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By the time Eddie Arcaro found him, Hartack had already broken the lock on the equipment-room door. It had not been a very substantial lock. That was the first thing Bill said when Eddie looked at the splintered wood beside the latch.
“Was hardly hanging on.”
Eddie shut the door behind him. “That make it yours to break?”
Bill sat on an overturned bucket with his silks stripped to his waist and his undershirt clinging damply to his back. One hand was wrapped in a towel. A red stain had begun to soak through it over the knuckles. He did not look up.
“They send you?”
“Nobody sends me anywhere.”
“The Guild send you.”
“I am the Guild, according to every son of a bitch who wants something.”
That made Bill glance at him. His face remained hard, but something quick and amused moved through his eyes.
Eddie had heard every account before coming downstairs. Hartack’s horse had been taken down. Jimmy Johnson’s had been put up. There had been words in the room afterward, then a fist, then several other riders trying to get between them before Bill decided he could fight all of them at once. Fifteen days. It might have been worse. It probably should have been.
Eddie leaned against the door and folded his arms.
Bill said, “Go ahead.”
“Go ahead what?”
“Give your speech.”
“I didn’t prepare one.”
“That’d be a first.”
“You think I sit around writing speeches for you?”
“I think you like hearing yourself.”
Eddie’s jaw tightened before he could stop it. Bill saw that, too. Bill noticed every small failure of control in another man. He hunted for them. When he found one, he pressed until it bruised.
It was one of the things Eddie hated most about him.
It was also one of the reasons Eddie had not sent somebody else.
“Take the towel off,” he said.
“My hand’s fine.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Bill stared at him another moment, then unwound the towel. Two knuckles were split. The swelling had already begun.
Eddie opened the cabinet along the wall. There was iodine, gauze, adhesive tape and a half-empty bottle of aspirin. He carried the supplies over and dragged a wooden stool across from Bill.
“I don’t need nursing.”
“Good. I’m not a nurse.”
Bill held out his hand anyway.
Eddie had always had good hands. Small, strong, exact. They were the hands of a man who could switch a whip at full speed without losing his balance, who could feel a horse gathering beneath him before anybody watching from the stands knew a move was coming. They were not especially gentle hands, but they knew how not to hurt.
Bill watched him clean the blood away.
“You ought to see Johnson.”
“I saw Johnson.”
“He run crying to you?”
“No.”
“Somebody did.”
“Half the room came looking for me, Bill. You hit him in front of thirty witnesses.”
“He was laughing.”
“So?”
“He knew what he was doing.”
“Then you should’ve known what you were doing.”
Bill tried to pull his hand back. Eddie caught him by the wrist.
“Sit still.”
“Let go.”
“No.”
Their eyes met.
For a second they were both younger.
Eddie could feel it happen, that old heat returning so completely that the years between seemed false. He remembered being nineteen and furious at everything—the stewards, the other riders, the owners who spoke over his head as though he were a child, the reporters who called him Banana Nose and expected him to laugh. He remembered throwing punches because there had been no room in him for another insult. He remembered suspensions, threats and the humiliation afterward, when his anger had burned itself out and left him to see what it had cost.
Bill’s wrist flexed beneath his fingers.
Eddie released it first.
“There,” Bill said quietly. “That’s what you come down here for.”
“What?”
“To prove you ain’t like me.”
Eddie resumed wrapping the knuckles. “I don’t have to prove that.”
“No? You get mad same as me.”
“Everybody gets mad.”
“Not like us.”
Eddie pulled the gauze too tightly. Bill did not flinch.
There were men whose tempers rose noisily and vanished just as fast. Men who cursed over a bad ride, threw a boot against the wall and were laughing by dinner. Eddie had never been that kind. Neither had Bill.
With them it went deeper. It was insult sharpened by memory. It was every closed door and every laugh heard from the other side of one. It was the suspicion that every kindness concealed mockery, every correction was humiliation and every defeat had been arranged personally against them. Eddie knew how righteous anger could feel while it was destroying you. He knew how easily a man could mistake the pleasure of striking back for proof that he was right.
Bill was watching him as though he knew all of that, too.
“You used to knock fellows down,” Bill said.
“I did a lot of stupid things.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t sit there looking holy.”
“I’m not holy. I’m fifty kinds of bastard before breakfast.”
Bill’s mouth twitched.
Eddie taped the gauze into place and turned Bill’s hand over, inspecting his work. Bill had long fingers for a jockey, scarred along the joints. Eddie knew the hands as well as he knew the face. He had watched them take impossible holds, settle rank horses, drive through openings that had scarcely existed. Hartack’s hands could be beautiful when he was riding. Off a horse, they seemed always to be looking for something to seize.
“You’re one of the best riders I ever saw,” Eddie said.
Bill’s expression changed at once. Praise made him more suspicious than criticism.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re one of the best riders I ever saw.”
“Then why do you always talk like I’m some bum?”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I say you act like a bum. That’s different.”
Bill stood so abruptly the bucket tipped behind him.
Eddie remained seated.
“There it is,” Bill said. “You can’t help yourself.”
“And neither can you.”
“I ain’t the one followed you down here.”
“No. You’re the one hiding in a closet after punching a man over a steward’s ruling.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Then what do you call it?”
“Getting away from people.”
“By breaking into a locked room.”
“Wasn’t much of a lock.”
Eddie laughed before he meant to. It came out once, sharp and unwilling.
Bill looked offended, then nearly smiled himself.
That was how it always happened. Bill pushed until Eddie wanted to put him through a wall, and then he said something so dryly ridiculous that Eddie remembered why he kept coming back. There was humor in Hartack, though he guarded it more fiercely than anything else. Affection, too. Eddie had seen both appear when Bill believed nobody important was watching.
Eddie rose and began putting away the supplies.
“You got fifteen days,” he said.
“I heard.”
“You’re lucky.”
“I know what you think.”
“You don’t know half what I think.”
Bill moved closer. “Then tell me.”
Eddie slid the iodine bottle into the cabinet and shut it. “I think you wanted to hit Johnson before they ever took your number down. I think you walked into that room looking for somebody to blame. He gave you an excuse.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I didn’t have to be.”
“That right?”
“Yes.”
“You know everything I’m gonna do?”
“No. That’s the trouble. One minute you’re a reasonable human being and the next you act like you never saw me before in your life.”
Bill went still.
Eddie had said almost the same thing to a reporter once, though without mentioning how much the change wounded him. One day Bill would sit beside him in the steam room, shoulder pressed against Eddie’s, speaking quietly about a colt they both admired. The next morning he would pass Eddie in the shedrow without turning his head. If Eddie confronted him, Bill acted insulted by the question. If Eddie left him alone, Bill eventually appeared again as though nothing had happened.
Eddie had spent years pretending the pattern merely irritated him.
“You tell them that?” Bill asked.
“I told them you’re a great rider and I don’t like you personally.”
Bill gave a small nod. “Sure.”
“You asked.”
“I didn’t ask what you told the newspapers.”
“You care what I told them.”
“No.”
“Then why bring it up?”
Bill pushed past him toward the door.
Eddie caught his arm.
Bill swung around so fast that Eddie’s back struck the cabinet. The metal doors rattled behind him. For an instant Bill looked ready to hit him, bandaged hand and all.
Eddie did not move.
He had spent his life around frightened horses and angry men. Both could sense when somebody yielded out of fear.
“Do it,” Eddie said.
Bill’s nostrils flared.
“Go on. You already got fifteen days.”
“Shut up.”
“Maybe they’ll give you thirty. Maybe six months. Keep at it long enough, you won’t have to ride at all.”
Bill shoved him against the cabinet.
Eddie seized the front of Bill’s undershirt and shoved back. They stumbled together, struck the door and nearly went through the broken latch. Bill’s elbow caught Eddie’s ribs. Eddie drove his shoulder into Bill’s chest. It was clumsy, graceless fighting, nothing like their work on horseback. Two undersized men old enough to know better, each furious because the other had recognized him too clearly.
Bill pinned Eddie’s wrist against the wall.
Eddie caught him under the jaw with his free hand, not striking, only holding him there.
They stopped.
Bill was breathing hard. His face was inches away. Sweat darkened the hair at his temples, and there was a small mark beside his mouth where somebody in the jockeys’ room had managed to catch him.
Eddie’s anger changed shape.
That was the other trouble with Bill. Nothing stayed simple around him. Disgust became concern. Concern became desire. Desire brought back disgust, but only at himself.
Bill looked down at Eddie’s mouth.
“You don’t like me,” he said.
“Not particularly.”
“You’re a goddamn liar.”
“So are you.”
Bill kissed him like he had thrown the first punch.
There was no uncertainty in it, though Eddie knew better than to mistake force for confidence. Bill did everything forcefully when he was afraid of being stopped. He gripped the back of Eddie’s neck and pressed him against the wall, mouth hard and angry, as though Eddie had withheld something owed to him.
Eddie let him have it for several seconds.
Then he bit Bill’s lower lip.
Bill jerked away. “The hell—”
“You don’t get to fight me, too.”
“You were fighting back.”
“That ain’t what I mean.”
Bill’s hand remained on Eddie’s neck. The anger had gone out of his face, leaving something less manageable.
Eddie straightened Bill’s undershirt where he had stretched it at the collar.
“When I was coming up,” Eddie said, “I thought every man who corrected me was trying to cut me down. Didn’t matter if he was right. Matter of fact, the more right he was, the worse I took it.”
Bill looked toward the broken lock.
“I know what people say about you,” Eddie continued. “That you’re mean. That you’re ignorant. That you’re impossible to work with. Some of them say it because they don’t like where you come from. Some say it because you beat them. Some say it because you make it true.”
Bill’s face closed again.
Eddie caught his chin before he could turn away.
“Listen to me.”
“I am listening.”
“No, you’re waiting for your turn to get mad.”
Bill pulled free. “What do you want me to say? That you saved yourself and now you’re gonna save me?”
“I didn’t save myself.”
“You think you did.”
“No. Other people kept putting up with me until I got enough sense to hear them.”
Bill gave a quiet, contemptuous laugh. “There you are.”
“What?”
“Telling me I ought to be grateful.”
“I’m telling you that a man doesn’t improve alone.”
“Maybe you didn’t.”
Eddie looked at him.
Bill’s eyes were bright now. Not with tears—Hartack would have broken his other hand before allowing that—but with the particular rage that came whenever anybody suggested he had needed something he had not been given.
“You had people,” Bill said. “Trainers kept putting you on good horses. Owners trusted you. Everybody started calling you the Master and forgot whatever you did before.”
“You think they handed me that?”
“I think they wanted to like you.”
“And nobody wants to like you?”
“I don’t give a damn.”
“That’s another lie.”
Bill reached for the door.
Eddie stepped in front of it.
“What now?”
“You haven’t heard me.”
“I’ve heard this from everybody.”
“That ought to tell you something.”
“It tells me everybody’s got plenty to say.”
“Christ Almighty, Bill.”
“There. Get mad. You been waiting to.”
“I am mad.”
“Good.”
“No, it isn’t good.” Eddie struck his own chest with two fingers. “That’s the difference you can’t get through your head. It feels good. That doesn’t make it good.”
Bill said nothing.
Eddie’s voice dropped. “I know what it is to want the whole room afraid of setting you off. I liked it. Thought it meant they respected me. All it meant was they were tired of me.”
“You afraid of me?”
“No.”
“You ought to be.”
Eddie almost laughed again, but Bill meant it. Not as a threat. As a warning.
That took some of the fight out of him.
He touched the bruise beside Bill’s mouth with his thumb. Bill’s face tightened but did not retreat.
“I’m afraid for you,” Eddie said.
Bill looked stricken by the words.
Eddie wished at once that he had chosen something harsher.
“I don’t need that.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t.”
“I can’t help it.”
“You help everything else.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You learned how to talk to owners. Learned how to grin for cameras. Learned when to keep your mouth shut. You turned yourself into what they wanted.”
Eddie’s thumb remained against Bill’s face.
Bill said, “Maybe I don’t want to.”
There it was. Not inability. Refusal.
Eddie had spent years believing that if he found the correct words, spoke them at the correct time and held Bill still long enough to hear them, something would give. Hartack was intelligent. Nobody who watched him ride could doubt it. His mind worked quickly, brutally, several moves ahead of the men around him. He understood what his behavior cost. He understood each warning. He simply regarded compromise as surrender and concern as another attempt to control him.
Eddie could recognize the road because he had once been on it.
He could not make Bill leave it.
Bill leaned into his hand, so slightly Eddie might have imagined it.
“You gonna go upstairs and tell them I’m sorry?” Bill asked.
“Are you?”
“No.”
“Then I won’t.”
“Tell them Johnson had it coming.”
“I won’t tell them that, either.”
“Some president.”
“Elect another one.”
Bill’s mouth finally curved. “Nobody else wants it.”
“That’s because jockeys are cheap, argumentative bastards.”
“Especially you.”
“Especially me.”
Bill kissed him again.
This time it was quiet. That frightened Eddie more than the first one had.
He put both hands on Bill’s face and felt the tension there, the hard set of the jaw slowly giving way. Bill’s uninjured hand settled at Eddie’s waist. His bandaged one remained awkwardly between them.
For a little while, in a locked equipment room with the lock already broken, Bill permitted himself to be held.
Eddie knew not to call attention to it.
When they separated, Bill rested his forehead against Eddie’s temple. He smelled of sweat, liniment and the stale wool of the jockeys’ room. Eddie felt suddenly tired—not of Bill exactly, but of loving him in moments that could never survive being named.
“You won’t change,” Eddie said.
Bill’s fingers tightened at his waist.
It was not a question, and Bill did not insult him by treating it as one.
“Neither will you,” he said.
“I already have.”
“That what you tell yourself?”
“That’s what I work at.”
Bill lifted his head. Something in his expression softened, though not enough to become kindness.
“You still wanted to hit me.”
“Yes.”
“You still might.”
“Yes.”
“So what changed?”
Eddie considered it.
“I wanted to hit you,” he said. “I didn’t.”
Bill looked almost disappointed.
Then he stepped back and reached for his shirt.
Eddie watched him dress. Bill buttoned it one-handed, refusing help even when the bandage caught against the cloth. Eddie let him struggle. There were some forms of pride a man could interfere with and some he could not.
At the door, Bill examined the broken latch.
“You’ll pay for that,” Eddie said.
“They can take it out of my winnings.”
“You’re suspended.”
“When I come back.”
Eddie looked at the narrow line of his back. “You always assume you’re coming back.”
Bill glanced over his shoulder.
There was no smile now. Only certainty.
“I always do.”
He walked out.
Eddie remained beside the cabinet, listening as Bill’s footsteps faded along the corridor. In fifteen days Hartack would return and ride as though punishment had proved nothing. He would win races other men could not. He would antagonize owners, trainers, stewards and reporters. He would become, in time, the only man to equal Eddie’s five Kentucky Derby victories. He would consider the equality proof that he had never needed to listen.
Eddie would be proud of him.
Eddie would resent him.
He would go on wanting to shake sense into Bill with both hands, though he knew sense was not something one man could force into another. He would continue recognizing himself in Hartack’s worst moments, distorted but unmistakable: the same hunger, the same pride, the same temper that made injury feel preferable to humiliation.
Two sides of the same coin, people might have called them, had anybody known enough to look.
But coins were not truly divided. The two faces belonged to one piece of metal. They were struck by the same blow and carried the same weight. The only difference was which face a man chose to keep turned upward.
Eddie picked up the bloodstained towel and dropped it into the laundry bin.
Then he went upstairs to argue Hartack’s suspension down from thirty days to fifteen.