Flamethrower (11 page)

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Don’t get angry.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a good thing.”

“How is your leaving me a good thing? Especially when my whole life has been turned upside down?”

“I’m sorry” Ed said. “I am.”

Ruby wanted to kick him. Stab him. Run him over with heavy machinery. But more than anything, Ruby wanted to die. She didn’t remember ever actively wanting to die before, but in that moment, she wanted to die. Very much.

Ruby turned and started walking away, expecting Ed to call her back, same way she’d expected Bob to call her back. Bob hadn’t. Ed didn’t either.

She found herself standing by her car. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to tell Ed she’d actually driven. He’d bought her that car. Back when it had seemed that they had a long and lovely future before them.

Ruby got into her car, popped a Fireball, and stared blankly ahead. She thought about selling the car. Taking the money and moving to France. Starting over in some little town the Tour de France passed through. But she didn’t speak French.

Her head started hurting. She rolled down the window, spat the Fireball out, then took a bottle of Advil from her backpack, popped two pills dry, then put the car in drive, and headed for The Hole.

L
orna, a tiny woman who boarded her palomino at the barn next to Coleman’s, was trotting her horse in figure eights on the dirt road ahead. Ruby drove slowly so as not to spook horse or rider. She parked in front of Coleman’s stable gate and got out, nodding at Lorna. The small woman nodded back. Ruby had never said more than two words to Lorna. Not that she disliked her. There’d never been a reason for conversation. Ruby wondered about that now. About all the missed interactions and conversations in a lifetime. For all she knew, Lorna was the most engaging and brilliant woman on the face of the earth. And Ruby would go through life without finding this out all because she didn’t have the energy to talk to the woman.

Ruby unlocked the stable gate and greeted Honey and Pokey, who were camped out there, sunning themselves. Both pits lifted their large heads, stared at Ruby, then put their heads back down. Ruby would hate to be an intruder coming face to face with those two. They were wonderful dogs to the humans they knew but would kill anyone with bad intentions.

Ruby stopped in the tack room to get peppermints from her trunk. Feeding candy to a horse was a cheerful, optimistic thing to do. But Ruby still felt like dying.

Locksley, the barn cat, jumped down from the shelf he’d been sleeping on. He was covered in dust and had cobwebs in his whiskers. He violently bumped his head against Ruby’s calves until she got out one of the cans of emergency tuna she kept in her trunk and fed him.

As she walked toward Jack Valentine, the horse shook his head and made faces at Ruby. She gave him his peppermint and watched the effects take hold. His ears were in neutral and his eyes went to half-mast as he rolled the candy over his tongue. He was ecstatic. After he’d crunched the mint and swallowed it all, Ruby buried her face against his neck. The horse stood perfectly still as she relaxed enough to let tears come to her eyes. She’d needed a good cry for months. It wasn’t quite the soul-purifying wail she could have used, but it helped. Something shook loose.

Ruby put Jack’s halter on and brought him into the aisle. She put him on the cross-ties and contemplated him for a few moments. He was big. And she was going to ride him.

As she started putting tack on him, Jack’s ears flicked back and forth, searching out information. By the time Ruby led him out of the barn, he was on his toes, prancing toward a nonexistent starting gate.

Jack shook his head once when Ruby tightened the girth. She lowered the left stirrup and took a deep breath. She had no idea what Jack would do when she got up on his back. Horses were funny that way. You could have an excellent relationship on the ground, but it was a different story once you climbed aboard.

Ruby put her foot in the stirrup and hoisted herself up.
Jack darted to the right a little, but Ruby had expected this. She quickly shortened the reins and took hold of him. She asked him to walk forward. They circled the paddock with Jack looking at everything intently, as though he’d never seen any of it before. Ruby was brittle with tension and it was transmitting to Jack, flowing through him, then coming back at her amplified tenfold. After a few minutes of walking, both horse and rider were stiff with anxiety. Ruby asked him to come to a halt so she could dismount. This was definitely enough for one day.

At this exact moment, one of the neighborhood cats came out of nowhere and darted through the paddock, spooking Jack. Ruby’s feet were out of the stirrups, and she was holding the reins loosely. Jack crow-hopped to one side, and Ruby went off the other side. It was a long way down. She landed on her side, coiled in a ball. At least she hadn’t landed on her head.

“You okay?”

She sat up and saw Triple Harrison walking toward her.

“I’m fine. Can you get the horse?”

Jack was standing a few feet away, reins dangling, gazing at Ruby with what looked like concern.

Triple took him by the bridle.

“You sure you’re okay?” Triple asked as Ruby brushed herself off.

“Yeah,” Ruby said. She had never been worse. And her hand hurt. There was blood on her palm where she’d scraped against a small rock.

“Hey, you’re bleeding,” Triple said.

“It’s fine,” Ruby said.

She walked over to her horse, lowered the stirrup, and got back on.

Triple went to stand just outside the paddock and wisely kept his mouth shut even though Ruby knew he probably had a whole lot to say.

Ruby and Jack circled the paddock. She was more relaxed now, and the horse responded by lengthening his strides and dropping his head. They went around three times before Ruby dismounted.

“What possessed you to do that?” Triple couldn’t contain himself anymore.

“My life is a wreck,” Ruby shrugged. She turned her back to Triple and started leading Jack to the barn.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Triple was tagging along at Ruby’s side.

“I had to do something drastic. So I rode my horse.”

“What happened to your head?” he asked after a few beats.

“Fell off my bike,” Ruby said.

“Bike and horse both, huh?”

“Yup.”

“Ruby, what’s wrong?” Triple asked. They were inside the barn now. Ruby’s eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dimness yet so she couldn’t see Triple very well.

“Wrong?” she asked, as she started untacking the horse.

“You’re being distant,” Triple said.

“What’s with the pictures, Triple?” She didn’t really think he’d had anything to do with said pictures, but she was taking a stab in the dark.

“Pictures?” Triple tilted his head. “What pictures?”

“Of you,” Ruby said. “And me,” she added, dropping her voice.

“You and me?” Triple looked intrigued but baffled.

“Never mind,” Ruby said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh no you don’t. What are you talking about?”

“Incriminating pictures. Of me. With you.” Ruby refused to look at Triple. She had gotten her curry comb out and was vigorously working on Jack Valentine.

“But we haven’t done anything incriminating,” Triple pointed out.

“I realize that. But someone took photos that look incriminating.”

“Why?”

“To piss off my boyfriend, for one.”

“They showed them to your boyfriend?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, man.” Triple scratched his head. “Why?”

“That’s what I don’t understand.”

“You got enemies?”

“Apparently.”

Triple shook his head. “I’m sorry, Ruby. I had absolutely nothing to do with it. I’d never do something like that to you.”

“I didn’t really think you were behind this.”

“You must have. Why ask me?”

“I don’t know,” Ruby shrugged. “Just checking I guess.”

Triple looked offended, and Ruby felt like an idiot. They
fell silent. Triple watched Ruby groom her horse. Then, feeling sorry for Ruby, Triple helped her out with her barn chores. They worked in amiable silence, with the barn radio tuned to some off-the-wall program on WKCR that alternated New Music with obscure, stripped-down hip-hop.

Now and then, Locksley wove between Ruby’s legs or meowed at her. In their stalls, the horses munched hay and napped.

It was peaceful, but Ruby didn’t feel that way.

When she drove away from the barn two hours later, Ruby knew what she had to do.

“I
’ve watched you guys all my life. I know what to do,” Ruby told Glenda, the heavily tattooed, chain-smoking woman who managed the Kentucky Derby horse-racing game at Astroland.

“Honey, watching and doing is two different things,” Glenda said.

The ash on Glenda’s cigarette was at least an inch long. Ruby stared at it, wondering when Glenda would flick it.

“Anyway,” Glenda said, “the only shift I could give you is weekday afternoons. Ain’t much action then, and you gotta work your fucking ass off getting people to play.”

Ruby insisted this was fine. The fact was, it would be horrible. Ruby wasn’t particularly extroverted, and she disliked noise. The idea of spending her afternoons shouting at strangers, trying to get them to play the horse-racing game, wasn’t a pleasant one. But Ruby had to work. She’d called Bob again, and in a cold voice he’d confirmed to Ruby that she was fired. Ruby had a small paycheck coming, but that was it. No savings, and the rent was due in two weeks. What’s more, Ruby didn’t know if Ed was ever coming home or paying his half of the rent.

Glenda’s ash finally fell. Slowly, some of it sticking to the
front of her pink T-shirt. Ruby watched the woman rub the ash into the fabric of the T-shirt.

“You ain’t gonna make shit. You know that, right?” Glenda asked. “Like fifty bucks a day will be a good day.”

“I need something to hold me over,” Ruby shrugged.

“What happened, anyway?”

Ruby was surprised it had taken Glenda this long to ask. There was a solid divide between people who worked the games and rides and those who worked at the sideshow and museum. The two groups almost never mingled, and it was unprecedented for someone of Ruby’s position to come slumming in the proletariat like this. The only reason Glenda was giving Ruby a job was that Ruby had been coming to play her horse-racing game since she was twelve years old.

Ruby tried to make light of Bob’s firing her, hinting that it stemmed from a personality clash as opposed to an accusation of thievery.

“So what are you gonna do? Live out your days working at my game?” Glenda asked. She’d lit another cigarette and was squinting at a pack of young girls idling by the balloon game across the way.

“I have no idea,” Ruby said honestly. She didn’t have the strength to go hunting for a “real” job. She needed money, and she needed it fast. Asking Glenda had seemed her only option.

“Here,” Glenda suddenly shoved her microphone into Ruby’s hand, “get them girls to come over here and play.” Glenda motioned at the pack of girls across the way.

Ruby froze at the idea of shouting into the microphone.

“Come on,” Glenda urged.

“Ladies,” Ruby said tentatively. None of the girls looked her way. “Horse-racing game, ladies, two dollars to play.” Ruby got louder: “Every game a winner, two dollars any prize on the table.” Ruby picked up one of the immense teddy bears and brandished it above her head the way she’d watched Glenda and others do for so many years.

“You out of your mind?” Glenda hissed at Ruby. “You can’t give out no jumbo prize unless you got at least ten players.”

“I can win that bear?” One of the girls had sauntered over.

“Yes, you can,” Ruby said. “I’ll take it out of my own pocket,” she whispered to Glenda.

Glenda shrugged and started collecting money from the girl and her three friends. Glenda flicked the switches, activating each of the berths, as Ruby showed the girls how to practice rolling the small plastic balls forward and into slots.

“Get your ball in the red slot, moves your horse three jumps, blue is two, and green is one. Remember, one ball at a time or you’re gonna get ‘em jammed,” Ruby said, getting into the flow. She’d heard Glenda and others do this speech so many dozens of times, but she never realized she’d memorized the damn thing.

“Hold on to the balls, ladies.” Glenda’s double entendre was lost on the girls. “At the sound of the bell, start rolling. Sound of the bell,” Glenda said, then depressed the bell and the game started. One of the girls, a tiny, dark-skinned girl in a bright green outfit, was hurling the balls so violently they were popping out of her berth, and Glenda went over to scold her. Meanwhile, the apparent leader of the pack, a big girl
with bleached-blond cornrows, was hitting one after another red slot, making her mechanical horse valiantly lurch forward. She won by many lengths, and before Ruby could hand her the bear, the girl was tearing it from Ruby’s arms.

“What do I owe you?” Ruby asked Glenda, digging into her pocket to find the small wad of cash she had there.

“Ah, it’s all right, Ruby. Just don’t do it again. Minimum ten players before you give out the jumbo.”

Ruby nodded then bummed a cigarette from Glenda. The two smoked in silence until another pack of kids walked by. Ruby watched Glenda entice them with promises of prizes and fun. They were teenagers with hard eyes that softened fractionally as they rolled the little balls into the slots.

Ruby hung around for more than an hour, learning the ropes.

“I know you ain’t gonna be doing this long. Just don’t leave me hanging when you decide to quit, y’hear?” Glenda said before Ruby left.

Ruby vowed to give notice when the time came. Glenda patted Ruby on the back and sent her on her way. She slowly walked toward home. It was almost unbearably humid, and people were streaming toward the boardwalk carrying coolers, towels, and boom boxes. An attractive Puerto Rican couple walked by, the man adoringly stroking the woman’s head as they walked. Ruby felt her chest constrict.