Man O'War (2 page)

As he turned west on 42nd Street his way became more crowded and noisier than ever. Yet as he pushed his way
through the surging throng he allowed his large head to emerge a bit more from his overcoat, much like a giant sea turtle peeking out from its heavy shell. He watched the marquee lights flashing on and off and, somehow, they seemed to warm him. He became less uncomfortable, less dissatisfied with the weather. He didn't try to understand his love for the hum and roar of the city, not just
any
city, just New York. He was a country boy and he should be thinking more about the warm October days of his youth in Kentucky. Now those were the good years of quiet and peace and horses. But he wouldn't trade one inch of this paved street for all of Kentucky's green acres, not anymore! The way he'd felt as a kid was long since over.

Reaching the subway entrance, he turned into it and left 42nd Street's lights and hubbub behind. He stopped at a newsstand, picked up several papers, then hurried down a flight of steep steps as if diving into a cellar.

The smell of the subway grew stronger in his nostrils and he could see the long line forming before the change booth. Over the booth a sign read:

SPECIAL
A
QUEDUCT
R
ACETRACK
SPECIAL

He pulled out a dollar bill from his pocket and glanced at his watch. Only 11:45, so there was plenty of time to make the racetrack train. The line waiting to get to the change booth was fully two blocks long, and he realized Aqueduct would have a full house today despite the weather. Slowly he moved forward with the others.

At the change booth he got two halves for his dollar, put one
in the turnstile, and took the escalator to the lowest platform in the station. There he leaned against one of the pillars with the big “42” painted on it and waited for the train. He didn't read his newspapers. It was far more interesting to watch the others and catch snatches of their conversation.

“Wonderboy should take the third race,” a man said. “He likes distance and he's been working good.” The speaker was leaning against the same pillar, almost rubbing shoulders with the big man but talking to no one in particular, just mumbling his thoughts.

Somebody in back answered, “No, that one will drop dead at the half-mile pole. He ain't got a chance.”

But the big man listening knew that the fellow could have meant, “
You're dead right. That's the bravest, fastest horse in the race but let's not spread it around, Mac. Let's keep him to ourselves.
”

The big man nodded to let everyone know he was glad to be included in the discussion. He felt completely happy and at peace with himself and the world. Taking a stub pencil from his pocket, he wetted the end and made a note on the margin of his paper regarding the third race. Everyone was a giant going to Aqueduct and a dwarf coming home. On the way out all horses sounded good, all had a chance.

Suddenly the train came roaring into the station and stopped with one of the car doors opening directly in front of him. It was a good omen.
Open Sesame
, he thought to himself, and smiled. He had no trouble getting a good seat and soon would be on his way to what he called his very own “Arabian Nights.”

The train remained in the station, its doors open. After a few minutes the first signs of impatience became noticeable as passengers put down newspapers to glance at their watches.

The big man shifted uneasily with the others. He, too, had reasons for wanting to get to the track ahead of time, and he couldn't understand the delay. He became grumpy, suddenly hating the hollow-eyed, unshaven man standing in front of him.

The train finally started and the tension cleared. Once again the passengers pored over their newspapers, ignoring each other and rocking to the train's motion. The stations began flashing by with no slowing of the Special … first 34th Street, then Washington Square, then Canal Street. Faster and faster the train traveled, now into a turn with screeching wheels, now downgrade into the tunnel beneath the East River.

The big man felt better. It was his job to go to the track. He had to be there whether he liked it or not. Looking across the aisle, he found a young man staring at him curiously. When their gazes met, the youth looked away with a shrug.

For some reason he, too, turned away quickly. Once more his mood became surly. He even found himself raising a mental barrier between himself and the young fellow across the aisle … as if it had suddenly become very necessary for him to protect himself. He took out his pipe and refilled it slowly, taking all the time in the world, studying it.

The train slowed and finally came to a screeching halt in what must have been the very middle of the tunnel beneath the river. He looked up at the roof of the car, wondering how many gallons of water lay above. He glanced around at one passenger after another, ignoring only the youth across the aisle. Everybody else was reading, seemingly unaware of the sudden stop, the deathly quiet. New Yorkers were used to traveling the perilous, rickety lanes beneath sand and concrete and water. They had learned to wait patiently for the tracks to be cleared and the power to come on again.

He found the young man's eyes upon him again. This time
their gazes held. “Do you smell something?” he asked finally, grimacing and sniffing.

“Only the brakes, Pops. Don't worry about it.”
Pops? Pops?
Once again the big man raised the mental barrier between the youth and himself. The young squirt. What right had he to be calling him
Pops
, a man only in his fifties? Why did this kid annoy him so much, even before the
Pops?
Was it the hat pushed back so cockily on his head? Was it the smile on his face, that one-sided, familiar, maybe even mocking smile?

“The subway route isn't all it's supposed to be,” he said, not knowing why he kept the conversation going.

“But look at the bright side of it,” the young man countered. “We're dropped off right at the track door. What other track in the country has the luxury of a subway entrance?”

“Yes, New Aqueduct is a fine track,” the big man admitted. “They did a good job of renovating it.” Again he studied the other, noting the torn trench coat that did not speak well for the youth's prosperity. Yet there was that smile again, revealing his fine, white teeth.

“Aw, it's just a big supermarket,” the youth went on. “A fellow could bring his girl to Aqueduct now and lose her for a week. Too big, too much comfort, too much courtesy. You know what I think? It's too good for us now. Take all those plush restaurants and escalators—”

“It also has the best horses,” the big man interrupted, hoping to put this flashy boy with the flashy dark eyes in his place.

“Yeah, a Taj Mahal with horses, that's what it is. You can have the New Aqueduct an' I'll take the old, inadequate Aqueduct. It's too heady for me. I like to be able to find people … maybe even get pushed around a little and kid about ‘Footsore Downs' like we did before. Now we got seats to park in. It's all too lush, too lavish.”

The big man put his pipe in his mouth without lighting it.
His eyes didn't leave the youth's. Was it the uncommon energy evident in every movement that bothered him so much? Was he truly getting old and resenting youth? No, it couldn't be. He knew too many other young people whose company he enjoyed. Then what was it?

“If it'll make you any happier,” he said not without irony, “the new steam room isn't hot enough. The jocks are still doing road work just like back in 1919.” Now whatever made him think of that? he wondered.

The youth laughed. “You oughta know, Pops. But I ain't surprised that they ain't got the steam hot enough for the jocks. Imagine that, over $30,000,000 for the plushiest racing plant in the country an' they can't get up enough steam!” He dug an elbow into the ribs of the fellow sitting beside him. “Hear that, Bill? The jocks ain't got any steam at Big ‘A.' ”

“Get lost,” his companion said. “So my jock still dropped his stick leaving the gate yesterday in the last race. Racing is racing, here or anywhere else, steam or no steam.”

The big man smiled. “That's exactly what I meant,” he said hurriedly to prove his point. “Old tracks vanish and new ones rise in their stead. Yet in many respects it's the same now as it was in the beginning.”

The youth shrugged his thin shoulders. “Well, it's round and it's a racetrack if that's what you mean.”

“No, it's oval-shaped, not round,” the big man corrected. “And it has a three-inch cushion of dirt and sand on top of clay, the same clay base pounded upon by Domino, Exterminator, and the greatest of all, Man o' War. It's the best there is, but good for nothing except racing horses.”

The youth was watching him with those mocking eyes again. “You're just a bunch of blueprints, aren't you, Pops?”

The train started forward with a lurch, giving the big man
the opportunity of turning away without admitting defeat. He watched the tunnel lights stream by, thinking that he could have told the youth lots more if he'd wanted to. Oh, the jockeys were well taken care of at New Aqueduct, despite the fact that the steam boxes weren't yet what they should be. In the huge room that was the jockeys' quarters, the washbasins were three inches lower than normal. No washing tippy-toe for the little men at Aqueduct, no sir! And the fellow across the way would have fitted in nicely there. He was the size of a good jock.

The big man's eyes returned to the youth. Was that it? he wondered. Was he actually resentful of the fellow's size? Was he envious of his short, less-than-average height? He studied him again, so small and slight and brown from the sun. He wondered if the youth had ever had a desire to ride a fast horse. Probably not or he would have been doing so long ago.

It hadn't been that way with himself. He would have given anything to have been born small, light-boned, easy on a racehorse's back and mouth. But why think of that now? Imagine going back so many years!
Come off it!
he told himself bitterly.
You're an old man, like the kid says. It's all over.

The train pulled up the steep grade, passed a local, and the lights of Borough Hall station flashed by. On and on it thundered under the teeming streets of Brooklyn, passing the Hoyt, Lafayette, and Franklin Avenue stations. Blue flashes from switches splattered the darkness and more platforms came and went, a stream of lights and benches, posters and people. All was blurred and meant nothing to the passengers aboard the Racetrack Special.

At exactly 12:25 the train came up from below, bursting into the daylight. It continued to climb, riding high on elevated tracks above an ugly neighborhood of crowded houses.
The fog had lifted but it was still raining, making the houses below look more gloomy than ever. A yellow taxi went by, the only colorful thing around.

The big man turned toward the east. Soon they'd be at New Aqueduct. Soon there'd be all the color anyone could want. The sky was lighter over that way too. Despite the fact that the rain was now falling in sheets, he suspected that it would be clear by the time they reached the track.

The young voice boomed at him from across the aisle again. “There's something else I don't like about New Aqueduct, Pops. I don't like the band playing all the time. It makes it hard for a guy to think, that's what it does. I'm for no music at all at a racetrack. Silence. Silence except for runnin' horses.”

“George Seuffert wouldn't like to hear you say that.”

“What's he do?”

“He's the bandleader.”

The youth laughed. “That's great, just great,” he said. “I guess he figures they built him a $33,000,000 band shell, heh, Pops? Ain't that what New Aqueduct cost the state?”

“I suppose so,” the big man said, “about that.” He got to his feet along with the others, for the track station was the next stop. Purposely he stood beside the youth, his great height and breadth making him look gargantuan alongside the slight young man.

“Have a good day, Pops.”

“Same to you. The Man o' War Handicap should be a great race. I'm looking forward to it.”

“Anything with a $100,000 added purse should be great, Pops, anything at all.”

“But
this
race is very important. It's the first race named in Man o' War's honor. It's been long overdue.”

“Tell me, Pops,” the youth asked, the one-sided smile on his
face again, “was this Man o' War really any good? You know what I mean … like Hillsdale?”

The big man's face flushed and there was sheer pity in his eyes when he said, “You never saw Man o' War. You never did or you wouldn't mention him and Hillsdale in the same breath.”

“Of course I never saw him, Pops. He was before my time, way before it.”

“Only 1920. That's really not so long ago.”

“
1920
,” the youth repeated, puzzled. “Not so long ago? Is that what you said, Pops? Maybe to you it isn't. But I wasn't even born until twenty years
after
1920.”

“I guess not,” the big man said, shaking his head. “I guess you weren't at that.” The doors were opening and he moved toward them, his legs suddenly old again. “It's too bad you never saw him. He was the greatest horse that ever lived.”

“Sure, Pops. Sure. Have yourself a time, now, a ball.”

He walked down the ramp from the subway station. How could you explain to someone so young that there hadn't been a horse like Man o' War since the golden chestnut had roared to a stop at Kenilworth Park back in 1920? He was truly the mightiest Thoroughbred the turf world had ever known!

The wind had driven off the rain, and now it was blowing in such gusts that the big man had to bend over as he moved along. Some men were already chasing their hats, and women were holding down their skirts with both hands. The huge ramp shook a little beneath the blasts and signs swung crazily, threatening to rip loose. The big man pushed his head forward, plowing through the wind and keeping his eyes fastened on the towering glass-fronted stands a short distance away.