MANA: Compulsion

SHOWN: Thisismyboomstick ("Ash")


PREVIOUSLY ON:


It is highly recommended that you read previous segments.

Ramon brought the truck to a stop just a few feet from the form huddled on the curb outside of the Holiday Inn Express. The light from his car lit up the thousand little pieces of glass on the dark pavement, the crushed liquor bottles, the pool of vomit inches from a shoe. He turned the ignition off and let the car rumble into silence as he sat there for a moment and took in the scene before him, quietly contemplating what he saw. After a few minutes, he took a deep breath, opened his door, and walked over to Eddie Ne.

Eddie looked up at him. Even in the dim light of the street at three in the morning, Ramon could see the young man had been crying. In one hand was a nearly empty bottle of vodka, in the other was the cellphone Eddie had used to call him and leave a string of incoherent messages. Ramon didn't need to understand the voicemails left behind, or the small mountain of broken empty bottles, or the pasty expression of loathing on young man's face to know what Eddie was feeling. This had been the worst post position draw in recent memory.

Only a half day earlier, Maggie had shown up in the race office and supplied Thisismyboomstick's name to the draw, and it was evident from the possessive stance Randy Harada took in the back of the room, the triumphant look in his eye when she turned in paperwork, the subtle tremor in Maggie's hand when she did so, to know what was going on. The moment the card was handed over the room had erupted. No, Ramon, corrected himself...it had exploded. Eddie had stood up and called Randy Harada a fuckhead to his face and had to be forcibly removed from the office. Cornelius was escorted out of the building not two minutes later for calling him whatever was worse than fuckhead. Ramon was the only one from the original team who left without being carried out by security. Maggie's eyes had welled up and Randy had placed his hands on her shoulders when she did. And now, here was Eddie, sitting on the curb and swirling a shot of vodka around in a half empty bottle. Eddie who had, to Ramon's knowledge, never had a drink in his life.

Three years ago, Cornelius had walked past a rival barn at Del Mar and discovered a young foreign jock cursing out another trainer. Cornelius didn't stick around long enough to hear just what the jock was so angry about out of respect to the red-faced trainer he was cursing, but he did remember the kid and he did hire him a few hours later practically dragging the kid by the arm over to Ramon and muttering something to the effect of, "He's your pet now." Eddie had said "Fuck you" to both him and Cornelius in response, and Ramon had liked him immediately. The kid was cocky, arrogant, spent every cent he earned within days of earning it thus rendering himself terminally broke despite earning hundreds of thousands last year alone, and he was painfully obsessive about his body and cruelly judgmental about everyone else's, but he was honest...and that was more than most of them could say about a man like Harada.

"You should have called him a fuckhead, Ramon, you're always so quiet...man...never want trouble, eh? Even though you know, right...you know what he's doing..." Eddie accused from the curb. His speech was heavily slurred but Ramon understood.

Ramon had no response to that. He should have called Randy Harada a great many things, it was simply his compliance with the status quo that prevented him from doing so. It made him a coward, but it also made him a legal working resident of the United States of America. And as much as he loved Maggie too, he felt Eddie and Cornelius's enthusiasm for antagonizing Harada was enough for the entire farm, including him.

Ramon kicked the remains of half crushed beer bottle and it tinkled a few feet away. "How much have you had to drink, Eddie?"

"What do you care, mommy dearest?"

"Cornelius is worried about you."

"He's worried about my ability to ride his horse against the Suit. Fucking Harada!" He raised his middle finger and held it up into the sky towards no one in particular.

Ramon sighed and sat down on the curb next to his friend, Eddie passed him the bottle of vodka and Ramon drained the last of it.

"Did you see the way he touched her?! I should've knocked his fucking hands off of her...touching her like that. Like he owns her."

"He's another Matthew," Ramon whispered, staring down at the pavement.

Eddie thought about that and then managed a drunken nod, "Yeah. You know...why do they do that, huh? Why do girls," he slurred and leaned against Ramon's shoulder, "do that, huh? Why do they love rich manipulative sonsofbitches? You don't see me going up to some bastard and saying fuck me I've had a hard life. Do you?"

"No," Ramon agreed.

"No, because I have more pride than that," Eddie growled.

"Don't judge her too harshly, Eddie," Ramon cautioned, "There's compulsion involved...like Gwyn and the drugs...and Pinkie and his porn."

Eddie shook his head, his face warped into evident scorn, "No pride and no self control is that what you're saying, man? I'm supposed to feel sorry for them because they don't have self control? Like a fat ass who eats and eats and then blames a thyroid issue?"

Ramon held up the empty vodka bottle and waved it in front of Eddie's face, Eddie snatched it from him and threw it out into the street where it shattered into a thousand sparkling pieces. Ramon raised an eyebrow and Eddie shrugged, "Don't know why anyone drinks that shit anyway. Shit tastes like cow piss."

"Have you had cow piss before, Eddie?"

"Now I have man, fucking awful," Eddie mumbled before he bent over and vomited again. Ramon leaned forward and held his shoulders while he did. When he recovered, Eddie was giggling to himself, "See that? I usually have to force myself before a race but now...see?"

"Come on, Eddie, let's get you back to the room," Ramon urged.

"I love her, man, I love her...and now she's racing against me," he was crying again. Ramon sighed and slid his arm around Eddie's chest and pulled him up to his feet.

"Come on, Eddie, you'll feel better when you beat Harada this weekend."

"Did you see who's riding?!" Eddie wailed as he was carried to the passenger seat in Ramon's truck. Ramon leaned over and helped buckle him in as though he were a child in a carseat and he sighed.

Ramon had seen. Solomon Rushton, a star on the Australian circuit and a man who had denied Eddie an important win in the Hong Kong Cup years ago, a loss that had propelled Eddie to the United States in bitter defeat, was Thisismyboomstick's jockey now. Randy Harada had left no stone unturned, no detail behind, no opportunity unrecognized and unused in his quest to crush them for what purpose none of them still fully realized. Ramon leaned out of the car and shut the door. He walked around the front, climbed into his own seat and turned to Eddie prepared to give him a nice long uplifting speech and finding the young jock completely passed out beside him.

The morning found them in no better spirits as the horse called "Ash" thundered around the Oklahoma track in an exercise that left everyone on the rail speechless, Eddie crying in his hotel room by the evening, and Ramon deeply hurt and discouraged that he had ever ever chosen that horse for Harada.


NEXT ON: