The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [345]
“All right, make it snappy!”
“Dollar on Hot Pepper to place.”
“House odds or track odds, madame?”
“Dollar on Hot Pepper to place, house odds.”
“Two, Hot Pepper, house odds.”
“Three on Happy Hours to show, track.”
“Fifty cents on Charcoal.”
“If I only win something today! My brothers are both out of work, and I have to support them. I got to win.”
Damn fools, throwing their dough down the gutter, Studs thought, priding himself. He felt so in the dumps that thinking he was superior to them helped him.
The books were closed and bettors scattered to the chairs and in small groups near the scratch sheets and elsewhere. Studs filtered back toward the door, watching newcomers enter and lose themselves in the crowd. Would they see him, take him for a regular around the place? He didn’t know, though, if he wanted them to think that or not.
Sinking one hand in his pocket, holding a burning cigarette in the other, he struck a casual pose, glanced around. At the black-jack table the players went on unconcerned. Others all over were getting nervous, and he could see the strain and anxiety on many faces. He was glad he didn’t feel that way and have their grief. But he had his own grief, didn’t he, and it was bigger than a buck or two on a race.
More women in the place than he’d imagined. They were certainly taking to the ponies, he thought with persisting surprise. Were they battered-down old whores? Most of them seemed like housewives, maybe mothers. Perhaps a lot of them were getting on to the change of life, and the ponies saved them from going nuts. Ma, there, smoking another cigarette, with dope sheets sticking out of her coat pockets, looked tough and hard, and still she looked like she might not seem out of place in a kitchen cooking noodle soup and feeding matzoth to a family of little Abies. And there was one, neat, slender, wearing a blue suit, and she couldn’t be over thirty. Plenty of lads would turn around on the street to get a load of her, because she was an eye-opener, and he knew that he would, too, if he passed her on the street.
Sister, I wouldn’t kick you out of bed, he silently told himself, watching her sit cross-legged on a folding chair, studying a dope sheet.
And the ponies had sure put the bug into her. She was nervous and squirmed her shoulders around, leaned forward, sank back, put her dope sheet aside, sat waiting, biting her finger-nails.
Sister, I know what you need, and need plenty bad, he told himself.
He stepped forward a few paces to get a better sight of her legs, wishing he could see more than she showed. She stared vacantly at him. He glanced aside. Had she noticed him, or was she just getting hot and bothered over the dough she put up on the race? He walked down from her and noticed a tall, well-dressed man with graying hair about the temples, who leaned confidently on a cane.
A telephone rang. Conversations lapsed instantly, and those about him seemed to stiffen up. Ma, perched in back of the chairs, carelessly shoved her papers into her pocket, lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old one, and bent a trifle forward, her face sternly set. The woman in blue placed her hands on the chair in front of her occupied by a pimpled, ratty-looking guy, and Studs was jealous. The fellow with the cane, who looked like some kind of a big shot, looked suddenly older than he had, with his lips compressed, his face intent.
“At the quarter, Good Luck, two lengths, Charcoal one length, Sweetheart running third,” Phil called out from the phone in stentorian tones.
“Hold ‘em! Hold ‘em! Hold ‘em!” the man with the cane mumbled, snapping his fingers.
Studs fastened his eyes on the woman in blue, and, snapping her fingers rapidly, she seemed like a wound-up spring ready to snap.
Sister, I know what can relax you, he told himself with a self-confident smirk.
“Come on! Come on! Come on!” Ma bleated, cracking her fingers.
“At the half, Charcoal half a length, Good Luck two lengths, Sweetheart