so good, but there’s lots of Bible bingo for those bitten by the gambling bug, and plenty of nice Christian boys who won’t lay a hand on a girl, even if it’s just to slap a mosquito.
It’s official. I’m losing my mind. It’s definitely time to talk to Cappy.
Chapter Eleven
DRIVING DOWN MAIN STREET YOU DON’T CROSS A RAILROAD track to reach the run-down section of town, but go over a bridge built above a trickle of a creek. A few blocks along on the left is where Cappy maintains his “downtown office.” It’s actually a small room at the back of Bob’s Billiard Parlor. Cappy’s “suburban satellite” is next to the starting gate at the racetrack a few miles out of town, which is where I’d first met him.
Learning poker from the janitor in elementary school had quickly led to studying the odds for other games, like blackjack, and then when I saw a horse race on TV and the winner was a long shot paying fifty bucks on a two-dollar bet, I started riding my bike to the track at age twelve. Of course, it was illegal for me to place a bet, and so I had to find a guy who didn’t look like he’d mind helping a kid get ahead in the world, and that patron of the underaged happened to be Cappy, a regular fixture during the racing season. By the time I was fifteen and could see over the counter, the people working at the betting windows no longer bothered turning me away, and Cappy decided that I’d learned enough about the business to act as his assistant in exchange for some tips on how to play the odds rather than the horses.
It’s not hard for me to find a parking spot in front of Bob’s Billiards during the daytime. This particular dilapidated block is primarily home to a long wooden storefront that used to sell farm implements in the first half of the 1900s. The old building is falling apart but somehow the owner rents space to a start-up software company and a guy with a recording studio. Bob’s is across the street, next to Nolan’s Irish Pub, which isn’t the kind of place young people gather to socialize on weekends so much as where a married woman might search for her husband if she hasn’t seen him for a few days. When my mom refers to the “iffy” part of town, this is exactly where she’s talking about.
From the street, Bob’s Billiards looks as if it went out of business about ten years ago, when Old Bob died, and shortly afterward Middle Bob became Robert and moved to Los Angeles to design costumes for TV shows. Only, Young Bob, who is just a few years older than I am, keeps the place going without new investment, aside from refelting the pool tables and changing the lightbulbs. Though changing the lightbulbs is rather important, being that Bob’s is open to the public but closed to the sunlight. Otherwise the players don’t seem to care how chipped the paint is or how many tiles the ceiling is missing, and so Bob the Younger is able to scratch out a living by renting tables to individuals, pool leagues, and tournament organizers.
And then there’s the trickle of rent from Cappy, whose office is in the rear, one door past the men’s restroom. Though there’s nothing inside there that the police would be interested in—just a bunch of yellowed sports pages and stacks of old horse-racing news. According to Cappy his bookmaking business isn’t illegal so much as extralegal, in that the cops would have to work
extra
hard making any sort of charges stick to him. Then there’s the fact that another guy would pop up in his place overnight, and not a local who everyone knows and trusts, at least as far as it goes.
Cappy offers the popular service of allowing people to bet on horse races and sporting events by making a phone call. He accepts customers who may not have credit elsewhere and offers complete confidentiality to those citizens who may desire to keep their wagering quiet (or as Cappy prefers to say, “be able to surprise their families when they win”). He can also steer a
It’s official. I’m losing my mind. It’s definitely time to talk to Cappy.
Chapter Eleven
DRIVING DOWN MAIN STREET YOU DON’T CROSS A RAILROAD track to reach the run-down section of town, but go over a bridge built above a trickle of a creek. A few blocks along on the left is where Cappy maintains his “downtown office.” It’s actually a small room at the back of Bob’s Billiard Parlor. Cappy’s “suburban satellite” is next to the starting gate at the racetrack a few miles out of town, which is where I’d first met him.
Learning poker from the janitor in elementary school had quickly led to studying the odds for other games, like blackjack, and then when I saw a horse race on TV and the winner was a long shot paying fifty bucks on a two-dollar bet, I started riding my bike to the track at age twelve. Of course, it was illegal for me to place a bet, and so I had to find a guy who didn’t look like he’d mind helping a kid get ahead in the world, and that patron of the underaged happened to be Cappy, a regular fixture during the racing season. By the time I was fifteen and could see over the counter, the people working at the betting windows no longer bothered turning me away, and Cappy decided that I’d learned enough about the business to act as his assistant in exchange for some tips on how to play the odds rather than the horses.
It’s not hard for me to find a parking spot in front of Bob’s Billiards during the daytime. This particular dilapidated block is primarily home to a long wooden storefront that used to sell farm implements in the first half of the 1900s. The old building is falling apart but somehow the owner rents space to a start-up software company and a guy with a recording studio. Bob’s is across the street, next to Nolan’s Irish Pub, which isn’t the kind of place young people gather to socialize on weekends so much as where a married woman might search for her husband if she hasn’t seen him for a few days. When my mom refers to the “iffy” part of town, this is exactly where she’s talking about.
From the street, Bob’s Billiards looks as if it went out of business about ten years ago, when Old Bob died, and shortly afterward Middle Bob became Robert and moved to Los Angeles to design costumes for TV shows. Only, Young Bob, who is just a few years older than I am, keeps the place going without new investment, aside from refelting the pool tables and changing the lightbulbs. Though changing the lightbulbs is rather important, being that Bob’s is open to the public but closed to the sunlight. Otherwise the players don’t seem to care how chipped the paint is or how many tiles the ceiling is missing, and so Bob the Younger is able to scratch out a living by renting tables to individuals, pool leagues, and tournament organizers.
And then there’s the trickle of rent from Cappy, whose office is in the rear, one door past the men’s restroom. Though there’s nothing inside there that the police would be interested in—just a bunch of yellowed sports pages and stacks of old horse-racing news. According to Cappy his bookmaking business isn’t illegal so much as extralegal, in that the cops would have to work
extra
hard making any sort of charges stick to him. Then there’s the fact that another guy would pop up in his place overnight, and not a local who everyone knows and trusts, at least as far as it goes.
Cappy offers the popular service of allowing people to bet on horse races and sporting events by making a phone call. He accepts customers who may not have credit elsewhere and offers complete confidentiality to those citizens who may desire to keep their wagering quiet (or as Cappy prefers to say, “be able to surprise their families when they win”). He can also steer a
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