I see your point, she said carefully. What could be more alien to the body than someone that you hate. I understand the physical attraction of the alien. I've always been drawn to the alien-I mean, to anything alive that's a completely different species from me.
Hey, that's me, Joe Dale said. I'm a bulldog. I mean, naked I'm a little overweight, more than a little, my trainer don't like it but you'll like it. Wait'll you see-balls all over me. Balls on my neck, balls around my middle, balls on my balls. When I fuck you, I'm going to tell you the whole time how much I hate you. All the time, like some kinda new music you never heard before. You've been waiting for something like that for a long time now-am I right or wrong?
I've got to admit, she said, that you are alien to me, enough so… so I can imagine you… meeting you like some kind of monster in a labyrinth.
He laughed. Some kinda monster in a labyrinth. I like that.
But there's some aspect that kills it, freezes it, when I see you actually sitting there in front of me. Takes the life out of it.
The snuff aspect, he said.
Exactly. The snuff aspect. That you could take my life.
Hey, I'm unarmed. He pulled open his white windbreaker to show her. You could still run away from me, he said cheerfully. Go ahead. Try. You got room.
I could, couldn't I. But I'd like to know what it is you hate about me.
Okay. To be frank-you love trouble, he said. That disgusts me. You think you're too intelligent. You think you just accidentally end up where it's at, like, it's a coincidence that horses get wasted around you, maybe people too. But it ain't an accident. You make it happen.
How exactly do I do that?
You should have gone along with me the first time I suggested something to you, he said. It was just a small thing then. I tried to make it easy for you. To take the matter out of your hands. But you got no trust.
That's true. But I don't see why you couldn't just stay on your side and me on mine.
Hey, I didn't invite you into my world, did I? You showed up. You took, not one, two horses from me. You fought me, because you're a destroyer. You eat corpses, like that one there. I just fight back.
Then we're not so very different after all, are we.
Fuck yes we're different. I do cold things but you make it happen. It's like weather, it goes where it's summoned. I wouldn't do what I do if it wasn't for low pressure cunts like you. I wouldn't even think of such things, believe me.
I believe you.
You better go if you're going to go, he said, getting to his feet. Otherwise I'm going to get my hands on you. I waited long enough to get you out of my system.
I'd like to get out of your system, Maggie said. I honestly would. But I don't think I can help you there.
Sure you can. First I'm going to get those little-boy tits out of the way, which I admit I always kinda liked them. I bet they're full of hard little bumps, though, like a golfball-probably cancer. He laughed. That's a foretaste. Hey, didn't I figure you right? Isn't that what you like? Somebody who can reach his hand up inside you and tell you what disease you're dying of.
He was standing at the edge of the loading platform now, his hands level with the head of the dead horse.
You know, I think you'd better stay away from me after all, she said. I don't think you should come any closer.
What, you're going to use that fucking dead horse to keep me away? I don't see what else you got.
That's because you haven't really looked, Tommy said. He was pushing through the tall, tough blooms, pitchfork in hand. If you stood in the right place, you could see everything. But down in the dreck where you live, you can't see.
Tommy Hansel, Joe Dale said, turning around. He raised his two empty hands in the air like a preacher, and slowly backed away towards the washed-out edge of the racetrack. You crept on me. I gotta hand it to you. Fuck, man, you got me good. But then, I didn't know you were the sneaking up kind. I thought you were the raving looney kind. I was just saying to your woman here Tommy swung the pitchfork at his face sideways, like a bat. Maggie watched, in fascination, the tines of it close on the round white jowls like a barred window. He staggered backwards, his hands curled on his face. She stared at the little bush of whisker on each upper knuckle, the square glow of each clean white fingernail. He had had a manicure. Tommy swung again. The elbows in their yellow windbreaker pointed up like two yellow sails in the fog, and he went down. Tommy stood over him, holding the pitchfork low around its neck. He dislikes horses, actually, Tommy said. It's beyond indifference.
Are you going to kill him? If you kill him, Tommy, when they catch you, they'll never let you out.
You're leaving me and I don't care what happens to me, he said quite lucidly.
Things might look different in a little while. I'm not worth it. I'm really not.
It doesn't matter if you're worth it, he said. We're one thing, only you're too weak to know it. You think I'm nuts. You're lucky I'm not nuts. Do you know why?
Why, she asked reluctantly.
Because if I was really nuts I wouldn't let you make that mistake. I'd correct it.
She nodded. She thought there was something to that.
Joe Dale, groaning, rolled over on one side, then got his knees under him and pushed up in a salaam, his face still down in the dirt in the basket of his hands. Fuck. You two deserve each other, he said.
Tommy laughed. There you are, Maggie. Even that sick prick can see it. Why can't you see it?
Do me one favor, Joe Dale said. I can't see too good. Put me in my car. I need to get to a hospital.
I'm thinking of going to Ireland, Tommy said. Would you want to live in Ireland some day? You know I'm supposed to be descended from an Irish revolutionary hero on my mother's side. James Napper Tandy?
Is that so? Maggie said. I never knew that. And she sang:
O Erin must we leave you, driven by the tyrant's hand? Must we ask a mother's welcome from a strange but happier land?
They smiled at each other.
That's fine, she said, but I don't think we're going to Ireland.
You know I'm a bastard, he said. I'm not really my father's child.
Maggie recalled the gray mechanic, a dried-up mask of Tommy, behind the cluttered desk at Hansel's Esso and Used Auto, Trempeleau, Wisconsin. No. No, I think you really are.
You could see a resemblance?
I'm afraid I must say I did. He was almost your double. Shrunken and lifeless I admit.
He blinked at her, hurt and disappointed. I don't think so, he said.
Joe Dale rose to a half-crouch and took three shambling steps towards the infield where the Cadillac was idling. But his ankles tangled in the jungly touch-me-not that choked the old sand track, and he sank down again and crawled on all fours. His hands on the ground were black with blood. Get me to a hospital, he muttered.
I'll get you to the same hospital where you take your sore horses, Tommy said.
What, Hansel, you think you treated your horses so good? Joe Dale peered up at Tommy out of eyes that were swollen shut.
I did not, Tommy said. I did not. But I am leaving horse racing. I don't believe I've heard you bid the sport farewell. I, however, am leaving horse racing tonight. My fallen twin sister can come with me if she wishes. Well, Maggie? Do you wish? He waited a moment. No. Well, tell me this. Do you think I could be a dancer? No answer to that either. He laughed. Then fare thee well.