Blue Collar Blues (6 page)

“Let me help you,” Caleb said to Tomiko.

Tomiko stroked the mare’s neck. “You can hold the mare steady while I turn the foal around.” She eased down on the bank of hay to lie next to the horse. Tense minutes passed as Tomiko worked feverishly with the mare, her hands up the birth canal.

For a moment, she locked eyes with R.C. They both understood that Tomiko was fighting to save the foal’s life. It was going to be the mother or the child. There was no way they would both live.

When the mare began to groan and kick, R.C. looked away. Seconds later, when the mare’s screams heightened, he turned back again. “What’s taking that damn doctor so long?” R.C. snapped at Caleb.

“He’s already too late.” Caleb’s jaw muscles flexed as he struggled to hold the mare’s head still. “There now, girl. Hold steady now,” he said as he watched Tomiko work inside her.

Wicked Widow strained and trembled, her movements becoming increasingly restless. She groaned and convulsed in severe pain. Her shiny coat was swathed with sweat.

“You should leave, R.C.,” Tomiko whispered. “You’re scaring her.” Her arms were coated with blood and she could see both fear and disgust in R.C.’s eyes. “This is your first birth, isn’t it?” she asked him.

R.C. didn’t bother to answer. At this moment, his clothes were soaked clear through.

What difference did it make now? she thought. The foal was almost here. He would either faint or leave. She pushed away her own disgust at her husband’s reaction to his beloved horse.

And just as the sun rose on that early spring morning, a beautiful black foal was born, and its finger-warming breath caressed Tomiko’s cheek.

Wicked Widow blinked twice, groaning a sigh of relief. The struggle was over.

Tomiko looked at her husband and saw not a hint of compassion in his eyes. It made her sad to think how cold he could be toward something he treasured—at least financially. When their eyes met, he looked away.

R.C. checked his watch. “Time to go, baby. I’ve got to be out of the house by eight. I’m hoping to make a million today at the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.”

At that moment, the mare collapsed, her eyes glazed over in a dead stare.

“Have her body taken away as soon as the rest of the men are in, Caleb. We might get a hundred dollars for her. And tell that vet when he shows up I’d better not see this visit on my bill.”

Tomiko’s eyes filled with tears as she looked from the dead mother to her newborn child.

Gripping the teat between her index finger and thumb, Tomiko offered the foal a milk-soaked finger, moistening its lips to give it a taste of the milk. She felt the foal give a tentative suck against her fingers. The eager foal stretched out its tongue and bent the edges upward, forming a channel.

Tomiko grabbed the bottle left at the top of the stall, which Caleb must have seen to in case of just such an emergency. Gripping the makeshift teat between her index finger and thumb, she squeezed and produced a dribble of milk, persuading the foal to get accustomed to bottle-feeding.

When she returned to the house, R.C. was showering.

Tomiko retired to their bedroom, exhausted from the morning’s events. She knew that R.C. expected her to accompany him to the seventy-fourth running of the Mishimoto Blue Grass Stakes in Lexington, an event that was sponsored annually at Keeneland Race Track. One million dollars was guaranteed to three-year-olds on a 11/8-mile course.

“Tomiko,” R.C. said, shaking his wife’s narrow shoulder. She had fallen asleep. “It’s time to go.”

Tomiko looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly eight o’clock.

“No, no. I can’t,” Tomiko mumbled.

R.C. urged, running his hand over the expanse of her hips, “Come on, baby. We can’t miss the first race. I can feel it—my luck is high.”

“You go,” Tomiko said in a thick voice, “I want to check on the foal. What if she stops feeding from the bottle? Her mother’s gone. One of us needs to be there.”

Angrily, R.C. said, “Caleb can take care of the foal. Come on, Tomiko. Get dressed. We could win enough money today to buy ten more Wicked Widows.”

Tomiko remembered what she had been taught: It is the duty of the wife to obey her husband. She got up, showered and dressed quickly and quietly, and left with R.C. for the racetrack.

On the way, she tried to feed off of his energy, but wasn’t successful. She kept thinking of the mare’s dead eyes.

* * *

The moment they entered the lower level of the racetrack, Tomiko could tell that her husband felt at home. At ten A.M., the grandstand was over half full. Anxious, middle-aged, blue collar men and women stood in lines at betting windows fifteen to twenty deep, waiting to hand over most of their paychecks for tickets that wouldn’t be worth a copper penny in five minutes. “We’ll get our seats first, then come back down to place our bets,” R.C. told Tomiko as they climbed the stairs to the second level, clearly the more exclusive area, reserved for heavy bettors.

Inside the stadium, where bets were placed, Tomiko watched as men stood in front of eight television screens screaming, entranced by the action. Their faces changed from hopeful to hesitant to desperate to despairing. Tomiko had seen it all at home in Japan.

Tomiko could hear their voices debating the odds. The serious bettors hunched over papers, track records, lineage, jockey history, reports on the track conditions, owners, trainers, and so on.

How could R.C. enjoy this? These people were empty.

Fans were filling the stadium faster than roaches running from a housefire. Even though it wasn’t quite eleven A.M., the smell of fresh popcorn, peanuts, and bitter beer filled the air.

“I don’t want to bet, R.C.” Tomiko’s words were lost in the sound of pre-race chatter.

Over a million and a half dollars were being bet today, R.C. had told her. What Tomiko couldn’t know was that R.C. counted on winning, in fact had to win, at least two hundred thousand dollars. After buying Tomiko a large diet Sprite, he left her to place his bets.

When he returned, the horses began lining up in the starting gate, and R.C. and Tomiko took their seats near the window on the second level.

Next to them a man with a program clinched tightly in his hand spoke through gritted teeth. “Let’s do it, Ice Chaser!” he yelled.

Tomiko felt R.C. tense beside her. “Did you bet on her, R.C.?”

“Damn right. Seventy-five grand. And if that bitch loses today . . .”

Tomiko whistled under her breath. “I didn’t know you’d risk that much on one horse.”

R.C. was smiling now; the mare was steady at the gate and the race was about to begin. “You might as well know now. I bet big and I win big.”

“And when you lose?”

Her husband ignored her as the crowd stood and shouted. Have No Doubt was ahead at the quarter mile, Only Action was in second, and Ice Chaser was close behind. By the time they reached the half-mile, Ice Chaser was coming from behind to battle Have No Doubt. R.C. was jumping up and down like a five-year-old on a pogo stick.

In a wink of an eye, Ice Chaser pulled out in front by a head. The screaming escalated. Just as suddenly, the mare stumbled and fell, the jockey tumbling off the horse. Silence fell across the stadium. The tickets R.C. had been clutching so feverishly slipped from his fingers and scattered like lice on the cement floor. Simultaneously, R.C.’s cell phone rang.

Though he spoke in whispers, Tomiko heard R.C. explaining to the person on the other end of the phone that he’d make up the loss before the day was out. Tomiko couldn’t believe that he wasn’t concerned about the mare or the jockey. It was like a repeat of earlier this morning. Was she the only one who saw the horses as breathing beings rather than pieces of profitable meat?

Tomiko watched R.C. as he spoke frantically into the cell phone. Was this who she’d married?

R.C. was more than twenty-five years older than she, but they’d known each other since she’d been a young teenager. He’d come around to her stepfather’s stables, wanting to get into the horse business. She had followed the handsome black man around the horse farm and he had paid special attention to her.

When he visited three years ago, she had become a woman and suddenly R.C. looked at her differently. At first they had dated in secret. He had swept her off her feet. She’d never before met a man who was both so romantic and sophisticated. All the young Japanese men she’d dated had been stiff and formal. Tomiko had clung to R.C.’s expansiveness as if he were a life raft in a cold dark sea.

He’d told her tales of America, the rolling hills of his horse farm, his beautiful home in Michigan, and she’d become entranced. She shared with him her dream to become a fashion model and he promised her that, with his help, she could be a fashion star in both the United States and Europe.

R.C. was the first person she’d become close with who shared her black heritage: her mother had kept her away from her black father’s parents, her grandparents. Tomiko knew her mother was ashamed that her daughter was half black. R.C. was the first man to make her feel beautiful rather than strange with her deep olive skin tone and wild, crinkly hair.

Up until then, she had only felt different. Most of the people in Japan shunned her. She remembered a conversation she’d had with her mother when she reached puberty.

“You’re not a baby anymore, Tomiko. Soon you’ll be old enough to marry a fine young man. Possibly someone from the Sugimoto family.”

“The Sugimoto boys don’t like me. They tease me because of my dark skin.”

“Oh, but that will pass. They will soon see how beautiful you are. And all else will be forgotten.”

“But Mother, why can’t I marry someone of my father’s race? A black man.”

“Now you hush. Don’t you let your stepfather hear you talk that way. You are Japanese. Not black.”

“Then why do we speak English, Mother?”

“Because we make our living with horses and must deal with the Americans.” Her voice was insistent:
“Shumatsu ni nani o shimasu ka.”

“Nichi-yobi ni tomodachi to kabuki o mimasu,”
Tomiko answered.

“Ii desu ne.”
Her mother smiled. “See? You haven’t forgotten our language.”

“No, Mother.” She lowered her eyes before speaking. “But I’d still love to go to America one day.”

Her mother’s voice was bitter. “Listen to me, Tomiko. I regret marrying your father. Never will I agree to let you sell your soul to those black devils.”

“Is that why the kids at school ask to see my tail? Because they think that black people are devils?”

“Tomiko! Why do you tell such tall tales!”

“I speak the truth, Mother. They tease me about how long my tail is. Especially the Sugimoto boys.”

“They’re just jealous. You listen to your mother. You are beautiful and someday you will be successful because of it. Then these children will beg for your friendship.”

But Tomiko had defied her mother. She kept her relationship secret until one day her mother confronted her.

“Tomiko, Mrs. Hashimoto has told me that she has seen you with Mr. Richardson. Is this so?”

With her eyes to the floor, Tomiko said, “Yes, Mother, it is true. We love each other and we are going to marry.”

“How can you do such a thing!”

“Mother, I am not a young child anymore, I am a grown woman. I love him and he loves me.”

“You will be unhappy, my child. You will go to your beloved America and you will see that you will feel just as different there as here.”

Thinking back, Tomiko grew wistful at her mother’s words. Was her mother right? Was it possible that marriage to R.C. and life in America still would not fulfill her dreams?

R.C. ended his phone call and put his arm around Tomiko. “We’ll do just fine. You’ll see.” But Tomiko knew he was talking about money again.

“I don’t like it here, R.C. This isn’t the way I planned on us spending our honeymoon. When are we going to see your home in Michigan?”

“Be patient, baby.” He kissed her softly on the mouth. “Today’s important. A lot depends on how much I win today.”

“Why?” Tomiko asked suspiciously.

“Don’t worry. Leave it up to me.”

“As your wife, don’t you feel I should know what’s going on?”

R.C. quickly eased her back in her seat and patted her on the knee. “We’ll talk about this later at home. Right now I’ve got business to take care of.”

“But how soon can we leave?”

“Don’t push it, Tomiko.”

“But R.C., when are we going to Michigan so I can start my modeling career? You told me they were waiting for me.”

“Who was waiting for you?”

“The modeling agency!” Tomiko said in frustration.

They had discussed this issue before they left Japan, and R.C. had promised he could pull some strings. Was R.C. reneging?

“I told you I’d get you an agent,” he said. “Now leave me alone. I’ve got money on these horses. As soon as we get back to Michigan, you’ll be working with a top agent. You have nothing to worry about. You’re going to be the biggest thing since Naomi Campbell.”

“But I look too Japanese!”

“Listen, Tomiko, I can’t tend to your insecurities right now.”

They were interrupted by a second call from R.C.’s bookie.

“R.C. here.” R.C. stroked Tomiko’s face.

At five foot ten, Tomiko knew she had the figure to make it as a runway model. But she worried that her looks were too exotic. Her wide-set almond eyes were offset by raven, wild, center-parted hair, and she’d often been told that her full lips gave her a certain voluptuousness often missing in the models.

He cupped his hand over the phone before he spoke. “Don’t worry, baby, you’re nothing short of gorgeous. Everything will work out fine. Just leave it to me. America hasn’t seen anything until they’ve seen you.”

Tomiko felt paralyzed. Just leave it to him? Could she trust him?

* * *

The following day, Saturday, it was back to the track. R.C. was again consumed by the races. Tomiko may have been young, but she wasn’t stupid. She calculated his bets as the day went on and realized that he had bet over two hundred thousand dollars. She figured that he’d lost as often as he’d won, but she knew for certain that if he continued to gamble this way, they’d either be using one-hundred-dollar bills for toilet paper or stealing cardboard boxes from the homeless. Her mother had taught her that women should be in charge of the household income, and Tomiko knew it was her job to be prudent with money.