Post Time for the last horse race. Church-like bells clang for final wagers and I\u2019ve already bet on Zelda, the #5 at 5-to-1 odds. Leaning on the infield rail, I finish another beer, look through binoculars like Little League Coach Earl at the beach for nudes when I was a boy. The memory spooks until I spot my black filly standing in ocher sunlight. Thankfully, she looks okay, looks calm yet ready to run. She puts a hoof forward, tap-taps the sandy racetrack like a little dance. She cocks pointy ears through a tact \u2013 a cotton head-covering so she can\u2019t look to the side or back. Her coat is dry, tail loose as a flapper\u2019s frock. Feet in irons, the hundred-pound jockey nudges Zelda\u2019s barreled flanks and she goes in the starting gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rest of the ladies load, a field of twelve in a six-furlong race, or \u00be of a mile, over in seventy seconds \u2013 give or take. Handlers yell. A bell rings. The doors open. They\u2019re off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They spring from the gate, they run as they have for thousands of years, scrambling for position, tails strung like Christmas lights. Zelda\u2019s saddlecloth is the color of money; her jockey\u2019s silks, the red-light district. Both appear unhurried for the business transaction at hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\t\u201cAt the midway point, Zelda is a dawdling last!\u201d comes the announcer\u2019s voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tThen it happens as life in an instant. In the far turn, Zelda begins to move. She gains ground. She is a locomotive, she is a sports car. She passes horses, picking them off one by one, weaving in and out. The jockey hand-rides her. Pump-pump his arms go, whip tucked away. It looks like he\u2019s humping her like Earl me way back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tExiting the turn, Zelda swings out. Dust explodes from her feet. The jockey crisscrosses the reigns like a jump rope, trying to get her to switch leads. She\u2019s running off the wrong leg. He doesn\u2019t whip her, so I whip my leg with my fedora instead. At the 1\/16th pole, Zelda switches leads. She straightens out, neck surging and tumescent. She has one to pass, a pregnant roan with foal. In three strides, Zelda extends and wins, tail wind-milling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tThrough binoculars, I see the jockey removing Zelda\u2019s tact like a woman\u2019s bra, swinging a boobless trophy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tThe win pay-offs delayed, I line up, slow as Catholic Communion or communist bread line. Or Zelda at first. So, I have a cigarette, think of her, probably named after F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s wife, also a writer like Scott in the roaring 1920\u2019s and crazy as a wild horse. But who cares about a name? It\u2019s something Hanna, my wife, would say. She gluttons for anything society and everything history, and vomits it conversationally on me, then I parrot it back. Like to the bald bet-teller with hairy knuckles who pays me in a two bank bundles of twenties. I peel off a bill. \u201cCompliments of the drunk, bipolar flapper.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\t\u201cMy wife won the last race?\u201d he jokes. Then he says, \u201cThanks, Mack. That\u2019ll cover a few beers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tMack \u2013 <\/em>never been called that before. Is this the 1920\u2019s? Back teeth afloat, I could go for a celebratory beer. But heading for the exits, the concessions are closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tIn the parking lot, a draining sea of brake lights. The sun has dipped into the far end of the bay beyond the Golden Gate. The bus to the city has left, so I grab a checker cab that makes me think of New York. Hanna\u2019s been there all week, clothes shopping, going to musicals and the Tut<\/em> exhibit. Her Prozac is working and she wants to travel. Run away, really, after I told her about Earl. I just hope she remembered her pills and to come back. As for me, I\u2019d like another drink and bet, but the action\u2019s over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t I\u2019m second in the cab, get the plastic camel-hump backseat harder than Earl\u2019s lap. I grab my<\/p>\n\n\n\n splayed safari-jacket belt before the next passenger slides in \u2013 a woman with a nice musky smell. Cramped and not anxious to make friends \u2013 I prefer falling in love from afar \u2013 I lower my fedora and focus on printouts as the cab pulls away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tWe pass under the freeway. On my right, she says, \u201cHow\u2019d you do today?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tDrunk, I look over. She is black, gaunt, and quite pretty \u2013 face bones fine as a bird\u2019s. A gold hat resembling a khat headdress hangs down the back of her neck like a Pyramid wall painting of the Egyptian Queen Isis in a copper choker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI had a good day,\u201d I say, imagining Hanna telling me I\u2019m talking to Tut\u2019s<\/em> mother. \u201cYou?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cThey got me today. Got my shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cLooks like you\u2019re still wearing it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tShe gilds a smile, suggestively fingers the top button of her silky blouse, and gives me the eye. I think of eye on the dollar bill atop a pyramid. Hanna says it means providence, but probably not here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI say, \u201cThey get me a lot, too, just waiting to take my money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cIt\u2019s like we\u2019re the ATM for the track,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cNo ATM,\u201d the Middle Eastern driver shouts in a dirty turban. \u201cCash only.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cNo,\u201d another passenger explains. \u201cIt was a joke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cNo joke. Cash only,\u201d he jihads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThen the Isis woman sasses, \u201cAll I have is my ATM.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe cab slows, the driver eyes the rearview mirror like a savage tomb raider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cJust kidding, Mohammad,\u201d she says. \u201cKeep your mummy hat on. I got my two dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t The driver speeds down cloven streets skirted by abandoned warehouses. Faded signs board <\/p>\n\n\n\n windows. Thistle and rumpus weed up through cracked foundations \u2013 nothing as precise as the Giza<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pyramids where you can\u2019t even stick a credit card between the limestone blocks. I look at my crumpled<\/p>\n\n\n\n sheets and hope my equations never show gaps or a fatal flaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cYou<\/em> organized,\u201d the woman says. \u201cWhere\u2019d you get those from? They sell those at the track?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI made them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cWell,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat\u2019s that number circled in red next to Zelda. Didn\u2019t she just win?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI should have been hangin\u2019 with you. Want to share the formula?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tMy smile slips with the transmission as the cab slows, a solenoid shot. I recall Earl hanging out of his pants, showing me how to calibrate a spark plug well before I could drive. It was hard to know the torque wrench from his twerking cock. I never could set the spark plug gap; the electricity never arced between the ground and center electrode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tAt the train station, I exit the center seat, pay the taxi, and go inside. Zelda follows, we get tickets, take the escalator down to the platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tIntrigued by her, I ask, \u201cWhere to?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cThe city. Powell Street.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cThe same.\u201d I point the way, my other hand on her back. \u201cYou notice Zelda\u2019s workouts?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cA fifty-seven bullet. Faster than a quarter-horse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe train\u2019s lights beam from the tunnel, the marquee lights up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe doors open. I\u2019m not a gentleman; I go in first. She sits next to me, her musk invading my cigarette-smoked senses. My eyes feel sunken as spark plug sockets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cShow me again,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s Zelda.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cNot as good looking as you. You smell better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cOh, go on.\u201d She touches my leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe bones in her hand are like the levers of my forklift, which couldn\u2019t lift a ten-ton block for <\/p>\n\n\n\n the Pyramids. God knows how the Egyptians quarried them. I dig at the 40-weight motor-oil under my<\/p>\n\n\n\n fingernails and remember Earl ringing a filter wrench on his cock. The train tunnels under the bay. My<\/p>\n\n\n\n ears ring as the wheels screech on the rails. Aside from her musk and my debauched smell, Hanna would say the air is stale as a Pharaoh\u2019s funerary chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cNow,\u201d this woman says. \u201cWhy did the track announcer say Zelda wouldn\u2019t switch leads? She looked like she was about to lead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cEver run through an airport carrying a heavy ssssuitcase<\/em>?\u201d I\u2019m slurring my words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cThen you switch hands so you can keep going before you rest?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cThe suitcase is the horse\u2019s body, and instead of switching arms, the horse switches legs. Inside leg on the turn, outside on the straight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tShe puts her hand on my leg, says, \u201cThis the one you lead with?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI smile and recall high school when cheerleader Kali was ready to lead the charge on the court. I had free throws in the final second, down by one. Hair in cornrows, skirt in purple pleats and pom-poms twisted, she yelled my name, the only time she acknowledged me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cNow you want to talk?\u201d I said, looking over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tShe stood in her own spotlight and bunched her shoulders as the crowd tittered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI rimmed both shots; we lost the game, and I never did talk to her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tAfter, Mom and I ate at a taqueria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cYou should have invited your friend,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cIf only.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cWell, she certainly called out your name like she was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + + <\/p>\n\n\n\n At our train stop, I say, \u201cDinner?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t<\/em>\u201cOkay,\u201d <\/em>Zelda says in a cheerleader sort of way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tAbove the station, shop windows vigil the somber street \u2013 the slow of downtown before nightlife. We cross against a red light, enter an empty jazz-bistro converted from a church. Zelda Fitzgerald would have adored this place. Hanna too, with its plaster arches, murals of angels on the ceiling, still-lifes for stations of the cross. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe host lectern vacant, a tall slim man behind the marble bar veined as blue cheese with brass taps waves us over. He\u2019s Chinese in a tux and braided ponytail and studies us. I\u2019m still in a safari jacket. I remove my hat and binoculars. I tell him we\u2019re on expedition to a costume party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cWhat\u2019ll it be?\u201d he says without a smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI look at Zelda. \u201cMy dear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tShe pokes my hat, says, \u201cWhatever Indiana Jones is having.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI smirk and order gin martinis. \u201cOlives, dirty.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cDirty \u2013 I like that,\u201d Zelda says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cVery good,\u201d the bartender says and goes away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cVery good,\u201d Zelda sasses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cSmoke?\u201d I offer the hard pack. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cYou got it all. You got a formula to predict me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tShe leans in, rubbing a small soft breast on my arm. In my head, Hanna is talking about Queen Isis suckling her son, Horus, who would become Pharaoh, like the Virgin Mary did Jesus, who would become Savior. But Zelda has a different sucking in mind. Then I\u2019d be a dalliant and a dumb-ass. I try<\/p>\n\n\n\n to focus, not stray too far. I notice her gold flats, the flats Hanna looks at in fashion magazines \u2013 not the<\/p>\n\n\n\n glossy ones Earl showed me way back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t Dirty martinis arrive. After we drain those, eat olives, I confess, \u201cWe’re out of sticks.\u201d I feel<\/p>\n\n\n\n like Hanna out of meds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cOh, hell.\u201d Zelda shakes the pack like a wino an empty bottle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI\u2019ll go get some.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cNow you come back,\u201d she says. \u201cDon\u2019t go home to that wife of yours and leave me with the bill.\u201d She points to the gold band on my finger. \u201cBesides, all I got is my ATM, and you\u2019re coming with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI nod and nearly go home. At the smoke shop, I buy a two-pack and recall Kali on the sidelines. I kick myself for missing both free throws \u2013 shots like damn twerks. But I promised, head back to the bar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tZelda adjusts her khat when I return. I proffer a pack with the camel picture, keep one, and notice her imitation choker, earrings, bracelet are a set. I indulge Hanna, imagine where the copper parure was smelted, hammered, what dynasty. Edomite<\/em>, she says, in the Tima valley, east of Israel, north of Egypt. 2000 BC. Cramped claustrophobic mines, slave labor, camel trains packed with ore. All dust now. Like every dynasty. Little evidence. Stuff for archaeologists in Indian Jones hats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cAren\u2019t you nice,\u201d Zelda says, stripping the clear film wrapper, the gold strip tab the same color as her jewelry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI aim to please.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI’ll bet you\u2019ll please me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI light her cigarette with flickering intrigue. I look at her as though through the wrong end of the binoculars at myself. Desperate. Wanton. Spooked again, I see Earl stripping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cSo, what do you do?\u201d she says. \u201cWhat\u2019s your story?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cRetail sales and a little forklift in the warehouse. You?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI bet you forklift,\u201d she says. \u201cAs soon as we get to where my house is.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cOh, I have to handicap tonight, dissect the Racing Form<\/em>. Let\u2019s meet up at the train tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cTomorrow? There\u2019s still tonight,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna finish like Zelda.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe bistro fills up, the bartender says we can eat at the bar. Dinner comes on over-sized plates \u2013 mine has a chip. That\u2019d scratch a horse to the glue factory. We have mustard pork-loin and saut\u00e9ed Julienned Brussels Sprouts with lemon juice and bacon. Twice-baked potato. A Riesling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tZelda keeps a hand on my leg. I feel like a shy ridgling. She flicks a long lever finger for my bills. I wipe my mouth with a napkin and cigarette smoke clouds the bar. The bartender comes up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cHow is it?\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cSomeone ate all my food. And drank my drank<\/em>,\u201d Zelda says and laughs. \u201cI\u2019ll have another,\u201d she says, waggling her empty glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cThat could be a horse\u2019s name,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI\u2019ll Have Another<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cThat\u2019s what I said.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tShe doesn\u2019t get it. I switch back, order dirties for the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tHe brings them and says, \u201cAnything else?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cMotel room, and hurry,\u201d Zelda says like he\u2019s our taxi driver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tIt\u2019s no joke, but I want it to be. \u201cWe\u2019re good,\u201d I say, think of the motel Earl took me to as a boy. It was my birthday weekend at an amusement park. My mother called it a wonderful surprise. But after, I went home surprised with a bloody sore end. \u201cTwo more for the road and we\u2019ll settle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cMust be a long-ass road,\u201d Zelda jokes. \u201cLong like sumtin\u2019<\/em> else.\u201d She squeezes my leg like she<\/p>\n\n\n\n could ring an oil wrench on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t The bartender brings a black leather fold. I pay cash, remembering my prom at a fancy ball-room hotel with chandeliers. All night, I stared at Kali over my date\u2019s shoulder. Kali seemed bored with her boyfriend and his new BMW. Then they were off to an after-party in a room upstairs. I slipped the valet my last twenty for retrieving my shitty Datsun and drove my date home. I kicked myself; Kali never looked over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tSometimes I wonder if Earl ever had twenty bucks. Even a credit card. Aside from my birthday, we did things without paying. Once, in his old truck \u2013 the doors barely hinged \u2013 he fancied a hotel after a little league game. We walked through the marble lobby in trunks straight to the Olympic pool swarming with half naked with cocktails. We picked the last of the lounger chairs in the shade and he told me to stay put while he checked on our room upstairs. My stomach turned. Another room? There were hundreds in the horse-shoe high-rise. He returned and said it wasn\u2019t ready. Then a security guard came over and asked if we were even staying at the hotel. Earl said we were just leaving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n + + +<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI tip the waiter twenty percent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThen I order two more martinis, as he brings us two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tHe just nods, nothing like a jihad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cYou just paid the long-ass tab,\u201d Zelda says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cGuess I\u2019ll open another.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tHer head goes side to side. \u201cYou\u2019re dawdling like Zelda at the back of the pack.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI light a cigarette; nicotine plumes my mind, and nearly fall off my stool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe music starts \u2013 a pianist and bassist in tuxes, a pretty blond vocalist in a cloche and a silky<\/p>\n\n\n\n evening gown. She looks like Hanna; her arms are lean and bare, breasts perky under her black V-neck. She sings \u201cMy Funny Valentine.\u201d I can barely hear her over the crowd, not that I\u2019m standing at any damn free-throw line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tA group of males rushes in like a pride of lions. They are strapped in the brown leather backpacks of those who vacation for six weeks a year, like Hanna wants to do. I wish I\u2019d gone to New York with her and hope she doesn\u2019t run out of meds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThey circle the bar. \u201cBeer!\u201d they shout. \u201cWe want beer!\u201d One taps me on the shoulder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cExcuse me,\u201d he says. He sounds German and hands me a note the size of a bet ticket. FIND WILLIE <\/em>it says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tEarl said that more than once, putting my hand down his boxers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cWe don\u2019t know what this means,\u201d the German says. \u201cWillie,\u201d he says, tongue out, and starts<\/p>\n\n\n\n laughing. \u201cWillie,\u201d he says again, tongue drawn further out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cHe my <\/em>Willie,\u201d Zelda says with her hand high on my thigh and squeezes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI remove her hand, skin like the scales of a horned snake. I hand the note back and say, \u201cSorry, I can\u2019t help you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cOh, well,\u201d they say. \u201cCheers,\u201d and hold up green bottles of beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tZelda finishes her martini in one swallow. Mine\u2019s untouched. My eyes sink lower than olives in the glass. Dizziness hits in an instant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI\u2019m leaving,\u201d I say. It\u2019s so loud no one can hear. \u201cHey,\u201d I say to the guy with the note. I tap him on the shoulder. \u201cHey, buy her a drink. Who among you will buy Zelda a drink?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tBut she hears, ears up like through a tact, and eyes wide. And not providential. She screams like a wolf\u2019s howl. It echoes in eddies down my ear holes as though I\u2019ve just tried to auction her like chattel or a cotton picker. \u201cWhat?! Listen, Mack. Don\u2019t you dare do that! I don\u2019t need anyone to buy me a drink! You hear me, Willie? Or is it just Dickhead? Don\u2019t ever do that again! And my name isn\u2019t Zelda! It\u2019s IRIS<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe Germans stare like a stunned basketball crowd. Blond eyebrows raised, they watch as though I\u2019m on the free-throw line and missed. The guy with the note mumbles, \u201cOh, Willie.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cSorry,\u201d I say about my lack of tact. \u201cI didn\u2019t mean any harm.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tShe looks like she could whip me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI free myself from the stool, then snudge and stagger out and through downtown. My fedora brim low, I look back to see if she\u2019s following. On the busy sidewalk, I clip tourists with my binoculars. I switch leads to avoid more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tAt home, Hanna\u2019s left a message on the answering machine: \u201cHave fun at the races? Hope you<\/p>\n\n\n\n won enough to pay for my trip, in case you thought I wasn\u2019t coming back. You\u2019ll love the gold ballet flats I bought. I just love New York. By the way, you\u2019re coming with me next time; there\u2019s a race track here. And churches! I know how you love holy places. And oh my God, an archaeologist lectured at the museum. He said the cryptic crypt evidence suggests King Tut died in a race, probably fell off the chariot and got run over by a wheel or crushed by a horse hoof. Broke his heart, literally. Crazy, huh? Wish that would happen to fucking Earl, crush the shit out of him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tHaunted, I\u2019ve never considered that, wish I could kill the memories, tact my mind, and not look back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tAfter a Prozac pause, she says, \u201cAnyway, I’ll be home tomorrow night. Bye, Love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\t\t\t\t\t+ + +<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t In the morning, I have coffee and handicap, crunching numbers, picking horses. I walk<\/p>\n\n\n\n downtown to the station. Tourists line up to nowhere. It\u2019s a bright day, blinding as God\u2019s face, and I\u2019ve<\/p>\n\n\n\n forgotten my sunglasses. I scan the ticket area at silhouettes. None are Iris. I take the train, study my<\/p>\n\n\n\n sheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At my stop, I get yesterday\u2019s taxi driver. A strip of white cloth hangs from his turban, a crack in<\/p>\n\n\n\n the armor and patka \u2013 the raiment of the devout. It\u2019s something I shouldn\u2019t see, like a proper woman\u2019s slip or bra strap. Or as a boy, a dirty magazine, or a grown man\u2019s soiled boxers at the foot of the bed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tBut Earl always had me look. That time at the nude beach with the binoculars, we first stopped at Del Mar for the last race. It was a short walk to the waves after. In back of the pickup, Earl had a bale of hay \u2013 random as a limestone block because he never spoke of horses or history like Hanna. In baseball hat and root-beer colored sunglasses, he told security he had a special delivery. They waved him on. After parking, Earl left the hay in the truck and told me to keep quiet and keep walking through the shed-row to the paddock without paying. Then he told me to look. I saw thoroughbreds being saddled, one farriered, and fell in love. I felt electric. They were the most majestic things. The long chiseled faces, soft noses, big powerful rumps, skinny legs with heavy horny hoofs and soft frog soles leaking inside steel shoes. But I had to see worse than bacterial thrush that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tBut now, everyone in the cab, save the driver, is providentially eyeing the Racing Form<\/em> entries and history of horses Hanna wants to stomp Earl\u2019s heart and soul to hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe prickly riders talk picks and winners. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cThat one can run,\u201d one says. \u201cTrainer\u2019s got him ready. Must feed him the good stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tAnother says, \u201cGot your money working for ya when you got that jockey up. I tell you what.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t\u201cI got that new kid,\u201d the third says. \u201cRode the hell out of Zelda yesterday. Smooth as a jump roper.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tEnnui leads to my sheets, shiny numbers circled in red. Bets form in my head. Daily Double,<\/p>\n\n\n\n pick-3, Superfecta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \t At the track, I\u2019m contrite as in the confessional. I look for Iris not wanting to find her. I look<\/p>\n\n\n\n over my shoulder and stop to watch yesterday\u2019s race replays on TV. I take trip notes and track tendencies \u2013 pacesetters? I continue looking for Iris. I peer down the railing, the paddock, the bar, down the escalator. I eye a woman I\u2019ve never talked to but always see from afar, an adult still-life of Kali, long and lean in jeans and pedestrian elegance. She has a kid, and sometimes a different man, but always a drink with olives. I won\u2019t ask anyone to buy her<\/em> one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tI drink tap beer from plastic cups. My hangover thumps as trumpets instead of church bells call to post. Three-year-old male Arabian horses parade, descendants commanded by King Tut<\/em> in 1600 BC, minus the chariots. A twelve-pack sprinting 400 yards. Jockeys armor yellow helmets and black flack-jackets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The dirt racetrack is fast, green grass turf firm with no headwind or rail bias. But after 10 races and different distances, beautiful breeds, sexes, and ages, it\u2019s too many stories to account for. I bet profiles and equations but there are no Zeldas. My horses run on wrong leads. A few quit. One breaks down and dies, the jockey flings undamaged unlike my heart. All lose. Crumbling to clay and dust as frog and faith, I litter losing tickets all day, akin to tithing the collection baskets at Offertory. I leave without the evidence of even twenty bucks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thomas Weedman has a BA in English from Notre Dame and an MFA from Lindenwood. He\u2019s been a seminarian, a forklift operator, barista, and a professional gambler. His short stories have appeared in Constellations, TheWriteLaunch, The Paragon Journal, The Penman Review, Marathon Literary Review, Limit Experience Journal, Bridge Eight, SoFloPoJo,\u00a0 and The Antonym.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Post Time for the last horse race. Church-like bells clang for final wagers and I\u2019ve already bet on Zelda, the #5 at 5-to-1 odds. Leaning on the infield rail, I finish another beer, look through binoculars like Little League Coach Earl at the beach for nudes when I was a boy. The memory spooks until … <\/p>\n
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