Hooligans

DISAWAY

I went back to the hotel and went to bed.

The phone rang several times during the night. How many times, I couldn‟t tell you. Finally I put it on

the floor, threw a pillow over it, and died. The next thing I knew, someone was trying to knock down

my door. I flicked on the lamp, struggled into a pair of pants, and found Pancho Callahan standing on

the threshold.

“Change in plans” was all he said.

“Huh?” was all I could muster.

“Tried to call,” he said.

“Appreciate it,” I mumbled, and started back to bed.

“Going out to the track,” he said in his abbreviated patois.

“What, now?”

“Yep.”

“What time is it?”

“Five.”

“In the morning!”

“Yep.”

“Tuesday morning?”

“Tuesday morning.”

I stared bleakly at him. He looked like a page out of GQ magazine. Cray cotton trousers, a tattersall

vest under a blue linen blazer, pale blue skirt, a wine tie with delicate gray horses galloping aimlessly

down its length, and a checkered cap, cocked jauntily over one eye.

He didn‟t look any more like a cop than John Dillinger looked like the Prince of Wales.

“Not on your life,” I croaked.

He put his hand gently on the door.

“Gonna be a great day.”

I was too tired to argue.

“Smashing.”

At exactly 5:15 we were in a red sports car with more gadgets than an F104, heading out into a damp,

musty morning. As we crossed the tall suspension bridge to the mainland, we picked up fog so thick I

couldn‟t see the shoulder of the road. Callahan, a tall, muscular chap, with high cheekbones and a

hard jaw that looked like it might have been drawn with a T-square, chose to ignore it. He drove like

it was a sunny afternoon on the interstate. I was beginning to think the whole bunch was suicidal.

“Foggy” was the only word out of him during the twenty-minute trip. Not a mention of the previous

night‟s events.

He eased back on the throttle when we reached the entrance to Palmetto Gardens, tossed a jaunty

salute to the guard, who had to look twice to see him through the soup, and parked near the stables.

“Here, pin this on your jacket,” he said, handing me a green badge that identified me as a track

official. I did as I was told and followed him to the rail, which popped out of the damp haze so

suddenly I bumped into it. So far, all I could tell about the track was that it was in Georgia and about

twenty minutes from town, if you drove like Mario Andretti.

“Wait here,” Callahan said, and disappeared for five minutes.

I could hear, but not see, horses snorting, men coughing, laughter,

and the clop of hoofs on The soft earth as I stood in fog so thick

I couldn‟t see my own feet. When Callahan returned, he brought

black coffee in plastic foam cups and warm, freshly made sinkers.

I could have kissed him.

“What the hell are we doing out here?” I asked, around a mouthful of doughnut.

“Workin‟ three-year-olds,” he answered.

“That‟s it? That‟s what we‟re doing here in the middle of the night? Listening to them work the threeyear-olds?”

“So far.”

“Is this something special? How often do they do this?”

“Every morning.”

“You‟re shitting me.”

He looked at me through the fog and shook his head.

“You‟re not shitting me. Great. I was dragged out of bed for, uh. . . to stand around in this. . . this

gravy listening. . . just listening. . . to a bunch of nags doing calisthenics.”

Callahan turned to me and smiled for the first time. “Flow with it, pal. You‟re here, enjoy it. Put a

little poetry back in your soul.”

“What are you, some kind of guru, Callahan?”

“Horse sense. Besides, Dutch says you need to learn about the track.”

“1 can‟t even see the track. And don‟t call me pal. I‟m not a dog, my name‟s Jake.”

“Sure.”

He moved down the rail and I followed. Dim shapes began to take form in the fog. The outriders were

leading their riderless charges through the opening in the fence and out onto the track.

“This is the morning workout,” Callahan said. “Gets the kinks out of the ponies.” He pointed to a

stately-looking cinnamon-brown gelding, frisky and hopping about at the end of its tether. “Keep

your eye on that boy there,” he advised.

“What about him?” I asked.

“That‟s one fine horse.”

“Oh.

“If you don‟t mind my asking,” he said, “just how much do you know about racing?”

I had been to the horse races twice in my life, both times out in California with Cisco Mazzola, who

loved three things in life:

his family, vitamins, and betting the ponies, and I‟m not real sure in what order. Both times I had lost

a couple of hundred dollars I couldn‟t afford to lose, making sucker bets. After that, Cisco stopped

inviting me.

I said, “I know the head from the tail and that‟s about the size of it.”

“That‟s okay,” Callahan said, although he seemed surprised at my ignorance. “Keep your ears open, I

will give you the course.”

Before the day was out, I was to learn a lot about Pancho Callahan and a lot more about racing, for he

talked to me constantly and it was like listening to a poet describe a beautiful woman.

“First, I will tell you a little about Thoroughbreds,” he said. “Thoroughbreds are different from all

other animals. Thoroughbreds are handsome, hard, spooky, temperamental. They are independent and

proud. And they are also conceited as hell because, see, they know how good they are. The jockey, if

he is worth his weight, he takes his kid in tow and he talks to him and he disciplines him around the

track. The trainer may tell the jock how he wants him to run the race, like maybe hold the pony in

until the backstretch or let him loose at the five-eighths pole or the clubhouse turn, like that, but once

that gate opens up, it is just the jock and the horse and that is what it‟s all about.”

In the fog, with the sun just beginning to break behind the large water oaks nearby, we could hear the

horses but not see them until they were on top of us. The three-year-old gelding was frisky and playful

and the outrider was having trouble with him. He was snorting and throwing his long neck across the

saddlehorn of the outrider and trying to bite his hand as they galloped past in the fog, which was

eerily magenta in the rising sun‟s first light.

It was one hell of a sight. Callahan was right, there was poetry here.

The three-year-old was to become a lot more important than either Callahan or I realized then. His

name was Disaway. And on this particular morning, he wanted to run.

“He is hill of it,” Callahan said. “A real Thoroughbred feeling frisky. Is that a sight?”

I allowed as how it was a sight.

“Thoroughbreds are trained to breakfast out of the gate and open up and run quickly and flat away to

the finish line, save up a little extra and put it on hard near the end, like a swimmer doing the two

twenty,” Callahan said. “This horse wants to go, so they have to calm him down a bit. Otherwise he

will be too brash and spooky when the rider is up.

So they were not running hard and instead were trotting in and out of the cotton wads of fog, working

out the early morning kinks. When they brought him in, he made one more half-hearted effort to bite

the outrider and then, hopping slightly sideways, he kicked his heels a couple of times and settled

down. The trainer led him to the tie-up to be saddled.

Disaway was a fine-looking animal with very strong front legs and a sweat-shiny chest, hard as

concrete. The muscles were quivering and ready. Callahan walked close and stroked first one foreleg,

then the other, then strolled ba.ck to the rail.

No comment.

The owner was a short, heavy man in a polo shirt with a stopwatch clutched in a fat fist and binoculars

dangling around his neck. His name was Thibideau. He stood with his back to the jockey, chewing his

lip. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and sounded like it was trapped deep in his throat.

“Okay,” he said, without turning around or looking at the rider, “let‟s see what he can do. You open

him up at the three-quarter post.”

The exercise rider looked a little surprised and then said, “The three-quarter, yes, sir.”

They threw the saddle over the gelding‟s back, all the time talking to him and gentling him, and got

ready to let him out.

“All these characters are interested now,” Callahan said. “The track handicappers, the owners, the

trainers, the railbirds—all standing by to see just how much horse he is today.”

The exercise rider led the gelding out onto the track, lined him up, and then, standing straight up in

the stirrups and leaning far over the horse‟s mane, egged him on until he stretched out his long legs

and took off down the track into the fog. Half a dozen stopwatches clicked in unison somewhere in

the mist.

I could hear him coming long before he burst through the haze, snorting like an engine, his hoofs

shaking the earth underfoot. Then, pow! he came out of it and thundered past us, his head up and his

mane waving like a flag. The watches clicked again. Callahan looked at the chronograph on his wrist.

Still no comment.

“Let‟s get some breakfast,” he said. “The jockeys‟ll be showing up about now.”

I watched Disaway as they led him out to be hosed and squeegeed down and fed. His nostrils were

flared open, his ears standing straight up and slightly forward, and there was a look of defiant

madness in his eyes. I was beginning to understand why Pancho had a thing about Thoroughbreds.

“Well, what do you think?” I asked as we walked down the shedrows.

“About what?”

“What was all that about, feeling the horse‟s legs, the stop-watches, all the inside track stuff?”

“Well, he‟s not a bad kid,” Callahan said as we walked through the dissipating fog. “He‟s strong,

good bloodlines, has good legs, but he‟s a mudder. He just does okay on the fast track. If I were a

betting man I‟d put my money on him to show. He‟s about half a length short of a champion.”

“You got all that from feeling his forelegs?”

“I got all that from reading the racing form.”

As we walked past the shed rows and headed across a dirt road toward the jockeys‟ cafeteria, I saw a

dark blue Mercedes, parked near the stables. It was empty. I looked around, trying not to be obvious,

but the fog was still too heavy to see anybody farther away than twenty feet.

“Old Dracula‟s here,” Callahan said.

“Dracula?”

“Raines. The commissioner.”

“You don‟t like him?” I found myself hoping Callahan would say no.

“Runs a tight operation. Like him a lot better if he had blood in his veins. One cold piece of work.

That‟s his wife right over there.”

It caught me by surprise. I turned quickly, getting a glimpse of Doe through the fog, talking nose to

nose with a horse in one of the stables. Then the mist swirled back around her and she vanished.

“Let‟s mosey to the commissary,” Callahan said. “Grab some groceries. Listen to the jocks and

trainers.”

I didn‟t know Callahan well, but he was acting like a man who‟s on to something.

The fog had lifted enough for me to see the contours of the cafeteria, a long, low clapboard building.

The dining room was a very pleasant, bright room that smelled of fresh coffee and breakfast. It was

about half-filled with track people: jocks, trainers, owners, handicappers, exercise riders, stewards.

The talk was all horses. Mention Tagliani to this group, they‟d want to know what race he was in and

who was riding him.

I stayed close to Callahan, ordered a breakfast that would have satisfied a stevedore, and listened.

Callahan was as tight with these people as a fat man‟s hand in a small glove. He talked to the track

people from one side of his mouth and me from the other:

“The little guy with the hawk nose arid no eyes, that‟s Johnny Gavilan. Very promising jock until he

took a bad spill at Delray a couple years ago. Turned trainer..

Or:

“The little box in the coat and cap is Willie the Clock, the track handicapper. He works for the track

and sets the beginning odds for each race. Knows more about horses than God and he‟s just as honest.

Or:

“The guy in the red sweater, no hair, that‟s Charlie Entwhistle. A great horse breeder. Started out as a

trainer, then won this horse called Justabout in a poker game. At first it was a joke because old

Justabout was just about the ugliest animal God ever created. He had no teeth. He‟d stand around the

paddock munching away on his gums and from the front he looked bowlegged. People would come

down to the paddock, stick their tongues out at him, throw things at him, laugh at him. The Toothless

Terror they called him, and he didn‟t look like he could beat a fat man around the track.

“Everybody was laughing at Charlie Entwhistle.

“But it turns out there‟s only one thing Justabout was any good for, and that was running. He not only

loved to run, he couldn‟t stand for anything to be in front of him. Brother, could that kid run. He was

home in bed before the rest of the field got to the wire. He rewrote the record books, made Sunday

school teachers out of a lot of horseplayers, and he made old Charlie Entwhistle rich.”

Callahan looked at me and smiled.

“And that‟s what horse racing‟s all about.”

We had finished breakfast, and he picked up his coffee. “Now let‟s go to work,” he said, and we

moved toward the other side of the room.

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