BROKEN

The eyes of the Thoroughbred horse racing world turn to Louisville, Kentucky, on the first Saturday of each May for the Kentucky Derby.  With jockeys astride, the procession of no more than twenty of the world’s best three-year-olds   prances to the starting gates at Churchill Downs to the strains of “My Old Kentucky Home”. My husband, Jim, and I host an annual Kentucky Derby party for a hundred or so friends, at which we serve traditional Derby fare – salt-cured country ham; beef tenderloin marinated in bourbon and brown sugar, then grilled rare and sliced paper thin; Southern Comfort punch, served in my grandmother’s crystal punch bowl. Essential is the Mint Julep, a Bourbon cocktail sweetened with mint-tinged sugar syrup. I serve the cocktail over crushed ice in silver Julep cups, chilled overnight in the freezer, the rim of each cup scented with a leaf of its Kentucky Colonel Spearmint garnish.

Morning track odds on Derby Day 2008 showed Big Brown was the favorite to win. The filly, Eight Belles, gathered respectable betting action as the day progressed. I sided with the experts who thought her owners should have entered her in the girls-only Kentucky Oaks, run the day before, which she surely would have won. Only thirty-eight fillies had ever run in the Derby, and only three had won. Even though the filly Winning Colors had beaten the boys in the Derby of 1988, I feared another tragedy like the one that befell Ruffian in 1975. That July, undefeated Ruffian raced 1975 Kentucky Derby winner, Foolish Pleasure, in a match race at Belmont Park in New York. Ruffian led (some later said that she tossed her head, as though looking back to see how closely Foolish Pleasure followed on her heels) when her jockey heard a “snap”. The announcer said, “Ruffian has broken down”. She ran on, grinding her broken ankle into the dirt. When her jockey pulled her up, her hoof dangled pitifully, and she slung her head, frightened and bewildered. Noble Ruffian died, in the middle of the night, after hours of surgery. She was buried that evening beside the track at Belmont Park, her nose pointed toward the finish line.

As our guests arrived, I handed each a frosty Mint Julep. Sally Myers, who lived two doors down, called that morning and said she and her husband would be busy with their boys’ baseball games and tennis matches that day. Sally would walk to Cairo, Egypt, to keep those boys playing sports. She allowed her older boys, Ben and Zach, to quit sports, a decision she still regrets. Ben quit soccer and began using drugs. After numerous stints in rehab, brushes with the law and close calls with death from overdoses, in early 2007 he moved in with Zach in Chattanooga, got sober and got a job as a chef, which he loved.

Most of our guests had attended our Derby Parties in the past and knew that the tote, where they could place house bets, was upstairs in the media room.  Tables in the dining room, living room, kitchen, and the media room held food and flowers. The bar was set up with liquor, glasses, and ice. Aluminum basins were filled with ice held bottles of wine and beer. TV sets in all the rooms ran coverage of races, and copies of The Thoroughbred Times and The Daily Racing Form were scattered about the house.

I was passing a tray of hors d’oeuvres when I saw Missy and Brian Jones at the door. They motioned me outside, where a local policeman waited.

“He's looking for Sally, Cheryl,” Missy said. “Do you know where she is?”

“She and Stan are with the boys,” I said.

 “We need to talk to her right away,” the policeman said. “All I can say is that I'm representing another police department. Have her call this number,” he said as he walked away. He looked over his shoulder and said, "Tell her it's very important."

“It must be Ben or Zach,” I said. “I wish I knew what it’s about. I don’t want to scare her to death.”

Upstairs, I closed the door to my room against the party noise. I took a deep breath and dialed Sally's cell phone, hoping that Stan would answer.

“Where are you?” I said when Sally answered.

“New Albany, Mississippi, headed to Memphis for Tyler's tennis match.”

“Is Stan with you?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “he and Nick are about five miles behind me. Aren't you having a party?”

 “I need for you to do something for me, even if it sounds crazy. Tell me the next mile marker that you pass and then pull off at the next exit and park.”

 “Hey, Cheryl, what's up?” Stan said.

I told him what the policeman had said and gave him the number he’d said to call.  “It's Ben or Zach, isn't it?” Stan said as he clicked off his phone.

Later, Missy found me and said that she and Brian had walked to the Myers' house when they saw Sally's car pull into the cove. Sally had waved them off and run into her house. Stan told them that Ben had been killed in a car accident in Chattanooga that morning.

I walked around the cove telling the neighbors about Ben. I didn't want to rain sorrow upon my guests, none of whom had known Ben. The more people I told about the tragedy, the fewer times Sally would have to repeat the story.

When I got home, the Derby race was over. Big Brown won. Eight Belles finished second, hooves pounding the turf, stalking Big Brown, but she broke down and ran a quarter mile past the finish line on her injuries. When the track vet saw that she'd broken both front ankles, he euthanized her on the track. Eight Belles, a three-year-old full hope and promise, was buried at Churchill Downs.

The next day, I took Sally a bottle of her favorite wine, Conundrum, and my cashmere throw. She asked me what flowers to order for Ben, whose favorite color was purple. I suggested lavender roses, and she ordered a blanket of them for his casket. When Ben's body arrived at Memorial Park Funeral Home in Memphis, Sally and Stan went to finalize funeral plans.

“I held him, Cheryl,” Sally said. “Except for one tiny cut above his eye, his face is perfect. I kissed the secret place on his neck that I kissed when he was a baby."

The police told Stan that Ben lost control of the car, crossed the median and hit a van. Ben was thrown into the back seat of the car and died on impact. The family in the van required hospitalization, but they would totally recover.

On June 23^th, Ben's 24th birthday, I took Sally to lunch, and then we went shopping. That evening, I took her a copy of the poem Zach wrote for Ben’s funeral. Walking home, I fell on the wet sidewalk in front of my house and broke my foot.  Surgery two days later left me housebound for two months. Every afternoon, Sally came and sat in my hearth room, drank a glass of Conundrum, and talked about Ben. She brought me Ben's notebooks, filled with essays, poems, and musings. His words reveal a kind and generous soul not commonly found in one so young. Ben wrote a story, "The Man Who Lived under the Stars", about a homeless man he spotted lying on the roadside, his head gashed, and his blood running into the drain below. Sally dialed 9-1-1 as she drove through rush-hour-traffic on the busy six-lane thoroughfare, but Ben, then twelve years old, demanded they go back and wait with the man until help arrived.  Sally once scolded Ben for giving his little money to panhandlers to which he said, “Why wouldn’t I? That could have been me.”

Ben came to life for Sally for a few minutes each day while she told me his stories.  No visit ended without the inevitable, “Why did God take Ben from me?”

“Ben fought so hard to stay sober,” I said. “God knew that he couldn't fight forever.  His demons chased him every minute, and he outran them. Now, he doesn't have to look over his shoulder anymore.”

She found small comfort in my words, though they rang hollow in my own ears. I couldn’t heal her broken heart; but, every day she came and sat with me, and we remembered her beautiful, brilliant boy, once so full of hope and promise.