November 1 / JACK RUSSELL
On the second Sunday morning
in November, the day after the Breeders' Cup at Hollywood Park (which
he did not get to this year, because the trek to the West Coast seemed
a long one from Westchester County and he didn't have a runner, had never
had a runner, how could this possibly be his fault, hadn't he spent millions
breeding, training, and running horses? Wasn't it time he had a runner
in the Breeders' Cup or got out of the game altogether, one or the other?),
Alexander P. Maybrick arose from his marriage bed at 6:00 a.m., put on
his robe and slippers, and exited the master suite he shared with his
wife, Rosalind. On the way to the kitchen, he passed the library, his
office that adjoined the library, the weight room, the guest bathroom,
the living room, and the dining room. In every room his wife had laid
a Persian carpet of exceptional quality--his wife had an eye for quality
in all things--and it seemed like every Persian carpet in every room every
morning was adorned with tiny dark, dense turds deposited there by Eileen,
the Jack Russell terrier. Eileen herself was nestled up in bed with his
wife, apparently sleeping, since she didn't raise even her head when Mr.
Maybrick arose, but Mr. Maybrick knew she was faking. No Jack Russell
sleeps though movement of any kind except as a ruse.
Mr. Maybrick had discussed
this issue with Rosalind on many levels. It was not as though he didn't
know what a Jack Russell was all about when Rosalind brought the dog home.
A Jack Russell was about making noise, killing small animals and dragging
their carcasses into the house, attacking much larger dogs, refusing to
be house-trained, and in all other ways living a primitive life. Rosalind
had promised to start the puppy off properly, with a kennel and a trainer
and a strict routine and a book about Jack Russells, and every other thing
that worked with golden retrievers and great Danes and mastiffs, and dogs
in general. But Eileen wasn't a dog, she was a beast, and the trainer
had been able to do only one thing with her, which was stop her from barking.
And thank God for that, because if the trainer had not stopped Eileen
from barking Mr. Maybrick would have had to strangle her. Rosalind, who
sent her underwear to the cleaners and had the windows washed every two
weeks and kept the oven spotless enough to sterilize surgical instruments,
tried to take the position that the turds were small and harmless, and
that the carpets could handle them, but really she just thought the dog
was cute, even after Eileen learned to jump from the floor to the kitchen
counters, and then walked around on them with her primevally dirty feet,
click click click, right in front of Mr. Maybrick, even after Eileen began
to sleep under the covers, pushing her wiry, unsoft coat right into Mr.
Maybrick's nose in the middle of the night. "Do you know where this dog
has been?" Mr. Maybrick would say to Rosalind, and Rosalind would reply,
"I don't want to think about that."
Mr. Maybrick was a wealthy
and powerful man, and in the end, that was what stopped him. He knew that,
in the larger scheme of things, he had been so successful, and, in many
ways, so unpleasant about it all (he was a screamer and a bully, tough
on everyone), that Eileen had come into his life as a corrective. She
weighed one-twentieth of what he did. He could crush her between his two
fists. He could also get rid of her, either by yelling at his wife or
by sending her off to the SPCA on his own, but he dared not. There was
some abyss of megalomania that Eileen guarded the edge of for Mr. Maybrick,
and in the mornings, when he walked to the kitchen to get his coffee,
he tried to remember that.
The first thing Mr. Maybrick
did after he poured his coffee was to call his horse-trainer. When the
trainer answered with his usual "Hey, there!," Mr. Maybrick said, "Dick!,"
and then Dick said, "Oh. Al." He always said it just like that, as if
he were expecting something good to happen, and Mr. Maybrick had happened
instead. Mr. Maybrick ignored this and sipped his coffee while Dick punched
up his response. "Can I do something for you, Al?"
"Yeah. You can put that Laurita
filly in the allowance race on Thursday."
"You've got a condition book,
then."
"Oh, sure. I want to know
what races are being run. You trainers keep everything so dark--"
"Well, sure. Al, listen--"
"Dick, Frank Henderson thinks
it's the perfect race for her. A little step up in class, but not too
much competi--"
"I'll see."
"I want to do it. Henderson
said--"
"Mr. Henderson--"
"Frank Henderson knows horses
and racing, right? His filly won the Kentucky Oaks last year, right? He
would have had that other horse in the sprint yesterday if it hadn't broken
down. Listen to me, Dick. I shouldn't have to beg you." This was more
or less a threat, and as he said it, not having actually intended to,
Mr. Maybrick reflected upon how true it was. He was the owner. Dick Winterson
was the trainer. The relationship was a simple one. Henderson was always
telling him not to be intimidated by trainers.
"We'll see." "You always say
that. Look, I don't want to watch the Breeders' Cup on TV again next year.
Henderson thinks this filly's got class."
"She does, but I want to go
slow with her. We have to see how the filly--"
Mr. Maybrick hung up. He didn't
slam down the phone--he no longer did that--he simply hung up. If Dick
had known him as long as Mr. Maybrick had known himself, he would have
realized what a good thing it was, simply hanging up. And here was another
thing he could use with his wife. He could say that if he didn't have
to pass all those turds in the morning he could start off calmer and his
capacity for accepting frustration would last a little longer. It was
scientific. When they didn't have the dog, he had gotten practically to
the fourth phone call without offending anyone. Now he got maybe to the
second. He took another sip of his coffee, and called his broker, then
his partner, then his general manager, then his other partner, then his
secretary, then his broker again, then his AA sponsor (who was still in
bed). This guy's name was Harold W., and he was a proctologist as well
as an alcoholic. Mr. Maybrick had chosen him because he was a man of infinite
patience and because he knew everything there was to know about prostate
glands.
"I want a drink," said Mr.
Maybrick. "There's turds all over the house. I bet you can understand
that one."
"Good morning, Al. What's
really up? You haven't had a drink in two years." "But I'm always on the
verge. It's a real struggle with me."
"Say your serenity prayer."
"God--"
"God--" They said the serenity
prayer together.
"Look," said Al, "I got this
pain in my groin--"
"No freebies. That's the rule.
My partner will be happy to--"
"It's like water trickling
out of a hose. I can't--"
"You need to be working on
your fourth step."
"What's that one again?" "Taking
a fearless inventory of your character defects."
"Oh, yeah."
"Trying to get something for
nothing is one of your character defects."
"I never pay retail."
"Then you need to work on
your third step, Al."
"What's that one?"
"Turning your life over to
your higher power."
Mr. Maybrick cleared his throat,
as he always did when someone said those higher-power words. Those words
always made an image of Ralph Peters come into his head, the guy who used
to be head of the Mercantile Exchange in Chicago, and who foiled the Hunt
brothers when they tried to corner the silver market back in '80. Peters
was an Austrian guy. He had "higher power" written all over him, and he
was the last guy Mr. Maybrick had ever feared. He would never turn his
life over to Peters.
Harold went on, "Let's think
a little more about the last day. What about rage? Have you been raging?"
"Well, sure. A guy in my posi--"
"Should be filled with gratitude.
Your position is a gratitude position. Thank you, God, for every frustration,
every bad deal, every monetary loss, every balk and obstacle and resistance."
Harold often teased him in
this way. Mr. Maybrick felt better for it, because it made him think Harold
W. liked him after all, and it reminded him, too, of when his old man
had been in a good mood. Joshing him.
"Every non-cooperator, every
son of a bitch, every idiot who gets in my way, every slow driver, every--"
"Okay."
"I've got to go to the hospital."
"But I-- There's wine in the
liquor cabinet."
"Throw it out. I've got to
go. The assholes are accumulating."
Mr. Maybrick laughed. Harold
W. laughed, too. Harold W. wasn't a saint, by any means. He had been in
AA for thirty-two years, at a meeting almost every day. Mr. Maybrick didn't
know whether to respect that or have contempt for it, but he knew for
a fact that Harold W. was a force to be reckoned with, and he thanked
him politely, ragelessly, and hung up the phone.
Now Eileen trotted into the
room. It was clear to Mr. Maybrick that the dog was intentionally ignoring
him. She clicked over to her bowl and checked it, took a drink from the
water dish, circumnavigated the cooking island, and then, casually, leapt
onto the granite counter and trotted toward the sink. "Get down, Eileen,"
said Mr. Maybrick. It was as if he hadn't spoken. Eileen cocked her little
tan head and peered into the garbage disposal, noting that the stopper
was in place. Her little stump of a tail flicked a couple of times, and
she seemed to squat down. She stretched her paw toward the stopper, but
her legs were too short; she couldn't reach it. She surveyed the situation
for a moment, then went behind the sink, picked up a pinecone that had
been hidden there, and jumped down. Only now did she look at Mr. Maybrick.
She dropped the pinecone at his slippered feet and backed up three steps,
her snapping black gaze boring into his. "I don't want to do that, Eileen,"
he said. Her strategy was to take little steps backward and forward and
then spin in a tight circle, gesturing at the pinecone with her nose.
But she never made a sound.
"You're not a retriever, Eileen,
you're a terrier. Go outside and kill something."
Indeed, Eileen was a terrier,
and with terrier determination, she resolved that Mr. Maybrick would ultimately
throw the pinecone. She continued dancing, every few seconds picking up
the pinecone and dropping it again. She was getting cuter and cuter. That
was her weapon. Mr. Maybrick considered her a very manipulative animal.
He looked away from her and took another sip of his (third) cup of coffee.
Now she barked once, and when he looked at her, she went up on her hind
legs. She had thighs like a wrestler--she seemed to float. Mr. Maybrick
had often thought that a horse as athletic as this worthless dog would
get into the Kentucky Derby, then the Breeders' Cup, win him ten million
dollars on the track, and earn him five million a year in the breeding
shed for, say, twenty years. That was $110 million; it had happened to
others. He had been racing and breeding horses for eleven years, and it
had never happened to him. This was just the sort of thing that made you
a little resentful, and rightfully so, whatever Harold W. had to say about
gratitude. He closed his eyes when he felt himself sliding that way, beginning
to count up the millions he had spent running horses and thinking about
deserving. With his eyes closed, Al could hear her drop the pinecone rhythmically
on the tile, chock chock chock chock, the bass, her little toenails clicking
a tune around it. Didn't he deserve a really big horse? Didn't he? And
then, while his eyes were still closed, dog and pinecone arrived suddenly
in his lap, a hard, dense little weight but live, electric. With the shock,
he nearly dropped his coffee cup, and as it was, spilled on the counter.
"God damn it!" he shouted. Eileen jumped down and trotted away. "Hey!
Come here, Eileen," he said. "Eileen!" Eileen sheared off into the living
room, and he realized that he had forgotten to let her out. Mr. Maybrick
put his arms up on the counter and laid his head upon them.
Excerpted from Horse Heaven © Copyright 2009 by Jane Smiley. Reprinted with permission by Ballantine. All rights reserved.
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