Excerpt From Jo Grant’s Journal:
…I loved the way Mom used to say, “Make a light,” from having been raised without electricity. And the sound of her singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” in a low mellow voice while she washed the dishes.
I always thought I was tough and self-sufficient. Always working as long as I can remember. The motor court. The horses. Paying my way through college and all that. But maybe I was fooling myself. I’m not feeling so easy about knowing how to get myself going again now.
I’m still sad, and mad sometimes too – but I watched the sun come up this morning, and it made me stand with my toes in cool grass and grin just like I used to…
Friday, April 27, 1962
Alan Munro met Jo at her house at four-thirty that morning, and ate breakfast with her while Toss was getting ready to go.
She described her talk with Grace Willoughby. And he told her he’d been able to track Tara’s husband, Dwayne Kruse, through people he knew who’d been in the army and were still tangentially attached. She asked what that meant, and he laughed and said he might tell her someday, once he knew her better.
He also told her he’d talked to Kruse, who was out of the army now and working at the G.E. jet engine plant in Evendale, just north of Cincinnati. He’d arranged to meet him the next day, late morning, in Cincinnati, when they’d both have the day off. Alan asked if Jo would want to talk about what he’d learned after that, maybe Saturday night or Sunday, either one.
Jo said, “Sure. And how would you like a lesson on Sam?”
Then Toss was ready, and he got himself in his truck with a lot more help than he wanted from Alan, before Jo drove him to Keeneland with Alan following behind.
They went in the west gate, past a gatekeeper Toss had known for years, and parked at the backside of the track near the diner, where people were coming and going the whole time Toss was getting out.
He rolled his own wheelchair and talked to at least half the people they passed on their way up to the track – the people you see when it’s not a race day, doing the everyday behind-the-scenes work that gets Thoroughbreds ready to race.
There were steaming horses getting cooled out (getting walked in circles between the long barns), and others getting soaped and hosed off, and barn help cleaning tack in the yards while others picked out stalls.
There were people everywhere, black and white in general, but a couple from Mexico too. And everybody was working fast, tacking up horses getting ready to run, un-tacking others coming in from the track, trainers telling exercise riders what they wanted done – while Alan and Jo walked by, watching it all on both sides of the drive, Alan asking Jo questions, as people came up to Toss (grooms and trainers and owners, asking how he was doing and hoping he’d get better soon).
When they got to the north end of Keeneland’s grandstand they walked around to their right, past perfect flower beds and impeccably painted signs, and stepped out onto the wide swath of sloped concrete that curved along the track just below the grandstand.
There were clusters of people standing there by the rail watching horses run – some just starting out (one, or two, or four from one training barn going out together), warming up slowly, heading left around the track, others blowing past them, finishing their workouts going hell-bent-for-election.
Trainers and owners were conferring quietly, distanced from those around them, watching for who might be listening. The usual track hangers-on were there, bettors trying to pick up the scoop on who to back, and who not to, that season. One journalist Jo recognized listened and leaned on the rail, maybe hoping to learn something for a story, or use to evaluate the three-year-old field, coming up onto the Derby.
Toss was the center of attention again, talking with folks he’d known for forty years, giving his opinion of his new crop of foals and the yearling prospects for the summer sales. Carefully, though. Because Toss knew the ropes. Who he could say what to, and what not to say to anybody, to meet his obligations to the owners who kept him working.
Alan leaned down and slipped an arm around Jo so he could whisper in her ear. “I just heard the guy over there talking about his exercise rider. The one who just ran past on the dark brown horse with four white feet. He said the jockey’s ‘got a clock in his head, and I’ll use him every time I can.’ What does that mean?”
“Trainers want a jockey to ride the horse a certain distance at a specific speed, then increase to another speed for another distance, then step it up again, maybe. If a jockey’s got a clock in his head it means he’s very accurate at riding a specific distance in a specific length of time. He knows how fast he’s going, in how many furlongs, and can get the horse to travel the way he’s been told. Exercise riders who can do that are worth their weight in gold.”
“Ah.”
They both watched the horses work, seeing different things because of their backgrounds, but both standing there mesmerized.
That was when a deep voice behind them said, “Hey, you two. Looks like you’re having fun.”
It was Spence, with his arm around Tara, smiling at Jo and Alan.
Tara wasn’t smiling. She was looking at Jo as though she remembered all about her and didn’t like being reminded.
The men watched the women watch each other.
Until Jo said, “Hey, Tara. It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah, it surely has.” She smiled then, more or less believably, and looked up at Spence – her dark hair swirling out around her shoulders in heavy wide waves, her eyelashes thick and long, her eyes a rich dark brown, her mouth large and soft-looking, until she glanced back at Jo.
They all turned to the track then, and watched a rider get thrown and his horse sprint through the exit where a trainer and a couple of barn hands blocked her path, risking life and limb before one of them grabbed her reins, and they all worked at calming her down.
Then Alan asked Spence how his mom was doing – wanting to know, but making conversation too, as he looked from Tara to Jo.
“They operated yesterday, and she’s doing really well.” Alan said, “Good,” and waited. And when nobody else said anything, he added, “It was nice of your mom to help Jack the way she is. I know he appreciates it.”
“She wants to help, but she wouldn’t have hired him if she didn’t think he’d do a good job.”
There was silence then, as the horses pounded by in deep damp sand, the colors on the saddle pads flashing past in bright streaks, though the exercise riders weren’t wearing silks, but jeans and chaps and T-shirts, and plain dark-colored helmets.
“So.” Spencer looked from Alan to Jo. “You two want to grab a cup of coffee at the track diner before we go to work? It’s always interesting watching the backside folks kid each other while they’re starting their day.”
Jo said, “Thanks, Spence, but I’m waiting on Toss. And knowing him, it’ll take awhile. Being here’s part of the business.”
Alan said he needed to get to work right then. “But let’s do it some other time.”
“Sure.”
“I hear you talked to my aunt.” Tara’s voice with high and tiny, a little girl voice that encouraged coddling. But she was looking at Jo like an alpha female shoving a stick at another.
Jo stared straight at her, calm and contained, and ready to go toe-to-toe. “Betts didn’t tell you that.”
“My daughter heard it from my mom.”
“Ah. It was good to see Betts. It must’ve been fifteen years since the last time I ran into her.”
Tara didn’t say anything else. She just leaned her head against Spencer’s left shoulder, her right arm behind his waist, her left hand caressing his left forearm, the big flaming solitaire flashing on her finger, as she gazed at Jo like a small-time bettor who’s won the trifecta.
Buddy Jones looked at his watch while finishing up with his last broodmare at Mercer Tate’s – Serena, the smart one who made him laugh – intent on getting back to the Grants’ to help Jo bring the horses in for the night.
He’d just brushed Serena’s face, talking to her the whole time he worked, and had started wiping her down with a towel, sweeping off the last haze of dust – when Frankie D’Amato walked into the barn and stopped in front of the open stall door, inches from where Serena stood with her lead rope tied to the six-by-six post above her water bucket.
“So I hear you got you a pretty good mare.” Frankie leaned against the door post with his hands in his back pockets.
“Nothing like they got here, but respectable. Whole lot better than I ever figured. Got her instead of back wages.”
“Bet you’d give your eyeteeth to breed her to one of Tate’s stallions.”
“Well, sure, but not with their stud fees. Never in a million years.”
“You never know.”
“Yeah, I do know.”
“What’s her breedin’?”
“Sharpsburg out of Mist Mirage.”
“Not bad. Not bad at all.” Frankie stepped closer to Buddy, and when he spoke it was low and quiet. “You know Tate’s leaving for Europe next week? Be gone a couple of weeks or so.”
“He won’t be gone for the July sales?”
“Nope. He won’t be missing Keeneland. But maybe while he’s gone, your dreams oughtta come true.”
“Whatta ya mean by that?”
“What would you think of you and me makin’ us a deal, just between the two of us? Breed her to Lochlinnie while Tate’s outta town?”
“How? I mean—”
“Git her over here some Saturday night when it’s good and dark, when the rest of the fellas are off to town, and I’ll get her bred for you for two hundred bucks, cash money in my pocket.”
“But—”
“When she comes up pregnant, you just say you bred her to some other stud. Like the stallion over to the Grant place. Then you just train up that foal, knowin’ it’s a foal worth training. You get that kinda bloodstock workin’ in your favor, colt or filly, whichever one, it could make your name right outta the gate, and a big pile of money.”
“I don’t think… I mean, I wouldn’t feel—”
“Don’t you go all innocent on me, bubba. I know who your daddy is, and he ain’t got the best name around here. You just think about what I said. It’s the best deal you’re ever gonna get, and with your old lady about to drop, you’re gonna get two more mouths to feed right quick.”
“Two hundred dollars, I mean I can’t—”
“You could spread it out a little. Four payments, in four weeks. Think it over, but let me know Sunday. After that the deal’s off.”
Frankie walked away, pulling a pack of smokes from his shirt pocket, stepping out into the yard, heading toward the car park, short and stocky and whistling to himself while Buddy stood and watched from inside Serena’s stall.
He stroked her neck, and unclipped the lead rope, telling her she was a sweet old girl, and he’d get her fed in a minute. He shut her door, and got the wheelbarrow he’d half-filled with grain, and went up and down the aisle-way scooping grain into feed buckets. While the mares ate that, he dropped hay in their hay racks, then swept the aisle-way floor.
He checked all the water buckets and made sure the barn was neat before he walked out toward his truck.
Five minutes later, the assistant barn manager, who’d worked there for years, who’d been fighting a cold for a week, walked out of the tack room where he’d lain down for an hour on the cot that was there for waiting on a foaling.
He’d slept a little and rested more before it was time to do evening rounds in all the barns on the farm. But he hadn’t been asleep when D’Amato had been there.
And now he stood in the aisle-way, his hands in the pockets of his chino work pants, watching Buddy walk away.
Saturday, April 28, 1962
It was halfway up a hill in an old working class neighborhood in Cincinnati, one of the small Sears catalogue bungalows from the twenties and thirties, part red brick and part white siding, surrounded by a small neat yard. The paint was new. The windows were clean. But no one answered Alan’s knock.
He looked at his watch, and walked back to his car, and sat and waited for another fifteen minutes – until Dwayne Kruse drove down the hill and parked by the curb behind him.
He was five-ten or eleven, thin and blond and neatly dressed in khakis and a brown madras shirt, and he smiled as Alan pulled a briefcase off the seat and climbed out of his car.
“I’m sorry I’m late. I work at the Boys Club on Saturday mornings and I lost track of time.” He unlocked the front door, and waved Alan in before him. “Would you like an iced tea or a coffee? I’ve pro’bly got Coke too.”
Alan had set his small reel-to-reel tape recorder on the built-in table in the dinette alcove, in a bay window at the back of the kitchen, where the two of them sat opposite each other on built-in wooden benches. “So you don’t mind me using the tape recorder?”
“No. You oughtta get it down word for word. This Spencer Franklin of yours, he needs to get a good idea of who I am and whether he thinks I’m reliable.”
“Right. That’s what I thought exactly.”
“But you gotta remember I’m in a tough position here because I’m Giselle’s dad. If what I say gets used so Tara knows I talked to you, best case, she’ll make it even harder for me to see my daughter.”
“I understand. No one will tell her you talked to us or quote you directly so she’d know.”
“It has to be that way. And you have to promise not to copy the tape, and to get this one back to me after Franklin’s heard it.”
“I promise.” Alan’s green eyes were fixed on Dwayne’s dark brown ones, and they stared at each other without moving for a minute before Dwayne nodded.
“Good. You want me to start with Louisville?”
“Sure.”
“Well, Tara was living with a friend of mine. And that was almost unheard-of for normal everyday folks. She was real young then, and they’d had a baby, and she’d been working on her G.R.E. She didn’t seem real happy, and when we’d go out, a group of us together, she’d sort of take me aside and talk to me about my life and hers, and I got to feeling protective of her in a way. And then Rusty, the baby’s dad, he went off and left her, taking their daughter with him.
“Well, I felt real sorry for her then. And she said he left her without a cent to her name, and she moved in with this minister and his wife. Then one day I got a call, and she told me they were throwing her out on the street. She didn’t know why or what she could do, though she did have a job by then, and would I come and get her.
“I picked her up an hour later. And I thought at the time, from what I could see, that they seemed like nice folks. ’Course I knew first impressions can be misleading. Like when I first saw Tara.” Dwayne Kruse shook his head and gazed out the window before he spoke again. “I found out later Rusty’d paid the rent for six months and left her a good amount of money. She’d rented out the apartment and was pocketing what she got. Later, of course, I came to understand why he took off and left her, and took the baby too, but then I didn’t have a clue.
“Anyway, I got a nurse I knew on the post, at Fort Knox this was, in Louisville, to let Tara stay with her for a month. I was getting ready to ship out to Germany, but I spent a lot of time with Tara. She kept telling me how she’d always respected the military, how her grandfather had been a career army man, and how she’d always admired folks who dedicated themselves to serving their country. And that she’d like to see Europe the way he did and live on army posts and everything, with the community feeling they have. And she was so proud to know me for one of those she admired.
“So that kind of made me feel like she was interested in me and my life, and respected me some. And I felt real sorry for her too. She was so small and so sad and seemed so defenseless, and yet when she smiled at me, the sun just seemed to come out, and I felt like my life could be different.”
“Funny, what smiles can do. They’ve done that same thing to me.” Alan looked at Dwayne – the serious face, the kind eyes – then checked the recorder to make sure it was working.
“I don’t remember very clearly how it happened, but I ended up proposing to Tara, and we got married right quick at the justice of the peace. I was raised Baptist, and I would’ve liked a church wedding with my folks there and all, but there wasn’t time to spare. So we went to Germany, and she got a job in the PX, while I was attached to the quartermaster corps doing something like I do for G.E., working pretty much as a purchasing agent.
“Tara was real excited to be in Europe, and she started studying German and French, just a little to get by, and wanting to travel every weekend, and we did a lot, seeing castles and what not, till we had Giselle. That’s how she got the name. Tara was real impressed by Paris and wanted a French name.
“But almost as soon as we got married, things began to change. She started out cooking and doing dishes and all, with me helping too, like I used to do at home, but real soon after we got to Germany she stopped doing much of anything. And then when she got pregnant – and she was the one who wanted a baby, she wouldn’t hear of putting it off – she stopped doing anything at home. And quit her job real quick.
“I didn’t mind much. Not then. I grew up on a farm, and I know how to pitch in and help. ’Course, I didn’t see where it was going. And she said she was sick all the time, and I felt sorry for her. Other stuff changed too. She started saying I wasn’t interesting enough. I talked about mechanical stuff too much, cars and bikes, and sports too. She’d always been a night owl, but pretty soon she was staying up all night. She’d wake me up and start a fight about something real insignificant, and she’d say the same things over and over, hour after hour, and not let nothing lay.”
“That sounds like a lot of fun. Fighting all night with no sleep.” Alan shook his head, and drank half of his coffee.
“I never could’ve pictured it. My folks were nothing like that. But I figured when you married it was for life, and I tried to be patient and figured things would change. She seemed real insecure, like she needed encouragement and attention all the time, and I figured after a while she’d see I was bending over backwards, and she’d feel more relaxed.
“Then Giselle was born, and she was so cute and so sweet, and she was so helpless and dependent on us, I was happier with her than I ever expected. And Tara was too, in a way, to begin with. But she got real insistent on going out all the time, getting sitters we couldn’t afford, and going out with other folks.
“One time I remember I told her, no, I was tired and I wanted to stay home. The next day there was brass coming in, and I had to go to this real important meeting, and I said I was staying home and going over some figures and getting a good night’s sleep.
“Well, come the morning, I put on my dress uniform, and the pants had been slashed by a knife. A couple of buttons had been cut off too. Tara was sound asleep then. I realized later she was taking lots of sleeping pills, not every night, but overdosing when she did, and Giselle was bawling her eyes out. I had another uniform from the cleaners in the car, and I put that on and got Giselle cleaned up and fed, and then took her over to the neighbor’s who watched her from time to time.”
“What did Tara say about cutting up your clothes?”
“She lied about it to begin with. Eventually she admitted it, and said she’d been super sick with a headache, sick to her stomach too, and she didn’t know what she was doing. That she’d been having a hard time and felt depressed like, since Giselle was born, and she didn’t know why she’d done it.
“I know women can get like that after a baby comes, and I just tried to overlook it, but deep down I was scared and had been awhile. I could see by then that something was wrong with her, and I was in over my head. I came to see she lied all the time. About small stuff even, stuff that didn’t matter, almost as though she loved the lies. Like she took pleasure in making fools of folks. Or like she wanted to keep the world away from knowing the first thing about her.
“I was doing everything around the house and taking care of Giselle the whole time when I was home, but Tara didn’t think that was the least bit strange. It was like she thought she was owed it. She’d lie around in her old clothes and hardly get cleaned up.
“But when we went out with other folks, she’d spend a lotta time getting dressed and putting on her makeup and acting real perky and cute. When she was home though, she’d say nasty mean things. Things she knew would bother me that you wouldn’t say to a dog. I’d tell her to stop and think before she spoke, and I’d leave if it got too bad and take Giselle with me.
“There was dangerous stuff too, that scared me plenty. Twice when I was driving in traffic, and she was mad about something, she shoved the gear shift into another gear, reverse once, and ruined the transmission.
“That’s crazy.” Alan sat up straighter, staring hard at Dwayne.
“Yeah, it surely was. My work was suffering, I know that. Even though it was a big relief to be there, to be able to think about something else and get away from that sick feeling knotting up my stomach. I was taking heat from my boss some, ’cause I made a couple mistakes I never should’ve. And I felt like I was almost at my wits’ end.
“And then there came this night when we went bowling on the post with three other couples. One of the guys she’d go off and talk with whenever we were together, kinda the way she had with me when she was living with Rusty. So they both went off to the restrooms, and they were gone a good long time, so I went looking, and caught them outside leaning against a wall, making out like there was no tomorrow.
“As a rule I don’t drink. Never have hardly at all, from one year to the next. But that night I poured down three beers right together and told her we were going home.
“When we got there and the babysitter left, Tara started screaming, calling me all kinds of filthy names, saying I was stupid and boring, and the worst thing she’d ever done was go and marry me, and that I was such an embarrassment to her it was more than she could stand.”
Dwayne stopped, and stared at the table, turning his glass of iced tea in his hands without looking as though he’d noticed. “Giselle was in bed asleep. She’d learned to sleep through most anything. And it’s a good thing she slept then, because I made the worst mistake of my life, and I wouldn’t have wanted her to see it, even as young as she was. Tara said something really vicious, and I grabbed her by the arm and slapped her twice across the face, then I shoved her away from me, and she fell on the floor.
“I was horrified as soon as I did it. And I tried to help her up, but she wouldn’t let me touch her. She went and grabbed Gigi, and ran out to the neighbors, and they called the MPs. I still can’t believe I did that. But I did. And they threw me in the post jail and kept me there for a week. Tara went to the post hospital and got herself patched up. Her lip was cut, and her arms were bruised pretty good. And she took Giselle and flew home to the States to her grandparents in Knoxville.”
Dwayne stopped speaking and stared down at the table.
Alan tried to think of what to say and couldn’t come up with a thing.
“Because of what I did, I only get to have Giselle with me four times a year, and my folks have to be with us too. It’s the worst thing I ever did. I’ll never be free of it, and I still can’t forgive myself. But you know what?”
“What?”
“The thing that haunts me the most out of everything is Gigi’s living with Tara every day, hearing how she lies, seeing Tara go from one man to the next, getting Tara’s own twisted picture of the world, and how we’re supposed to live. The only thing that matters is what Tara wants, and how she’s gonna get it, and what man is going to take care of her next. She acts sick to get attention, and she’s sliced her wrists before, not enough to do much, but to get attention from a man she was with.”
“Poor Gigi.”
“You said it. I mean, I don’t think Tara’ll hurt her or anything like that. But you know what I found in my quarters when I got out of jail in Germany? She’d smashed the windshield of my car with a baseball bat. And later, when I ended up moving, when I took the pictures off the walls, there were holes under most of them. She’d taken a hammer to the walls, so I’d find the holes later, when she was long gone. I mean, that is not a normal thing to do.
“And to have Giselle there, watching what she does! She’s such a great kid. She’s got so much enthusiasm and curiosity. It just makes me wantta tear my hair out. Especially since it’s my own fault I don’t get to raise her myself.”
There was silence in that kitchen for what felt to Alan like a very long time before he stopped the recorder and looked across at Dwayne.
“Turn it back on again, just for a minute. There’s something else I want to say.”
Alan threw the switch.
Kruse spoke again in the same slow, even voice without a lot of emotion. “I want this Spencer Franklin to know I don’t wish Tara any harm. I figure she’s been turned the way she is by some kind of physical problem, or something in her past maybe, and part of it probably isn’t her fault. I’d like to think she could get better, and maybe she could if she’d look for some help, though I don’t expect she will.
“But he’s got to understand that what she does is she picks a man and watches him real close. She’s really good at seeing what he needs and what he wants, and making herself look like that’s just what she is. She makes him think she’s been treated horribly and been a terrible victim, one time after another, because she’s so sweet and gentle and fragile, and she makes a man want to take care of her.
“But that’s not what she is at all. And I don’t want anyone else to put himself through marrying Tara and finding out who she is when it’s way too late. I don’t go around talking about her, ruining her reputation and all. But if I can warn someone else, and help him not to get buffaloed like I did, it’s worth my taking the risk to do it.
“I’d like to see Giselle with a good daddy, someone who could help her, but once a man’s married to Tara, his life changes in ways he can’t control, and he won’t be able to help Giselle either. That’s all I have to say. But if Mr. Franklin wants to meet with me, I’d be willing. And I’d put him in touch with the father of her other daughter, and let the two of them talk if he wants.” Kruse turned the recorder off and pushed it across to Alan.
“Thank you. I don’t know what Spencer will want to do. But you’ve done what you can.”
“How do you think Gigi’s doing? I phone her three times a week but I won’t get to see her again till this June.”
“I don’t really know. I’ve only seen her once and she seemed fine then. She was at Spence’s barn watching his horses.”
“Tara won’t want them around if she marries him. She hates horses. She had to work around them as a kid and she wants nothing to do with them.”
“Then that’ll be her Waterloo. Spence really loves them.”
“Or his. Time’ll tell. She can wear you down.”