Hooligans

INVITATION

I was tired of the track and anxious to get back to town. There

were a lot of loose ends that needed tying up and I suddenly felt

out of touch with things. It was pushing noon, so I told Callahan

I needed to make a phone call or two arid then I‟d grab a cab

back to town.

“Stick‟s on his way out,” Callahan said. “Back gate, fifteen minutes.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, wondering whether Callahan was psychic in addition to his other

talents.

“Arranged it last night,” he said, and added in his cryptic dialogue, “Due at the clubhouse. See ya.”

“Thanks for the education,” I said.

Callahan stood for a moment appraising me and then nodded. “Disaway runs again Thursday

afternoon. Ought to be here.”

“It‟s a date,” I said.

He started to leave, then turned back around and offered rue his hand. “You‟re okay,” he said. “Like a

guy who listens. Thought maybe you‟d turn out to be a know-everything.”

“What I don‟t know would fill the course.”

“You know plenty,” he said, turning and heading across the infield toward the clubhouse.

I went looking for a phone to check the hotel for messages. By daylight, I had started having second

thoughts about the night before. I knew some of the phone calls bad been from Dutch. I wondered

whether any of them had been Doe calling.

I was walking past the stables when I heard her voice.

“Jake?”

The voice came from one of the stalls. I peered inside but saw nothing, so I went in cautiously. I could

hear a horse grumbling and stomping his foot and the pungent odor of hay and manure tickled my

nose, but my eyes were slow adjusting to the dark stable after leaving the bright sunlight.

“Are you going blind in your old age?” she said from behind me. I turned around and she was

standing in the doorway, framed against the brash sunlight, like a ghost. My eyes gradually picked out

details. She was all dolled up in jodhpurs, a Victorian blouse with a black bow tie, and a little black

derby. Twenty years vanished, just like that. She looked eighteen again, standing there in that outfit,

scratching her thigh with her riding crop. My knees started bending both ways. I felt as awkward as a

schoolboy at his first dance.

“You could have called,” she chided, as if she were scolding a kid for stealing cookies.

“I got tied up,” I said.

She came over to me and ran the end of the riding crop very gently down the edge of my jaw and

down my throat, stopping at that soft depression where the pulse hides.

“I can see your heart beating,” she said.

“I don‟t doubt it for a moment.”

“Can you forgive me?”

“For what?”

“Twenty years ago?”

“There‟s nothing to forgive,” I lied. “Those things happen.”

She shook her head slowly and moved closer. “No,” she said, “there‟s a lot to forgive. A lot to forget,

if you can forget that kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing?”

“You know what I‟m talking about,” she said evasively.

“Look, Doe, I. .

She put the tip of the crop against my lips, cutting off the sentence.

“Please don‟t say anything. I‟m afraid you‟re going to say something I don‟t want to hear.”

I didn‟t know how to answer that, sc I just stood there like a fool, grinning awkwardly, wondering if

we could be seen from outside the stall. If we could, it didn‟t seem to concern her. She stepped even

closer, put the riding crop behind my neck, and, holding it with both hands, drew me closer. Her

mouth opened a hair, her eyes narrowed.

“Oh, God, I‟m so sorry,” she whispered. “I never wanted to hurt you. I didn‟t know Chief had written

that letter until Teddy told me. You just stopped writing and calling, like you‟d died.”

“The phone works both ways,” I heard myself say, and I thought,

Shut up, you fool, play it out. Let her talk. You‟ve been dreaming about this moment for twenty years;

don‟t blow it now.

“Pride,” she said. “We all have our faults. That‟s one of my worst. I wanted to write, then Teddy told

me to leave you alone. He said you‟d had enough. Please forgive me for being so foolish.”

I wondered if she really thought we could puff off twenty years so easily. Say we‟re sorry and forget

it. Was she that sure of my vulnerability? „The armour started slipping around me but she moved

closer, six inches away, and shaking her head gently, she breathed, “There will never be anyone like

you for me. Never again. I‟ve known it ever since I lost you, just as I knew you wouldn‟t come last

night.”

“How did you know that?” I said, my voice sounding hoarse and uncertain.

“Because I don‟t deserve it,” she said, and her lips began to tremble. “Because I wanted you to come

so much and—”

“Hey, easy,” I said, putting a finger against that full, inviting mouth.

What‟s happening here? I thought. How about all the decisions I had silently made to myself the night

before? Is this all it takes to break old Kilmer down?

Yeah, that‟s all it takes.

Then she closed her eyes, and her lips spread apart again, and she moved in and it was like the old

days. I got lost in her mouth, felt her tentative tongue taking a chance, and responded with mine. And

then she was in my arms and it was all I could do to keep from crushing her. I felt her knee rubbing

the outside of mine, heard the riding crop fall into the sawdust, felt her hands sliding down the small

of my back, pressing me closer to her.

I forgot all the things I was going to say to her. The accusations, the questions that would clear up the

dark corners of my mind. Whatever anger lurked inside me vanished at that moment. I slid my hands

down and felt the rise of her buttocks and pressed her to me.

“Oh, Jake,” she said huskily, “I wish it was that summer again. I wish the last twenty years never

happened.”

Don‟t we all, I thought; wouldn‟t that be nice. But I didn‟t say

“Forget all that,” I mumbled without taking my lips away. “Nothing to forgive.”

“Oh, Jake, I want it to be like it used to be,” she said, with her lips still brushing mine. “Come tonight.

Please come tonight. Don‟t stay away again.”

And without thinking any more about it, I said, “Yes.” And I knew I meant yes. I knew I would go

and the hell with Dutch and the Taglianis and the bell with safety and distance and vulnerability. I

would go because I wanted to and because it was my payoff for twenty years. I said it again. And

again.

“Yes... yes. . . yes.”

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