John Domini - Highway Trade and Other Stories

“Oh Bro, oh boy,” Robin was saying. “Wow what a shot.”

He turned back, wondering if he’d missed something. She was framing him with squared thumbs and forefingers, a loop of bridle hanging from one fist.

“You glaring across the fields, and Mothra there sort of looming behind you. And when you were like clenching your arms, great . I’ve got to get my camera.”

“Camera?” His smile held up decently. “You’re radio, ain’t you?”

“Give me a break, Bro. You know how it is when you’re just starting out.”

She was turning on the sweetness again, and her hair and smile were stung nicely by the low sun. But it was the reins and bridle that made him agree to wait. In fact after Robin handed him the tangle of leather and hooks, lighter than he’d expected, Bro was glad to hear her explain that she’d need a few minutes. She’d have to load and choose a lens. Bro smiled more honestly, nodding. He’d decided by then that what he needed was some time with the horse. A few minutes on his own, put an end to this rabbitting around. Horses after all were part of the life. Dick Allen, the original in-your-face badass lumber man, the only player Bro had ever let on was a hero — Dick Allen raised thoroughbreds.

Robin’s boot-steps died away through the stables. Mothra stood with head and neck over a far corner of the corral.

The bridle fitted comfortably over one shoulder. Then with that arm Bro clung to the fence top, so stiff as he walked along that he noticed the tractor again. The racket meant business as usual, part of the life. But now the animal faced him, coldly blinking. Bro raised the hand on the fence slowly.

Slo-owly, and with the other hand he held the reins tight across his body so there’d be nothing dangling, nothing clinking. He picked up horse-smell or hay-smell, some rootless lively thickness in the air.

“Hey boy!” This was another voice, not Robin’s. “What d’ y’ think you’re doing?”

Bro hadn’t quite touched the animal yet. He turned awkwardly. Coming through the corral’s barn-side gate was a heavyset man with a crowbar over one shoulder.

“What d’ y’ think you’re doing? Hey?”

The farmer. He reminded Bro of the Angels’ owner, even across the exercise yard you could see him chewing his cud. Overalls tucked into boots. Big enough to throw shut the gate without shifting the crowbar from his shoulder. Plus there was the tractor, the antlike nose of the machine just visible around one corner of the stables.

“Hey, you with me? Hey boy?”

He’d focussed past the man. His eyes burned from the fat lick of sun that kept the hills and cropland skeletal. What was this numb-fuzz all the time? Bro didn’t even lower his hand till he noticed it hanging there, and as he backed off along the fence he was trying consciously to think. He was making himself recall when this kind of thing had happened before. That time in the elevator after one of the high school playoffs, and waiting for the subway once in Philadelphia. Plus the street types in Newark were always saying they were going to kill you. But then those street types were brothers , what’d they have to do with this?

Bro caught his foot on a hoofprint and lost his balance. He sat a moment on the bottom rail.

The horse swung its face away. The farmer grinned, or half-grinned. Really it was hardly more than a tic, something extra in the grimace as the man shrugged the crowbar into his hands. But that was enough to set off fantasies so rough and adrenalized that Bro stumbled again as soon as he got to his feet. “Aww, don’t worry,” the farmer said. “Nobody’s going to do anything too nasty here.” But the guy didn’t know: Bro had a headful of it. The most intense flashes concerned the man’s tool. The crowbar would be terrifically warm from the tractor and the sun, almost scorching. It’d have such perfect heft, the peak of the swing would just click in.

Bro counted off a couple seconds in his squat, and when he pulled himself back upright against the fence he went hand over hand. In his head he panned backwards, deliberately, getting some distance from the head-cracking and murder. For the first time, Bro discovered that he himself wasn’t any part of the picture. Bro himself was just a blur in his mind’s eye. He was triumph: the soundtrack was The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly . But he was smoke, colorless smoke, nowhere near as vivid as the iron.

“You all set now? You with me now?”

The man had spread his stance, just beyond arm’s reach. Bro wasn’t going anywhere, the bridle pinched his collarbone. And then Robin was trotting back through the barn. The farmer made out like it didn’t faze him—“What say we start with just, you tell me who you are?” But he was getting in slant glances towards the door, and when Robin appeared he lowered the crowbar a notch. She came out head-down, over a vertically-arranged camera such as Bro had never seen. She must have first spotted them through the viewfinder.

“Oh! Mr. Rutgrove!” She snatched the camera up in front of her neck. “What are you doing?”

“Caught this boy trying to make off with your beauty there.”

“This what? Who are you talking about?”

Mothra had sensed something. The animal moved off slow haunched, away from them all, more or less into the center of the yard. Meantime Robin yanked Rutgrove back towards the barn. As soon as she started whispering at him the man pulled up straight, tucking the bar behind his back as if it were a cane. Bro found himself following the horse. Never mind which end he might be coming at this time. Never mind the head games about Philly or his high school playoffs, either. All he could ever think of when he recalled those mean places were comebacks he wished he’d made at the time: more superstar fever, long since worn out and rutted. Bro just tracked the horse — no. Actually now he was veering towards the far side of the horse, the side away from the stables. He had some idea that he needed Mothra between him and the other two.

“Look,” Robin suddenly shouted, “that’s Marvell Gunne, the designated hitter for the Angels.”

With that he was lifted into grief, choking and weeping as he tried to get away. For a moment the echo was back, way too loud, though he hid his face in his elbows and tried to swallow, swallow. But a step or two farther, stumbling blind, and what difference did it make if anyone noticed? No one could reach him anyway. No one could be there. Things happened: he almost went flying when he hit the fence again. At some point he ripped the bridle off his arm. And he had thoughts: useless explanatory tags like outsider, man of the house, bad nigger. Finally however the time careened along unmarked, just the opposite of any workspace with plans or breaks good and bad. Bro was nothing but the heat in his face, the occasional mercury sound when he whispered Sly . Even then he flubbed the name.

When Robin took his arm, Bro hadn’t quite gotten under control. Nonetheless his first swollen glance at her was all he needed to know that not only had she seen everything, but also she’d told the farmer why. His head cleared and he turned to face the man. But Rutgrove was gone. The crowbar stood by the stable door. And though Mothra was in the way — the fan-like shoulder muscles were lovely through his last tears — Bro could see that the tractor hadn’t moved. Robin meantime was making her explanations.

“I mean when he saw you were crying—“ she slid her hand down his arm, squeezed his hand. “Well he started grinning like he’d just robbed you of your manhood or something. So I just went, think fast, sucker! When I told him about your brother, let me tell you, it scored.”