Now retired from his laundry route but still working at the motel Saturdays and Sundays, my father goes to the racetrack almost every weekday—Aqueduct fall and winter, Belmont spring and summer. Some days he never sees a horse in the flesh, betting at the last minute and watching the monitors under the stands.
He has developed dozens of ten-seconds-at-a-time relationships: “Did the two catch the nine?” “Why didn’t he go to the whip sooner?” “They shoulda never taken him down; I’ve seen much worse.”
On a trip to Las Vegas, at the Riviera Sportsbook, he comes across one of the racetrack faces and he says, “Hey, I know you.” The other man sticks out his hand and says, “Yeah. From the track. Mort.”
“Matt.”
Back at the track, they become friendly, without last names or phone numbers. Mort always comes with Terry, who does all the driving. My father refers to them as “the boys.” If one of the boys is sick or away, neither comes. Days can go by without them, then the boys are back without missing a beat: “The seven hates the mud.” “I thought the three was going to steal it.”
My father and Mort plan their Vegas trips to overlap whenever possible. They watch races together at the Riviera, get each other coffee and bagels, and go their own ways at night. Mort often exasperates my father, arguing that the nine came in when it was clear that the four overtook him, or that Frank Sinatra is playing the Sands, when it’s Frank Sinatra Junior: “Yeah, that’s what I said, Frank Sinatra!”
Weeks go by without the boys showing up at the track, longer than ever before. My father spots a guy who hangs out with them, and asks him if he knows what’s up.
“Oh yeah,” the guy says, looking at his pencil-ridden program, “he died.”
“Who died?” my father asks, heart pounding and neck tense.
“Yeah, he died. Heart attack. I thought the six was going to take the three but he just couldn’t get outside.”
“Who died?!” my father demands. “Give me a name.”
The guy looks at my father quizzically.
My father puts his hands firmly on the guy’s shoulders and says softly, “Please. Give me a name.”
The man is distracted—it is three minutes to post.
“Give me a name.”
“Not Morty. The other guy.”
My father lets go, pats the guy on the back, and they go to separate windows to make their bets.
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