A Day at the Races Ain't Always Funny

When I was younger, not much younger, but younger than I am now, I went to my friend Sammy's house and we watched that Marx Brother's movie, A Day at the Races. Sammy was a year older than me, but we weren't at that age yet where a year meant anything, where a year meant that you had to act older; you know, where one of you is in the eighth grade and the other is a freshman in high school?

Anyhow, we watched that movie and the first thing Sammy said to me was that he loved the guy with the mustache, Groucho, and the first thing I said to him was that I loved the guy with the white hair, Harpo. Sammy liked Groucho because everybody liked Groucho even though Groucho had been dead forever. I liked Harpo because a week before we saw that movie, Stir Crazy, with Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, and Harpo's hair reminded me of Gene Wilder's hair and I loved Gene Wilder in Stir Crazy. We weren't supposed to watch Stir Crazy, but we did anyhow, switching the channel between Stir Crazy and some fishing show on ESPN every time Sammy's mother came into the den where we were watching TV.

"What are you guys watching?" She asked, sing-songy, like a real TV mother.

"Fishing," Sammy'd say and he was good at switching it right over to ESPN every time. He had a knack for knowing when his mother was going to step into the den. His fingers were on auto-pilot, my friend Sammy.

Of course, the only reason Sammy wanted to watch Stir Crazy is because he wanted to see tits and every rated R movie has tits in it, right? There were some tits but not nearly as much as Sammy liked, but the rest of the movie was really funny so it didn't matter.

The reason I spent all of my time at Sammy's watching movies was because my mamma was out looking for a job. We had been displaced since the hurricane, and my mamma decided to take us out here to Los Angeles, after spending the winter and spring in Houston, because there was a program for folks like us. The program worked so that I got a place to hang out at during the day while my mamma went looking for a job and then at night she came to pick me up or Sammy's mother dropped me off and then I'd go right back to Sammy's the next day.

Once a week, Sammy's mother dropped us off at the pool and then picked us up later, but usually we spent the time at Sammy's house, in Sammy's den, watching movies. And, that was where we saw A Day at the Races with Groucho and Harpo.

The most famous joke in the movie is the code scene where Groucho wants to buy a tip on a horse, but Chico, the other Marx brother, sells Groucho the tip in code and then Groucho has to keep buying code book after code book in order to decipher the first code. Sammy really didn't get that joke and I remember his step-father, a gigantic man who reminded me of a white basketball player for the NBA, trying to explain to Sammy how the joke worked.

"You see," his step-dad said. "Groucho only wants one tip on which horse to bet, but Chico gets all of his money because Groucho has to buy book after book in order to get the tip. The tip is in code."

Sammy just sat there and smiled and nodded and then, after his stepfather had spent about thirty or forty minutes explaining the entire joke over and over again, Sammy waited until his step-dad left and then laughed and asked me, "Kevin? Did you get any of that?"

And, I said that I hadn't because I really hadn't. It sounded all crazy and funny to me, but not nearly as funny as watching Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor running around dressed up like chickens or hanging out with Grossburger and that gay black dude, one of the very first gay black dudes I had ever seen, with a handkerchief around his neck.

But, there was one line that always got Sammy every time we watched A Day at the Races and, trust me, we watched it at least once a week mainly because of that line, but also because of Groucho, of course. It was where Dr. Hackenbush, that's Groucho, said to Mary Dumont, "Marry me and I will never look at another horse again!" Sammy loved that line. Not because of the way Groucho said it, but because of what it made Sammy think of. The line, Sammy said, "Means he was in love with a horse! Do you think he ever did it with a horse?"

That conversation came up every time and every time I said that I didn't think a man could make it with a horse because a horse's girl's things were wider. But, Sammy thought it was funny to think about and he laughed ever time he thought of it and every time Groucho said the line.

Sammy's mother, who was darker than my mother, but, somehow, less black, which is hard to be considering I'm not black at all, never caught on to why Sammy insisted on watching A Day at the Races all of the time. Pretty soon, it became Sammy's movie. "Where's my movie?" He'd ask his mom as soon as I walked into his house. She probably figured it was better than watching some of the movies we could be watching and to an adult there isn't anything sinister at all about A Day at the Races even though the movie does have horses in it and horse racing and gambling and all of that stuff was the reason that Sammy had a white step-dad, as opposed to his real dad, living with him in the first place. Nope, his mamma never once thought there was anything wrong with the movie. The Marx Brothers were in it, and all adults knew that the Marx Brothers weren't scary. They were just funny.

Every Wednesday Sammy's mamma dropped us off at the swimming pool and Sammy and I swam for about two to three hours. Then, she'd come to pick us up. Even though Sammy had a pool at his house, his mamma insisted that we go to the local pool once a week because the weather was always great and she thought it was crazy for us to sit around watching movies all day.

I had a huge crush on one of the lifeguards. I never saw her eyes, not once, because she wore shades all of the time. She had a whistle and every time someone would start rough housing, she'd blow the whistle and then she'd warn the rough-housing kids to "knock it off". She was petite, I think that's the right word, and had bronze skin and I think she might have been Jewish, but I'm not sure. Even if she wasn't Jewish, she was a princess to me, and Sammy'd always tease me because he knew that there was no way I'd even talk to someone like that. Not when she was a teenager and I, well, I wasn't. Not yet.

One Wednesday the teasing got me pretty pissed. Usually, Sammy'd say stuff that would make me laugh, but, one day, he said something that really got to me. "Do you think she'd do it with a horse? Like Dr. Hackenbush? You know? Maybe give it a blow-job?"

The first thing I wondered was where Sammy had heard that term, blow-job. The second thing I thought was that I'd better not let him know that I really, at the time, had no idea what it meant, but then I thought about it and I knew that he was implying that my princess might have had sex with a horse and that really pissed me off.

"Shut-up," I said and Sammy started laughing. He kept laughing and I thought about hitting him, maybe pushing him into the pool, but I didn't.

It's not that I didn't want to. He kept saying it over and over again. "She gave a horse a blow-job!" He said, and I got angrier and angrier.

I did, I really wanted to hit him, but right when I had made my mind up to do so, Sammy had stopped the teasing. He stared towards the fence, past the fence, at a tall black man dressed in an orange T-shirt and jeans. The man smiled at Sammy.

"Who's that?" I asked.

Sammy didn't say anything. He got up and walked towards the fence. I looked at my princess and she didn't do anything under those shades. She just let Sammy walk right away from me and right to the fence. I got up and followed him.

By the time I had gotten to the fence, the two of them had all ready started a conversation. "You stick your hand through that fence and give your old man five!" The man said.

Sammy did as he was told. I stood behind them a bit, ready to run if Sammy so much as gave me the slightest indication that there was something wrong with his daddy, but Sammy didn't let go of the smile on his face. So, I crept closer to the two of them.

I could tell for sure that the man was Sammy's daddy because of the smile. They smiled the same, crooked, but nice. Both their smiles were warm.

"What's your name, little man?" He asked me and I thought it funny that he had ascribed to me the name little man when I was much bigger than his son. At least, I felt bigger.

"
Kevin," I answered.

"What are you, Kev?" He asked. "Spanish or something?"

"No sir," I said. "I'm Creole."

Sammy's dad laughed. "Little man," he said, "you ain't Creole! There's no such thing as a Creole! Either you're Spanish or you're black!" He hit the fence and laughed and Sammy laughed with him. Then, he said, "You're probably just black!"

"No, sir," I said again, and I was insistent on it. "I'm Creole."

"All right, King Creole!" He said. "I'll take your word for it!" He stopped talking to me and then bent down so that he was at Sammy's eye-level. "Hey, Sam," he said, "you want to go somewhere with your pop?" I smelled beer on his breath, but it wasn't anything new to me. Everybody I knew back home had beer on their breath even the teenagers. I thought nothing of it.

"Can Kevin come with us?" Sammy asked his daddy.

"Sure!" His daddy said, straightening himself and smiling. "King Creole can come with us. Hey, Creole!" He said to me. "You want to come with us?"

I didn't have much of a choice, not really, so I just smiled and nodded.

Sammy and I grabbed our towels and T-shirts and I took one last peek at my princess and then we went into the locker room and then through the hallway and waited for Sammy's daddy who was pulling the car up to the curb. Sammy's daddy opened the door and then Sammy hopped in, without even placing the towel onto the seat, and I hopped in and we squished close to his daddy, and I thought of how cool it was that his daddy didn't care about us getting his seat wet.

His daddy started driving and looked at Sammy. There was a smile on Sammy's face; the kind that I had never seen before. The smile wrapped itself all around his face. Sort of like the Joker from the Batman cartoon that we watched sometimes. Of course, Sammy wasn't as scary as the Joker.

"Where are we going, dad?" Sammy asked. L.A. kids didn't say "daddy" very often. I'm not sure why. A regional thing, like my mama says.

"How old are you now?" Sammy's daddy asked him.

"Seven," Sammy said and I wondered why it hadn't hurt him at all that his pops didn't know how old he was. But, that smile was still there. Maybe, Sammy was just good at hiding the hurt.

"Never too young to learn about the track!" His daddy said.

Sammy started getting sort of crazy in that car. "You mean the real track? With horses and everything?" He asked his daddy and his daddy nodded and then Sammy hit me in the arm and punched me lightly in the stomach and I could tell that even though he wasn't stupid the thought of seeing anyone even remotely looking like Dr. Hackenbush at the track was going to make Sammy pee his pants.

It was Wednesday so the freeway was empty and we got their quickly and even saw a space near the entrance, but Sammy's dad passed it up. He parked the car well away, towards the rear of the lot. "Santa Anita Park," Sammy's daddy said. "Like Seabiscuit. Did you guys see Seabiscuit?"

Sammy said that we hadn't and then his daddy just laughed. "Your mom got you watching all of those old movies, huh? The black and whites? Bet you two don't get to see any titty at all. Never!"

Sammy laughed, but I was uncomfortable. Maybe Sammy laughed because he knew better. We had seen plenty of titty. I was uncomfortable because it sounded strange, that word, "titty", coming from someone so old. It didn't seem like the right thing for an adult to say, but then again, I wasn't really from Los Angeles, still trying to find my way around things, and Sammy's daddy, well, he didn't look like a bum or anything.

"Yo, Sam," his daddy said after turning the ignition key. He waited for the car to turn down before saying anything else. "You and Creole run up ahead. I'll catch up. It's always best to see things on your own first. To make up your mind before letting anyone make up your mind for you."

Sammy and I hopped out of the car and I wanted to laugh because it sure sounded like a goofy life lesson to me. He kept waving us forward, from behind the windshield, until Sammy and I could barely see him. I grabbed Sammy by the shirt. "Man, why did your dad make us come out here alone?" I asked.

"Like he said. Something about tittys?" Sammy laughed.

"Shut-up," I said.

Sammy's daddy kept us waiting for fifteen minutes. When he finally started towards us, I could tell that he hadn't just been hanging in the car, doing nothing. Growing up in New Orleans means that you see things even when you don't want to. Even when you're a kid you can pick up on how a person's feeling. Physically, I mean. I looked at Sammy and felt sorry for him even though Sammy appeared to be fine. Then, I looked at his daddy again and started to worry about the both of us, Sammy and me, because it never works out when an adult is high like that. It never does.

"You little dudes ready?" His daddy asked and I think Sammy knew his daddy was high too, but he wasn't going to say anything to embarrass himself in front of me.

"We are," Sammy said, still smiling.

"Let's do this!" His daddy said.

His daddy paid for us to get in and then he bought a program and led us to the rail where he handed the program to Sammy, took out a cigarette and lit it. "One of the few places where a man can still smoke, Creole," he said. "I bet you can smoke anywhere in N'Awlins. Right?"

I hated when people said it that way. You're only allowed to say it that way if you're from there and even then, I hate it. But, he wasn't my daddy; he was Sammy's daddy. I went ahead and smiled and nodded.

"Tell me who you like in that program?" Sammy's daddy said. "For race two."

Sammy opened up the program and stared at the names. "I want to see the horses first," he said and his daddy laughed again. "There all pigs," His daddy said. "Just pick a color or something."

There were colors in the program and I immediately saw them, but I could tell that Sammy was confused. So, I whispered to him. "You can see the colors, right?" And, then, Sammy saw what I was talking about so he went ahead and told his daddy that he liked the blue horse.

"That's the three," his daddy said and then his daddy snatched the program from Sammy and stared long and hard at the horse Sammy had picked. "That horse has no chance to win, Sam," his daddy said. "What about the white, the two, or the red, the one? How about those horses? Do you like them?"

"I don't know," Sammy said, "I haven't seen them yet."

Sammy's daddy paused and then he laughed. "All right," he said. "I'll go ahead and put your two dollars on the horse that is going to win, okay? That way, you just cheer for the horse that wins."

I knew how that made no sense, but I didn't say anything. I just let Sammy's daddy walk away from the rail, leaving the two of us alone, and into the building where he was going to make his bet.

The horses started onto the track and Sammy watched wide-eyed as they galloped past us. He hit me on the arm again. "I sure hope my dad puts the money on that three," he said. "I really like that three. Groucho'd bet on that three!" He said and it was the first time I had ever heard Sammy refer to Dr. Hackenbush by his real name, Groucho.

Sammy's daddy returned with a ticket in his hand. He flashed it to us like he really didn't want us to see the exact number on it and then he placed it in his back pocket. "Who did we bet on?" Sammy asked. "The three?"

"You just cheer for that winner," his daddy said, "because that's who we bet on, son."

It was the first time I had ever seen a live race, and I have to admit it was hypnotic. It put me in a trance. I couldn't look away from any part of it. How they placed the horses into the gate fascinated me for some reason. One fat guy led the horse into the gate, but if the horse was difficult sometimes another guy would push it by the ass while the other guy pulled it by its ears. Then, the jockey might get scared and jump off the horse and wait for them to load the horse into the gate. I thought it was sort of crazy. Then, there was this guy who stood away from the gate, and threw a signal in the air. A bell sounded the gate opened and the horses stormed out of there.

The first race I saw was over a mile so they ran past us before turning the corner and heading down the backstretch. I could feel the power from those horses; their hooves just throwing dirt up and into the air. I had never seen anything like it.

I looked at Sammy and I knew that he hadn't either. Any thoughts about the Marx brother's movie had surely gone out of his head after those horses ran past him for the first time.

It wasn't until they made their way around the second turn that Sammy's daddy began hollering. "Come on!" He yelled. "Come on! You can get there you flying pig!" The two was in front, followed closely by the one, but I saw the three coming on the outside and that made me wonder exactly which horse Sammy's daddy had placed on the bet. "Come on!" He kept yelling. I turned to look at Sammy and his eyes were closed. He couldn't watch. I thought it was strange that he couldn't watch.

"Get there you pig!" Sammy's daddy yelled and the other two, the one and the two, were barely ahead of the three who looked to be running the fastest.

"Don't do it to me!" Sammy's daddy yelled. And, the three inched its way closer to the other two. The finish was coming up quick, but that three, that three was running hard.

Sammy's daddy suddenly let out a cry for help and even though I couldn't tell, he could. The three had nipped both the two and the one for first. Sammy's daddy started cursing and scratching his head. And, then the scratching turned to shaking his head.

Sammy was excited. He hadn't noticed the dejection in his daddy. "I knew the three was going to win!" He said. "Dad! We won!"

His daddy didn't say anything for a moment. Then, he looked down at Sammy and smiled. "Yeah, son," he said. "We won."

Sammy and I ran into the building and Sammy's daddy followed. The lines were getting long, people walking up to the cashiers to cash their tickets, or starting to form a line at the computer terminals to get their vouchers. Some folks, I think, were there to bet on other races that were going on between the live races.

We stood behind a wall of people. I turned and watched Sammy's daddy lope towards us, his head hung low, and his feet shuffling. I hadn't seen him like that before and I have to say that I think I might have felt sorry for him, but Sammy was so excited that I couldn't stop listening to everything he was saying.

"Come on, dad!" He yelled and some of the older folks turned and looked at us like we were dogs off leashes. "Let's cash the ticket! How much did we win?"

Sammy's daddy suddenly smiled. He stared at the two of us. "Okay," he said, "you two hang back here and I will cash our ticket."

So, we hung back while Sammy's daddy got in line and I started wondering why his daddy had decided to get into the longest line, but then I put it together, but I wasn't going to say anything because Sammy was my friend and I didn't want him to be disappointed in his daddy.

Sammy kept looking around, staring at the people. "You know who that is?" He'd ask me and then he'd hit me in the shoulder and slyly point at an old woman or an old man.

"Who?" I'd ask.

"You're mama!" He'd say and then he'd laugh and I'd laugh with him even though I didn't think it was funny at all. It didn't make any sense either since some of the old men were men and no way could my mama be confused with a man, but I sort of get why Sammy kept doing it. He was nervous about something and even though he wasn't sure what it was, I had a good idea of what it was and I felt sorry for him again.

A hurricane is nothing compared to what Sammy was going through. I know, I know, how can I say that? Well, I can say it because it's true. There are all kinds of disappointment. There's disappointment of the kind that you can't control. The kind that comes down from heaven or feels like it's coming up from hell and it rips you to shreds like a mad dog, but then there's the kind of disappointment that just comes at you in small tears. Like paper cuts and that was Sammy's daddy. A never-ending paper cut.

He came back to us, empty-handed, but he had an excuse for that too. "Keeping it safe in my back pocket, Sammy!" He said.

"You pick the next horse too," his daddy said and then his daddy left us alone in front of the television sets and Sammy stared up at the screen. "Who do we like in the next one, Creole?" He asked me.

"Don't call me that," I said.

"Why not? That's what you are?"

"Yeah, but I just don't want you calling me that," I said and Sammy sort of got the hint, but it didn't matter because his eyes were glazed over because of the numbers flashing on the screen.

"We're going to get rich today!" He said and I just rolled my eyes like I had seen my mama do so many times after I did something stupid.

After a while, Sammy's daddy came back and he had that look about him again, like he had rushed back to his car in the parking lot. Sammy hadn't picked a horse. So, the first thing he did when he saw his dad was stare like a sheep at his dad and then shrug. His dad laughed. "What's the matter?"

"I can't pick one," Sammy said.

"I all ready know who you picked," his daddy said, "and I all ready placed the bet for you!"

"Really? Who did I pick?"

"No, you just tell me who you like and let's see if we are on the same page about all of this," his daddy said.

Sammy took his time and then said that he liked the blue horse, which was the three horse, and Sammy's daddy said that he thought it was funny how Sammy had picked the same exact "color of the saddle cloth as the color of the horse's saddle cloth in the race before", but, then Sammy's daddy grinned again and produced a ticket that he showed Sammy only he showed it to him with the race number covered.

"One-hundred dollars!" Sammy said and he was right. His daddy had placed one-hundred dollars on the three horse.

I wanted to roll my eyes again, but I didn't, and then I felt guilty for thinking his daddy had left us alone to go get high again when all he had done was sniff on the floor or search through the trash cans for tickets. It must have taken him longer than we thought to find clean tickets, tickets that could pass as new tickets. Either that or he had the tickets all along. I wasn't sure. Then, of course, the guilt passed and I realized it was just another paper cut, maybe even a deeper one, and I felt sorry for Sammy again.

We waited for the race to end and when the three horse behind everyone else, Sammy's daddy handed Sammy the ticket, folded it in two to hide the race number, and then told him to tear it in half. "It gets rid of the bad luck," Sammy's daddy said.

Sammy did exactly that and then his daddy led us back to the car and we went ahead and left the track. "That's it?" Sammy asked.

"You got to know when to stop," Sammy's daddy said. "You can go broke betting on all the races, Sammy."

All three of us were quiet on the way home. We finally reached a corner near Sammy's house, away from where Sammy's mama might see us, and Sammy's daddy stopped the car and then told me to open the door on the passenger side. "Now, you fellas know that we weren't at the track, right?"

"What?" Sammy asked.

"He means if your mom asks, then we went to get ice cream," I said.

"That's right," his daddy said.

Both Sammy and I exited the car, and Sammy was ready to close the door, but then he looked at his dad and asked him about the money. "Where's my half?" He asked and his daddy grinned at him and then leaned over and rubbed Sammy's head.

"Sammy, that's racing money," his daddy said. "I'm going to hang on to it for you. For the next time we go to the track. So, that you have something to use when you bet."

Sammy paused before saying anything. Then, he thanked his daddy and shut the door. His daddy drove off and we walked slowly towards Sammy's house.

After a few steps, I noticed Sammy sniffling so I placed my hand on his shoulder. "I'm not stupid," he said. He didn't say it to me. He just said it.

"I know," I said.

He walked somewhat in front of me, but I was taller then him. So, I kept my hand on his shoulder and he didn't seem to mind at all. We walked like that all the way to his house; neither one of us said a word.

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