own idea about things, Medicine Ed agreed.

He's got it all worked out now where everything fits. I don't know what to do.

She looks at him like he can tell her something. It gives him a peculiar feeling, like inside his throat is tryna grow wings. He tries to think what he can say. From what he know of doctoring, he could tell the frizzly hair girl various ways to set a person crazy. A drilled coconut with his name inside and thrown into a river put a person on a long drag and a drift until his mind get to wavering and go away. A rayroad spike through his clothes keep him a-going and a-going, can't get no rest and never satisfied nowhere he goes. Or his name on a paper in a rotted apple and buried, then he just fall. Can't figure out nothing. Get what you call like mindless before he do go.

But the young fool? Something have made him think he big when he small and strong when he weak, something have set him thinking he the king when he ain't nothing. Long as he think he king, he can't see how low he is, don't know to ask the bad luck to leave him while it's still time, and put it back on them that brung it, and send it back to the Devil where it come from.

Medicine Ed could tell the frizzly hair girl about all that, and even if she don't end up thinking he the crazy one, what she gone do about it? What can he say to give her hope for better? Old Deucey declared the other day it was certain medicines now for crazy people, to clarify they mind. A hospital doctor could write you a prescription for that. But he didn't hold with it: If it was so, and you could cure the insane with a little pill, why was all the state hospitals full as a tick, them for white peoples same as black?

He wished to help the girl. He tried to put his lost home out of his mind and think how he could help her, but what could he say to give her hope when he don't hope himself. He felt her shoulder start to shaking and he knew she was crying. He put his hand on her frizzly head. It was a little stickly, like a old feather pillow, and anymany shades of brown, like the baby sparrows squawking this time of year under the barn eaves, ruffling their small wings and holding their mouths wide open for their mothers to come feed them.

LIKE EVERY RACETRACK DUMMY, Jojo Wood considered himself a prognosticator. Like, he could of wrote the tip sheets, if he hadna been so busy losing races on the same horses. So, in possession for once of a universally touted sure thing, on the way out the door he drilled Two-Tie, the only holdout, between the bow ties with a stubby pointer finger. Lord of Misrule in the seventh, grampop, he said, and don't forget who told you.

Like Two-Tie could forget-he smiled patiently-and the mutt pack trailed with its usual beery racket down the wooden stair, into the summer dawn. Every one of em was getting down on Lord of Misrule. However they could, and whether they owned up to it or not. D'Ambrisi, whose credit was not good, had had to get off his lime green silk shantung suit to borrow a quarter. Deucey Gifford was banking on the entry percentage for Little Spinoza. Little Spinny had a bonafide shot in the race, she said shiftily, running a flat hand over her crewcut the same as she did whenever she was holding better than a pair. She was a worse liar than Elizabeth. And Jojo was riding Pelter, which Two-Tie took it to mean that even little Margaret must be investing in Nebraska. Even if an intelligent person would put Jojo Wood on any horse that could figure, which they wouldn't, everybody knew the jocks, too, were going with Lord of Misrule. They didn't even bother to make no secret of it, though few were as indiscreet as the ever blabbing Jojo, whose dexedrine jitters went straight to his jawbone.

Two-Tie yawned, straightened his two bow ties in the glass doorpane and picked up Elizabeth's leash. He had to wait while she splayed her front feet and stretched herself down like a bridge cable, first the front end, then the back. She couldn't quite get the old altitude, glanced over at him embarrassed, and he politely looked away. Then they were off. Elizabeth thumped and bumped her way down the stair. Anymore she went down like a wooden pull horsey, reared back a little and let down the two in front, bump, then came the two behind, da-bump. For the last three years she was losing the spring in her hind legs and now she was off in her left front too, since she had chased a squirrel into a board fence by the old natrium plant. Usually anymore she only went after the squirrels in first gear, if that, and he had the feeling when she did give chase it was a issue of self respect, so she could call herself a dog, not with no hope of catching nutting. Which was only reasonable. In twelve years she had not caught up with a single squirrel. Then again he did not encourage the killer instinct in Elizabeth. She was more of a thinker, not a athlete, nutting like one of those idiot fox-running dogs, all yap and slobber, which the good old boys from Wetzel County turned loose from their station wagons to tear all round the country while they stayed behind and reclined their seats, drinking Carling Black Label Beer.