Craig Davidson - Cataract City

None of us heard the garage door. Owe and I barely heard the back door shut, and the warning gave us just enough time to dash back to his room and dive under the sheets.

Ed and Tim weren’t so lucky. Owe’s folks caught them bare-ass. In my house! Under MY roof! Owe’s mom shooed them out, cursing as they fled into the night. Tim wore only his underwear; he left his Letterman jacket on a bathroom hook.

Of course Owe’s mom called my mom and related the sordid tale. Which is how Ed became the Jezebel.

That night at Owe’s was the last time I’d see Edwina until the afternoon years later, on the corner of Harvard and Brian, when she stood in front of me cradling Dolly in her arms.

“You got to keep an eye on this one.” She tsked, handing the dog over as Owe rounded the corner with Frag.

“Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber,” Ed said. “You two still attached at the hip? And you’ve bought matching dogs, too. How cute.”

Owe said, “Dunk found them in a Dumpster.”

This set Ed back for a beat. Then she said, “Who says you can’t find treasure in the trash? You ought to take them to Derby Lane, see if they can run.” She rubbed her thumb and fingers together, giving us the international sign for moolah. “You could be sitting on a mint. I know a guy there, Harry Riggins. Runs the kennels. He can tell you if they’re any good and if not, hey ! Still one hell of a pet.”

The Derby Lane racetrack was a lot like Tinglers, the porno shop on Leeming Street — I mean, everyone knew it was there but only a certain type of guy actually went .

Derby Lane had been around since the seventies. As my dad said: “Used to be an okay fallback if you were looking to wager a few bucks on animals running in circles and didn’t have the energy to make it down to Fort Erie to catch the ponies.”

But with the casino going up on the Boulevard with its tinkle-tinkle of one-armed bandits and $5.99 buffet, the dog track was dead as disco. It only attracted the saddest of the sad, lonely old men in shiny-elbowed blazers and Florsheim shoes that had been stylish forty years ago. It was the sort of place that mocked the very idea of luck; even if you won, it was by Derby Lane standards, which meant parlaying a 100-to-1 shot into a measly payoff.

Me and Owe showed up on a Sunday morning. Sam Bovine dropped us off in his dad’s old hearse — he was an apprentice mortician by then, a calling that I thought didn’t suit him but that Bovine embraced with gusto.

“I’d stay,” he said, “but I’ve got to get back to the stiffs or else they may wander away, Living Dead — style.”

Owe said, “Three’s a crowd, anyway.”

Bovine bristled. “Ah, screw you two. And screw your dogs, too. Get them out of the casket croft — they’re stinking up the upholstery.”

We waved as Bovine swept the hearse around in a wide arc, flipping us the bird as he tooled off. We walked the dogs across the lot, which was empty except for one ancient pickup truck. The sun glinted off metal flarings outlining the park’s dingy marquee. As we passed the pickup truck I noticed the bed was carpeted with dried-up dog turds. They looked like stubbed cigars.

We walked through the Winning Ticket Lounge, crossing a threadbare paisley carpet that gave off the stink of fry oil and wet dog. We passed down a line of ancient Silver Chief penny-slots, most of them unplugged, cords wrapped around the levers.

“Our family came here for Chipped Beef Friday,” I said. “Before, y’know, the kitchen got shut down. Roaches? Mice? I think roaches.”

Huge windows smudged with oily fingerprints overlooked the track. Ashtrays were set into the armrests of the gallery seats. The track itself was an oval surrounded by billboards for the Flying Saucer restaurant, Murphy’s Pegleg Tavern and other local haunts.

We made our way to the track. Litter drifted around the empty risers. Dolly strained at her leash as we crossed to the far left of the track, passing a row of metal boxes with a swinging grate attached overtop. The starting boxes?

The kennels were in a boxcar-shaped building with tin siding. I remember thinking that it must get deadly hot come summertime. Owe knocked. When nobody answered he toed the door open.

The howls began at once — like a dozen busted foghorns going off. The kennel was bright white, clean and well lit. Industrial fans rotated above the dog pens. To the left was a deep basin sink and a big steel hook hung with leather leashes. Beside it was a hamper of dog muzzles and another of neatly folded racing jerseys.

A man entered through a side door, yelling, “Shush it! Shush! ” He was in his late seventies, short and pot-bellied, wearing carpenter’s overalls and orange galoshes.

Edwina followed him, waving sunnily. “Here’s the Bobbsey Twins!”

The old man ambled over and stuck out his hand. “Harry Riggins at your service, boys.” He edged his glasses up his nose. His eyes were watery behind thick, scratched lenses. “I take care of the dogs. Feed ’em, exercise ’em. I also work the mechanical hare on race nights. You know much about greyhounds?”

“They run pretty fast,” Owe said.

“They can run, that they can.” Harry knelt, opened Frag’s mouth and ran one squared-off finger along his gums. His other fingers roamed up Frag’s face and opened his eyelids. “ Eeesh . Too much pressure behind this one’s eyes. Makes them bulge out. Quirk of the breed. You happen to know their bloodlines?”

I said, “I found them in a Dumpster.”

“Oh,” Harry said. “That does happen. Some trainers … goddamn slugs.”

Ed said briskly, “Well, let’s see if these mutts got any pep in their step.”

The dog runs were hundred-yard-long fenced enclosures laid out behind the kennels. Greyhounds dashed down the nearest run, skidding to a stop at the fence before barrelling back the other way.

Harry said, “Let’s put your two in with this wild bunch, see if they can ruck in.”

Frag and Dolly tried to join the racing pack. Almost immediately they got tangled up and hit the fence; the chain-link made a strained musical note as it was stretched back against the posts— phimmmm! — like an overtuned banjo string. They tumbled across the dirt, scrambled to their feet and raced to rejoin the dogs.

“Yikes,” said Ed.

“They’re young yet,” Harry said. “The bitch seems game.”

I didn’t like Harry calling Dolly a bitch. He didn’t mean anything by it — I knew that, technically, it described what she was — but the term put a burr under my ass.

I’d never seen Dolly running with a greyhound other than Frag. Now I observed how muscle was packed in fat balls where her chest met her front legs. She ran with abandon: legs outflung, mouth wide open in the closest thing to a smile that a dog can manage.

“They ain’t much as pets,” Harry told us. “Lap dogs, I mean. You probably figured that out already. Looking to sell them? Probably get a couple hundred for the bitch. The male’s more of a giveaway.”

“They don’t want to sell, Harry,” said Ed. “They want to race.”

Harry cocked his head at Ed. Stubble glittered along his jaws like flaked mica.

“Come on now, Edwina.” He turned to us. “You just finished telling me you aren’t any kind of dogmen, right?”

“We’ve never raced dogs,” I admitted.

Harry said, “Then I’d urge you to sell. Still some decent dogmen at this track. They’ll treat the nippers well enough, maybe even turn the bitch into a decent B-leveller … Could you really want to keep them as pets ?”

Ed said, “Harry, why not let’s just see what these dogs have got?”