by Mendy Sobol
Then Toby said something: “If we could get into the atoms of this machine, we’d find everything!”
“What did you say?”
“I said, if we could get into the atoms....”
And suddenly, Thoroughbred reappeared on Bruin’s screen with all the data from the Racing Form we’d analyzed that day.
Toby sagged in his chair, pulling his beret down over his eyes. I whispered a quiet prayer of thanks to the Computer Gods, and nudged Toby back to life.
At 9:15, an hour after what had seemed like certain catastrophe, Thoroughbred printed out four names:
Blue Note
Bam Bam
Sail On Lisa
Tony Anthony
Reading the printout, Toby and I had an odd feeling we’d never before experienced with Bruin. The computer seemed, well, proud. Proud, because with our help, it had resurrected Thoroughbred. And proud, because it knew those horses would be winners today at Narragansett.
“Put on your socks and pull up your jock! We’re goin’ racing!” Toby barreled through the door of our apartment and straight into Meg’s room. She sat up in bed, hair falling across her face, raising one fist high above her head, stretching. “Okay,” she yawned, “but first I have to find my jock.”
The afternoon sky was unusually clear, the air cold and fresh. Silky winter sunlight streaming from the south made shabby Narragansett look as grand as Churchill Downs, the thready grass and harrowed dirt tracks like those at fabled Ascot and Saratoga, and every $1,500 claimer like a direct descendant of Man o’ War. But the fans, the fans were pure Rhode Island.
On the macadam apron behind the grandstand, Meg, Toby, and I passed a group of twenty or so middle-age and older men shooting craps. The shooter, down on one knee, clutched a fistful of bills in one hand, a pair of dice in the other. Two lookouts watched for police who knew exactly where the game was, but usually stayed clear.
“I thought this was the sport of kings,” Meg said as we walked by.
Toby laughed. “You won’t see too many princes here!”
“That’s because you guys don’t know how to tell frogs from princes,” I said.
Inside the grandstand, Rhode Islanders milled about, watching the televised tote board for odds changes, eating hot meat grinders, drinking the creamy milk shakes they called cabinets, touting horses, and tipping each other on which owner or jockey had told them, “The fix is in for the seven horse!” Rumor had it there were only two racetracks in America so crooked that Las Vegas odds makers wouldn’t make book on them—Lincoln Downs and Narragansett. None of that mattered to Toby and me though, because none of that mattered to Bruin and Thoroughbred.
We cruised by aging touts waving slips of pink and yellow paper filled with “guaranteed winners,” making our way straight to the two-dollar window. “Blue Note to win in the first,” I said, deepening my voice. Then we took our usual places on the rail at the finish line, awaiting our destiny.
Blue Note, a smallish chestnut mare, went wire-to-wire, going six furlongs in 1:11 and 4/5 seconds, winning by five lengths. Meg jumped up and down cheering while Toby and I feigned calm, acting like two science majors whose lab experiment turned out exactly as we expected.
In the second, Bam Bam, a gangling three-year-old stallion, stumbled out of the gate, trailed the field going around the clubhouse turn, trailed the frontrunner, a gray gelding named Favorite Son, by seven lengths at the top of the stretch. Then Bam Bam got his long legs working together under him, passing horses on the outside, pricking his ears, taking aim at the leader. This time our calm pretense disappeared, all three of us shrieking, “C’mon, Bam Bam! C’mon, Bam Bam!” as he pounded down the stretch, his giant strides eating up turf and closing the impossible distance between himself and Favorite Son.
Waiting for the official result, not sure if Bam Bam had gotten his nose on the wire ahead of Favorite Son, Meg hugged us, refusing to open her eyes until the results were posted and the track announcer crackled through the P.A. loudspeakers, “Ladies and gentlemen, the results of the second race are official. The winner, in a photo finish, is Bam Bam—by a nose!” And with that announcement the three of us began jumping up and down, hugging, Toby shouting, “Never in doubt! Never in doubt!”
We sat out the next five races because Thoroughbred had instructed us that they were too close to call. By the time the tape-recorded bugler called the horses from the paddock for the eighth race post parade, we’d calmed down a little, spending some of our winnings on chilidogs and Dr Peppers.
The eighth was the feature race, four-year-old maiden $4,000 claimers going a mile and a quarter on the grass. They were cheap horses that had never won a race, but a touch classier than the $1,500 claimers dominating the rest of the card. Sail On Lisa, a beautiful black thoroughbred with white socks and a white star on her forehead, had been a stakes horse running at Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga until she bowed a tendon in the last race of her juvenile season. Since then she’d fallen on hard times, claimed by a succession of owners, finally winding up here at Narragansett, still without a victory. But Thoroughbred figured this New Yorker had way more class than a field of horses who’d never raced outside New England, and the change from dirt to grass would suit her tender ankles.
Sail On Lisa won handily, leaving the other horses fifteen lengths behind, enjoying her first trip to the winner’s circle. It was almost too easy.
So far Thoroughbred was three-for-three. The only problem was, it hadn’t done any better than the pari-mutuel betting pool, picking the same horses Narragansett’s regulars had also made favorites. After three winners, the Marx Brothers were up only $20 and the cost of their lunch.
Thoroughbred’s pick for the ninth and final race of the day was different. After six years racing the New England circuit, Tony Anthony, a dark bay stallion, had nothing to show for it. Never finishing higher than fourth, which earned him $200 in 1968, he’d lost his last three races by a combined thirty-six lengths. The early line had him at twenty-to-one. The favorite was a crafty old chestnut named Sing Song, who’d won his last three races at six furlongs going wire-to-wire.
But Thoroughbred saw something the crowd had missed. In most of his races Tony Anthony broke quickly, then faded badly. In his last race at six furlongs, he reversed form, trailing the field, then passing eight horses in the stretch, making up eleven lengths on the leader. We’d programmed Thoroughbred to weight form reversals heavily, and at the longer distance of a mile, it computed Sing Song fading and Tony Anthony coming on strong.
As Toby and I turned from the rail to place our usual $2 bet, Meg called us back. Looking directly in my eyes she said “Put all our winnings on Tony Anthony.”
Toby and I were confident in Thoroughbred’s choice of Tony Anthony, but we were experienced enough to know he was a long shot for a reason. “Tony’s ready, Meg,” I said, “but Sing Song’s got a lot of speed and three straight wins.”
“And $18 buys us three pizzas,” added Toby, making the same point in a less theoretical way.
Meg took our hands in hers, turned us toward the post parade. “Look at him,” she said. “Look at him.”
Tony Anthony was beautiful. But that wasn’t the first thing you noticed. The first thing you noticed was his size. He was huge, more like a draft horse than a thoroughbred. He wore nothing but his brown saddle and starched-white bridle—no blinkers or shadow role—the only horse in the field not accompanied by an outrider. Calm as could be, he walked in front of us and stopped. Then, like a knight-errant before the battle, Tony Anthony bowed his head to Meg, and walked on.
Toby turned to me. “Gimme the twenty, Tesla. It’s all ridin’ on Tony Anthony.”
I looked at him, hesitating for a moment before handing over twenty $1 bills. Then reaching into the pocket of my faded Levis, I took out my wallet, removing two more crisp singles. “$2 on Tony Anthony to win. For Raymond.”
The starting gate for Narragansett’s one-mile oval clanged open directly in front
of us. This time Meg was the calm one, expecting victory. Toby and I stood nervously on tiptoes, following the horses as they thundered past. Tony Anthony stayed with the speed horse, Sing Song, running at his shoulder, pressuring him around the near turn and down the backstretch. Sing Song set a blistering pace—six furlongs in 1:11 flat, a track record for the first three quarters of a one-mile race. At the far turn they were neck-and-neck, Sing Song on the rail, Tony Anthony driving on the outside. Pounding down the stretch, clods of dirt kicking up at the field strung out behind them, Sing Song’s head bobbed in front, then Tony Anthony’s, then Sing Song’s. The track announcer’s call rose in pitch—And it’s Sing Song and Tony Anthony! Tony Anthony and Sing Song! Meg was leaping, screaming, “C’mon, Tony! C’mon, Tony!” And without realizing it, Toby and I were doing it too, all three of us jumping and screaming, “C’mon, Tony! C’mon, Tony!”
And maybe, just maybe, that big beautiful horse heard us. And maybe, after a lifetime of losing, he too believed. Because as he flew by us at the finish, Tony Anthony pricked his ears, lunging forward, bobbing his massive bay head past Sing Song’s at the wire.
Meg took my face in both hands, kissing me hard on the lips. “And you thought I couldn’t tell frogs from princes!” she shouted above the roaring crowd and sudden rushing in my ears.
We waited for review of the photo finish, but didn’t need the stewards to make it official. Tony Anthony, the winner, by one flaring nostril.
He paid $34.60 to win, and we finished the day more than $360 richer, our tens and twenties stuffed into my left pocket, Ray’s winnings in my right. But before we left Narragansett, Meg insisted on going to the winner’s circle, hugging the horse’s owner, trainer, and jockey, kissing Tony Anthony on his soft, sweaty nose. And the owner, a sentimental undertaker from Pawtucket who’d stuck with his horse through years of frustration, insisted we join him and his family, posing with Tony Anthony for the official win photo.
Today, Narragansett is a shopping mall, Lincoln Downs, a parking lot. But that win photo sits on my bookshelf next to our picture at the demonstration. It shows me grinning, pockets bulging, Toby clutching reams of green- and white-striped computer paper, and Meg, hands raised high, making the sign for victory, the sign for peace. The picture is a testament, proof that Narragansett once existed, proof we were there, proof we had the time of our young lives.
We caught the next bus to Butler, stopping downtown to deliver Raymond’s winnings. “I knew you college kids weren’t as dumb as everyone says,” he beamed, tossing the change into the Easter Seals bottle he kept on the newsstand counter, tucking the bills into his money clip.
Instead of walking up College Hill to Wellston, we stayed downtown, heading for Maccaluso’s, Butler’s best Italian restaurant. Celebrating victory, flush with our winnings, the three of us crowded around a table for two in a tiny private room. A glowing candle dripped wax on the red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. Meg and I shared marinated sea snail salad, linguine with red clam sauce and a bottle of Chianti the color of rubies. Toby ordered pizza and Pepsi. For desert, Carmine, our waiter, brought crisp-crusted cannoli filled with lemon-sweet ricotta dotted with pistachios, compliments of the house.
“To Thoroughbred!” belted Toby, raising his Pepsi.
“To Tony Anthony!” Meg answered.
“To the Marx Brothers!” I toasted, Chianti glasses clinking soda bottle.
“To the Marx Brothers!” my best friends replied.
That night I lay in bed thinking about Tony Anthony. Again and again, I replayed the big stallion’s thrilling stretch drive, always ending in victory, always ending with Meg’s kiss. But as I drifted off to sleep, my last drowsy thoughts weren’t about the race or Meg. They were about Toby, my best friend, and what Toby said that morning in our moment of desperation. I can still hear him, as though he were here with me—If we could get into the atoms of this machine, we’d find everything!
Chapter Eight: Paul
Toby and I were in love with Meg. There was no doubt about that. And perhaps she loved us, too. But there was no romance or even flirtation between us, because no one wanted to upset the happy balance of our friendship. So as winter became spring without any noticeable difference in the New England weather, it wasn’t love that began changing our relationship. It was politics.
While our triad grew stronger, the mountain of American and Vietnamese war dead grew higher, and the ferocity of antiwar demonstrations intensified. Meg came back from each SMC meeting doubting more than ever the possibility that nonviolent methods could end the war.
The equinox brought leaden skies filled with sleet. Meg, Toby, and I returned to Bowen Street from a disappointing afternoon at the Beef ‘n’ Bun. The machines had beaten us badly, and we were unusually quiet when we found Kevin’s letter taped to our apartment door. On United States Marine stationery, he’d neatly printed a short note in indigo fountain-pen ink.
My dear brothers and sister,
I’m sorry to tell you Ian killed himself last night. He rigged a 2x4 from a skylight and hung himself with his web belt. He didn’t leave a note.
Between my job and night classes, I can’t give Broadway Joe the attention he needs. He always liked you better than me anyway, Paul, so I’m hoping you’ll adopt him. If that’s okay, I’ll drop him by tomorrow.
Don’t blame yourselves. He cared for you very much and knew you cared for him, too. It just wasn’t enough.
Ian once told me there was something he wanted to give you, Toby, so I put it in this envelope.
Semper Fi,
Kevin
Toby tipped the envelope upside down. A red star fell into his outstretched hand.
Meg stayed in her room for two days. When we knocked on her door she softly said, “Please go away.” Our newest roommate, Broadway Joe, lay outside Meg’s room, head on paws, unmoving. On the morning of the third day, while we were deciding whether to call her parents, Meg walked quietly barefoot into our living room, sitting down cross-legged between us. Broadway frisked beside her, acting like his old self for the first time since Ian’s death. A break in the overcast let morning sunshine through our east-facing bay windows, filling the room with golden rays defined by suspended dust. I remember looking in Meg’s gentle blue eyes and seeing something I’d never seen before.
That morning Meg’s campaign to get ROTC off the Wellston campus began.
When you sign up for ROTC—the Reserve Officers Training Corps—the government gives you some money for college. In return, you take military science classes, march around the football field, wear a uniform to ROTC functions, and occasionally run an obstacle course. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, you did six weeks of ROTC field training between your junior and senior year. Other than that, you were free to be a regular college student. That was the easy part. The catch came after graduation. That’s when you began your two-year, regular army, active duty commitment as a freshly minted second lieutenant. From 1965 to 1972, that often meant you were on your way to lead a platoon in Vietnam. For campus activists, ROTC was an obvious target.
Meg was at the university president’s office before 8:00 a.m., waiting there until noon before being told he wouldn’t see her. From there she rounded up the SMC leadership, calling for an immediate student sit-in aimed at removing ROTC from campus. They listened politely, discussed earnestly, but in the end agreed that while it was a good idea, it wasn’t a priority.
Late that night, Meg sat at our kitchen table, telling us everything that had happened. She’d resigned from SMC and withdrawn from Wellston ten weeks short of graduation. “The war isn’t just in Vietnam,” she said. “It’s here, now. ROTC’s got to go, and we’re the ones who can make it happen. Frankly, I don’t give a damn how it happens, as long as it does happen!”
Toby and I were stunned, and our reaction stunned Meg. Everything about our relationship had led her to believe we’d eagerly join her in anything she proposed. She wasn’t expecting discussion, let alone disagreement.
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I spoke first. “C’mon, Meg. You don’t mean violence?”
“Why the hell not? If there’s no ROTC, Ian’s in graduate school somewhere instead of a coffin.”
While I questioned Meg’s means, Toby’s response shocked her even more.
“Jesus, Meg, we all cared about Ian. When he broke down, we all stayed with him. I held him like he was a baby while you guys washed the piss and shit off his legs. But blowin’ up ROTC or burnin’ it down won’t bring Ian back or make ROTC go away. Honestly, I don’t think it should go away.”
He’d said it out loud—blowing up or burning down ROTC. That was still sinking in while Toby continued, on his feet, standing over Meg.
“I went to a military high school, and I hate generals and admirals more than anybody. That’s why I don’t want all those poor draftee bastards left with only West Pointers and Annapolis pricks in charge. The ROTC guys are the only hope they’ve got.”
We knew Toby was a Richmond Military Institute graduate because he often told us about his recurring high school nightmare, one of the few dreams he and I didn’t share. He’d dream he was at the Institute, aware he shouldn’t be, but nevertheless trying to get his room cleaned or shoes shined for inspection, praying he’d saved enough bits and pieces of old uniforms so he could dress in the proper uniform of the day when the bugle sounded, Come and get your beans, boys!, for first mess. Toby always came to our rooms after those dreams, waking us early, needing our company, needing our friendship to pull him back to the world he lived in now. Those were the only times he wasn’t the happy, bear-like Toby we knew. And for hours, and sometimes days, his mood was quiet and somber.
Meg knew that, but her only response was angry silence. He’d hurt her; she was hurting him.
Now it was my turn.
I was born on August 14, four years to the day after Japan surrendered ending World War II. Like most boys of the postwar generation, my childhood friends and I played army using real Allied, German, and Japanese helmets and jackets, canteens and insignia, souvenirs our fathers had brought home after winning the war. I carried the name of my Uncle Paul, missing since the crash of his B-17 Flying Fortress over Nazi-occupied France. Lee, my middle name, came from my father’s aunt Leah, who was murdered in a German gas chamber. I grew up with the stories and pictures and horror of the Second World War as a part of my everyday life. I grew up with a haunting question that never went away, was never really answered: Why hadn’t the good Germans done more to stop the Nazis? Now I was asking myself why I wasn’t doing more to stop the atrocities committed by my government against its own soldiers and the people of Vietnam.
