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cents to show. I get in line to collect.
    In the line I find further mysteries: no one seems particularly happy. Some feel that they should have bet their horses to win, others are convinced that they did not bet enough. They know that some person or forces have done terrible things to them, but I can see their advantage over me; they feel that this person or force is at the track this very afternoon and that there is still the possibility of intercession or, at least, of divining motive. It is something like being at God’s elbow while the Book of Life is made out for the coming year and you are able to discuss the issue with him as slowly the names of friends, acquaintances and relatives are written in, along with those of several enemies. Perhaps your name will not appear. Then again, very possibly it will. The book is open and God is writing; he is willing to hear your position on the matter.
    I take my thirteen dollars and change and go forward to the seller’s area, seeing the blond woman for the second time that day. Her glance is more meaningful; there is no question now that she is trying to get my attention. She is not particularly attractive but there is a demented tilt to her breasts under the tautness of her dress which excites me, and I go to her side, ask her if she has any ideas on the next race, explain that I have come out to bet it. She touches my wrist and leans against my elbow, whispers something that I do not hear. We then make arrangements to meet by the rear grandstand cigarette counter, ground level, after the race. She shows some interest in staying with me, but I explain that I have to meet associates on important business before the running of the race and she is content. I hand her a cigarette and she leaves.
    I go to the $50 window and bet Tony’s money on the horse to win. Then, abstracted, I move over to the $100 window some feet down and, under the glum face of a Pinkerton, bet $200 on the horse to place. As I do this, feeling a faint warmth to the tickets, I feel a distant excitement within me, but the excitement is hardly enough, and on the instant I decide that I will play the horses no more. It does not seem worth it.
    The betting completed, I return to the rail and watch the horses circle the paddock and then move to the track for the post parade. The jockeys sit uneasily on the horses, shake their heads, look at the sky while around me people make comments on their riding in the last race and beg them to do better or worse. Gemini turns out, through some error in Tony’s information, to be not a bay horse but a roan, a series of uneven red blotches marring what would otherwise be a dirty gray. She moves unsteadily, her feet trembling on the dirt, her head tossing now and then to the opposite of her stride. I decide on the basis of the little I know about horses that she is probably hurting, but for this too there must be a reason; possibly only the question of pain will inform the horse with terror and the need to run. I think of a veterinarian creeping into the horse’s stall at midnight to inflict brutalities upon her hips and hocks, a cigarette dangling unhealthily between his lips as he cunningly inserts nails into the bottom of each shoe. There is a certain air of disreputability to the track which I like, although most of the people who surround me seem to think that it is killing their chances.
    In due course the horses get into the starting gate and across the track break for their seven furlongs. The filly is on top all the way but begins to stagger in the stretch and barely hangs on to finish third, beaten by several lengths by the second place horse and only a nose in front of the fourth horse. For the first time it occurs to me to look at the toteboard, and it turns out that the horse was 25–1, certainly enough to make a show bet very profitable. Sullenly I hope for a disqualification but this is not to be and once again the race becomes official. Gemini pays $14.60 to