I took Alfred to meet Chowder Man. I’d seen him with his pots of soup at Saratoga in August and at Belmont in the spring. We found him at the Big A at the top of the grandstand stairs. He was a shuffling man with a crooked back and a cook’s scowl on his face. He smiled when he saw me, though.
“Hey, it’s been a while, Wiz! You doing alright?”
“Still kicking,” I said.
“Good to hear.” Chowder Man stirred his steaming pot. “So, who do you like today?”
“It’s my birthday,” I said. “You can dig a few extra clams out of the bottom of the pot for me, if you want.”
Chowder Man dug deep with his ladle.
I told him, “There’s some speed out there today, but nothing worth the price.”
I let Alfred pay for the chowder. I needed all my cash for my Legerdemain wager.
We found our seats about the time the outriders started leading the horses up the ramp from the paddock for the third race. We ate our soup in the open air of the grandstand, me with my hood up and Alfred with his fur collar around his ears. My cup was hot in my hand. The chowder smelled briny. Gulls wheeled over the infield. The track clay was ruddy and racked.
Alfred pointed his spoon at the line of horses meandering toward the gate. Jockeys stood in their stirrups. Some adjusted their goggles. Some sat in the saddle, their whips under their arms, their bird legs tucked beneath them.
“Do they sell those shirts? They’re beautiful. The yellow one, with the black stripes looks like a hooded oriole to me.”
“You want to buy some silks?”
“For a friend. He collects costumes. He likes birds, too. He might like the red and blue one.”
“They’re probably too small,” I said. “For your friend. Unless he’s a jockey.”
“That’s a red-billed magpie on that seven horse.”
That’s when I gave up on my plan to teach Alfred how to find his own horse. I pulled my Racing Form out of my pocket to take a last look at Legerdemain. I had about a hundred and forty bucks in my wallet, which was all the money I had in the world. Why not put a hundred on Legerdemain to win? Worst case scenario, I could live on forty bucks until payday if I ate all my meals at the Pier.
A man in dove-gray livery blew the fanfare. The assistant starters wore bright yellow raincoats and pants. They started manhandling the horses into the gate.
Alfred said, “So, your horse is a secret?”
“He always asks. I never tell him. He knows that.”
“You told me.”
“You’re my friend,” I said. “For you, it’s free. But Red said, Make ‘em pay. Chowder Man, my father -- they pay, but they don’t pay for a horse. They pay for guts. Red said, “All I got’s my reputation. That’s what I’m selling - the nerve to put it on the line.”
With no money on the race, we watched the third like we were watching the carousel in Central Park.
Alfred didn’t revive much after his chowder.
“You feel okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” he said, but I knew he didn’t mean it.
He looked at the Racing Form in his lap and said, “I didn’t sleep. I had a dream. About a river. Couldn’t go back to sleep.”
I told him we’d make our bet and watch the race and head home. Win or lose. He didn’t argue with me.
Legerdemain was a dark gray colt with speckled haunches and a black mane and tail. Alfred and I stood at the tall windows overlooking the paddock and watched a girl groom walk him around the ring.
“He’s magnificent,” Alfred said.
We found a fifty-dollar wagering window and I put my hundred on him to win. It looked like he’d go off at about 7 to 1. I thought it might feel different to bet on my birthday, but it didn’t. Alfred pulled a C-note from his wallet.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“But he’s magnificent,” Alfred said.
We watched the race on a closed-circuit TV, standing with four other guys and lady who leaned on her cane and muttered to herself. Out of the gate, Legerdemain got bumped hard and took five, six strides toward the outside rail while the field streaked away. By the time Migliori got him straight, he was six lengths behind. “Uh, Oh,” I said. As they came out of the clubhouse turn, he latched on to the heels of the last horse and settled into a smooth stride along the backstretch. Mig started weaving through horses along the rail and, as they came out of the far turn, the field split in two, with Legerdemain last among the leaders. He hugged the rail and knifed through.
“He’s a ghost,” Alfred said.
Legerdemain crossed the line going away.
We collected our winnings, almost seven hundred bucks apiece, and jumped in a cab back to the city.
###
Alfred stirred a pot full of beans and meat. A sweet spicy smell filled the apartment - a two bedroom condo on Eighth, a few blocks north of Lincoln Center. He pulled a couple of beers from the fridge. Popped them open. Handed one to me. “To the Wiz,” he said.
We touched bottles.
I sipped my beer and savored Legerdemain’s win. I’d been picking winners since I was a kid, but winning never gets old. I could feel the wad of cash in my front pants pocket. Like the Dio envelope in my sweatshirt pouch, it made me feel solid, somehow, gave me weight. But nobody could take my winnings from me, not Max or Joe or Johnnie Dio.
Alfred saw my horse, my magnificent ghost of a horse get knocked sideways out of the gate and find his stride despite the trouble. He saw Legerdemain weave like smoke through the field.
Who found that horse?
I did.
I didn’t have to tell him a story I wished was true. That was the sweetest thing of all.
Bookshelves lined the living room walls to the ceiling. I’d never seen so many books, except in a library. During my years on the streets, when the horses weren’t running, I lived in the library. They had soft chairs, clean restrooms, good phone booths and people who didn’t ask questions. They had horse racing books. Seven-ninety-one point eight: that’s the code for the horse racing section. That’s where I found my favorite book, The Light of Day, about old time racing in England. I read about the hucksters who worked the outskirts of the track: escape artists and cardsharps and carnival men with games made of shirt buttons.
Alfred said he was jealous of all the days I lived among the books.
He had a special place on his shelves for his Playbills. He thumbed through them and put A Taste of Honey in its proper place. He found a couple from Grandpa’s shows: Two for a Seesaw; Applause.
Alfred sat on a low white couch. He tossed Grandpa’s Playbills on the coffee table. I settled into a fancy leather reading chair by the bookshelf. There was a record on the table, too, called Sketches of Spain, by Miles Davis. Alfred had a fancy stereo that had speakers that came up to my waist. He took the record out of the sleeve and held it by the edges with his palms. “You’ll like this.”
I listened to the Spanish music and looked at the paintings on the wall. They were real paintings in fancy frames. I knew a real painting when I saw one — Grandpa Joe collected art. He liked a Russian painter named Chagall. When I was a kid, I liked the bright colors, the cows, the people flying through the air. To my surprise, Alfred had a painting of an elegant woman in a Chagall blue dress —raven hair, pale skin, an orange cat in her lap.
Made me think of Sonja.
Accounting paid for that?
Alfred said, “I’d like to go Spain someday. Wouldn’t you like to go to Spain or England or somewhere?”
“I’m an assistant steward,” I said. “I make four-fifty an hour.”
He knew that. He signed my paycheck. Meanwhile, he lived an adventurous life at night going to Broadway shows and the opera and dinner at Tavern on the Green.
There was more to this Johnnie Dio business than Alfred wanted to say.
I had eight hundred dollars in my pocket, thanks to Legerdemain. But I would’ve had to survive on forty bucks if he lost.
“What’s going on?”
Alfred took a long swallow from his beer.
“It’s been three years,” I said. “I’m still in the basement.”
Alfred studied Grandpa’s Playbills like they’d just been dealt across a card table, and he had to decide about what to do with them.
“You want another beer?” he asked.
I said, “He’s my grandfather.”
Alfred raked his teeth over his lower lip. He pushed himself off the couch and went to the kitchen for beer.
He came back with a bottle and said, “Okay, I could be wrong, Michael. But hear me out. You have two things going against you as far as your grandfather is concerned.”
Alfred let out a sigh. I could hear it over the sound of a Spanish trumpet.
“Two things. What Ira’s done. And what you might do.”
Whenever my old man went on a losing streak my mother would stay away for nights at a time. Men in overalls would come and wave papers in Rita’s face. She was our maid and cook and babysitter. They’d carry off rugs and television sets. Grandpa Joe would show up, looking like he wanted to bite someone’s head off. As soon as Joe came up the elevator, Ira sent Robert and me down. The limousine waited on the curb. Joe’s man, a craggy faced guy named Silas, drove us to the carousel in Central Park or the skating rink in the winter to kill time while Joe had it out with Ira.
“When Joe looks at you,” Alfred said, “he sees Ira.”
I moved out! I ran away from all that!
“I’m not him,” I said.
“That side of the business…. Joe kept Ira out of it. He wants you out of it.”
“What side of the business?”
“Michael. Come on. Joe’s partners don’t want a gambler anywhere near their money.”
“What partners?”
Alfred slid the Playbill for Applause across the coffee table. “All Joe cares about is seeing his name in Joey Adams’ column. Seeing his picture in the paper with Lauren Bacall. He doesn’t want trouble.”
“We’re talking real money,” I said, remembering the heft of that envelope.
“Sure, Michael. But what can you do?”
“You said Max is slipping.”
“Indeed.”
Alfred closed his eyes. When he opened them, they looked as weary as they did on the subway. The book on Max and Grandpa Joe and any real money slammed shut again.
“Let’s eat,” Alfred said. He got up and went to the kitchen.
We ate chili con carne out of big blue bowls.
While we ate, I told Alfred the story about my first big bet on Stage Door Johnny when I was ten years old. It was about the tenth time he’d heard it, but he listened all the way to the end when I described going to Whalen’s drug store and luncheonette with my pocket full of winnings and drank a vanilla malted.
After the chili and the beer, Alfred gave me a book called A Treasury of Damon Runyon. “There’s a story in there called ‘The Lemon Drop Kid.’ You’ll like it. Nobody can tell the tale better than Lemon Drop Kid. He reminds me of you.”
At the door, Alfred gave me a long hug. I let him. No. I hugged him back. I held him tight while he said, “You tell great stories, Michael. Maybe you should write a book someday.”