The Good Ones

We don't hate all the customers. There's a lot of decent people who just have gambling problems. (Just kidding of course, every ticket has a number for Gamblers' Anonymous on it just in case they realize how they've ruined their lives mid-race.) Instead of playing the Lotto everyday, they do this.

Decent is the word, here. Not normal. I don't think you can be normal and stay in an OTB parlor for more than a few minutes. Just like I don't think you can be normal and work at an OTB parlor for more than a few minutes. It's like being an astronaut, only less glamorous. No normal person is gonna shoot himself into the dark unknown at thousands of miles per hour. No normal person is going to sit at a window all day while being cursed at, spat on, cursed at in Spanish and spat on again.

Here's a couple of the good ones:

Well, good relatively. He's a nice enough guy, I think he's a cop but don't quote me on that. Very nice to me and some of my co-workers. Asks politely, tips, doesn't get mad if you screw up a bet. But the man hates Chinese people. In New York, but especially in my district of Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan, a lot of the OTB family is Chinese. Customers and employees. So this guy stands out. While this maybe-cop is decent enough to me and the Jew employees and the Puerto Ricans, he's a total asshole to the Chinese guys. Curses at them, yells at them, blames them for losing. Jury's still out on how he treats Black employees.

Another decent customer I met early on in my career. He came up to the window and was very quiet and soft-spoken. Rare in the OTB. "Hey, how's it going, friend? Yeah, that's good, that's good. Say, could I get a five dollar exacta on the 4 2? Thanks a lot, man, really appreciate it." He'd walk off to watch the race on one of our many flatscreen TVs. I'm thinking, if only all the customers could be like that. The race starts. Suddenly, I hear, from the very same guy, "Come on you motherf***ers!!! Ride that sh**! Ride that sh**! Your mother's a hairy cu**! Ride that motherf***king sh** you c**ksucker!!!!!!!!
What can I say? People love this sport.

The third guy was a young, pleasant Black businessman by the World Trade Center. Never cursed, never yelled. But one time his penis was hanging out of his fly. The whole thing. For like a half hour. He must've known, felt a draft or something. So there's decent guy number three, with his junk for all the world to see.