Chapter 19: Dell
The racetrack seems no different from when I left. The big grandstand is the same, like wood blocks stacked together from the back side, all glass in the front.
The deep blue triangles of the rooftops complete the image that a child has haphazardly stacked her toys together.
It’s night, so I can’t make out all the details unless an area is lit up. The grass is green in a few spots, but mostly parched and dead. The driving range looks abandoned. Off to the side, the old horse barns look forlorn, only a few safety lights on the corners.
But the bushes are trimmed and the concrete paths have been power-washed. People mill around the outside waiting for the dogs to appear. Lots of people will follow their path from the paddock to the starting box.
“Where are we meeting them?” Arianna asks. She doesn’t look around as much as I’d expect. She has been to a lot of horse tracks, owned by her parents’ friends, so maybe they all seem the same to her.
“Someone will meet us in the Sky Club,” I say. “It’s partially open to spectators, but there are private rooms there as well.”
Donovan tugs on his sports coat, looking around. “Man, I haven’t been here in years,” he says. “It was pretty depressing last time I saw it, but it looks like they’ve tried to spruce it up.”
“Two-million-dollar renovation,” I say. I’d seen the reports. I had not invested or been a part of it. Maybe I should have. Grudges. I needed to let them go.
My mother left hours ago to start her shift. She works on the ground floor, which is where the rowdy crowd hangs out at the bar and dance floor. She has stories about the terrible things she’s seen and cleaned.
Dad will be off in the Greyhound Paddock. I don’t expect to see him at all, although I assume Mom has told him we’re here.
Walking up is another time warp for me during a weekend where I’d already had one too many stumbles down Memory Lane. I can picture all the places I used to go. My eyes roam beyond the public spaces, past locked chain-link gates to the paths behind the scenes. Very little has changed there, from what I can see.
We head inside and take escalators up to the sixth floor, the Sky Club level. At first I don’t see anyone, but then a girl in a black dress approaches. “You must be the McDonalds.” She glances at me. “You look like your dad.”
Great.
“This way,” she says.
I’m not terribly familiar with this floor. The only times I ever went here were when a trainer or owner asked me to go find somebody, as a young kid, in the early ’90s before everyone had a cell phone to contact them on their own.
We follow the girl, someone in the role like Armalina must have had long ago. Only now I’m the guy she leads around.
I’m no bigwig here. Just another McDonald, one who manages to dress a little better.
The Sky Club floor is open and dimly lit to avoid a reflection on the glass. We pass close to the front. The racetrack is bright outside, like day. A few people mill around, a photographer, waiting on the race, some personnel. At the end is the starting box. It has the gate with the individual spaces for each dog. It’s surrounded with a tent. It’s close to the first post time, so the lead-outs walk the dogs along the path to place them in the gate.
I should keep going, but I pause to look at the lead-outs. A few of them are young, but overall they are older, trainers, maybe. I suppose the system has changed over time. It occurs to me that this is a goal that I will never reach. I will never walk a greyhound from the ginny pit to the gate.
“You coming?” Arianna asks. She looks anxious now. She knows I’m acting out of character.
I nod and press on. Donovan chats up the cute girl leading us as we go through a door. She seems into him, smiling and fiddling with her hair.
Inside is a big room with a fair number of spectators, all laughing and drinking, paying no mind to the races.
But we pass through it.
“This way,” the girl says.
Another door. The new area is much smaller. Only a few people sit around tables covered in cloth. There are complimentary tip sheets and private betting machines.
Beck stands. “Glad to see you could make it,” he says, extending a hand. I shake it, then he moves on to Donovan. When Arianna extends hers, Beck lightly kisses the back of it. She flushes.
I’m not sure why Beck wants us here. We settle at a table next to his. His wife Theresa gives a wave, then turns her attention back to the track.
“Send the waitress,” Beck says to the girl who brought us, and she nods.
“Post time,” Theresa says.
I glance at the giant board that lists the stats for the race. Betting odds. The amount of money that’s been put on the dogs. There’s a clear favorite, but one thing I know about greyhounds is that they can be unpredictable.
The mechanical rabbit zooms along the rail, and then the gun fires.
The gate opens and eight greyhounds race out.
The pack splits quickly between three leaders and the laggards. The dogs are a blur at first, but as they round the second turn, they begin to slow enough that you can make out the numbers on their colored jerseys.
Arianna rises, stepping closer to the window. “I’ve only been to horse races,” she says.
Beck stands beside her, lifting his own gleaming binoculars from the table. “Use these,” he says. “It’s fascinating to look at them up close.”
She brings them to her eyes, her head turning as she follows their path. “They’re wearing muzzles!” she exclaims. “Like little cages!”
“They can get nippy,” Beck says. “This protects them from each other.”
Another couple enters the room, and Beck goes to greet them. Donovan perks up. He’s anxious to meet and greet. It’s a good sign that he will do well in business.
I enjoy watching Arianna get so involved in the race. The first greyhound crosses, then the next and the next. She brings down the binoculars, staring at the finals listed on the board.
“Somebody won some money,” she says. “Number six had long odds.”
Beck comes back around. “Feel free to bet if you like. On the house.”
Beck introduces the couple, a pair in their sixties, jovial and friendly. I nod politely and let Donovan do the talking. It’s interesting to be no one after years as Dell Brant.
Arianna sits next to me again. “This is so different from horses,” she says.
“Agreed,” I say. The results go final on the board, and after a moment, the stats move to race two. “Did you want to bet?”
“Sure,” she says, sliding the tip sheet toward her. “Which name do you like better, LadyBeFirst or ShiftyButQuick?” She frowns. “I think I’d choose a lady before shifty.”
“That’s a terrible way to choose,” I say with a laugh. “But I’ll take Shifty. See who everyone is betting on.”
She studies the boards and reads through the dogs’ statistics. Beck sits beside her and begins to school her on how the dogs’ odds are assessed and how they adjust based on the bets.
I watch the next set of lead-outs bring the dogs forward, my gut tensing. This set is younger, like it used to be. The bugle sounds, alerting everyone that post time is approaching.
The patrol judge and the paddock judge wait near one end of the track. Each dog steps on a scale and the paddock judge notes its weight. A couple of dogs pee on the side before jumping on, part of their training.
They all pass and the lead-outs move toward the center line, dogs close at hand. The judge checks all the muzzles, making sure each dog is secure. They line up to be examined by the crowd placing their bets.
The announcer breaks in, talking briefly about each dog, urging people to place their bets in the last few minutes before post time.
“Is it like horse racing,” Arianna asks, leaning in close, “where the ones that pee before they run do better?”
I grin. “Not sure that holds true with dogs. You going to bet?”
She nods. I move to go with her to the machine, but Beck takes over. I sit back. When I worked here, employees weren’t allowed to bet, even if you were old enough, but some of the workers had friends place bets for them.
At the time, I couldn’t see throwing any of my hard-earned money away. I’d need it when I left.
I’d still never placed a bet on an animal. Start-ups, sure. Ailing companies I thought I could resurrect or sell for profit, definitely. But not dogs or horses.
I don’t think that part of me has changed.
People like to talk about the mistreatment of the greyhounds and want to end the racing. It has definitely happened. But I haven’t seen it much. A few doctored dogs, swiftly handled, usually privately, banned from racing. A couple who were mistreated, trainers who were also not allowed to come back.
Maybe other tracks weren’t as careful. I wouldn’t have stood for anybody hurting a dog, had I seen it. But mainly I was only around the empty kennels, washing down the concrete floors.
Arianna returns to her seat, holding her betting receipts.
“Who did you choose?” I ask.
“I did Lady to win, Swifty to show,” she says.
“Long odds on Lady,” I point out.
“I’m a risk-taker with other people’s money.” She laughs and leans into me.
The lead-outs move their dogs back toward the starting box. I swallow again as they load them in. If we were outside, near them, we’d hear the barking and excited sounds of them entering the metal gates.
I remember standing nearby, my broom propped beside me on the fence. I memorized every movement of the lead-outs, how they held the leashes, the happy yelps of the dogs.
Arianna picks up the binoculars, one hand gripping my arm. She’s excited now, and this makes me happy. I like seeing her have fun.
One dog balks in the gate, and the announcer makes note of the number. Bets are frozen as the post time clock runs out.
A moment passes, then the rabbit runs down the rail again.
And they are off.
Arianna jumps up, so much more animated now that there is money riding on her choices. She looks through the binoculars, then brings them down, then back up.
I stand beside her. Beck smiles. “It’s fun to watch their first time,” he says.
Another couple enters. Donovan moves behind us, eager to meet the new arrivals. I stand close to Arianna.
“It’s so fast,” she says.
Lady is in the middle of the pack, but Swifty has pulled ahead. I glance at his odds. Two to one. Not a big payout on a bet to show. But still, it’s amusing.
He crosses the line and Arianna jumps in the air. “Look at Swifty!” she says. The last dog crosses, Lady still mid-pack.
“That was amazing!” she says. “I never bet at the horse races. I only went with my parents, and my mother thought betting was too bourgeois.”
I laugh. “She might be right.”
The door opens again. I don’t bother to look. I’m not sure why we’re here, really, unless Beck has some sort of surprise. I try to stay calm about someone who might know me as Dell. I can’t imagine it would happen here in Birmingham, but this Sky Box increases the odds over the trailer park.
Arianna studies the tip sheet for race three. “I like the looks of this one,” she says. “Run4theMoney.”
She looks up at me, then behind me, and she freezes. “Oh my God,” she says, and drops the tip sheet.
“What is it?” I ask, turning.
An elegant woman with sleek ash blond hair has arrived, along with a distinguished man in his late fifties. They stand out in the room, New York written all over them among the southerners.
Arianna grips my hand. “Those are my parents.”