OTB: it babysits our old. You find these same people at bars in Sunnyside and Astoria, or on an upper Broadway park bench, or queueing for good seats outside that free entertainment center, the Bronx Criminal Court. But they can’t sit at OTB. On their feet from 10 to 6: how water must build up in arteriosclerotic legs and ankles. And eyeglasses: except for an occasional welding gang I’ve never seen so many pairs of eyeglasses. They have pocket magnifiers as well: these make one orb seem bugged and mad. It’s the fine print in racing forms: 17Jun76-8 Bel fm 1 1/16 T : 463/5 1: 10 4/5 1:41 1/5 3↑ 9 4 3 1 1hd 21/2 53 1/2 For all I know those could be the head-to-tail measurements of a glutted python. They gather here every day, six days per week: clubbable folk, friends. Their coloring is the wan grey / white you note in retarded children. Molars are long gone and one incisor of three. Noses pocked like rotten sandstone. They don’t, can’t, bet much, but the kibitzing is first-rate stuff.
“Vengeance in the seventh.”
Comments