I hope you enjoy it.
The Reverse
“It’s a
sure thing.”
He could
hear Andy’s voice repeating the words over and over in his mind.
“It’s a
sure thing.”
“A sure
thing that cost him his life,” he mumbled to himself as he lit a cigar and
stared at the blank piece of canvas he had just placed on his easel.
He had
hoped that painting would take his mind off the senseless tragedy…but he
couldn’t paint a stroke. The image of Andy with a bullet hole in his head kept
appearing on the vast sheet of white in front of him…and he knew he didn’t want
to paint that.
He sat
back in his chair and puffed on his cigar. Closing his eyes, he thought back to
the first time he’d met Andy.
It was in
the dining room of his brother’s hotel, the St. Stephen, where he had first
seen the lanky young man. Tall as a bean pole and just as thin but full of
energy and eager to please...that was Andy.
He had approached the table with his most earnest smile and asked in the
sweetest of voices, “Have you decided sir, or would you like a little more time
with the menu?”
He liked
him.
“Yes,” he
replied, “I think I’m ready…I’ll have the porterhouse, medium rare, with a
baked potato and string beans, if you please. And a beer.” He flipped the menu
shut and handed it to the young man, who smiled, bowed slightly and vanished
into the kitchen.
Yes
indeed, he liked this young man very much. His brother had chosen well when he
hired him.
“Tell
me,” he asked when the waiter returned with his beer, “what’s your name, son?”
“Andy
Wilbert,” the young man replied, “why?”
“Oh no
reason. I’m a ‘regular’ in here,” he explained, “My brother owns the place and
gives me a break on my meals so I’m here just about every evening…know all the
waiters on a first name basis. You’re new, aren’t you?”
“Yes
sir,” Andy replied with a proud smile, “just started today.”
“Well, if
you’ve paid as much attention to your other customers as you have to me I’d say
you’re going to make out just fine.
Name’s Albert, by the way…Albert Ryder…” he said extending his large
hand to the young man, “…nice to meet you, Andy.”
“Nice to
meet you, sir,” Andy replied taking Ryder’s hand in a firm shake. “Let me go
check on your steak, it should be about ready.”
“Thank
you.”
That was
five years ago.
He and Andy
had become good friends in those five years…sharing many a good story and
having many a hearty laugh.
They
shared several interests, the greatest being horse racing. Ryder loved to go to
the races just to watch the horses run. Their grace and strength never failed
to fascinate him. Andy, on the other hand, saw the races as a fast way to make
cash. He went every time he had a day off and sometimes he’d come back the next
evening and share the triumph of his winnings with Ryder…but there was many a
time that he just about cried in the artist’s soup over his losses.
“Why do
you do it?” Ryder asked him one night after a particularly bad loss. “Why do
you keep yourself on this rollercoaster ride with your money? I don’t know what
Will pays you fellas, and I’m sure you do well with tips, but I’m also sure you
don’t have money to just throw around. I’m not trying to tell you how to live
your life, Andy, but …well…golly! It seems awful dumb to me…no offense…”
“None
taken,” the young man replied flatly, “You’re right too. But I can’t seem to
stop. It’s the excitement I think…the excitement of watching your horse run and
seeing him win…it’s that even more than the money, but having money on it makes
it even more exciting…know what I mean?”
Ryder
nodded. “Yes, I know. I’ve put a few dollars on the ponies now and then but
I’ve never made a habit of it. You need to be careful, Andy. I’ve seen many a
man fished out of the river or heard of them being found hanging in their rooms
because they lost everything on a race. It’s not worth it, son.”
“Oh don’t
worry about nothing like that happening to me,” Andy answered in an up-beat
voice. “I never wager that much! And I usually have some idea of the nag’s
chances when I do. I don’t lose that often.”
“You lose
often enough!” Ryder replied, but the young man laughed and walked into the
kitchen to put in his order. “Oh well,”
Ryder thought to himself, “I guess he’ll
be okay.” And with that thought he dropped the subject.
Oh how he
wished he hadn’t dropped it. How he wished that he had harped on it until Andy
had sworn off the ponies for good…but it was too late for that now. Why hadn’t
he stopped him? When he came to him that evening, before the Brooklyn Handicap,
and said he had pawned everything he owned and was going to put it all on the
Dwyer brothers’ horse, Hannover, to win. Why hadn’t he stopped him…why…why?
But how
could he? Andy was high on the adrenalin of gambling. And the Dwyer brothers
had just about guaranteed in every paper in town that Hannover was a shoo-in.
“It’s a
sure thing!” Andy had said in excited tones the evening before the race as
Ryder stared at him over his roast beef dinner. “It’s surer than anything else
in the world! That horse is a dynamo! He’ll leave ‘em all in the dust! You’ll
see!”
“I hope
you’re right for your sake,” the artist had replied.
“Of
course I am!” Andy assured him, “Why I’ll be rich by this time tomorrow night.
I’ll be wealthy enough to buy one of your paintings!”
Ryder
smiled weakly. “I hope so, Andy…I sure hope so.”
“Why
sure…,”Andy continued, “…why I might order a special painting…one of Hannover
and me maybe…Yeah…To hang over my fireplace,” he placed a thumb in his vest and
puffed up his chest like a pigeon in heat. “Yes sir’ee! That’s just what I’ll
do.”
He was
still flying high when Ryder left the restaurant to return to his studio. Still
talking up what he was going to do with all that money after his big win.
It was the
last time Ryder would ever see him.
The next
day the Brooklyn Handicap was run and Hannover came in . . . third.
Ryder was
heartbroken for his young friend when he heard the news. He arrived at the
restaurant that evening with a heavy heart, ready to listen to Andy’s sob story.
But he wasn’t there.
He wasn’t
there the next night either, or the next.
Ryder
finally approached his brother regarding the prodigal waiter asking if he had
heard from him.
“No,”
William Ryder replied in a huff, “and I’ll guarantee you that when I do I’ll
give him a good piece of my mind and then the boot!”
“Maybe
something’s happened to him, Will,” Ryder said in concerned tones. “Couldn’t
you send someone ‘round to check on him?”
William
stared at his brother in exasperated silence. Albert was such a dreamer and
such a damn good scout. He believed there was good in everyone, even a no-account
waiter like Andy Wilbert.
“Oh…Alright.
“ William finally replied. “Joe! Come ‘ere.”
A portly
waiter with a pleasant expression responded.
“Joe, you
know where Wilbert lives don’t you?”
“Andy?
Sure, boss, why?
“I want
you to go around to his place when you get off and find out if he’s sick or
skipped town. Will you do that for me?”
“Sure,
boss. Is that all?”
“If he’s
there tell him to get himself in here or he’ll be out of a job.”
“Will
do,” Joe responded and walked back towards a waiting couple at one of his
tables.
“Thanks,
Will,” Ryder said, “I’ll feel better knowing he’s safe and sound.”
“Okay…I’ll
let you know as soon as I hear anything, now get outta here will ya. I’ve got a
hotel to run.”
Ryder
smiled shyly and headed back to his studio to await word.
He was in
the middle of stretching a canvas when the knock came at his door.
“C’mon
in,” he called through teeth clenched around one of his ever present cigars.
William
entered… a stricken look on his face that prompted Ryder to drop his work and
guide his brother to a seat, from which he pushed a pile of drawings and empty
paint tubes in order for his brother to sit.
“What is
it Will? What’s wrong,” the artist asked, his own anxiety growing by the
minute.
“It’s…it’s
Andy…,” the elder Ryder responded. “He…he’s dead…shot himself…probably been
dead a couple of days.”
“Since
the Brooklyn Handicap,” Ryder said softly.
“What?”
“Doesn’t
matter. How did Joe manage to get into Andy’s place to find him? Did he have a
key?”
“No…No
one answered when he knocked and he noticed an odd smell coming from the room so
he called the cops and they got the landlord to let them in,” William
explained. “I’m sorry, Albert. I know how fond you were of him.”
“Yes,”
Ryder answered flatly, “…he was a good kid…except for that damn gambling. I
knew it would do him in…I just knew it!”
“There
was nothing anyone could have done to help him, Albert. He was pretty well
hooked. Well…,” William said rising from his seat, “…I have to get back and
tell the rest of the staff. Andy didn’t have any family, so we’ll need to
arrange a send off for him. I’ll let you know the details when they’re all
set.”
“Yes,
please do,” Ryder said, “I’ll be glad to chip in on the cost.”
“Thanks,
I’ll keep that in mind. Will you be around for dinner?”
“Not
tonight…I don’t think.”
“Okay.
I’m sorry, Albert. I really am.”
Ryder
nodded acknowledgement of that last statement and closed the door behind his
brother’s departing form.
He walked
over to the chair and sat down, staring blankly out the window, trying to think
of how he could have saved his friend.
But he knew it was no use…as Will had said, Andy was “pretty well
hooked.” There was no other way that his story could have ended.
For a while
he sat frozen in his chair, Andy’s “It’s a sure thing” ringing in his ears. He
stared at the canvas he had just stretched and put on his easel. “If I could just paint something…take my
mind off it,” he thought to himself.
“…I might order a special painting…one of
Hannover and me maybe…,”
“A
painting of Hannover and you,” he addressed to his absent friend. “Sure. Why
not?”
He rose
from his chair and approached the easel, pencil in hand to make a basic sketch
and began to draw a horse in profile.
As he
drew the animal his anger and helplessness began to seethe inside him. “Damn
horses,” he growled angrily. “Damn racing,” he added in a louder voice. “DAMN
GAMBLING,” he shouted as he finished the tip of the horse’s back hoof.
“How much death and grief has gambling
caused,” he pondered as he began putting paint on his palette.
He looked
up at the sketch he had just completed and suddenly saw what he wanted to
paint…what he had to paint to purge
his mind of his friend’s suicide.
He began
to fill in the horse in a pale shade of deathly gray, and then began to paint a
background of a race track. The horse was running the wrong way on the track,
but that didn’t matter to Ryder. “It
symbolizes death,” he reasoned to himself as he continued to add the somber
background in shades of dark green and brown. He filled the sky with his
trademark ominous clouds and added a dead tree to stress the somberness of the
scene…then a snake, the biblical harbinger of evil and death, was added to the
very bottom of the canvas, slithering out of the swampy ooze next to a broken
rail of the track.
He stood
back and looked at his creation. “Not strong enough,” he mumbled and stepped
back to the canvas where he added one last element to the picture…a figure
riding the horse…a figure with skeletal facial features and a scythe…Death.
“There,”
he said to himself in a satisfied tone. “There’s your painting, Andy.”
“The Race
Track” also known as “The Reverse” and “Death on a Pale Horse” is now
considered one of Ryder’s greatest masterpieces. While it was reworked between
its creation in 1895 up to 1910 and perhaps even later by the never-satisfied
artist, its starkness and power were never reduced. It remains one of the
greatest pieces of American art ever created and one of the greatest monuments
to a friend’s memory.
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