Notes of a Dirty Old Man. Charles Bukowski

sign. a 5/2 shot pays between $7.00 and $7.80 and so ten win means a return of between $35.00 and $39.00. so I figure I am about even. the horse was three on the line and never moved from 5/2 all during the betting. the official payoff was flashed on the board:

      5:40.

      right on the toteboard. $five-four-oooh. which lies halfway between 8/5 and 9/5 and is not 5/2 at all. earlier in the week, in an overnight gesture, the track doubled the parking fee from 25 cents to 50 cents. I doubt that the parking lot attendants’ salaries were doubled. also they snatched the whole $2.00 instead of the $1.95 on entering. now, $5.40. god damn. a slow unbelievable moan went across the grandstand and through the infield. in watching nearly 13,000 races I had never seen an occurrence like this. the board is not infallible. I have seen a 9/5 pay $6.00, and other slight variances, but never have I seen a 5/2 pay close to 8/5 nor have I ever seen a 5/2 drop in one flash (the last one) from 5/2 to close to 8/5. it would have taken an almost unbelievable amount of money bet at the last moment to do this.

      the crowd began to BOOOOO BOOOOOO BOOOOO! it died, then began again. BOOO, BOOOOOO, BOOOOO! and each time it began it lasted longer. the mob smelled rotten fish plus greed. the mob had been knifed, again. $5.40 meant a return to me of $27.00 instead of a possible $39.00. and I wasn’t the only one affected. you could feel the mob writhing, stung; to many out there each race meant rent or no rent, food or no food, car payment or no car payment.

      I looked down at the track and there was a man out there waving his program, pointing at the board. he was evidently talking to a track steward. then the man waved his program at the crowd, waving them in, asking them to come out onto the track. one man came through, leaping the rail. the crowd cheered. another man found the gateway opening in the rail. now there were three. the crowd cheered. people were feeling better. now they came, more and more and the crowd cheered. everybody was feeling better. a chance. a chance? something of some sort. more came. there must have been between 40 and 65 people spread across the track.

      the announcer came on over the speaker: “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE ARE ASKING YOU TO PLEASE CLEAR THE TRACK SO THAT WE MAY BEGIN THE 6th RACE!”

      his voice was not kindly. there were ten track policemen down there in their Santa Anita grays. each man carried a gun. the crowd booed, BOOOOOOOED!

      then one of the players down there noticed that the next race was on the turf. hell, they were blocking the dirt track. the crowd moved on over to the grass infield which circles inside the dirt track as the horses came out for the post parade. there were eight horses led by the outrider in his red hunting jacket and black cap. the crowd spread across the track.

      “PLEASE,” the announcer said, “CLEAR THE TRACK! PLEASE CLEAR THE TRACK! THE TOTEBOARD WAS UNABLE TO REGISTER THE LAST FLASH DOWN IN THE BETTING. THE PRICE IS CORRECT!”

      the horses moved slowly toward the waiting crowd. those horses looked very big and nervous.

      I asked Denver Danny, a guy who has hung around the tracks much longer than I, “what the hell gives, Denver?”

      “the board reads properly,” he said, “that’s not the bitch. each dollar bet is recorded. when the machines closed the board read 5/2; the board flashed again and there were the final variances but the 5/2 remained. now the French have an old saying, ‘who is to guard the guards themselves?’ as you recall, Quadrant was the obvious winner a 3rd of the way down the stretch, drawing out. a number of things could have happened. perhaps the machines were never locked during the running. when Quadrant was the obvious winner management could have stood there and kept punching out winning tickets. others say that one or two machines can be fixed to remain open and in use when the others are locked. I really don’t know. all I know is that some SHIT went on and everybody else here knows it too.”

      the horses moved on toward the crowd. the outrider and the front horse, a monster, RICH DESIRE, br. g.4, Pierce up, moved toward the line of waiting people. one of the boys called the track police something very filthy and three of the cops took him over to the rail and roughed him up a bit. the crowd got on them and they let him go and ran back to their positions in front of the line of people spread across the track. the horses kept moving forward, and you could see that they intended to go through. the orders were in. this was the moment: men on horses against men with nothing. two of three guys lay down in front of the horses, right in front of the line of march. this was it. the outrider’s face distorted suddenly, it got as red as his hunting jacket, and he grabbed the number one horse, RICH DESIRE, by the rein, spurred his horse and rammed through human flesh, eyes shut. the horse got through. I’m not sure whether he broke anybody’s back or not.

      but the outrider had earned his salary. a good management boy. and some of the few scabs in the stands cheered. but it wasn’t over. a few of the guys grabbed at the number one horse and tried to pull the jock out of the saddle and to the ground. then the police moved in. the other horses got on through but the boys momentarily had the number one horse and Pierce was almost pulled out of the saddle. this was the final sway of the tide.

      I’m sure that if they could have gotten Pierce out of the saddle they would have ended up burning the grandstands and smashing up the whole damn dumb scene. meanwhile the cops were working over the boys pretty good. no guns were pulled but it looked like the cops were enjoying the action, especially one cop who kept hitting an old man along the top of the head, back of the neck and along the spine. Pierce got on through with RICH DESIRE, an aptly named gelding, and the horse warmed up for their mile and one half on the turf. the cops seemed particularly vicious and energetic and the protesters didn’t seem too interested in fighting back. the game was lost. so the track was cleared.

      the next voice that went up was: “DON’T BET! DON’T BET! DON’T BET!”

      what a thing that would have been, eh? not a dollar for the vultures — fat subnormal slobs thrown out of Beverly Hills homes. all too good. there was already six grand in the mutuels when they started to holler, “DON’T BET!” we were hooked, bleeding, gotten forever … there was nothing we could do but bet again and again and again and take it.

      ten cops stood along the infield rail. proud and true and sweating, they’d earned a hard day’s pay. the winner of the 6th was OFF, who read nine to one and paid that. if the board has paid eight or seven there would be no Santa Anita today.

      I read that the next day, Saturday, there were around 45,000 people at the track, which was about normal.

      I was not there and I was not missed and the horses ran and I wrote this.

      March 23, 8 p.m., Los Angeles the same damn sadness and no place to go.

      maybe next time we’ll get that number one horse.

      it takes practice, a little laughter and some luck.

      ________

      this guy in the army fatigues came up to me and said, “now that it happened to Kennedy you’ll have something to write about.” he claims to be a writer, why doesn’t he write about it? I’ve always got to pick up their messy balls and put them into a little literary sack for them. I think we’ve got enough experts on the case now — that’s what this decade is: the Decade of the Experts and the Decade of the Assassins. and neither one of them worth crystallized dog turds. the main problem with a thing like that last assassination is that we not only lose a man of some worth but we also lose political, spiritual and social gains, and there are such things, even if they do seem high-sounding. what I mean is, that in an assassination crisis the anti-human and reactionary forces tend to solidify their prejudices and to use all ruptures as a means of knocking natural Freedom off the goddamned end seat at the bar.

      I don’t want to get as holy about being active and involved with mankind as Camus did (see his essays) because basically most of mankind sickens me and the only saving that can be done is a whole new concept of Universal Education-Vibration understanding of happiness, reality and flow, and that’s for the little children who ain’t murdered yet, but they will be, I’ll lay you twenty-five to one, for no new concept will be allowed — it would be too destructive to the power gang. no, I’m no Camus, but, sweetheart, it bothers me to see the Klankheads making hay out