Whenever I am watching the Patriots, I have a moment or two when I am not watching the Patriots. Instead I am standing in the grandstand of New England Raceway, which was torn down and replaced by the stadium where the Patriots play.
*
As my Grandfather owned and trained harness race horses, and as my father was a gambling man, I spent many many hours at the track with my father. At the age of 11, word spread that I had an uncanny handicapping ability. The track rats would always ask my opinion, but I never told anyone what I thought. My father instructed me in this manner: “If you give someone your number – you risk a jinx.”
*
A jinx can be anything: a person, a coin, a shadow, a pinball, a joke, a word, a gesture, a color, a bird, a song. A jinx can be anything because the actual jinx is not the object or person, but the power the gambler gives to the object or person. My jinx is THE GUY WITH THE LIMP.
*
I have a really good feeling about the three horse because the odds bounced from 9-2 to 2-1 with under two minutes to post. I see the late money and I’m off to the window. But on my way to the window I see THE GUY WITH THE LIMP. THE GUY WITH THE LIMP is a total jinx. I have two options, I can keep walking and not let the jinx enter my headspace – or I can fear, veer towards, slow, consider, hesitate, go out of my way to avoid him. In other words, lose. Lose because THE GUY WITH THE LIMP is such a fucking jinx.
*
A few weeks ago, I drove down to a Connecticut casino. On the drive down, I saw a woodchuck run across the highway underneath a Mack truck and live. It was a sign. A real sign. I thought that I would be able to steal some of the woodchuck’s luck, and I placed that luck in the center of my forehead, and I drove concentrating on its energy. Seeing with its energy. In other words, I turned it into a jinx – and lost every race.
*
What is a gambler but someone who is addicted to, and thus totally afraid of, the past? That it might overwhelm? That the future is full of what the past could not give? All that inebriated hope lasting only between ticket printed and ticket torn.
*
My father was of the real die-hards. The kind who came hours early to clock the warm-up runs. While he did this I would explore the back corners at the top of the grandstand, or play pin-ball, or sort out my hail-Mary superfectas. I would find the quietest place I could and wait for one voice to interrupt it, then another, then another, then my father, then the crowd – YOU’RE FLYING YOU THREE! C’MON YOU THREE! YOU’RE FLYING!
*
Enter the tale of LONGSHOT EDDIE. God bless him. Never a horse under 50-1. Never a bet under $100 when his disability would come. Remember the day he hit and bought the entire track a beer. LONGSHOT EDDIE, standing at the gate and crying, “they’re going to tear it down.” Watch as the tale of LONGSHOT EDDIE fades. God bless him.
*
I have entirely lost my ability to pick a horse. The cigar smoke hasn’t changed. The old guys still stand up and put their hands on their hearts when they play the anthem at Santa Anita, at Monticello, at Louisiana Downs. The waitress is the same waitress. The teller the same teller. But I simply try too hard. I don’t fear the events of my past enough, or I just know that I’ll never win enough to bring back what is for certain gone forever.
*
I do it anyway. Just a couple bucks here. A couple bucks there. Always to win – because, as my Dad said, ‘There’s just no glory to place.” I gather my jinxes and watch the horses circle the gate. I approach the teller and play my part. He plays his. I find my spot. I hold my breath. Almost to myself, I pray for that three, that god loving answer to all higher questions, that grace-imbued moment free of fire, of smoke, of all things departing never to return. I pray that gambler’s prayer and there, just over there in misty Star Wars see-through stands my father, THE GUY WITH THE LIMP, and LONGSHOT EDDIE pulling for me. They’re hitting their rolled-up programs on the rail. They’re swearing and jumping. GO YOU FUCKING THREE! WIN! WIN!
And I lose. I tear my ticket with a disgust that is akin to joy, and drive home, knowing for sure that I will get ‘em next time.
__________________________________________________
Dan Chelotti’s recent poems have appeared, or will be appearing in Fence, notnostrums, North American Review, Bateau, Gulf Coast, Handsome, Court Green, and other fine journals. He was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and is the author of two chapbooks, The Eights (PSA 2006) and Day Later (False Indigo Press 2011). His prose can be found in Slack Lust and Kenyon Review Online. He teaches writing at Elms College.