Class Act

4

Jack Coulter woke up as his hospital bed began moving to the sitting position.

“The doctor wants to have a look at you,” his nurse said.

Jack took a couple of deep breaths and tried opening his eyes wide. They didn’t work all that well.

The doctor stood at the foot of the bed. “All right,” he said, “curtain up.”

The nurse removed the plastic nose guard, then the doctor, using tweezers, carefully pulled away the bandage. “Ahh,” he said.

“Ahh good, or ahh bad?” Jack asked.

“We only do good around here,” the doctor replied. “It looks perfect. You’ll be out of here in a day or two, suitably masked, of course. Your raccoonness should have subsided by then, and you’ll only have the surgical bruising to deal with.”

“How do I deal with surgical bruising?” Jack asked.

“By not getting punched in the nose, or bumping into things. All you have to do is be careful. I understand you’ll be traveling this week. When you do, you should wear a clear face guard, in case of accidents.”

“How’s my nose going to look when I’m healed?”

“You remember when you went to the movies as a kid and people like Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn were starring?”

“Sure.”

“Like that.”

“I guess I can live with that.”

“I guess you’ll have to,” the doctor replied. “New bandage and cup,” he said to the nurse. “Good morning, Mr. Coulter.” He turned and left the room.

“You were lucky,” the nurse said, beginning her work.

“How’s that?”

“You got the best nose man in New York. All those friends of yours who have perfect noses? They went to him, too.”

“That’s encouraging.”

“But don’t tell them I told you so.”

Mickey O’Brien sat in a reclining chair in the living room of his apartment in the basement of his mother’s Brooklyn Heights townhouse and watched Bridal Veil turn the corner into the home stretch, half a length ahead of the nearest competition. Mickey had ten grand on her nose, which he had been promised would reach the finish line first, even if they had to shoot another horse. He had odds of twelve to one, and this win was going to make everybody he owed well again. He took a deep breath and began to let it out slowly. Then the impossible happened.

The filly seemed to trip over something with her left forefoot, but there was nothing there to trip over. Her right leg went rigid in a wild attempt to stop, then the horse on her rump collided with her, and they both went down, causing a series of catastrophes akin to an interstate car crash in thick fog. The horse who had been half a length behind crossed the line unpursued.

Mickey might as well have taken an arrow in the chest. He started to get to his feet, then fell back into the recliner. His mother’s entrance coincided with that moment.

“Ohmigod, now what?” she asked. “I know that look,” she said accusingly, “it happens when you lose and lose big.”

“Mom,” Mickey said weakly, throwing up an arm as if to stop her progress. “Don’t start, not now!”

“I’m not starting,” Louise O’Brien said firmly, “I’m finished, done with your sickness. You will not see another dime from me that will go to some sorry bookie somewhere!”

Mickey clutched himself and turned onto his side, away from the slings and spears that were being delivered from her direction.

“You get out of this house right now!” she yelled. “And don’t you darken my door between the hours of nine am and midnight. Why don’t you go get a nice bouncer’s job in some disco somewhere, like a respectable ex-cop. Bring home a paycheck!”

“Mom, I don’t need a paycheck. I’ve got a pension! And a good one!”

“And every dime of it ends up in your bookie’s pocket!” She was screaming now. “You might as well have your pension on auto-deposit to that bookie’s pocket!”

“Stop, stop, please. I just saw my horse — running at twelve to one at full speed, collapse on the home stretch.” He waved at the big TV. “Just look at that mess!”

Louise did look, and it was a mess, she would give him that. “Get out! Take your gun and go shoot that horse! Put him out of his misery!”

“It’s a filly.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn what it is!”

“They’re shooting her now,” Mickey said, pointing. A group had gathered around the filly, and somebody was holding a tarp between her and the camera, then a forklift moved onto the track, and she was taken away.

Mickey was crying real tears now. “Poor goddamned baby!” he cried, watching the lump under the tarp be driven through a gate.

Louise grabbed the coal shovel from the fireplace set and whacked her son on the shoulder with it. He got his jacket on and fled the premises.

“Your key won’t work before midnight!” Louise yelled after him. “I’ll fix that!”

Mickey flagged a cab and, before he could think, nearly gave it the address of his favorite bar. But if he went there, he would be sent home with broken legs, and his mother would do the rest.

“P. J. Clarke’s,” he said to the driver. His crowd didn’t drink there. They didn’t like the class of people it drew. They dressed too well and smelled too good, they drank twelve-year-old Scotch, and they didn’t fuck people like them.

Mickey’s worst fears were realized when he got inside the crowded bar and immediately came face-to-face with the police commissioner of New York City and that snotty friend of his, Barrington.

“Look who’s here!” Dino cried gleefully. “We don’t even have to go look for him! Come on in, Mickey, and buy us a drink!”

Mickey got out the door quickly and sprinted up Third Avenue; he knew not where, just out of there. He wished he could get out of his life, too.