Chapter 1 Draft

Jack

 

It was a quiet funeral. Three attendees, including the priest. Just me and my dad, but who else had we expected to come? Our family wasn’t too popular among folks. Personally I’m glad it was just me and Dad. I didn’t want no one else to see me like this. With tears in my eyes, I mean. I’m a groom at a racetrack for Pete’s sake. I couldn’t be as wimpy as to cry at a funeral. But they don’t understand; their mothers didn’t die.

            “Jack,” Dad clamped his hand down on my shoulders and steered me away from the gravesite. It was over. Mom’s ashes were in the ground; the priest has already left the cemetery.

            “Let’s get something to eat,” he suggested as we climbed into the Buick. I folded my hands in my lap and stared straight ahead.

            Dad didn’t try to make unnecessary conversation. That was the thing about us; we were equally comfortable with silence. Mom was that way, too. She didn’t feel the need to go on and on about something just to fill the silence. I like that in a person.

            We settled into a corner booth at the Big Boy and mused over our menus.

            “It was a nice funeral,” Dad muttered.

            My head snapped up. Had I heard him right? Did he really want to discuss the funeral?

            “It was,” I agreed hesitantly.

            “Wish some of her sewing friends had come, but ah well,” Dad shrugged and lifted his menu, ending the conversation.

            I stared at the back of his menu in awe. What was that?

            The pretty waitress standing at the end of our table interrupted my thoughts.

            “Can I get y’all anything at all?” she flashed a gleaming white smile outlined with perfect red lips.

            I ordered root beer; my dad ordered the latter word. She brought our drinks back in an efficient time and we ordered our burgers.

            The silence during our wait was deafening. For the first time in my life I was practically begging for someone to come and say something pointless. We needed something to think about other than the funeral.

            Dinner dragged, to put it lightly. By the time Dad had paid the bill, I was ready to get out of there and get to the barn. I had my evening chores to do, and my friends would already be there.

            “Jack…” he had this tone to his voice. The tone that made me know for sure he was going to start talking about money.

            “I know, Dad. Bring the money straight to you, no stopping on the way home, no gambling with the guys. I know,” I sighed. Dad was unemployed and I was the only source of income; we needed the money to get straight home.

            “Yes…but that’s not what I was going to say.”

            I looked at him, surprised.

            “I’m sorry that you have to work so hard. I’m trying though, I really am.”

            “I know you are,” I shut the door and made my way to the stable.

            “Jack, man,” Jacob smacked my back with his open palm.

            “Hey,” I punched his shoulder.

            There were four of us here and we’d all gotten pretty close. Mainly bonding over the grueling work we did, and the boss who was constantly looking for an excuse to mount our heads on his wall. Del Mar Racetrack was a home away from home for me, but for some of the other guys, it was their true home. Jacob was seventeen and lived with his wife. I, at sixteen, lived with my Dad. But the other two weren’t as lucky. Dan, my best friend, lived with his abusive father but spent a lot of time sleeping in the hayloft or at my house. And Alexander? Nobody knew where he went at night. He spent the whole day at the track, but at night he simply vanished. He didn’t ever get close enough to anyone for them to find out anything about him. He was a mirage for many.

            “Dolores is maaaaad, man. You’d better git workin’,” Jacob hissed in my ear.

            “Huh?”

            “Yeah, she ‘bout ripped my ear off earlier ‘cuz I wasn’t workin’ fast ‘nuff,” Jacob rolled his eyes. Dolores was pretty respectable, but we all knew that she liked to stir things up. She’s Boss’s fourth wife and thinks she pretty much runs this town.

            “Dan here yet?” I asked, eager to get off the subject of Dolores. Jacob could go on about her for hours if we let him. I picked up a pitchfork and headed to Rudy’s stall.

            “Nah. Said yesterday he might not be til late. Pop’s prolly mad he didn’t come home couple days ago,” Jacob shook his head.

            I frowned. Jacob was probably right, but I couldn’t help but hope otherwise.

            “Speak of the devil,” I heard Jacob say.

            I peered out of the stall and saw Dan come in. His face was bruised up pretty bad and he wore a heavy sweater.

            “Jack,” Dan beckoned me over to him. I set the pitchfork down and walked over to him.

            “What’s up?” I asked, concerned.

            “S’alright if I stay with you tonight?” he asked, staring at the floor.

            “Well, yeah. ‘Course. Your dad won’t get mad?”

            “No,” he said and walked to the tack room. I watched his back until he disappeared into the dark room. Shaking my head, I went back to the stall.

            Between the four of us guys, evening chores generally took little over an hour. Tonight I poured all the energy I had left into cleaning stalls and helping Jacob feed. Dan disappeared halfway through feeding. We didn’t think anything of it. So long as Boss and Dolores didn’t notice he was gone, it didn’t bother us none. Us guys were just a big family, and we treated each other that way. Always. It was simply because the majority of the teenage boys who worked at the track didn’t have a family to go home to every night. And if they did, it wasn’t a family they truly wanted to go home to.

            Jacob and I, we were the lucky ones. Sure my mother might’ve just died, but I have a father who cares about me. I have a father who’s gonna go out and try to make money so I don’t have to do all the work. I have a father who’s gonna try and put his only child back through school. I’ve always known he dreamt about me going off to college, getting a degree in something respectable. Working at a racetrack wasn’t considered a career. Sure I might be able to make a few bucks in exchange for my labor, but it wasn’t enough. If Dad were to die right this second, I’d be screwed. My life would pretty much crumble right then and there. My being alive depended on Dad. His being alive depended on me. We were the only ones each other had now that Mom died.

            I was dwelling on how we were going to be fed when Dan came back into the barn. Pleasantly surprised that I’d somehow just finished my last stall, I strolled up to Dan.

            “You sure you’re okay, man?” I asked, genuinely worried about my best friend.

            “Yeah, swear! He just doesn’t want me there tonight,” Dan nodded.

            “Okay…” I said hesitantly.

            “Honest, Jack, honest,” Dan locked onto my eyes and I could tell he was telling the truth.

            I bobbed my head once and turned back to the barn. Boss would come in or send Dolores in at any given moment to come fetch horses with us. It was probably my single favorite chore. Aside from working the young ones of course.

            As if on cue, Dolores stalked in with her dark hair thrown messily on the top of her head. There were bits of hay stuck in the frizzy curls hanging down over her forehead. Dolores was probably about twenty-five, but she didn’t do her age justice. Most twenty-five-year-olds out there are pretty nice to look at, but Dolores is about as ugly as they come. She doesn’t wear any makeup, but then again Mom never did either. But Mom was naturally pretty; Dolores is the kind of woman who should always, always, always wear makeup to cover up that natural… ugliness.

            “Mornin’ ma’am,” Dan bowed his head in greeting.

            Dolores flashed perfectly straight, white teeth and crossed the barn to grab a couple of leads.

            “Grab some,” she ordered, “Gonna get dark before y’all even get your ‘hind’s outta the barn.”

 

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            “How’ve you been, Dan?” Maybe Dad wasn’t surprised to see Dan in the foyer, but I thought he might have been. Dan hadn’t stayed at our house in quite a while. I guess things had been going pretty well with his father.

            “Fine, sir. Yourself?” Dan asked politely.

            Dad simply nodded back and retreated to the kitchen in search of something to prepare for dinner. While Dad and I had eaten at the Big Boy, Dan surely hadn’t eaten in a while.

            I called out to the dog and he came running immediately.

            “Hey bud,” Dan reached down to pat his head.

            I shoveled through the hall closet for his bag of food.

            “Duke, sit,” I ordered. He did so obediently; as he should. Duke had been our family dog ever since I was about nine years old. I’d picked him out of a small litter outside the supermarket one time with Mom. I didn’t think Dan had a dog; I’d never been to his house, nor did I really want to.

            “How’s some beef and noodles sound?” Dad called from the kitchen. I assume those were frozen leftovers since I’d never imagined Dad to be the beef and noodles cooking type. Mom had probably prepared that meal months ago. When she was sick she would cook all day long, just for something to do. But it wasn’t like she was cough-cough sick, she was mentally sick.

            “Sounds fine to me, sir,” Dan brought me back from my reverie.

            Dinner was silent. Awkward. Without Mom, it would just be Dad and me at that table. Dan occupied Mom’s seat tonight. He just didn’t belong there. It was weird. Dad and I didn’t eat. We stared at the table and listened to Dan chew quietly, deliberately.

            “How’s it taste?” Dad asked Dan after a few moments.

            “Just fine, sir,” Dan bobbed his head once and stuffed another forkful into his mouth.

            “How’s your pop doing?” Dad pressed. I hadn’t given him any information on Dan’s situation because I wasn’t even sure of it.

            “Just fine, sir,” Dan repeated.

            “He’s alright with you staying here tonight?”

            “Yessir.”

            Dad pursed his lips for a second before pushing himself away from the table.

            Dan looked up and frowned, his cheeks bulging slightly. I shook my head to let him know it wasn’t a big deal. My dad got that way every now and then. It generally happened when he wasn’t getting the information he wanted.

 

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Dan was sprawled out on the couch in our tiny living room and I was lying on the floor. I stared at the ceiling for a moment, mentally going over my words.

“So…” I managed to start.

“I know what you want to know, man. But I can’t help you,” Dan murmured.

"Why?" I pressed.

The sheets rustled as Dan adjusted his position on the couch. He sighed and I bit my lip. Dan was my best friend. I didn't want to make him mad, but I genuinely needed to know what was going on with him.

"My sister's comin' back," he said after a moment.

"Your sister?" I was unaware he had a sister.

"She's been away at a boarding school out east. But she's comin' back home," Dan explained.

My lips parted but I said nothing.

"You can't tell nobody, Jack," he told me firmly.

"I won't, I swear," I shook my head.

"I don't know what people'll think of her," Dan said this so quietly that I wasn't sure if he was even talking to me anymore.

"I'm sure she's great, man," I assured him although I knew nothing about his sister.

"She is," he confirmed, “I just… she’s different and I don’t want anyone ‘round here thinkin’ something of it.”

“Different how?”

“You’ll meet her tomorrow. I gotta meet her at the train station and then bring her to the track. She ain’t going to my dad first thing.”

“Want me to come with you? Or my dad could drive you…” I suggested. I didn’t want to think of Dan going to the station alone. And even after he got his sister, it’d be him and a young girl. Folks around the station aren’t necessarily the kind who’d let two teenagers pass by.

“I’d like that,” Dan agreed and I sighed a sigh of relief.

 

 

Dan and I skipped breakfast. He was too nervous about what people would think of his sister, and I was too anxious to get to the track to see this never mentioned sister.

We waited less than patiently for Dad to finish his toast and black coffee.

Author's Note

I'm worried that the voice doesn't fit that of the time period. The story's set in 1937 in California. So please let me know if any of the characters sound too educated. They're not supposed to be, except for Nora when she gets introduced. Anyway, this is only part of Chapter One and it's just the draft. The train station scene will be next and I'll add it soon.