The Race

The Race


Robert Brown stepped out onto the pavement and into the cold. He pulled his cap down even further over his eyes. His face was pale and drawn, with watery gray eyes and thin dry lips, one of those faces which seemed as if it was always exposed to a high wind. His hands, rough and blackened from the printing work, were shoved into his tattered coat pockets, and a rolled cigarette hung from his mouth. A dirty puddle swallowed his left foot as he stepped into it, but he seemed not to mind for the expression on his face changed unnoticeably. The feet continued to pace forward and the head remained bowed downwards, as if his eyes were studying and memorizing what the pavement looked like. He had no need to look up. The long walk home was the same every day, the same track through each muddy alley and side-road, past the same market and the feedstore and the bakery and the A&M Ceramics and finally to the same stacked buildings of rented apartments on George Street. He took one last drag from his weak cigarette before flicking it away from him. He stared at the buildings for a moment, not really thinking or resting, just looking through the bricks and slumped roofs. A few oily crows fell from the sky above him and lined up on the edges, perched solidly. They watched him Robert entered the second to last building by means of a small red door and climbed the creaking stairs to his apartment.

He was greeted, as usual, by his wife Mary and one of their small, dirty children. Mary was a plump but quick-moving woman. Her faded cotton dresses always seemed pinched at the seams as if her body was trying to burst free from them. At the moment she had her hair twisted back in a loose bun that was slowly unraveling and a child of indiscernible gender was attached to her right hip. Her left hand held a wooden spoon, which she immediately began to shake at his face.

“Six-thirty I said, six-thirty! This is when you said you’d be ‘ome. Now I know that is a fact because I ‘eard it with my very own ears, and if I ‘eard it, then ‘ow can it not be true? I didn’t just make this up! Do you think I’m a liar? Do you think I’m some kind of idiot? You think I’ll just sit around all day not knowing where my ‘usband is or when he’ll be ‘ome. Well I won’t! And when I say six-thirty you better well be ‘ere because I bloody well ain’t that kind of...”

She continued on as she turned around and walked back towards the smoky little kitchen area, still shaking the spoon. He closed the door behind him, sighing. He laid his cap and coat on a hook and sat down heavily in his chair, thinking about how he should have stayed at the pub for another hour. Two of the children appeared from the other room and began to scuffle about on the floor. Robert watched them for a moment. One of them bit the other, causing him to howl loudly, and Robert suddenly became angry.

“Alright then, off with you! Your father’s got enough trouble without you two causin’ a ruckus!”

He rose partially to his feet and the children stopped playing immediately, drawing back into themselves a little before running off into the other room. He settled back into the chair, rubbing his temples as he reached into his breastpocket for the flask. His callused fingers opened the cap methodically and he took a small swallow of whisky, relishing in the familiar burn of it and closing his eyes. The events of the day came back to him slowly, resignedly. He had shown up three minutes late to work that day at the Bingsly’s Printing Company and nearly got laid off. He remembered how fat Mr. Bingsly himself had waddled over to his workstation, his tight, shiny face flushed red with anger. Oh, how Mr. Bingsly had yelled and spat words at him as he leaned over into the small, cluttered workstation, and Robert’s bowed head had bowed even further.

“I’m not paying you to sleep in at home..” Bingsly said, words blending and melding as his voice droned on.

Robert waited for it to end. He stared off into the ceiling as if it would collapse at any moment. After a while, Mr. Bingsly left, and the rest of that day had progressed like any other, like all the others. The huge greasy printing machines churned and turned over and over, spitting out the exact same thing time after time.

Robert shook his head and crushed the image in his mind. He took another swallow from the flask. The taste calmed him, reminding him of his hours spent at the local pub: the acrid smell of smoke in his nostrils, the feel of the pint in his hands, the tacky floor under his feet and glittering bottles behind the bar. There were always good fellows at the pub, too. He would sit and drink with them for hours, slipping away from reality until it was nothing but the smoke and the pint and the pub. O’Mally was usually there, a nice chap if there ever was one. Robert drank with him often, reminiscing about old times that always took place at the pub or out front or in the lot behind it. It occurred to him suddenly that he had never really seen O’Mally outside of the pub. But how can that be? He seemed to be with him all the time. Surely he did, it’s just that it’s so hard to remember these days....

Mary’s sharp voice cut into his thoughts. His eyes opened, and he remembered where he was. His face flushed and he burned with anger at her. She had paused from stirring the large pot of stew and the spoon was out again, pointed at him.

“Robert! If that’s what I think it is, and by God it better not be, then that is absolutely the last straw! You ‘ear me? I’ve said I’ve ‘ad enough of this drinking an’ if you don’t get rid of it I’ll bloody well get rid of you, get it?”

“Ay...”

“Oh, don’t you gimme that lip a’yours ‘cause you’ll never ‘ear the end of this one I’ll tell you...” She continued on at him as the child perched on her hip began to cry. “Now look what you’ve done. I’m just tryin’ to keep this ‘ouse together an’ the least you can do is keep me ‘appy.”

She turned to the child and began brushing the hair back from its face with quick strokes, bouncing it slightly upon her hip. Robert could not contain his emotion. He longed to be away from her, away from everything He closed the flask tightly and slipped it back into his pocket, clenching his teeth.

“...and if there’s one thing I can’t ‘andle anymore it’s the lip on these young’ns. Just like their father, they is, and that’s another thing...”

Suddenly he rose out of the chair. The air closed in around him, the smoke from the black pot of stew smothering him He had to get away. He started towards the door, grabbing his coat and tweed cap from the hooks. Mary paused in her monologue and fixed her gaze upon him.

“Now where are you going?”

“I’m going... for a walk!”

Her mouth dropped open and she stared incredulously at him but he stole away quickly The door closed heavily behind him as he stepped out into the hallway.


###


Robert paced quickly down the pavement. He passed a few people but said nothing, concentrating on the ground in front of him. A cracked line formed from one side of the walkway and he watched its path as he walked, noting the thin scraps of moss protruding. Normally Robert would go to the pub, but his thoughts on O’Mally disturbed him. At the moment he wanted to go anywhere but the places which had become so familiar, so he passed the pub and took a bus to the racetrack.

A bustling crowd was gathered around the gates, most of the people standing around numbly or talking loudly to one another. Robert was not used to such a number of people and soon began to feel cramped and agitated. He picked up a program from the dusty ground under his feet and looked it over with difficulty, struggling to find the time and date and what race was next. None of the names of the horses or jockeys were familiar. He began to have doubts as to betting on any of them, until one horse happened to catch his eye. A black horse without markings. Robert glanced down at the printer’s ink on his hands, then rubbed them together. He looked up the number and read the name silently, “Number 9 - Cimmerian”. A flash of something unfamiliar crossed him, hope perhaps, and he bet everything on the horse. He thought suddenly of what he would do if he won and found that he could think of nothing.

He moved slowly through the crowd, trying to separate himself from them as they closed in around him. He sat down in a far seat, craning his neck out towards the track. The race began seemingly without warning, and he stood up to get a better view as the horses flashed across the track. The black horse started off well, and began gaining on the others. It raced past three horses by the quarter-mile mark and then a fourth. Robert clenched his teeth and held his breath as the horses rounded the half-mile mark where Cimmerian moved into the lead. The ticket crumpled in his fist as he dared to imagine the real possibility of winning His pulse quickened, pounding with every stride of the horse. The noise of the crowd roared in his ears.

What a day this was turning out to be! He felt energized as he thought about the feel in his hand of the new pound notes he would win. His back straightened a bit. His eyes twinkled just imagining the look of delight on Mary’s face when he returned home this time. Then, as the horses neared the home stretch, his heart sank as he noticed the black horse slowing. Just a bit at first, struggling hold on to his lead, then dropping back more and more. Robert’s watery eyes narrowed and his shoulders drooped as he let out a sigh. As quickly as it appeared, victory slipped away from his grasp.

Robert bowed his head, suddenly aware of how tired he was. He sat down, unable to lift his eyes to the final moments of the race, and shut out the cheering discord of the crowd. The ticket stub was still in his fist, crumpled and sweaty. He stared at it as the dusk fell down around him.