Something I discovered. When you miss a girl and want to see her again, you get the impression you are thinking about her constantly. In truth she is very little in your thoughts. These are not thoughts, or even pictures in your mind. She is absorbed deeper, somewhere in your blood. Like a germ that saps your strength. Your thoughts might form an occasional picture, a snapshot, but the bulk of it is in the gut.
Blue Tuesday. Begin it with scrambled egg and Wrigley’s Spearmint, and then too much mooning in my room. Had no urge to stroll, no impetus to go in motion, and the schedule cannot save me until tomorrow when they run for the money.
And a slow night at the Bunkhouse. Total of $27 along with a customer who swore he would take his case to the management. All I need is litigation. Slowest service in his life, he testifies. “I can’t serve your cow raw,” I told him. “I am waiting for the man to finish cooking it.” Nonsense, I ordered it ten minutes ago, it must be cooked.
Recalls the story they used to tell on Arcaro at Belmont. Some hotshot trainer sends him off with careful instructions—bring the horse to the top of the stretch just off the pace and then turn him loose, he will do the rest. Of course the nag does nothing—a still life—and of course the trainer rushes down to pin the blame on his rider.
“I thought I told you to move up on the straightaway!”
“Without the horse?” says Arcaro.
They are off and running at the Showplace of Thoroughbred Racing in America. (Very proud they are, of themselves.) It is a gorgeous place, if you like gorgeous. I have to confess a taste for low-life. To me, you don’t stage a cockfight at the White House, or race greyhounds across the lawn at Buckingham Palace. It’s everything in its place and a place for everything. This joint is aimed for the uppercrust and a person could feel uncombed here, even in the grandstand. It takes a cashmere sweater, tied around your waist.
But the quality stock comes here and the best race riders. Atkinson and Boland checked in, Arcaro and Hartack en route. The pro’s pros, though at the mutuel windows it is strictly amateur hour. First of all there are the guessers, an army of them, playing merry hell with the tote. Tourists on tap, strewing dumb money. You walk through the grandstand or out on the lawn and most of them don’t even consult the Form—they play the house selections, or the morning line in the newspaper. Or worse, they bet their seventh cousin twice removed to the third power and win a bundle. Dumb money, dumb luck.
Right in front of me a hefty gal from the city, up here on a bus of them, wins two hundred bucks on the Double. No one with a brain could have won it, because neither race approximated form. She won it playing Uncle Harry’s birthday both times and then played him again in the third race and was outraged she didn’t win more! To her it’s a giant giveaway, she’s never heard a word about past performances.
Then they throw a lot of two-year-old maidens at you, unraced babies by the gross, so everyone is left betting on mommy and daddy while the stable makes a killing. In the 7th race today I had a little bet down on a Chicago horse with plenty of class in the bloodline and watched them sucker me good. Another unraced filly plummets from 12–1 to 6–1 and my pulse took itself. One big drop, that’s the stable betting or else the big guys on a tip from the stable. Just before post they dumped another bag of cash and I knew it all. At 3–1 they had a perfect score, a nice price and no one gets it but them. The horse went wire to wire.
On the day I went zero for four, and the hefty lady got back on the bus with her purse bulging.
My thought for the day is that love is democratic. Even a bum can fall in love with the fairy princess or the gentleman’s daughter. That’s how Hollywood makes money. What’s to stop him from falling, except lack of opportunity? If she shows up on the wrong side of the tracks and she is irresistible, then he can’t resist her either, he’s human.
So she ought not to come there slumming—she should arrive with an open mind. That’s thought for the day, part two. (It’s my night off, so I have time to think twice.) Caddy Moore is taking a crack at it, she is willing to recognize the different kinds of quality in life. That there can be a great jockey and a great grease-monkey, as well as a great doctor lawyer.
Chatting with me is part of her democratic platform. She means only well, yet it is tough to shake off your breeding. One thing to try for an open mind, another to achieve it. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
After a couple of tries I still had not gotten hold of Mickey Klutz, until I bumped into him under the elms today. How’s your vacation going, I say. Wonderful, says the Duke, and I have a wonderful lady I would like for you to meet. Come.
He had her sitting at a table in the clubhouse sundeck—firstclass accommodations for the Duke of Kent, he likes to make the worm turn. Meanwhile his wonderful lady may be as he says, but I make her a hired gun, a whore. She makes a point to let me know as much, as if to clarify she’s on the clock—doesn’t like my friend, oh no she can do better than that! Not a nice attitude yet what can you expect, undying devotion?
In any case The Duke is feeling no pain. It is impossible to insult his royalness, that’s an order can’t be filled. The boy just ain’t sensitive. He is, however, in the process of divesting himself of accumulated funds (spending his money like water, is the translation—on this dame, on gambling, night spots, you name it) and adds that he does as much every year at this time.
What is money for, he asks, and he answers enjoyment. Of course different people will enjoy different things and not everyone wants a prostitute on his dance card. Nonetheless my friend will not rest until I have taken down a phone number and assured him I will give it due consideration my next lonely night. He swears by the whole stable, a lock.
Naturally there are a few famous names in town for this meeting and naturally you hear rumors that others are here when the truth is they’re two thousand miles away. Everyone wants to rub shoulders with the famous, for reasons foreign to me.
At the restaurant, in the papers, at the racetrack, everywhere you overhear such whisperings. Sugar Ray Robinson was at the paddock ring today, I swear it was him. No no, that was Jackie Robinson! (The hell it was, he is in Cincinnati for a three-game series.) I say so what. Let these Robinsons go where they want in peace, let them breathe some oxygen too.
I let Miller know I have new morning responsibilities at my work, and so please cancel my bacon-and-eggs with thanks. A white lie—to protect his feelings and at the same time my sensitive stomach.
Meanwhile I already have a new routine. With all the hubbub in the afternoon and evening, this town stays very nice and quiet in the a.m. You pay 42.50 to put your head on a pillow, I guess you want to leave it there a while.
So I collect my papers—Post, Telegraph, and Times-Union—and stroll a few sunny blocks to a back-alley hash palace they call The Chicken Shack. And move in. This place has it all, the comforts of home plus terrific food at basement rates, yet they have only five or six tables occupied and consequently don’t object if you spread out for a comfortable stay. In fact you do your homework in there from nine to eleven and all they do is top up your coffee at no extra charge. As a waiter myself I feel obliged to tip generous, and adding a little for the sublet I might end with a tip that’s bigger than my bill, leave two bucks to cover a 95¢ tab.
I can afford it. Got to work today. Cashed $35 ten times on a nice filly overlay who surprised a few at seven furlongs, and added a steeplechaser across the board at 4 to 1. So it’s cookies in the cookie jar, and I had some fun. I admit I prefer making a hundred dollars handicapping the horses than make two hundred working nine-to-five reliable. A sickness I’m sure, yet to this patient feels just fine.*
Climbed aboard a sightseeing bus today, saw the sights. Saratoga Lake, white sails, red canoes, paddlewheeler for fifty cents. Then the old Casino, some polo grounds, and a spooky place called Yaddo where the mosquitoes are as big as birds and everything is rotting. And at last a glimpse of the celebrated Spa, where they provide services you
could never dream up on your own. They will baptize you in a bubble-bath, or tenderize your flesh from top to bottom and stick you between redhot sheets to relax. The things they have dreamed up make it hard to distinguish between luxury and torture, although in fairness I should confess to a congenital dullness. Several on the tour were ecstatic at the prospect of bubble-bath, and likewise the sauna bath after, which I have always found a ticket to suffocation. To each his own is the rule of thumb.
Dropped a postcard in the mail to Jimmy Myers and hustled over to Union Avenue in time to peg two winners at a modest profit, about the same I made on tips tonight. I do not look forward to punch in at The Bunkhouse. It’s a drudge job now, the bloom is off it (didn’t take long) and if I had to keep it up I’d quit. Fortunately, no problem. I am already right in the middle, between the last time I saw Caddy Moore and the next time.
Very nearly done in today by the Duke of Kent. We met (as planned) for the day’s racing and he had the same companion as before, or very similar. Plus he had an extra one—for me. A redhead in a yellow dress with body by Fisher, va-va-voom style from headlights to the toe-polish. And he confides, “Oscar, it’s on me. My treat.”
Terrific. I took him aside and begged. “Mickey, I can’t handle this girl, it’s not my style.”
“But she is. I hand-picked this girl for you, factory-tested and fully guaranteed. Take my word for it, she makes a very nice companion.”
“I’m sure.”
“You don’t like her?”
“I do, I like her very much. A nice girl and very sexy. But I don’t know her, she’s a total stranger.”
“Of course she is, for Christ’s sake. She’s a hooker. She is supposed to be a stranger, Oscar, you don’t expect to see, your little sister in a situation like that.”
“Mickey, listen, thanks but no thanks.”
“You can’t do it to her. You’ll permanently wound her feelings, not to mention the problem that I paid in advance. She cost me a bundle. They don’t all look that good, my friend, it’s like anything else on life’s banquet table—you get what you pay for.”
Easier, I decide, to explain myself to Vicki (the girl-chick) so I drag her downstairs in a corner where we can discuss business without the Duke’s encouragement. Worse and worse, however, as Vicki takes a different meaning. She concludes I am acting impatient, hot to trot, and cuddles me up. “Shhh,” she tells me when I try to protest her, “Shhh, it’s okay, I understand.”
The hell she does. She is all set to go! Places my hands underneath her dress, right up the sides of her legs to the top—nothing on. Hips, backside, naked. And says to me, “We can do it standing up.”
No help in sight. I’m like a drowning man, dragged down by waves of confusion. And just in the nick of time I shout out loudly “No!”—loud enough to hear it echo—“Please! Don’t be hurt. I can’t do this, there’s a misunderstanding.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” She looks up worried, but keeps my hands in her nest.
“My mother. My mother died, today. Mickey didn’t know about it. I can’t be doing this today—”
“Your mom died today?” She loosens up. The dead mother is going to work, thank God, whatever made me think of it. Saved by the dead mother and Vicki won’t be permanently hurt—only I will.
Because later on (and this is ten hours later on) I am unable to sleep. Unable to erase from my palms the silk of that girl’s hips. Which is very crazy. If she walked in the room right now I would send her packing. (And then when she was gone, maybe wish she’d been able to stay.) A very crazy business, this sex. Goes beyond my understanding.
I can’t blame Mickey. He theorized this was just what the doctor ordered, same doctor as places the orders for Linda Stanley. To each his own affliction and I’ve got mine. But what is it that makes everyone mean so well, and take such good care of me? I can take good care of myself. I’m a big boy, I do it all the time. Does it look like such a lousy job I’m doing, to turn the whole world into a goddamn samaritan?
A girl you don’t want is the one who wants you. The world is full of girls and though I make this discovery late in life, it is no less the truth. This one with the red hair, and the Mickey Klutz stamp of approval, she is a girl all right, believe it, with a body to stop your heart. Yet stops your head too, this kind of arrangement. A girl you want, and have chosen not from left field but from the annals of your life, that one you cannot have. And it may be the case (I’m sure a psychiatrist would say so in The Post) it’s what makes you want her.
Even with Tanya. I won her over, yes, and made her marry me, so naturally I assumed she wanted me. But she didn’t. It took me years, a decade, to notice this simple fact, that she didn’t want me. There was a lot of confusion in those days before I figured out, because it was not as though she wanted someone else instead. Now I only say it’s bad luck for a virgin to marry a virgin.
I doubt Caddy Moore can be one. A quality you see in her—that she would enjoy sex. Not with me, of course, but with the man of her own free choice. The one she wanted.
Summer Tan came here to cop the Whitney and got an unpleasant surprise. Four-year-old colt Dedicate broke the course record for nine furlongs—worth forty thousand to those who buy his oats.
I laid off it. Following basic principles this meet and getting the job done. You can put ten bucks on every nag in an eight-nag field if you want—Damon Runyon did this for years and the in-crowd thought the guy could talk to horses, he knew it all. And some of these will take a dozen, two dozen slips on the Daily Double and come up smiling all the time. They play the big cheeseburger, cash a lot of tickets, but you know they are getting murdered by the pool.
So you don’t undercut yourself. Pick your spot and stick out your chin. I had only one play today. The steeplechasers I usually plead ignorant, as with the dogs or trotters. But I have noted up here that moreso than the flats a steeplechaser will run to form. It’s a long race, and one that involves skills as well as speed and placement, so that form comes up by the time they see the wire. This horse’s name was foreign to me before the morning paper came out—I just backed my own theory, went with the chalk, and took home $165. Nice work if you can get it.
And untaxed, naturally. I feel like I should send Uncle a money-order now and again, to pull my oar. The week just concluded I took on $235 at the Bunk and better than that at the Showplace and it’s all cash, tax-free. I am not a taxed individual anymore. They hold back a few pennies from my wage that I may never see, but so what? They could keep back the wage too, or feed it to the monkeys.
“What’s this about your sainted mother?”
“Mickey, please. Let it drop.”
“When is the funeral? Hadn’t you better catch a bus back to the City at your earliest?”
“You want to be reimbursed I’m more than happy.”
“Christ, no, that’s not the point. I got my money’s worth from the both of them before the stars fell on Alabama. But seriously, Oscar, we are up here for some fun in life. Don’t save yourself for marriage—nobody even wants a virgin anymore.”
“I know, I know.” (Having ruminated the same point.)
“What do you say to Saturday apres-midi, the selfsame foursome? How’s about it?”
“No thanks, from the bottom of my heart. But please, let me treat you to the threesome. I’m getting rich up here as fast as you are getting poor.”
“You know, if you disapprove of Vicki you are also disapproving of me.”
“I approve—of everyone. I wish I felt the same way as you, I just don’t. It’s my upbringing.”
“Let me treat you to a few rounds with a psychiatrist.”
“Save your dough, it’s too late for me.”
“Oscar, these are nice women, clean-living girls. These girls dine out regularly with governors and senators in Albany—creme de la creme.”
“What do you think, I’m a snob? Believe me, Mickey, it’s nothing like that.”
“Then what the he
ll is it. You’re a healthy redblooded male.”
“Last time I bled.”
It’s over with now, he won’t try me again. Nonetheless a struggle, as the Duke is tenacious of a point. He wants his taste approved, as though I didn’t care for the dish he served up. Far from it—a raving shiksa beauty, shoo-in for Miss Rheingold next time around—but no percentage telling Mickey Klutz about principles, he’s got his own set. To him, if it costs a bundle it must be fun and if it is fun then it must be good.
Not bad reasoning, so long as you remember that your hand ends where the next man’s nose begins. I have nothing to argue in defense of strict principles, I’m not the rabbi or the rabbi’s son. It’s all air to me too, just happens to be the air I breathe. I am telling the whole truth when I say No Objections—each to his own and may he own it.
I spied Mrs. Whitman descending the clubhouse stair to the paddock area. Recalled at once my promise (to dine) and upon reflection decided we would both enjoy it. A friendly date.
My fear approaching her was she might have forgotten my promise, or her own invitation, but it never crossed my mind she might have forgot me completely. And maybe she didn’t. Maybe she was blinded momentarily coming from indoors to the bright glare of the backyard, or maybe she was bearing down on her quinella selection in the 6th.
Whatever was the case, I caught up to her and was set to open discussion when I realized she was looking right past me. I was a face in the crowd to her, not in focus. Not Oscar, but Everyman. Defrocked of my livery, displaced from my station, I lost aristocrat status. So I backed off and let her pass unmolested.
It’s a very different proposition to wait table in a restaurant. At the clubhouse there is much less bustle. The clients will be there four hours, the whole day of racing, so they sit back and sip. Consequently you get to know the party and the tip will generally reflect it.
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