C. Morgan - The Sport of Kings

“Good boy.”

“When we—”

“Whoa.” Mike laughed. “Whoa, whoa. We’re not going nowhere till way after lunch, so shut it down.”

Allmon clambered down and crept around the side of the couch where his father lay, first his dark, unruly hair showing, then a single eye. His father, drowsy, couldn’t help but laugh.

“You’re silly,” he said.

“What kind of animals is at the carnival?”

Mike ran the fingers of one hand lazily over Allmon’s Afro. “Bears,” he said. “Snakes, and horses and, like, um … They had baby crocodiles once, I think.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh fuck, I’m so tired. I got like three hours of sleep last night. I drove from Kansas City. Um, a crocodile is like a fish with fucked-up teeth and legs.”

“Ah!” Allmon made a frightened face.

Mike tucked his hands into his armpits and closed his eyes. “Wake me up in two hours,” he said.

Allmon immediately snatched a pillow from the couch and lay down on the floor in imitation of Mike. “Tell me a bedtime story,” he said.

“A story?” Mike said, settling further into the cushions, his brow furrowed. “I don’t know any stories. I’m no good at that. No, wait — wait. Okay, here’s one. So once there was this football game, and it was like really, really cold. Not just any cold, l’m talking like forty below. This shit was crazy; the guys couldn’t feel their fingers and toes, and the field was pretty much ice, so every time there was a tackle, it was cutting through their uniforms and shit. Guys were bleeding all over the place, they were fumbling punts, Green Bay’s kicker was missing the goddamn field goals, ’cause he couldn’t feel his feet. So fourth quarter, they’re all hypothermic as fuck and it’s about to be over, and then — tada — make way for Bart Starr.”

“Star?” said Allmon.

“Yeah, man. Bart Starr was the man, he was Jesus Christ. The great white hope. It’s the fourth quarter, Dallas is up three, Green Bay’s third and goal and this is it. Starr calls a time-out, and he’s got to make a decision. They’re really close, but Green Bay’s falling apart. And Bart Starr knows what’s what: sometimes you gotta bleed to drive the thing home. So what’s he do? Quarterback fucking sneak. He fucking dives in headfirst and burns Dallas down to the ground.” He yawned, so his face stretched horribly. “Best moment in football history right there. That’s how you win when the chips are down. Sacrifice yourself for the team. End of story.”

Mike wasn’t sleeping, but his eyes were closed again. “So, hey, Allmon,” he said, and he yawned another deep yawn that shook his body. “You know what … someday I’m gonna take you…” And then he was asleep.

When Allmon awoke, the sun was insistent, it pressed smothering heat into his face, causing itchy rivulets of sweat to travel into his hair. He reached up and touched the white hand of his father, which had fallen into the air between them. He gripped a finger and the man woke, his eyebrows starting.

“Hey, kid,” he said softly. “Did your ma buy me any beer?” His face was weary and worn as if he’d aged twenty years in his sleep. Lines from the pillow ran ridges along his cheek.

Allmon brought him two. He drank the first in two drafts. The second he drank lying down, in slow sips, while Allmon watched the sliding motions of his Adam’s apple.

“How’s your ma been?” he asked.

“Good,” said Allmon brightly.

“What time is it?”

Allmon only made a confused gesture and Mike said, “Oh shit,” but he didn’t rise. “One more beer,” he said, and Allmon’s grin was slipping, and then, “Two.” And then, after drinking the first, he was asleep again.

Allmon looked down at the body of his father on its berth, the man’s thin hands crossed on his chest. In a moment, Mike began to snore, a lumbering, unhealthy, grown-up sound. With an expression on his face like dawning suspicion, more rudimentary than anger, Allmon placed his small hand on his father’s shoulder. He shook him once, then again and with increasing force until the man was rolling on the couch like a log in heavy water. Finally, Mike brushed Allmon’s hand away. “Let me sleep,” he said thickly, without opening his eyes.

So a new scene begins, though the action follows through. Allmon simply unlocked the door, gripped the waxy banister as he navigated the creaking stairs, and then the full light of the sun was on him — and on his twin, impulse. The crowd on the street absorbed him as it flowed north toward the intersection, where the trucks had driven in with their animal cargo, though years ago the animals rumbled in on boxcars from Pittsburgh, halting just west of the main drag, so as the evening sun was setting, children in their beds heard the grieved crying of the leopards and the hollow hooting of monkeys.

At the roped-off intersection: snakes in grimy glass cages, a panther slinking in a boxcar, a bald red cat in a harness hissing at passersby, a giraffe in a cage half the height of a building. All around, the people of the neighborhood were drunk on beer and freedom, kissing their girlfriends in broad daylight like men on leave, carrying their children on their shoulders, those children held aloft like trophies, calling to one another in contented, proud recognition and cooing at the animals.

They were shoulder to shoulder, sewn together as a great, continuous garment. But look there beyond the tidal wave of people, beyond the ruction, at a horse. It isn’t impressive, just a nag snatched up by a carnie for forty bucks at the slaughterhouse in Peoria. She stands there with a ragged cob in her eyes, a disheveled thing perched on tender, surbated hooves. Her back scoops in at the middle and her rear legs pigeon inward. She’s missing hair at her sides, as if a saddle has long rubbed her permanently raw. Her eyes are very blue, eyes void of protest or argument, full of calm, momentful existence, maybe without memory, the eyes of an animal accustomed to the rowel on her bit and a man’s hard hand on her headstall. When she turns her head, one blue eye settles on Allmon.

“Guess how many hands high,” said the man who reined her, and in his shyness, Allmon said nothing at all, just twisted on one leg, staring up.

“How tall?” the man said again.

“She got a name?” said Allmon, pointing.

“You’ll get a prize for guessing how high.”

“A hundred,” he said softly.

“Huh?” said the man, his face ratcheted in irritation.

Then a woman’s risen voice said, “Who’s that child belong to?” In another moment, a woman halted him with a hand on his shoulder, saying, “Honey, where’s your parents at?” In an instant, his shoulder slipped her grasp and he was on the run, propelled by fear and wicked delight, skidding around bodies and trash cans until two victorious minutes later, the door closed and locked, he stood breathing raggedly over the snoring body of his father, the horse almost forgotten in the yeasty gloam of the room. He tallied seven gold cans on the floor by the couch, one only half-drunk. He stooped and studied his father’s face with care: the sharp, sure lines of his cheeks and chin, his brow creased even in sleep, his freckles like tiny brown smudges of dirt. And white skin — white the color of flour, of paper, of snow, of pearls, of stars.

“Wake up,” he whispered, and, when there was no response, he balled his hand into a fist and with all the strength he possessed, he struck his father on the bone of his shoulder. The snoring ceased and Mike’s bleary red eyes opened. They focused slowly on Allmon’s face. Then one hand reached forward and stopped a tear as it tracked down a cheek.

“Hey Jude,” he said, “don’t be sad.”