Winter Money

Cross-Country

Cross-Country I met Marty, all five feet two inches of her, at Ivy American Race Course up near Harrisburg. She was galloping horses for a trainer named Radosevich, by no means a job for the fainthearted. Marty's arms were like steel cables. She was twenty-six, eight years older than me. She'd been working at racetracks ever since she was sixteen. Her hair was the color of the red in a ripe peach. At night, I liked to close my eyes and run the tip of my index finger over her palm. It was like she was wearing leather gloves. "You can't be that tough," I'd say. We'd both laugh out loud. I'd been at Ivy American for five months. I had graduated from high school without giving college a second thought. I hadn't even wanted to finish high school, but my mother's eyes would get a certain look to them whenever I talked about quitting, so I stayed in, ran track, had a chair in detention named after me. Ivy American was a real bush joint. I grew up in Nolan, West Virginia , and when we were seniors my buddies Cíete and Ted and I hung out at Powell Downs there. The place was loaded with gamblers and women in leopard pants. I got ajob back at the barns during summer vacations, working as a groom. I wanted out of Nolan. My dad and grandpa and Clete's dad had allworked in the steel mills. There wasn't much left of them anymore—the mills, I mean. After graduation, I got on with a trainer, Gil Willmutt, and when Powell Downs closed for the fall he shipped his horses to Ivy American . Willmutt trained horses by sitting in his car all morning, tipping a pint of vodka. He was crooked, so he did win a lot of races. He paid the help on time and once in a while brought a case of I.C. Light to the barn for us. I met Marty at Willmutt's barn. She'd finished her morning work for Radosevich and was checking around, trying to pick up some freelance work. She tapped on Willmutt's window and he rolled it down. I was standing ten feet away, hosing the sore ankles of a seven-year-old gelding named Mr. Trips. "Got anything I can get on?" Marty said. She grinned. Willmutt laughed. "We're about done here," he said. "I canput you on something tomorrow, something with a nice long stride." "I'll check back," she said. "You do that," he said. She turned and started to walk past me. "What are you staring at, homegrown?" she said. She was still grinning. Marty got on a horse for Willmutt the next morning, one of the ones I looked after, a mare everybody just called Odie. I had the horse all tacked up and was standing with her in the stall. Marty appeared. She said, "Do all women stand that still for you? Bring that horse out here and give me a leg up." Later that morning I was hosing Mr. Trips' ankles again and Marty came towards us sitting atop a fat sand-colored pony. I'd been thinking about Marty already. Groom's work—cleaning stalls, looking after a horse's legs, raking the shedrow—was something you really didn't have to think about while doing it. It left your head clear for anything. Marty stopped the pony a few feet away. "Where're you from, anyway ?" she said. CROSS-COUNTRY ^ 113 So we started up right about there. After a couple ofweeks, I moved out of my room at the track dormitory and into a by-the-week motel with her. It was called the Greyhound and was a race trackers' place: forty-five dollars due every Monday, one ice machine, basic cable. Marty had a ratty Mustang; she delivered me to and picked me up from Willmutt's barn every morning. We'd go back to the Greyhound and get under the sheets for a while. We'd go to the races in the afternoon or she'd help me with feed time at Willmutt's barn when it was my turn. Then she'd drive us over to T.G.I. Friday's or The Spaghetti Ranch and we'd drink two-for-ones and...