“Anyway,” he said, “just drop by one of my stores next time you’re in the neighborhood. If I’m not there just mention my name and you’ll get the discount. It was nice running into you again.”
I watched Pete walk across the parking lot and get into a shiny black Mercedes. So the guy owned some shoe stores and he drove a Merc, that didn’t mean he wasn’t a scammer.
I tried to get back to reading my Racing Form, but I couldn’t concentrate. It was that odor. My damn car smelled like somebody had died in it.
Two
Of course I couldn’t catch a break at jai-alai. The sport was so fixed I always felt like a sucker the second the teller printed my tickets. After losing two games in a row I ripped up my program and went to play horses and dogs in the simulcast area in the back of the fronton.
Usually, when I didn’t have any auditions to go to—which was pretty much all the time these days—and when I wasn’t working at the bar, I hung out at the OTB or at the Inside Track Teletheater on Fifty-third Street. Today I’d thought it would be nice to gamble someplace else for a change, but the way things were going in another hour I’d be back on the Turnpike, on my way back to the city.
I wasn’t hungry, but I decided I needed something to bite into, to let out my aggravation, so I got on line to buy a hamburger. A few seconds later, I turned around and saw Pete, standing at the counter, squirting catsup onto a hot dog. I made a U-turn, heading toward where they were showing the dog races. I knew I couldn’t dodge him forever. The place wasn’t very big and if they were lucky they had three hundred people today.
I never won betting on dogs, but I opened the Plain-field program anyway. I bet fifty to win on the number five and then watched the five get wiped out by another dog on the first turn. Cursing, ripping up the ticket, I went back to the concession stand and saw that Pete was gone. Thank fuckin’ God. After I downed two burgers, I counted my money. I had $216 in my wallet, but I had to save at least twenty bucks for gas and tolls back to the city. I decided that I’d bet a hundred on the horse I liked in the second at Aqueduct and play with whatever money I had left for the rest of the day.
I went to the bathroom and took a leak. I was by the sink, splashing cold water against my face, when I looked straight ahead, into the mirror, and saw Pete coming up behind me. In the bright fluorescent light the mole on his chin looked bigger, and the hairs growing out of it were darker. He wasn’t wearing his wool cap anymore. His black and gray hair was curly and messy.
“How’s it goin’?” he asked.
“All right,” I said.
“I was looking for you before,” he said. “I couldn’t find you anywhere so I figured you took off.”
I unwound some paper towel and started wiping my face.
“I’m still here,” I said.
“I can see that,” he said. “So how you doing? Catch any winners so far?”
I didn’t want to tell him that I was losing my balls.
“Hit a few things,” I said.
“Wish I could say the same,” Pete said.
“Your luck’s gotta change eventually.”
“So where you hanging out?” Pete asked. “Maybe I’ll come by and visit.”
“I’m just walking around a lot,” I said. “I’m not sitting anywhere.”
Now I could tell he got the hint.
“Whatever,” he said. “Maybe we’ll bump into each other later on.”
In the mirror, I watched Pete leave the bathroom.
I bet the Aqueduct race, putting one hundred to win on the ten horse and then I bet another fifty in exactas with the ten on top of a few other horses. The ten broke good out of the gate, then dropped back and closed late, missing by a head. I screamed at the TV and kicked a garbage can so hard a security guard came over and told me if I did that again he’d have to toss me.
Now I only had sixty-six dollars left, including gas-and-toll money. I knew this wouldn’t be enough to last me the rest of the day so I got on line at the ATM to take money off my Visa card. There were four guys ahead of me. They looked like degenerates, wearing dirty jeans, sneakers, and old winter jackets. Then I thought, How was I any better? Wasn’t I on the same line, waiting to take money off my credit card? A couple of minutes ago I probably looked like even more of a loser, kicking that garbage can and screaming like a maniac.
I only had sixty-four dollars left on the card so I took out an even sixty, figuring it would last me another couple of races. There was no doubt about it now—I wasn’t winning today. In a couple of hours I’d be back home, in my living room, watching TV. Then, at six o’clock, I’d be back at work—another exciting night of sitting on a bar stool, checking IDs.
After I lost the third at Aqueduct, I started looking over the rest of the card. Now it wasn’t a matter of if, but how I’d lose—and then I looked up from my Form, at the TV screen. The winner of the Aqueduct race was in the winner’s circle. The jockey was off the horse, standing between two guys in suits, probably the trainer and the owner. Next to the guy on the right was a good-looking blonde in a white dress and high heels.
Every racing fan dreams of owning a horse someday, just like every Little Leaguer dreams about playing in the majors. I always figured that after I became a famous actor, I’d own a whole stable of horses out at Hollywood Park in California. A lot of famous actors owned race horses and I’d always imagined myself going to the track with my girlfriend—some model or actress I was dating—and sitting in an owner’s box, watching my horses run.
But the way things were going I had a better chance of hitting Lotto than I did of making it as an actor. My manager hardly sent me out on casting calls anymore and I couldn’t blame him. He had to eat too, and I’d probably gone to at least five hundred auditions over the past nine years and I only got two parts—an understudy in some Off-Broadway play that closed after six performances, and a bit role in a kung fu movie that went straight to video. I did some extra work, when it was available, and I used to do a little catalog modeling, but lately I hadn’t gotten any work at all. It was always the same story—whenever I went to auditions for “big dark guys with blue eyes,” there’d be a hundred actors there who looked just like me. It was like being in a house of mirrors—looking around, seeing myself everywhere.
Six years ago, I almost had my big break. I screen tested to be in a romantic comedy with Melanie Griffith. The director, guy named Simon Devaux, loved me. I met Devaux at his penthouse on the West Side and he told me I reminded him of a young Brando. He said after this movie came out I was going to be one of the hottest stars in Hollywood, that I’d be able to write my own paychecks.
The day before I was supposed to fly out to the coast to meet with the producers and Melanie, my manager called me and said he had some bad news. I thought he was going to say my flight was canceled, but then he said no, it was a lot worse than that—Simon Devaux was dead. He drove off a cliff in Big Sur, on his way to L.A. from San Francisco. I felt like it was all some sick joke. I was so close to making it, then, all of a sudden, the dream was dead again. My manager told me not to worry about it—other offers would start coming in—but so far that hadn’t happened, and it was getting harder and harder to stay positive.
If I didn’t make it as an actor I had no idea what I’d do with the rest of my life. I did two years at Brooklyn College, but I couldn’t see myself going back to school—not at thirty-two years old. One thing for sure, I wasn’t going to be a bouncer forever. If I was forty and I was still sitting on a bar stool every night, I was going to stick a gun in my mouth and blow my brains out. I needed a back-up plan—something to do when my acting career fell apart for good.