The calls of desperate men.
“Come on, Gobstopper, you bastard!”
It was always a long wide wave—of cheer and jeer, love and loss, and many open mouthfuls. Weight gain was pumped to its limits, of the shirts and jackets that dammed it. Cigarettes at many angles.
“Move your Goddamn arse, Shenanigans! Go, son!”
The wins were won and worshipped.
The losses were all sat down with.
“C’mon,” she said that first time, “there’s someone you should meet.”
* * *
—
Behind the two grandstands were the stables; a length and breadth of shed rows, and horses all within them—either waiting for their races, or recovering.
At number thirty-eight, he stood enormously, unblinking. A digital sign said Matador, but Carey called him Wally. A groom, Petey Simms, wore jeans and a tattered polo shirt, cross-sectioned by a belt. A smoke was erected upwards, at the platform of his lip. He grinned when he saw the girl.
“Hey, Carey kid.”
“Hey, Pete.”
Clay got a better look now, and the horse was bright chestnut; a white blaze, like a crack, down his face. He flicked the flies off his ears, and he was smooth but rich with veins. His legs, like branches, were locked. The mane was cut back, a little shorter than most, for he somehow attracted more filth than any other horse in the stable. “Even the dirt loves him!” That’s what Petey used to say.
Finally, the horse blinked, when Clay came closer, his eyes so big and deep; an equine kind of kind.
“Go on,” said Petey, “give the big bugger a pat.”
Clay looked at Carey, for permission.
“Go on,” she said, “it’s okay.”
She did it herself first, to show him to be unafraid; even touching him was a front-on tackle.
“Bloody ’orse bloody loves her,” said Petey.
It was different from patting Achilles.
* * *
—
“How’s the big fella?”
The voice from behind was desert-like.
McAndrew.
Dark suit, pale shirt.
A tie he’d been wearing since the Bronze Age.
Petey didn’t answer, though, because he knew the old man didn’t want one; he was talking only to himself. He wandered in and ran his hands along the horse, he went lower for a look at the hooves.
“Spot-on.”