Venom (6 page)

“Em!” We all turn when Scampy barks out her name. He's leading Lordy, who is jigging and prancing beside him. There's no doubt about it, the horse looks pretty good.

Em doesn't need to be told what to do, and neither do I. I take the reins from Scampy, who turns to my grandmother and says, “Joyce, good to see you. Lordy ran a good race. I'm pleased. Come inside. How about a lemonade?”

They disappear into the tack room and leave us to the long process of cooling out the sweaty horse.

Lordy is drenched, and his sides still puff in and out. Once the saddle, saddle cloth and bridle are off and the halter and sweat sheet are on, we start walking loops around the barns. Each time we pass through Scampy's barn, Lordy visits the water bucket.

“Easy, big guy,” Em says when we arrive at the water bucket for the first time. Lordy doesn't listen. He plunges his mouth into the water and takes a huge swig. Two swallows, and then Em makes him move on. We walk another loop and then let him have two more sips. Left to his own devices, Lordy would empty the bucket in one go. And, chances are, it would make him very sick.

With each loop, Em checks Lordy's breathing, how he's moving and whether he's cooling out okay. She slips her hand under the sweat sheet and reaches forward to feel his chest.

Lordy is still wet with sweat and warm when Em says, “Bath time for Lordy.”
She coos as she leads him into the wash rack out back.

Lordy knows the routine. It's so great working with an old trooper like him. He happily lets us clip the snaps to either side of his halter and stands quietly in the wash rack. Even so, I keep the lead shank on and stay near his head while Em hoses him down. She starts with his legs and works her way to the rest of his body. A bucket of warm water and horse shampoo are next, and she lathers him up. After a rinse and a squeegee, Em throws a light cotton sheet over him.

Then we walk again. Around and around the barns we go, letting the sun do the work of drying off the horse. As we walk, Lordy's legs loosen and stretch, and by the time he is ready to return to his stall, he is good and hungry and ready for a rest.

That night my usual nightmare takes a new direction. In the dream, my dad is loading a horse into the starting gate. Everything seems to be going smoothly. I realize the horse is Lordy. I know something is wrong, but at first I don't know what. Then I notice that Lordy only has three legs. Where his right foreleg should be, a bloody stump sticks sideways out of his shoulder.

With the stump sticking out, the horse won't be able to squeeze into the narrow stall in the starting gate.

“Stop! Dad! He won't fit!”

The words are loud inside my head, but for some reason my dad can't hear me. He moves behind Lordy, waving a big hook at the end of a stick.

“Dad!”

Dad swings the hook over Lordy's back. He tears a strip of flesh from the horse's back and flicks it back and forth. Blood sprays everywhere. Lordy's ears pin flat against his neck.

“Stop! He won't fit!”

Lordy tries to move forward, but his stump thuds against the back of the starting gate. Dad moves closer, and Lordy lets go with both back legs.

Boom
.

The force of those powerful haunches drives both back hooves into Dad's face. His face collapses like it's made of soft clay. His eyeballs explode. His nose and mouth disappear. Flecks of blood and brain
spatter everywhere. He falls. All around, horses' hooves stomp and thump. Bits of brain bubble and ooze out of the gaping hole where Dad's face used to be.

“Stop!” I scream, and this time my voice is loud enough for everyone to hear. The horses kneel and melt into the ground. I run to where my dad has fallen and reach out to touch his shoulder.

“Dad?”

Dad's back arches. He bends backward, pushing his head into the soft dirt of the track. His legs kick and push and his arms start doing something like the back-stroke. Dad drives himself into the ground. His head, his neck, and then his shoulders disappear. Thrashing and contorting, his legs lift off the ground.

The earth opens her muddy lips and swallows my dad whole.

“Dad!”

“Spencer—shhh.”

Grandma's cool hand smoothes my hair back from my forehead. “Shhh. It was just a dream.”

I'm drenched in sweat. At Grandma's touch, my head relaxes into the pillow. Will the nightmares ever stop?

A nightmare of another kind tortures me the next day when I hear my mother yelling out in the driveway. Grandma opens the front door and waves her in.

“Where is he? What the hell does he think he's doing?”

Counting the minutes until she leaves again is what I'm doing. Mom stomps up the front steps. She pushes past Grandma and drops her purse on the floor. “Do you think you can get away with this?” she asks, waving an envelope at me. The report card. “I don't know what to do with you! Say something! Don't you care?”

About what she thinks? No.

Mom turns to Grandma, who has closed the door and is now perched on the edge of the couch. “Ma, how can you let him get away with this? You're supposed to be
the responsible adult here. And if you can't handle him, then you should have let me know there was a problem so—”

“So, what, Angel? So you could smack him around? Lock him in his room? Don't smoke in here.”

Mom jabs her cigarette back into the package and drops the pack on the coffee table. “Damn it, Ma. You're supposed to be looking after him. That includes making sure he goes to school.”

“I do go to school!”

“And what do you do there? Sleep?”

“Angel, calm down,” Grandma says. “Would you like some coffee?”

Mom's eyes flick to the cigarettes on the table and she nods. “Sure. Yeah. Why not?”

The entire time Grandma is in the kitchen, Mom is in lecture mode.

“Do you want to wind up in some dead-end job making barely enough money to keep a roof over your head? Is that your plan? Do you even have a plan? How do you
think you're even going to graduate with grades like these? You are nothing without a high school diploma. Nothing!”

The best strategy is to keep quiet. I stare at the edge of the coffee table until it starts to wobble and dissolve. I blink and the edge comes back into focus. The worst thing is, I know Mom's just getting warmed up. Me winding up in a dead-end job is not her real worry.

Grandma finally comes back and sets two coffee mugs on the table. “Angel. Do you really think yelling is going to help?”

“Whatever you're doing isn't helping! Have you seen these grades?”

She thrusts the paper at Grandma. “It's disgusting! Obviously, he's not even trying.”

Grandma shoots me a look over the top of the report card. “He got a
B
in art and another in phys ed.”

Mom jumps to her feet, banging her shin on the coffee table. She lets out a string of curse words and then points at Grandma. “
B
s in art and phys ed? What the hell use is that to anybody? Do you think there are
any jobs out there for a high-school dropout who likes to doodle?”

I can't help it. One side of my mouth twitches. She sounds ridiculous.

“You're laughing? You think this is funny? This is not funny. You obviously can't see how serious this is. And you”— she turns back to Grandma—”I trusted you to look after him! Taking him to the track is not—”

Here it comes.

“Angel, sit down.” Grandma's quiet voice is scarier than all of Mom's screeching. Mom does what she's told and sinks into the couch. How does Grandma do that?

“Spencer lives here because living with you is not an option.” She says this so calmly I think for a moment that she's going to get away with it. But then Mom is on her feet again.

“I'm his mother! Living with me should be the only option! You are doing a lousy job of bringing him up! Look at these grades!” She whips the page back and forth like she's trying to kill flies with it.

“Angel. That's enough! You are in my house. This yelling must stop now.” Grandma draws the last three words out and, once again, my mother sits. “I agree— the report card leaves a lot to be desired. But Spencer has always had trouble at school; this is not news.”

My mom starts to say something, but Grandma holds up her hand like she's directing traffic. Mom's mouth snaps shut again.

“Screaming at Spencer isn't going to do a bit of good. If you take him home to try to yell at him some more there...well, you know what will happen.”

We all know what will happen. I'll walk out the door and be back at Grandma's before Mom has taken a deep breath.

“Spencer.” Grandma looks directly at me. “What do you think about all this?”

What do I think about all this? I think my mother is a nutcase. I think I hate school. I think I want to be anywhere but in the same room as my lunatic mother. I think
I want to be down at the track. All I can offer, though, is a shrug. At least the urge to laugh has passed.

Grandma sighs. “I'm getting too old for this.”

I look up. I hate it when Grandma talks about getting old. I'd be up the creek without a paddle if anything ever happened to her.

“I could maybe find out about that school that Em goes to...” I'm grasping at straws, but I don't want Grandma to feel like she has to take Mom on alone.

Grandma smiles. “Funny you should bring that up. I was talking to Scampy about Em's school just the other day.”

So that's what they were talking about.

“Em? Is that the girl from the track?” My mom says the work
track
like it tastes disgusting.

“Em goes to ALC—the Alternative Learning Center,” Grandma says.

Mom's nostrils flare and her top lip curls. “Oh, great idea. The school for bad kids.”

Grandma purses her lips and takes in a long slow breath through her nose. “Angel, the program offers a very flexible timetable. There's extra help for the kids in the subjects they have trouble with—”

“Ma, over my dead body. Read my lips: N-O. Spencer has enough problems as it is. Schools like that are where drug addicts and teenage moms and losers go.”

“Sounds like the perfect school for me, don't you think?” I say to my mother, who glares at me like I'm some kind of insect.

“Spencer, do you enjoy taunting me?”

I don't. But I can't seem to help myself.

A Beatles tune starts playing in Mom's purse. She reaches down between her feet and fishes out her cell phone. She glances at the display and says, “It's Jerry.”

The newest boyfriend. A guy with a bad back who lies around a lot because he's on some sort of long-term disability leave from his job in a warehouse.

“Hi, honey. Sure, I'll pick some up on the way home. No, I won't be long. I think we're about done here. Love you. Bye!”

She snaps the phone shut. “Jerry's waiting. Call me with a plan. Because if you don't have a plan, you need to come home where I can keep an eye on you and keep you away from the track. Because I know it's the goddamn track and all the losers who hang out there that have got you into this mess. That place—” She pauses and the lines around her mouth harden. “That place killed your father. Why are you so determined to follow in his footsteps?”

With that, she sweeps her cigarettes off the coffee table and stalks out the front door. None of us says good-bye.

Grandma reaches over and ruffles my hair with her fingertips. “I'm sorry, Spencer.” I don't know why she's apologizing. Mom is an adult. She should figure out how to behave better.

I sigh. For a moment I even think that maybe I should find something else to do. The thought is too strange. How could I leave the track? And what if the worst
did
happen? Is it so bad to die doing something you love?

“It's too bad your mother's way of grieving is so hard on the rest of us. Give her time, Spencer.”

Time? How much more time? Why can't Grandma see that Mom was crazy before Dad died? The accident might have made things worse, but no amount of time is going to make her better.

“Don't look so glum.” Grandma switches gears. “That school Em goes to might not be a bad idea. Why don't you check on the Internet and see if there's a counselor available during the summer? We should at least have all our facts straight before we talk to your mother again.”

I nod. Having the facts straight won't make any difference. My mother looks at me and sees my dad, a man who died when a young horse kicked his face into his brain. His accident and my crummy report card are the only facts she cares about.

“So, how'd he feel, Stretch?” Em asks as I slide off Lordy and she takes the reins.

“Ha, ha, ha.” Lordy felt like a bomb about to go off. Of course. Today was a walk day for him. Em knows very well the horse is just fine sauntering around the Loop, a two-mile trail that wraps around the outside of the racetrack grounds. It's great for the horses to have a change of scenery. They seem to enjoy strolling down by the river and alongside the big field just
north of the track. Lordy had yesterday off—a quick turn-out in the sand pen for a roll while Em did his stall, and then back inside. He was raring to go and would have charged around the Loop if I'd let him.

“I need a drink,” I say, heading into the tack room. I grab a can of iced tea and sip while Em gets Twitter ready. I double-check the whiteboard to see if Scampy has added anything since I looked earlier this morning. Good thing I do. Beside
Breeze quick ¼
, he's added
Gate
. That's where we'll start, with some practice at the starting gate. Twitter hasn't been with Scampy for long. She was racing in Alberta and only arrived a few weeks ago.

“Hurry up in there,” Em calls. “You know how patient she is!”

Out in the aisle, Twitter tosses her head and paws the ground. “Behave!” Em says, giving the reins a sharp tug. “Come on!”