An Unlikely Muse

Jack Steele                                                                                                         2450 wds

240 Regency Drive

Marstons Mills, MA 02648                                                                                                      

jacksteele1@comcast.net                                                                                                        

508-280-8645                                                                                

An Unlikely Muse

By

Jack Steele

     “When you drink too much,” she said, “you don’t talk about how to beat the horses.  You talk about how to play them.  And that’s why I’m leaving you.”  She was an educated woman and liked making fine distinctions.  It wasn’t that he lost.  Not once in his life, never mind in their married life, had he bet the rent money on a horse.  Not even the grocery money.  In fact, on the whole, he knew what he was doing, and he was moderately successful.  What infuriated her was the “moderately” part, but not because she wanted him to win a lot of money as opposed to only a little.  That was as immaterial to her as it was to him.  It wasn’t the money.  It was his attitude.  She left him, and took their son with her, because she didn’t like his attitude.  “I’m in my thirties now,” she said.  “It’s time I grew up.”

     He couldn’t change his attitude.  Or wouldn’t.  He wasn’t sure which it was, couldn’t or wouldn’t, but he let her go and went on as before.  Wherever he was, he bought The Racing Form every evening right after dinner, usually parking in the red zone in front of  some liquor store, dashing in and out.  The places were always the same, and he was always known.  It didn’t matter if there was a line.  It didn’t even matter if he had a dollar.  Tip sheets hung on clothes lines all over the stores.  Old handicappers sat around on cases of booze.  Now and then, if he happened to see a parking space nearby, he’d linger for a while, maybe even buy a bottle, just to stay in good with the clerks.  They knew his first name.  He knew theirs.  If they saw each other at the track, they’d wave.  If they bumped into each other, they’d exchange brief greetings.

     It took him on average about five minutes to eliminate over half the races on the card, and only that long because he was careful and wanted to make sure there were no exceptions.  At fifteen minutes he’d have it down to three or four, and after a couple of hours he might have two to take to the track.  Even so, he rarely wound up actually betting on more than three or four races in a week.  Sometimes a week went by without a single bet.       

     His weakness was the paddock.  Or might have been, if he’d used it.  He liked going there, liked seeing the horses and the jockeys up close.  Its routine appealed to him.  The horses being led around.  The jockeys and trainers talking.  The jockeys mounting.  The procession onto the track.  He’d seen it every day at various tracks for ten years and still liked it, but it did him no good.  He relied completely on the Form and the latest information on the tote board.  Looking at a horse told him nothing.  He didn’t know why.  He’d read books, talked to people, even practiced his skills with dry runs and small wagers, but it never made any difference.  He’d have lost his shirt if he’d included what he saw in the paddock in his handicapping.

     Nevertheless, he knew that in other ways he was intuitive.  He might pore over facts and figures for hours, but before he would make a bet he had to feel a vague, almost unconscious level of confidence, and he was right, in the long run, a little more than a third of the time.  That was plenty.  On the one hand, a good handicapper played the percentages, but on the other, he couldn’t be a prisoner of rules.  He had to make tough choices, and now and then a decision felt more like a hunch.  To risk real money required a leap of faith.  As everyone knows, or should know, nothing was ever certain in a horse race.  Not until it was over.

     Although it had nothing to do with handicapping, at least not directly, or consciously, he also liked to think of himself as an aesthete.  One benefit of making most of his decisions before he arrived at the track was that he could enjoy its atmosphere.  In addition to going to the paddock just for the fun of it, he liked the track’s grubbiness, the losing tickets littering the floor, the skinny old men concentrating so hard on their programs and tip sheets, the fat women screaming and jumping up and down as the horses came into the stretch.  He liked the roar of the crowd, the mud flying, the angry losers.  Every day he’d buy a Coke and light up a fancy little cigar with a German-sounding name.  He’d find an isolated seat far off the finish line and watch through binoculars as the horses entered the gate. 

     He worked on not rooting even to himself, which helped him see the race better.  He simply watched the race.  After years of practice he’d learned how to see every horse and note every significant move.  His horse would win often enough.  He didn’t need to root for it.  It gave him more pleasure to see the race develop, come to a resolution, and finish.  At first he’d preferred races in which a closer came from behind to win, but as his ability to see a race increased, his taste became more sophisticated, and he learned to appreciate other ways of winning, or losing, other plots, you might say, such as leading wire to wire, getting boxed in, stumbling at the gate.  He especially liked those times when the winner ran just off the pace until the last turn, or even down the stretch, and when at just the right time, the jockey would let him go or urge him on, and the horse would move to the front.  It was pretty that way.  Subtle.  No frantic rush from last place.  No dramatic finish.  Just a gentle tap of the whip and the horse would move ahead. 

     That was the kind of talk that had made his wife raise her eyebrows, change the subject and eventually leave.  No doubt about it.  “It’s the only time you ever really get excited,” she told him, “when you’ve had a few and you try to explain it to me.”  And she was right.  He couldn’t deny it.

*****

    

     Eve, if that was really her name, was a total surprise.  He’d noticed her.  How could he not?  She was there every day and she looked unique, even strange.  A throwback to the fifties.  Big red lips.  Finger and toenails painted to match the lips.  A big flower, also a shade of red, in her bushy black hair.  Sunglasses with colorful plastic frames, usually avocado green or sunshine yellow.  A cigarette always, no filter.  Capri pants, cowboy shirts, ankle length dresses and skirts.  A scarf around her neck.  There was no missing her, and he’d noticed, with the eye of a snob, that she never carried anything except a program.  Probably bets on lucky numbers, he thought, or numbers and colors.  If Number 5 is green, bet to show.  That sort of thing.  And why not astrology too?  Just to make it exotic and complicated enough.  He’d heard of horse mind readers, horse shit readers, horse hypnotists.

     When she sat down next to him after the last race one day, it nearly scared him to death.  She said, “You come to the paddock before every race.”  “Yes.”  “But you never change your mind, do you?”  “No.”  Okay, he thought, she’s going to give me a formula.  Or more likely, sell it to me.  For five dollars I get a mimeographed foldout with all her rules.  Never do this.  Always do that.  Study the jockey’s aura.  Look deeply into the horse’s eyes.  She said, “Why not?”  “I can’t see anything.  I don’t know why.”  “Then why do you bother to come?”  “I just like it.  The ceremony.”  “What about the horses themselves?”  “Good question.”  “Yes, because most people would have said the horses.  That they come to the paddock to see the horses.  You don’t think they are anything special?”  “I didn’t say that, but you have a point.  I like betting, or rather, figuring it out, which one to choose, more than the horses.”  “It could be anything?”  “Not sure I’d go that far.  I like tracks.”  “Tracks, not horses.”  “Tracks, not just the horses.  And races.  I like the race itself.”  “I do too, but the best thing about the track for me is the horses.  I can pick winners just by looking at them.”  “That’s a good talent to have.”  “You’re a professional handicapper, aren’t you?”  “Yes.”  “A successful one?”  “I do okay.”  “What if I told you that if we worked together, I could make you twice as much money as you make now?”  “I’d wish it were true.”  “But you would doubt it.”  “Yes.”  “You think I’m a hustler.  Or crazy.  Right?”  “We could just say ‘mistaken.’  How’s that?” 

     It was apparently okay.  She ignored him and told him the deal.  “I’ll give you the winner, just before the horses leave the paddock, for a week.  No obligation on your part, but if you think we can do business, we can talk more.  Okay?”  “What’s in it for you?” he asked.  “Same as you,” she said.  “More money.”  Specifically, once they started doing business, she gave him her pick for every race, based apparently, and exclusively, on how the horses looked to her in the paddock, and for that she got ten percent of his winnings.  As it turned out, her confirmation meant everything.  Those horses, when they matched contenders he’d picked from the Form, won over ninety percent of the time.  She didn’t change her own habits.  She liked betting small amounts on every race.  The partnership was a bonus.  The first six months they tried it, he more than tripled his usual winnings.  He didn’t ask her how she did it, and although she had no way of monitoring his bets, she never questioned his honesty.

     She made him rich.  Before too long, he started betting fantastic amounts.  Together, in the long run, they couldn’t lose, and he was always honest and generous with her.  She never asked any questions, never seemed the least bit surprised by the amounts of cash he put in her hand, but she was rich too.  He’d made her rich, unless she’d been rich already.  Ten percent would have done it, but for quite a while he split the take with her.  “From now on I’m giving you half,” he said one day, and all she did was nod, maybe smile a little, and take the money.

     The arrangement lasted for ten years.  He saw her at every major track in the country, and she kept her side of the bargain, but one winter she didn’t show up for Santa Anita, and he never saw her again.  He didn’t even know her last name.  He asked around but all he got were shrugs, and once or twice an “Oh yeah, I know who you mean.  She hasn’t been around lately, has she?”  It threw him off for quite a while.  They’d never talked.  No drinks.  No smokes.  Before the horses left the paddock, usually right after the jockeys mounted, she’d come up to him with a number.  It was written in pencil on a sheet of ruled paper torn from a small spiral notepad.  He never told her which horses he’d picked from the Form.  When he gave her money, she said, “Thank you.”  That was it.

     After Santa Anita without her he went to Spain to think about things.  For the first time ever he’d lost money on a meet.  Not much, and it meant nothing to his overall finances, but it was something to think about.  He stayed away for three years.  He went to tracks all over the world.  England, France, Hong Kong, Argentina.  He went to tourist spots.  He spent some time with his kid, his parents.  Interesting, fun, but in the end everything but handicapping was just a diversion, as his ex-wife had always known.  Over the years he’d often thought about trying to find out more about Eve.  Sometimes he regretted that they did absolutely nothing together.  Maybe a beer after the last race.  A little shop talk.  Then if she’d died he could have sent flowers.  Or even shook the hand of some relative.  Quite a woman.  One of a kind.  I’ll miss her.  But maybe she just got tired of it.  Time for a change.  Aruba.  The south of France.  A Greek island.  God only knows.  Maybe she had another passion.  Gardens.  Dogs.  Gourmet cooking.  Golf.  Maybe she started betting on baseball.  Studied the physiognomy of pitchers.

     Yes, getting to know her would have been interesting in itself, but he had to admit that he also wanted to learn her secret.  He had plenty of evidence.  He’d watched her pick winners for ten years.  But he still couldn’t do it.  She had a gift he didn’t have.  Plain and simple.  And truth be told, as much as he’d wanted to question her, he was afraid it might jinx the whole thing.  Some things are best left alone.  Gift horse in the mouth.  Don’t fuck with it.  And not just because of how it filled his pockets.  Appreciate this, he told himself, reminded himself, over and over, for what it is.  That woman with the colorful sunglasses.  She has a gift, and she trusts you with it every day of her life.        

     When he came back he reverted to his old ways.  Moderation was the key.  And he had the same results as before.  He made a little money but not a lot.  He was afraid at first that he wouldn’t like it, now that the amount of money he wagered meant less than before.  And he was afraid too that he’d miss her.  There were a lot of issues, and he’d had time to think of all of them.  That’s why he was careful about his routine.  When he had dinner, where he bought the Form, where he sat in the stands.  All pretty much the same, or the same type of thing as before, when he wasn’t rich.  But he was no longer in his thirties.  He no longer smoked or drank Cokes.  Around him at the track he had everything he needed:  his cap to protect him from the sun, the Form, a program, a ballpoint pen, a couple of pencils, a calculator, his binoculars, a bottle of water.