3.5

He was standing in the chaos beneath bare bulbs at the track, the only man not screaming and waving money at the bookie. He calmly walked though the crowd and up to the window, the sharp shadows cutting his features with chisel-edges. He was dark in the dark. The men outside seemed to know him and treat him with a reverence I had only ever seen in the eyes of reformed sinners at mass. He leaned in to whisper to my Tío at the booth, almost sensual. He handed over his money and only then looked up to make eye contact with me. I felt it. Then, he turned, the crowd suddenly swallowing him in a press of bodies and noise.
I slipped off the desk at the back of the booth. Tío Francisco, hawk at heart, said "And where to now, Rosa?" He didn't even turn to see me, that is, until I told him—to watch the race. He held a broad palm up to the man pressing money into the grating, and gave me a curious eye. "Make sure to come back right after. I need your help to close, mi bella." I scoffed and stepped out into the warren of scrubby hallways under the stands. Down and through, passing out into the gathering dusk and the hammering field lights, I took a deep breath.
I walked the noise and stink of spilled beer for fifteen minutes before I saw him sitting alone in an unfavorable alcove twenty rows up in the stands. I walked straight to him, and I knew he had spotted me, knew I was coming, knew there was nothing he could do to dissuade me. I stood at the end of the row, taking him in, unmoving, until he shifted so slightly, his body posture relaxing. I slid into the space next to him, our bodies tense from the anticipation of unfulfilled contact. Then, he looked at me. He was so close.
I could see it in Leon's eyes, that infinite despair of close-held loss. It hadn't been fifteen minutes and I knew what had happened to him better than he knew it himself. Just under the sleeve of his guayabera, I could just make out the raw-looking finality of a new tattoo, a black koi artfully covering Maria. It joined the menagerie that flocked up from his wrists, a coterie of old animals and even older names. Gloria, a hare, lay close upon the eagle Kalina. An ostrich for Anna. A tiger over Linda. And on the refined underside of his left wrist, a thin snake curled around a name so old it was sun-faded to a beautiful blue.
He folded his hands and turned back to the track. I watched the ripple-shock of the starting gun wash through the crowd and break against Leon's shoulders. His head must have been somewhere else. Screams of the crowd tangled around us. I lost a multitude of minutes trying to absorb the terrible aching shapes of him. I could see the thin translucence of the skin on the back of his hands, the beautiful shape of his long, thin fingers interwoven. I could watch his chest rise and fall to the strong rhythm of his breath. I could just make out the bristle breaking through the shaved-smoothness of his chin, his jaw, his cheek. His guayabera stuck to his broad back even in the dying heat of the evening and showed the knitting of his muscles under the skin.
I was suddenly too aware of my body. I could measure each breath, a shallow panting through my softly parted lips. Deep in the muscles of my thighs, I felt an insistence, a rush of movement. My own shirt was so thin and close, and I felt it move against me. I was an agony of sensation, and here he was innocent and still.
A sudden settling in his shoulders released a tension I hadn't known was there and drew me back into the moment. The crowd was roaring, rising like a cresting wave. The races were over, the full night wrapped around us, only broken by the faraway lights. Leon took a pen and scratched something onto a scrap of paper against the back of his knee. He stood, and I found myself up, panicking. I tried to say something, but it caught in my throat.
Leon reached up and pushed back hair behind my ear, and I couldn't help myself but lean in to kiss the inside of his wrist. I could feel him twitch, to pull away, but he let his hand fall to the back of my neck instead. He looked down, then back up at me. I felt as weak as ever. Then, he pressed something into my hand, a stab of something too complicated in his eyes, and he left.
I was dazed and dissociated in a quiet way so I didn't notice walking back to my uncle's office under the stands. I stopped and came back to myself when I heard him from inside.
"Don't worry, Martes. The night is still good. We can make back the take tomorrow, next weekend, next month. It is not the end."
"Francisco, if we can't cover his bet, who will take us seriously to bet against us again?"
There was a cold quiet from the other side of the thin door. I stood, blinking heat and man-made drowsiness from my eyes. The reality began to sweep into me from the sudden coldness in my stomach.
"Don't you get it, Francisco!?" I heard coins scatter on the floor. "Stop counting! There's only one bet to pay. Nature or God or some evil force has smiled upon this man and conspired to end us."
"Maybe," my uncle began,
"Maybe, maybe, maybe!" Martes screamed, panic gripping him. "What could be maybe?"
"My Rosa, she knows him, and maybe for that friendship he will give us time to pay down the debt . . ."
Whatever magic had bewitched me in the stands was settled into a frightful twist in my stomach. I pushed open the door, and the two men inside turned to look at me, fear I had heard, embarrassment evident on their faces. I pushed out a trembling hand, the hand holding a small slip of paper, the gift from Leon to me, a gift he understood the meaning of, a ticket for a bet too incredible, too improbable. And there, on the back, I could see a thin handwriting I recognized with a visceral memory.

"Unlucky in love—" it said, "Lucky in life. A mi serpiente, Rosa."