Writing

In 1974, I moved from a life of considerable poverty as a single mother living in a tenement on the Lower East Side to Boston for a one-year contract teaching photography at MIT. This put me out of my element and Suffolk Downs, a small local racetrack, became a comfortable destination on weekends. I never bet, but just mingled in the crowd of preoccupied, noisy men, some tipsy.

After a couple of years, I found other preoccupations and stopped going to the track. But in the mid-1980s, when I was working for as a coordinator in a shelter clinic, I learned that Healthcare for the Homeless was sending nurses to help provide assessments and referrals to track workers. I wanted to know about this group of disenfranchised folks, a step-up from homelessness since they worked so hard, but who still lived outside the social service network. I could find no excuse to go along.

In 2004, a friend, Jenifer Vickery, claimed a Thoroughbred racehorse, Beautiful Lassie, and asked me to take some pictures of her in the barn, which gave me a glimpse of the backside. I never wanted to leave. My interest was not in the horses, although I love the smell of them, the sound of their hooves. I am fascinated by the people who work at such demanding and often hard-scrabble jobs – the trainers, grooms, hot walkers, exercise riders, jockeys and their agents, vets, horseshoers and dentists, feed, hay, and icemen. Hopefully, bits of the amazing stories I’ve heard over five years are in these poems from a larger collection in My Suffolk Downs, published by Pressed Wafer and Kat Ran Press in 2012.

Another book, He Says, She Says, I Say, and Nobody Tells the Truth, Whatever That Is, on the Backside of Suffolk Downs, A narrative by Melissa Shook was published by Turning Point in 2014.

“Shoemaker lost the Derby when ‘e pull up at th’ wire,” Joe said

last week, “Goes ta show

you can be great and ‘ave a bad day.” I nodded as if I understood.

Today I ask Paul just what Shoemaker did.

“Acarro, too, at Belmont,” he says, “stood up at the wire, thought it was

over, 30-40 yards to go.” “What is a wire?” I ask.

Arms on the table, hands spread wide, he draws out Belmont Park,

a mile and a half,

two times wider than the track we overlook. “There’s an inside/outside

track, a bull’s eye on a hinge,

sometimes they took it down, sometimes they didn’t. Now I think

it’s mandatory to take it down.

Acarro sees the inside bull’s eye, thinks he’s home.”

Nobody who’s hung

around a track for forty years would say: He reined in his horse, threw

up his arms in victory,

because he thought that the turf bull’s eye, (clearly visibleand 30-40

yards in front

of the dirt bull’s eye) was the finish line. And it wasn’t.

Handsome and dignified George Heath

leans against the glass over the paddock, chatting with his usual guys.

I’ve been looking out for him all week

since he flew down to a horse fair in Florida. “Mr. Heath,” I interrupt,

“Get any babies?”

Looking down, he laughs, “Oh, yes, mam, babies, yeah,

I got babies, two….”

Staring into the distance, he talks about the one he got that he knew

he wanted, one of five

he’d picked from the stats, a baby out of blah and blah and blah,

and another he hadn’t expected to get,

hadn’t read about, a baby out of blah and blah and blah and blah.

I can’t even distinguish the names he’s dropping, the sires and dams,

the lineage, much less remember

a single name. It’s not his sweet loping West Indian accent that gives me

trouble, but my inability to catch hold of

a single word he’s said. I can’t stop the basics of this horse business

from falling out of my brain

if I turn my head quickly, this crucial history of who begot whom –

but he doesn’t notice, no one ever notices, as these names float over

my head – names precious to rider, trainers, owners,

the bettors and handicappers who can’t imagine I don’t relish them, too.

Are you from Jamaica? “Yes,

mam. My grandfather, he was a white man, that’s when the Queen oversaw

all her colonies. Managed

a sugar plantation. He stayed. Married a black woman, started gettin’ my father,

my uncles. Blonde hair, blue eyes. He

was a beautiful man.” Did you know him? “Certainly. He died when I was round

eight. A blessed man.

I used to drink a little of his brandy, smoke his pipe, lovely. I carry his name. George.

My father, he like black woman,

like black women. If he didn’t, I’d have white skin, look just like you.” He laughs

at Cuban Joe who’s going on about the old days, the fifties, when he started

at the track. George says, “I was a kid then,

listenin’ to my music, I love music, want to come to America for the music.

My father, he had one of those big –

what you call ‘em? Record players, used to play them big, big records,

you know what I mean?

Diana Ross and the Supremes, Dinah Washington, somebody Russell.

He wants me to be a lawyer. Can’t

be a lawyer when I don’t go to school, I tell him. Hired somebody to pull

me back off the track.

My mother says, ‘He’ll be a scruff.’ That means a no-good. If he’d let me buy

a horse, I’d be a top trainer in Jamaica, not standin’ here.”

“Castro’s sick, ya know. You can go back home soon.”

“I don’ wanna go there, those little

islands, bad. That guy in Venezuela’s 10 times th’ prick

Castro is. Right now in Miami

all these guys makin’ plans, who’s gonna be in power.

That’s crazy.

Came here in ’50, a airplane, a kid. You never seen poor,

my town, 1 shower, 21 families,

you hadda fist fight to get a shower, my mother had a basin.

Never seen toilet paper ‘til I got here.

Some guy tole me about a good job, nice place, city,

Everythin’ there, Coral Gables.

I get there, nothin’, nothin’, hadda walk inta town,

a latta red necks,

see me, ‘Spic,’ ‘Spic,’ I’m a kid, could see I was gonna

get inta a lotta trouble.

Saw a wood cabin across th’ field, a black man, a lotta

kids, eight, nine, big

family, I wen’ ta ‘im, said, ‘Can you feed me? I need

food. Keep me outta

a lot a trouble. Pay ya 7 dollars a week.’ ‘e usta make

5 a week. ‘That’s too much,’ ‘e says.

‘No, 7,’ I says.

‘is wife cooks – green beans, fresh, everything fresh,

never had sweet potato pie before,

biscuits, thick bacon. I couldn’ wait for breakfast.

One day ‘e says, ‘I don’

know if you’re gonna like what we’re havin’.’

I don’ know a raccoon

from a rat, I did’n go ta school ‘ere. Yeah, it was good,

everythin’ she cook was good.”

“That guy? Clemente. Know ‘im alotta years. Use ta

be a jockey.

One day, ‘e’s on a white horse, perfect, you know,

white-white, real white,

‘e rides by and says, ‘Look. A black man on a white

horse,’ and I says, ‘Looks like a fly in a glass of milk.’

The owner, she was there,

couldn’ stop laughin’.” Clemente’s ridden by

6, 8, 10 times, straight back, black autumn jacket.

black dressage helmet

like nothing other exercise riders wear, delicate face

a fine dark brown,

voice high pitched. And he sings. He sings riding

slowly up the outside rail,

sings galloping on the inside rail. He sings as he walks

one horse back to the barn

and when he gets on the next. He sings, he says,

because he’s happy, he sings, he says, to Jesus.

Watching the outside heat from the inside heat, at the window over the paddock,

I see Eddie, dark glasses, the #2

vest flapping against his shirt, running a horse. As soon as he’s half-way round

the oval, he hoses his horse down,

nice spray of cool water, all over, across the high-held head, the open mouth. Slowly,

slowly they walk beneath us in the shade

of the bleacher roof, small circles. The other runners take their horses around

the oval. In the sun.

Eddie’s horse moves nicely into the saddling stall, turns and stands patiently

while the owner and valet saddle

him up. Eddie leans into the horse’s nose, talking, scratching his flat forehead.

After the jockey mounts and Eddie delivers

his reins to the pony rider, he disappears into the club house to lay a bet, probably.

But the horse and jockey, the pony rider,

an outrider, too, come back into the paddock. “He’s lame, that horse is lame,”

the guy standing next to me mutters.

But it’s the stirrup – the jockey bends to strap it on, and they’re off again,

trailing all the others to the gate.

The race is, as everybody says, the fastest minute-something in the world. All that

flesh and speed and color and training,

maneuvering and danger, over almost before it begins. And #2’s come in first.

Eddie dashes, fists in the air,

into the winner’s circle. After the official photo’s taken, and Eddie’s leading

the horse back to the test barn,

I congratulate Bramante, the owner. “Thanks. Nice old horse. 113 starts.”

Seemslikeyesterday in the 7th.

Eddie squats in shavings at the front of the stall, bony knees at his shoulders,

head down, as he unfolds a roll

of fleece around the horse’s ankle, winds the blue wrap, fastens the Velcro.

“’e didn’t let me near ‘em. Tried to bite. Push me against th’ wall. Now…”

he stands, catches the huge

head with a muscular arm, nuzzling him. “’e’s bery, bery nice. Good baby.”

Once I asked how he’d learned English and he said, “Sesame Street,” an answer so surprising that I couldn’t interpret the words.

“Show for kids, simple words, little-by-little, it made sense.”

Sometimes I misunderstand him, but by now I know enough to know that baby,

usually said in a crooning voice

by the groom or trainer, is a two-year-old, a huge creature needing to be taught.

“Tomorrow ‘e gets th’ bell.” What the hell does he mean by that, I wonder, until

Eddie drops enough words –

starting gate, gate open, ‘e starts, with a rider, no bell. ‘e did bery, bery, good.

Today th’ bell. Then th’ gate closed and th’ bell, ‘e gets ‘is diploma.” “Diploma?”

“Certificate that ‘e came outta

th’ gate. Every horse, changes track, comes ‘ere, goes there, gotta take another test.

Get it written up that ‘e go outta th’ gate good. Sometimes a trainer forgets, gets

to th’ race, Stewards check all ‘is papers. No certificate. No race.”

“Couple of people at MIT want to write a book about me. Writers are know-nothings. Nothing beats age.

You know parchment, it’s old, the ink never fades. There’s a good Korean restaurant

in Orient Point. I like sushi.

In the Philippines, 5 years, hunting Huns, I ate fruit bat. Monkey. Grubs. Snake

has the consistency of chicken.

You eat anything if you’re hungry. I used to own horses when you could make money

at the track. Rigaterri. Yeah, that’s him.

Known him thirty years. Takes good care of his horses. Father was a trainer, give him

a couple, does well with them in New York

and from there here and there, now here, best horses. San Salvadorians, hard working, honest. Guatemalans, Columbians, too.

Puerto Ricans are the worst. Eleanor Roosevelt fixed that when she said they don’t

have to learn English,

could keep their indigenous language and they’re all living in an American

protectorate. Why not let Samoans speak Samoan?

Them were the days when it was ‘Think Pink.’ Said it was socialism, but it was

communism. Know who started socialism?

Ever read Plato? Know the difference between Roosevelt and Clinton?

Roosevelt’s wife pretended

to let him run the country. At the U of Wyoming, I took a psychology class with a German queer, Professor Featherstone.

He said, ‘You wanna Master’s? Study Freud. Otherwise use common sense.’

Never argue with the professor when he’s wrong.

In the fifties, I wrote a paper he failed, predicted socialized medicine. He taught us

the answer to why.

What is the answer? Just extend your previous question and you look like a genius.”

“In 1948, I was 14, 4 feet, 11 inches, when Vanderbilt took my contract. I got 300

winners in the bushes. Went into the army

at 5 foot,1 inch, 101 pounds, came out 105, I got my height there. Never broke 115

until I was 35.

My son just called. His wife had a miscarriage, her second. I told him, ‘Don’t

worry. Your mother had three before

she had you.’ Used to get nervous traveling. I tell her, ‘Stay at home.’ She was fine.

His wife lost the baby when

he was deployed. I think she’s afraid he’s going to be deployed again. I would a

stayed in the service if they hadn’t wanted

to put me in the Secret Service, have me guard Jacqueline Kennedy. I says, ‘No

thanks.’ And quit.

You know what I got for my 12th birthday? A punch in the jaw and a

shove down the stairs. He was a

alcoholic whoring son-of-a-bitch. My mother worked 2 jobs to support seven kids.

I have a older

brother, but I was her boy. I was the one who sat up with her at night. I broke

a chair over my father’s head

when he hit her. I was 14. She couldn’t help it. She was 14 when they met. He swept

her off her feet. She didn’t know

what she was getting into. Seventy years ago. What else was there for a woman?

Getting married or maybe working for the phone company.”

“What happened was this girl’s boyfriend got caught with cocaine and she made a deal

with the cops to keep him out of jail, wear a wire, turn the race, bring everybody

down. Asked me to make this horse sore. It was so obvious,

brought in a horse from Canada, a horse from Pennsylvania. You could see it a mile away. For a moment, I thought of jumping over the gate, running to the windows

to put in a bet, but I saw all these guys around, the kind that couldn’t find

an elephant with diarrhea in a snowstorm, I knew a lot of them cause I used to tattoo horses for the Racing Federation. I stayed right where I was.

It went down, a lot of people got put away. They came to me, “I gotta ask you.

Did anyone say anything to you about this horse?” “A lot of people say a lot of things about a lot of horses. I don’t pay any attention,” I says.

‘Well, listen to this,’ he says, and plays the tape. ‘Hey, when you shoe him,

will you make this horse sore?’ this dumb broad is asking. ‘Are you out of your

fucking mind?’ I’m answering.”

Somebody my age, my height, no flab, closed face, clipped white hair, clean

and pressed, talks to me. I am surprised since

only guys who would talk to a doorknob talk to me. Not white men.

He says, “Stay here long enough,

you could write a book. I got into it in ’84, so I’m a newcomer. I’m not a backside person. When I started,

a friend said, ‘You think you’re streetwise now. Wait. They’ll take candy out of

your pocket’ and he was right.

I’ve toughened up, but everybody has a hand out. Why are you here?”

“I’ve got a quarter of a horse in Leona’s barn.”

“I had a friend with a quarter-horse. They don’t race them here.” We laugh.

His name is Archie

and he’s someone who uses verbs, prepositions and the past tense, someone

who made money somewhere else first.

Six weeks later, I find myself talking

to hefty Monica, 25,

newly minted trainer, Archie’s horses in her barn. She tells me, “He’s in cement.”

“Take it easy. Be cool.

That’s what I’m going to do from now on in. Started here in ’70.

Worked 37 years. It was grand then.

Big crowds, big money, good horses. Now I’m going to take it

easy, be cool,” He shoves his big

sweaty self over so I can have a spot on the bench. He starts pulling

the leg of an old short guy, spade face,

a lovely shade of beige, front tooth gone missing, “You played

the part. Don’t tell me any different.”

The old jockey flicks his lead across the old groom’s knee,

“What daya mean? I won

three, four times a day.” They laugh. “Seen the van?” the big guy,

bulk and grizzle and black

and blue jeans, asks. And I ask, “Healthcare for the Homeless?”

And he says and I says and he asks and

all of a sudden we are talking about my friend Barb, his friend,

too, friend of anybody homeless

or broken or lost, her tough-self barely able to get around, but

“She got around,”

he says, “She got where she had to go.” And we’re telling stories

and he’s asking if I drove the car the drunk

hit and I say, “No, that was her friend, Cathy,” and we’re talking

about the doctor she called

that night she was dying who he knows and I know and he’s telling

me about being on a Board

and how they just bought a building, 27 million, the old morgue,

across from Boston Medical

(that I still call Boston City) on Albany Street, how the respite unit

named for Barb long before

she died, she was that important, is moving in there along with

other agencies he names.

And he tells me his name and I tell him mine, and we shake hands,

and say, “Glad to meet you” and don’t say

small world. And I think of Barb as I drive out past the security gate

and a Vivaldi Concerto is playing

on the car radio and I’m near to crying. Small world, John Griffin,

Take it easy. Keep cool.

Pam says, “Horse went over the rail in Tampa, remembers it, so they fit ‘im

with a blinder goes way over

the outside eye and a special bit on the left so if the jockey feels ‘im goin to the rail,

he has some control.

Don’t know why the trainer ran ‘im. Winston Thomson, he comes outta the jockey

room, into the paddock, sees

the gear on that horse and refuses to ride ‘im. The vet – love him dearly,

a good friend of mine –

but why he didn’t scratch that horse when a professional jockey refused to ride ‘im

is beyond me.

The bug boy says, ‘I’ll ride ‘em.’ Wants to get in with that owner, big owner,

a lot of horses.

But he’s just a bug boy, not an experienced rider, doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Goes flat out around the bend, horse breaks

two front legs, three other horses go down, pile up. Tammy, she got

the wind knocked outta her, somebody

got hurt, another guy’s injured, hand hurt, but he walks away, they can’t find

the bug boy, the vet sees his hand stickin’ out

from under the horse, he got a broken leg. They shoulda never let a bug boy ride ’im,

he’s too new,

an experienced jockey would never let ‘im full out, wuddaheld ‘im back at the turn, know he’d break a leg at that speed.

And another horse died in the paddock that day, reared over, hit the cement by the grass.

They hit the top of the head, between the ears,

they’re done. And the track was good, can’t say nothing about it, it was real good.

Nothing wrong with the track, can’t fault the surface.

Pam’s gone to Philly, shipped her horses out. The fancy Angevine Stable sign

that hung on the shed by the shavings bin

is gone, too. Gregory is raking dirt by three of the stalls she had a week ago.

I’m glad to see his old self, soft tan, soft skin, soft eyes.

“Where your friend?” he asks, He means Jenifer who has pleasing flesh that every

guy at the track notices.

“How your horse?” he asks and then something else and another thing and I end up telling him about the mess he’ll never understand –

“So last spring Jenifer and I bought a two-year-old, Black Bandit, from Joe Hennessey, you know, the Irishman from Ocala,

then overnight her business changed. She couldn’t be here every morning caring

for her horse and ours. After the first race, Bandit got

a bone chip, a pricey trip to the hospital, long recovery. She couldn’t manage that.

We had to give him away.

Couldn’t find anyone to take him until Doc Sheehan told us about Leona who said

yes and let me have a quarter of him.”

I don’t say – I had so much hope, joy, buying this Thoroughbred with Jenifer

while money was flying from my pockets –

the condo I bought hoping to keep the man – lost him and his kids and ten years.

I’m losing still.

A Thoroughbred is a horse, a pricy athlete,

a thousand pounds of crystal,

except if you get technical about it, then a horse

is a five-year old intact male.

He’s a colt until then, just the way she’s a filly

‘til she becomes a mare at five.

All horses get a year older on January 1st, even

if they’re born in April.

And a gelding was once a colt, but won’t ever

be a horse.