And a Happy New Year

I'll make this quick. I've got a little post-Christmas annex post that involves, in no means a coincidence, what happened at work the day after Christmas. I'll keep names out of it, because I have a feeling what I'll be describing is potentially illegal.

Anyway, some branches are friendlier with the customers, and some clerks are very friendly with the customers. Most of these friendly clerks are veterans, some have been with the company for over 30 years. Some of these clerks live in the same area as their own branch, usually because they've got the seniority to handpick where they want to work. The customers are their neighbors, their butchers and baby-furniture store owners. There's a certain rapport there that grows out of those relationships, adding another dimension to the clerk-customer dynamic. (This does complicate things for the rest of us, like when I curse out my co-worker's golfing buddy right in front of the guy.)

Some of these relationships are so strong that, during the holidays, gifts and cards are exchanged. One guy, who's an OTB vet and local resident, even buys cards for some customers' wives and families. In return, he gets cards loaded with cash. Big fat tips, basically, even if the card-givers aren't winning any races.

I happened to be sitting next to this clerk for the December 26 day shift. It didn't take long for him to start complaining that a lot of the customers weren't as generous this Christmas. Not only were the cards light, but a lot of them didn't even bother with gifts. He never mentioned if he knows about the worldwide recession currently ruining millions of lives, but he seems like a smart guy, and I'm sure he does, but apparently none of that matters. He didn't get his Christmas tips. And there will be hell to pay.

I usually drown out other co-workers to begin with, and this guy likes to talk even while I'm dealing with customers, which doesn't help, so I didn't really catch all that he was spewing at me. But the gist was, a lot of people "forgot about him" and now his "List" is getting a lot more names added to it. He's going to remember everyone who didn't remember him this yuletide season, and each and every one of them was going on The List, even the ones that have been his so-called friends for the past three decades. Again, I missed crucial chunks of this subdued rant, but I think it was implied that even other OTB co-workers somehow made The List. Everytime he mentioned The List, he'd motion to it, taped on the inside wall of his booth, but I never got to see it, fearing that if he caught me looking at it, I'd make The List.

What The List is exactly, I don't know. Who, specifically, is on The List, I don't know. But what happens to the people on The List... I also don't know. And that's what makes an otherwise ordinary list become The List, and that's why I thought it was interesting enough to merit a blog post. December 26 is many things to many people. Some celebrate Kwanzaa. Others enjoy Boxing Day. A lot of folks would just like to relax after a month of stressful holiday preparation. But in OTB, we have The List. And God help you if you're on it.

Tip your mail-carrier. And your OTB clerk. Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas

In the spirit of the season, here's a short vignette of what happened on a night shift earlier this week:

You may have noticed that a lot of basic cable networks like to use December as a dumping ground for all their syndicated films and crappy made-for-TV movies, typically assigning these marathons a random number. (See: 25 Days of Christmas, 15 Days of Christmas, 7 Days of Christmas, 1 Day of Christmas, etc.) I just wish these network execs would learn that the only way you're going to earn my viewership is by playing A Christmas Story twelve times in a row, but I digress.

So one night I go into the back area on my break to scarf down some street halal. On the tiny TV is another sappy made-for-TV Christmas movie starring C-listers and former B-listers. The manager is sitting at the desk, doing paperwork, using the Hallmark Channel more for ambiance than anything. I'm sitting at the table, completely ignoring the movie, working on a crossword c.o. Willie Shortz. Also seated at the table is a JBC who will go unnamed.

NOTE: This post and what follows specifically is in no way meant to deride or insult the position of janitor or anybody holding said position. Rather, this is to point out one man's complete stupidity, a man who happens to be a janitor.

Or JBC, rather. Junior Building Custodian. But, yeah, janitor. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Seriously.

So about an hour into the Hallmark crap-of-the-week, this JBC, who resembles a shaved three-toed sloth, give or take a toe, remarks: "Can someone explain to me what the fuck is going on?" I'm paraphrasing, but he does curse a lot.

I'm not really invested in the whole scenario but my manager's reaction was priceless. She puts the pen down and looks at him, bewildered. "Peter Falk's an angel. He's trying to get this couple back together before Christmas. What's not to get?"

"Oh." And we all go back to what we were doing, the manager picking up her pen, me taking another forkful of halal, the JBC's eyes moving back to the television screen, his synapses firing at an incredible rate, desperately trying to comprehend the plot that some overpaid screenwriter punched out sitting on the john. A script fine-tuned in such a way so that it would be easily digested by even an Alzheimer's-inflicted grandmother. A movie, that to this particular JBC, was 2001 a fucking Space Odyssey.

Maybe you had to be there, but the look on the manger's face really did capture the absurdity of the moment. It showed me, at the very least, that stupidity is not some general concept that can be tossed about, but a habitual state of being with many subtlies and nuances. I mean, come on, it was the Hallmark Channel.

Oh, also, this has nothing to do with Christmas but a few weeks ago this very same JBC was watching a rerun of Numbers (with Judd Hirsch and the guy from Northern Exposure) on the very same TV. Some dude got shot like 39 times with a machine gun, then the JBC went to the bathroom or something. He came back and asked us "So did that guy die?"

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

119

Branch 119 is the quintessential, definitive OTB parlor. It's one of the biggest, one of the busiest, one of the loudest, smelliest, angriest, disgusting, exciting places to place a place bet. If you really wanted to grasp the concept of everything I've been spewing forth up to this point, 119 is the one to visit. It's not a coincidence this branch stands out from the rest--like most things in life, there's a complicated, dialectic web of reasons for its organized insanity.

First off, it's got branch 219, a teletheater, directly above it. The teletheaters are the few, "classy" joints designed specifically for higher-paying customers. Typically, there's a five dollar cover charge, a bar and/or restaurant hopelessly prepared for consumers just looking for a good meal and no gambling whatsoever, a wall of television screens for easy multi-track viewing, full track prices (no OTB commission removed from winnings) and carpets. The place is a little cleaner, and most employees wear a uniformed vest, and in theory, are more pleasant to the customers. These customers are higher-paying on the average, some blowing thousands at a time on a single horse, but there's also regular Joe the Plumber's who pay the five bucks to avoid the grudge and grime of a typical branch.

Anyway, having 219 right above 119 means that any wealthier, quieter, classier, and/or nicer customers are weeded out, all taking the stairs around the corner rather than patronizing the lower floor. That gives 119 the distinct advantage of having pure losers, with some nice dirt poor customers sprinkled in, robbing me of the occasional moments of not wanting to kill myself that most other branches provide.

Secondly and perhaps just as importantly, 119 is a block from Times Square, one of the most densely populated spots in the entire galaxy. That means a lot more customers than usual. It also means a lot more dirtbag customers than usual, given Times Square's ability to attract dirtbags and all. It also means the occasional tourist who should've stuck to the brochure and gets in way over his or sometimes her head (for some reason most of these tourists have Southern accents and many have cowboy hats.) Physically, 119 is one of the biggest branches in the city, with a ton of machines, more than twice the usual number of available clerks and two managers. Yet, it's never empty.

Maybe because of Times Square or maybe not, 119 also boasts one of the biggest homeless populations. Unlike the other branches though, the homeless here don't just take up three seats to make a bed/toilet. These bums bet, and they bet big. I'll watch them through the doors, standing out on seventh avenue with a rapidly-deteriorating coffee cup, collecting change from passerbys. Within the hour, they've got maybe a hundred bucks in dingy coins, and they're spending every last Monticello on a horse at Monticello.

These Vietnam Vets and their friends contribute to one of 119's most defining characteristics: the stink. As soon as you walk in, it hits you like an aluminum bat made of ass. It's mostly B.O. but there's plenty of urine, feces, puke, and other stuff I don't even wanna contemplate mixed in there. The fact that these guys are packed in there all day and all night rubbing against one another intentionally or not just adds to the nauseating atmosphere. Almost as bad as the stink are the weapons of anti-stink, the arsenal of Lysol cans at the full-timers' windows. These are fired multiple times an hour, often right in the customer's face, giving most of us a terrible headache that smells faintly of lilacs.

All this makes working there a huge chore; it's a given that your shift will be nonstop, your end total will show you've punched well over 1000 bets and cashed over 150 tickets. We'd cash more if the customers weren't so stupid. Like anywhere else, their impatience, ignorance and sheer idiocy will cause them to rip up or throw out winning tickets. There's a dedicated team of customers who make their money solely on others' mistakes, diving deep into our receptacles until you see only their legs, rummaging through the goblets of phlegm, emptied Old E's and chewed up Orbits. One guy supposedly makes around a thousand dollars a day from the winning tickets he finds discarded.

And while 119 does everything big, it's still at heart just another OTB, with its own slew of characters. There's the Russian, this short man with a deep thick voice and slow, spelled-out Siberian accent, who calls you Boss every sentence, looks and sounds utterly miserable, but really is a pretty nice guy. There's the Grandma from SoHo, who dresses and acts very upper-middle-class like. She spends the days in the quiet branch by Houston St. but when that closes at seven she inexplicably comes up to 119 to finish out the night's races. She's more of a television in the weeds than a diamond in the rough.

There's Igor, this little old man who looks exactly like his namesake from the old Frankenstein films. You can't help how you look, but he tops it off with a timid Eastern European accent that I can only assume is Transylvanian. His nickname isn't Igor, he literally is the guy. There's also Flopsweat, the ugliest man I've ever seen in my life, who has a giant bald head with weird skin-colored lumps all over. He's also got a ridiculous amount of flopsweat, even in the depths of February, though they're hard to distinguish from the lumps. In the ugliest branch in the state, he's definitely top candidate for ugliest man in the branch. There's Pizzaman, a flamboyant three-toothed Black man who buys a couple pizzas every night and then sells the slices to the customers for a small profit. He's nice enough to offer us slices on the house, but the day I accept open food from a 119 customer is the day I contract some form of Hepatitis. Besides the standout characters, many of whom I've left out, you've also got the broadest rainbow in the system, with dozens of blacks, whites, chinese, koreans, latinos, native americans, arabs, indians, pacific islanders, gays, bis, transvestites and transsexuals. If Times Square is the melting pot of the melting pots, 119 is the melting pot of the melting pot of the melting pot. With discount pizza.

119 might sound like the biggest hellhole of them all, but it's far from my least favorite places to work. It certainly has its perks. Time flies, since you work nonstop. Also, the staff there are really cool and down-to-earth, and staff conversation is a huge tool in speeding up that clock. By sheer statistics, the larger amount of customers means a larger amount of tips for me, which is also good for me. I could go into greater detail about the branch if I wanted to, but I don't, so I won't, and this is where I stop typing.

Eddie

Eddie's a longtime customer from Bay Ridge. He's got a slow, clear way of speaking, layered with a thick Brooklyn accent. "Gimme da TWO. On top of da FOUR. On top of da SIX TREE." At first, I didn't like him-- I had grouped him with the other scumbag Bay Ridge goons. Eventually I realized he was harmless and just wanted to bet; we even built up a little act where I would repeat all his bets in an exaggerated Brooklyn accent and he would repeat it again as if to acknowledge the way he spoke while declaring he was proud of it.

I also thought the guy was on drugs, considering how slow he spoke and the fact that he's so scrawny, even for a short little guy like him. I was mistaken-- apparently Eddie's got cancer, one of the bad ones, and a few years back stopped taking any medication for it because they were making him sicker than the tumor. (Or he couldn't afford it, he'll never tell.) He's had it for nine years but lately it's been getting worse. Not that he's told us, you can just see it. His skin is green. His white hair has lost its luster. He's even scrawnier and weaker than before. It's bad stuff.
It's weird to watch a man slowly die. The bulletproof glass between us serves as like a frame. He comes in one week, I see him, he comes in the next week, he's a little bit worse, etc. Everybody knows it's coming and there's nothing we can do, and because there's a line of other customers behind him, you can't even dwell on it. You'd think he'd want to use his remaining time to do some exciting stuff, or at least spend it with his family. He's a regular but he's not there constantly like most regulars, so maybe he does do this stuff. But on the other hand, betting to him is exciting, is fun, and as sick as it sounds, OTB is part of his family. So maybe he's going out the way he wants to go out.

I write about Eddie in present tense not to be melodramatic, but because I had been planning this article for a couple months now and just never got around it. This is basically what it would have been. The truth is, though, Eddie died a couple days ago. The cancer finally got to him. The clerks at his branch and some of the customers were saddened by the news. One clerk, who hadn't even worked in the branch or seen Eddie for ten years, bawled her eyes out.
I look down on a lot of these people because of how they live their lives but the fact of the matter is they're still people, with the same amount of neurons and thoughts and impulses charging through their brains as you or me. It's really a shame that with all the things in nature that could kill us, we still come up with a billion other ways to do it to each other or to ourselves. Life is ridiculously precious, even inside an OTB parlor, even to people who just refuse to treat it as such. But if a betting clerk can cry over the death of a customer, maybe there's hope for us after all.

Circle of Complaints

There are two things that come out of a bettor's mouth: bets and complaints. And smoke and pieces of food, if you want to get technical. Many of the complaints, naturally, relate to horse racing. Jockeys who held their ponies back too long, horses that wouldn't let their jockeys ride them, tracks who messed with the odds, etc. Even when they win, they'll complain and tell you they're still down a thousand dollars for the day (this is the diplomatic way of telling us we ain't getting tipped anytime soon.)

But a lot of the complaints are about us. And it wasn't long before I noticed, sitting there for seven hours, staring at the food-speckled bullet-proof glass, that when they weren't complaining to me, my co-workers were. In fact, there's a complex pattern I picked up after a couple of months that I like to call the Circle of Complaints.

The customers complain to me about everything: the horses, the races, the jockeys, the other customers and the clerks. The clerks complain to me about the customers. The clerks also complain about the managers. The managers, when my other co-workers are on break, complain to me about the clerks. The JBCs (custodians), while waiting for the bus with me, also complain about the managers. The customers complain about the JBCs, not picking up the tickets they purposely throw on the floor right beside the trashcan and not refilling the bathroom soap they usually bathe with. The customers also complain about the managers, who complain to me about the JBCs for complaining too much. The managers also complain about the customers when the JBCs aren't complaining about the clerks, the clerks to me about other clerks, and customers about me to my face. The circle does travel behind my back as well, as evidenced by the abrupt ends of conversations and awkward looks I receive when I get back from my break. Finally, I complain about all of the above to you, here, on this blog, as well as complain to my clerks, managers, JBCs and customers about the customers, JBCs, managers, and clerks. I also throw in complaints about the Knicks, girls, capitalism and Greek food. So it's not really a circle of complaints but more of a round squiggle you draw over and over and over on your counter while everyone complains to you about everyone else. I need new pens.

We're a frustrated society and when you put frustrated, bored co-workers in a small room filled with a crowd of frustrated, losing gamblers... complaints are gonna be there. Sometimes, though, they just make good conversation and pass the time, so I don't resent the Circle. After all, it's what separates us from the animals. And, the plants, I guess, because they also do not complain.

Ghost

Ghost is one of the good ones. One of the great ones. If all customers were as nice as him, the job would be so much easier and so less interesting.

To be honest, I have no idea how he got his nickname. I've asked a few times, gotten unsatisfactory answers that I don't remember, and then went back to my crossword puzzle. How best to describe Ghost? Hm. Well, do you remember the guy from the rooftop in Blade Runner? No, not that guy, the other one, the Chinese one. Yeah, him. Ghost looks exactly like that creepy Chinese guy from Blade Runner. Only all in denim. Denim jeans, denim jacket, very tight fitting.

Random Ghost fact: on my first day ever out of training, he gave me my first and only tip for the day--ten bucks--which spoiled me and made me think most customers would tip me ten dollars at least once a day. Later that week I saw him on the R train and avoided eye contact.

Ghost is ridiculously friendly, always chatting and making jokes in his Broken English. He never gets upset, even when he loses or you screw up his bet. He's not perfect though--no customers ever are or ever will be. He usually waits 'til the race is about to go off and the horses are in the gate before he bets. You'll hear him coming because he runs across the branch, stomping hard like he's playing red-light-green-light. He'll stop short in front of your window and then shoots partial wheels (partial wheels are complicated bets involving many horses and potential race outcomes) at a rapid-fire rate in his Broken English. Usually I get it in time and he jumps up or pretends to faint or something ridiculous. Sometimes I don't and he does the exact same motions. My point is, since he is one of the good ones, and I like him, it's more pressure for me because I honestly don't want to disappoint him and screw up his bet or shut him out. I'm more emotionally invested in the transaction than I would be with some stranger. Or some dickwad regular. So it's tricky. Not really, but still.

Another con is the guy loves Sudokus, which are on the same page as the Metro Crossword. I usually do both. But when he sees me reading the paper, he asks if he can have the Sudoku and I reluctantly give it to him, indirectly including the crossword, and leaving me without post-newspaper entertainment... but I do it, because he's Ghost. Although sometimes I lie and hide it but only when I'm really bored. "No Metro?!" he'll exclaim. "No Metro," I'll reply. Sorry, Ghost.

Tin Can Louie

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Unhappy Meals

Maybe because they try to put OTBs in commercial areas, but there's always a ton of fast food joints around us. Especially Subways. Is it because there's Subways everywhere anyway, or is it some vast backdoor conspiracy between the New York Gaming Commission and Jared Fogel? (It's because there's Subways everywhere anyway.) However, Subway is more of a solo eating experience than a family one, as opposed to the more traditional fast food eateries--McDonalds, Burger King, etc. So Subway doesn't really apply to the trend I've noticed among certain OTB patrons:

A lot of customers come and bet when they get off work rather than going straight home. Every once in a while I'll notice a customer with a very large bag of fast food--he's picked up dinner for his family. Rather than go straight home to his hungry children and tired housewife, he stops by and makes a few bets. And by a few bets I mean many bets and by stops by I mean hangs out. And I just watch these Dinner Dads gambling and losing, that greasy bag dangling from their hands, sometimes squeezed under their arms while they wrangle with their wallet and their tickets and their racing forms. And I watch them, and I pity them, and I feel bad for their hungry children wondering why it's taking Daddy so long to pick up some damn Big Macs.

It just amazes me. One of the primary duties of being a father is putting food on the table, and these guys are putting food in front of my window instead. And that's doubly annoying. If I'm hungry, I've got to smell that sweet, sweet vegetable oil they cook the fries in and it makes me even hungrier. If I'm full, I've got to smell that disgusting "vegetable oil" they saturate the fries in and it makes me want to throw up.

And that food's not going anywhere. If Dinner Dad loses, he's gotta keep playing til he wins his money back. If he wins, he can't leave in the middle of a hot streak, that'd be ridiculous. So the hot streak continues while the nuggets get cold. When Dad finally does get home, there might not be much left, considering how many fries he's picked away at while waiting for post time and how many snack wraps he's sold to other customers. It's not cute like those commercials where Dad ate the fries on the way home. It's sad like those commercials where Dad stopped to gamble for two hours, and those commercials don't even exist because it's a ridiculous scenario that you wouldn't think actually occurs. Sorry, kids.

I wish this was the only example of how gambling conflicts with good parenting. More examples to come.


P.S. There was this customer at work tonight who had this windblazer that was devoted to cats. It wasn't a sports or franchise or brand name--it just said CATS in a small, simple font over the right breast with a blob representing what I can only assume was a cat. I guess that's better than the Chinese guy with the cap that says SAN DIEGO CHARGES. The R isn't missing, the word 'CHARGES' fits perfectly above the rim. I know bootleg clothes are cheaper and I don't wanna pay a lot for brand names either, but come on, the Chargers? This is New York. At least find a bootleg GINTS or ANKEES hat.

State of the Union

In case you haven't heard, OTB was about to be closed but then wasn't. The politics and mechanisms behind all this is kind of complicated, so I'm not really going to go into it. Instead, I'm posting a letter I wrote to newspaper editors that was (not surprisingly) never published. It was written a couple days before we knew our fate and I've left it unedited:


You’ve probably skipped or skimmed any recent articles about the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation (NYC OTB), the horse-racing gambling institution with branches all over the city. I probably would’ve too if I hadn’t been working at OTB for over two years now. The company is set to close after Sunday, June 15, and its 1500 employees—myself included—will be out of a job. For you skippers and skimmers, here’s a quick rundown of the situation: people come to bet on horse races occurring throughout the day all over the world from one location—an OTB branch. Like any gambling institution, the company makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year. However, these profits are shared between the state and local governments as well as NYRA, the New York Racing Association. The formula in place takes the gross earnings for the year rather than our actual net profit, leaving the company with less and less every year until this year, where we finally are giving out more than we make, putting us in the red. Mayor Bloomberg, with good reason, refuses to bail us out with taxpayers’ money, and so next week you’ll have to drive to the track if you want to place a bet.

Here’s why we should stay open: OTB was created almost forty years ago to reduce the influence of illegal bookies and organized crime and it’s done a pretty decent job of that. As soon as we close, those bookies are going to return immediately. People aren’t going to stop gambling just because the government isn’t allowing it anymore. Keeping OTB open would prevent an uprise in broken thumbs and bullet-ridden kneecaps. And with the failing economy and rising food, electric, water and gas costs, the government should be doing all it can to prevent 1500 New Yorkers from losing their jobs. Even a small ripple effect can do a lot of damage these days.

Here’s how we fix this: First, just to keep us open, State legislators and Union leaders are pushing to restructure the formula: let the governments take percentages of our net profit, not our gross gains. In the long term, all Statewide OTBs should be consolidated into a single agency and merged with NYRA to increase efficiency. Finally, Lotto machines should be included in the branches to broaden our customer base and increase the productivity of the company.

It’s hard for people to sympathize with a gambling institution, especially since most people don’t know anybody who works at one. But, especially these days, when anyone loses their job when they don’t need to, efforts should be made to prevent it.

Jack Picone
jackpicone@gmail.com


The State did eventually take us over, but it'll be a few months before we see any changes and what this means for the company. Everyone got to keep their jobs, which is very nice, and I'll still be in daily contact with the homeless degenerates I love to write about so much. Unless the State decides to fire me. Please don't fire me, State.

Sleeper

I hate Sleeper. He's a middle-aged-going-on-senior homeless man who sleeps in people's doorways and under cars and stuff. One time in the deli across the street I opened the fridge to take out a Vitamin Water and I saw him sleeping on the other side. I got nothing against homeless people--in fact I'm pretty passionate about the issue--but this guy's just a dickwad. Home or no home.

He's been kicked out of the branch by security like a dozen times. There's a No-Trespass order on him. He harasses customers and employees. But he won't go away. I think he's trying to get arrested. Jail's no different than sleeping in the stairwell only it's got better food and some company.

He usually makes bets for other customers too lazy to walk the ten feet to my window. They pay him a few bucks out of their winnings. He steals my tips when they ask him to tip me, but I don't say anything because it's weird asking a guy to tip you. Damn Sleeper. Also, he steals from them when he gets the chance. He's always asking me for quarters, too. That's annoying.
There's a lot of customers I get along with and a lot I don't. A lot of the ones I don't usually have some redeeming qualities. Not Sleeper, though, he's just a homeless dickwad and he makes the job that much more miserable.

You may ask why we put up with customers like this, especially the ones who aren't legally supposed to be there. It's not for their patronage--in Sleeper's case we're much better off without him. But I learned early on it's easier to just take their bets and their money in the ten seconds it takes than to argue with them for ten minutes and then listen to them curse you out for the rest of the shift. It's not exactly turning the other cheek--it's more, rolling your eyes and then taking your frustrations out on a blog nobody reads.

P.S. Late last night I saw a customer picking his nose--really going at it, like up to the knuckle. Later on, when someone asked him how he always wins so much, he said it was luck. "I can't pick horses. I can't even pick my nose." I hope you appreciate the irony as much as I did.

So you want to bet at OTB...

The Belmont Stakes is coming up (Saturday, June 7) and Big Brown could become the first Triple Crown winner in decades, so horse racing has been thrust in the spotlight even more so than the usual May. The Triple Crown (the Kentucky Derby, the Preekness and the Belmont Stakes) and to a lesser extent October's Breeders' Cup are the biggest races in the sport and they bring in hundreds of millions in bets. A lot of these bets, if not most, are from normal people like you and me, people who can't even be called casual bettors.

The one thing I don't wanna do with this blog is scare anyone away from coming to an OTB. In fact, I recommend it. Like I've said earlier, it's a human safari and there's an interesting culture to be observed. And while I wouldn't recommend getting out of the car and kicking a lion in the sack, I would recommend participating in this culture, even if just once. So this is for anyone thinking about going and betting the Belmont Stakes, and for anyone who isn't and should be.

And they can seem scary. Anything unfamiliar can really, but it doesn't help that there's outbursts of screaming and cursing and more angry Asians than the climax of The Deer Hunter. Usually it's more subdued, a constant rumbling of under-the-breath swears, kind of like putting all those angry pedestrians from Grand Theft Auto into one small room. And if you come on Derby day it's gonna be a lot more crowded than usual, with the regulars getting frustrated at the long lines. If you've got a regular behind you, he's going to sigh audibly, turn around and roll his eyes at whoever is paying attention to him (no one), sigh again but this time more of a grunt, and finally go 'Oh come on!' or 'We gonna bet here or what?' Ignore this. While the company sucks up to and wants to please these regulars for their constant income, you casual bettors give us most of our profit. Plus, he's just a lonely asshole and there's probably three hours to the big race anyway. He's not your problem, and don't let him deter you from betting.

And when I say betting, I mean like five bucks. Twenty most. Don't go crazy. You don't know what you're doing, first of all. Horse racing is one of the hardest things to gamble on--despite those carefully crafted odds, it's a crapshoot and you're probably not going to win much, especially in the long run. The thrill isn't winning it's hoping you're going to win in that intense two minutes of racing (that's why the sport has lasted so long--imagine compacting all the thrills of the Super Bowl into 100 seconds.) Some of you will stay after the race and bet a few more. Usually you're the winners of the big race and you think you're an undiscovered prodigy and are about to win thousands more. Usually you lose everything you won and then some and then go back to doing whatever you usually do on Saturday night.

Don't be afraid of us, the clerks, either. Derby days are exciting for us. We like to dress a little nicer than usual and we bring in big sandwiches and lasagna. It's refreshing to see new faces and new customers who don't hate us yet, and it's fun to talk down to you and feel special that we know so much more about something (anything) than you do. So usually we'll be on our best behavior, and very nice and helpful (despite it being one of the most intense and stressful work days for us.) It may seem a little complicated--all the different bets and combinations--but it's really pretty simple and you'd get the hang of it if you did it more than one afternoon. But we will walk you through it and make sure you get what you want and lose the way you're supposed to. Just don't come to the window and say "This is my first time." It's annoying. We know it is, we can see you coming a mile away. And I know you're just saying it so we don't think you're an idiot, but you all say it, every single one of you, to the point where my eye twitches when I hear you say it. Don't say it. It's been a long day.

Oh, and don't ask how much the bets come to. This is an interesting phenomenon. In almost every other commercial transaction, the customer will see how much they owe on the register screen, but the clerk will say it out loud anyway. Maybe because we have to do it a thousand times a shift, we don't do it. The register tells you how much you owe, but we never tell you out loud. The regulars know this and just look at the screen and pay (usually they've calculated it in their heads already.) But most new customers will just stare at me with a blank face, a twenty or a hundred dollar bill in their hand. It takes me a few seconds to realize this isn't a contest. You're waiting for me to tell you how much. It's right there on the screen, just read it. It's been a long day.

'Celebrities'

Work at an OTB long enough and eventually someone there's gonna mention one of the celebrities who bets at their window. Usually within the first two to three minutes of working at an OTB, actually. Then after about two to three seconds of conversation, you're disappointed by how your co-worker defines 'celebrity.'

Sure, a few A-listers have graced us with their presence but for the most part they'd rather go to the tracks themselves in a private box with champagne and gold-plated binoculars. I apologize if I've gotten carried away.

But the celebrities who are regulars at NYC's branches aren't typically as high-profile. We've got a few supporting Sopranos castmembers, a legendary stand-up from the Chappelle show, a famous and controversial sometimes-Hollywood-writer-director, and more stand-ups but this time Jews from the Catskills. I haven't met all of them, but from what I've gathered, most of them are dicks. Maybe not the Black comic--he might just be racist--he seems to be a gentlemen to the women of his own race and just a dick to me, but I guess that's okay considering what the men and women of my own race have done. But generally speaking, their assholes. Which isn't surprising--they're just regular people, who love horse-racing like Ben Affleck loves baseball and Spike Lee loves basketball, and as we've established most horse-racing fans are assholes. So it really has nothing to do with their professions.

I'm exaggerating a little, but just a little. However, it's our reactions that are more interesting. The employees' that is. They may not be A-list but they're still more famous than we are, and they're all we've got until the ghost of Seabiscuit walks through the double doors. One guy I know keeps one of the actor's account information taped on the inside of his window--just there to look at, like an autograph. His account information. And it doesn't even say his name, it says his character's name. I guess thats slightly less creepy than a lock of hair. Or slightly more.

Even I've locked up. When I come across some of these fantastic and renowned writers, I'd love to talk shop with them and tell them I've won awards and ask for advice. But they don't want to be bothered, they just wanna get their bets in before post time. At least that's what I tell myself. It's probably more my fault I can't treat them like a typical customer (i.e: like crap.) At least I don't memorize their account information, though, right? Right?

Maybe in the long run it's because they're special, even if only by a little, and by coming to where we work and using us to get what they want, that makes us feel a little special. And when you work a mundane city job day in and day out and deal with customers and a general public who don't appreciate you and even look down on you, it's nice to feel special once in a while.

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.

Mumbles

Mumbles is one of the customers from Brooklyn. He's in his fifties or sixties. I mean, he could be in his forties or thirties, with alcohol aging him an extra decade or two, but I doubt it. Though, I wouldn't be surprised. Mumbles falls into a small but significant category of bettors--the drunks.

As in the man is always drunk. Daytime, nightime. Sundays, whatever. Pissed drunk. I'm not sure if his distinct way of incoherent speech is reinforced by a disease or stroke or lisp or whatever but I definitely know the drinking is a huge part of it.

Can't understand a word he says. He's always mumbling and he's always shaking. Can't call him Shaker though, that's someone else. So he's Mumbles. And I never know what the hell he is betting.

He is an angry drunk, as well. Not the 'I love you, man' variety. More like the 'I hate you man, and I'm going to kill you, and sue your company.' Literally. The last few weeks now he's been telling me and the other clerks to expect subpoenas anytime soon. His lawsuit? He's suing the company for calling security and ejecting him from the branch. He was ejected because he was, that's right, drunk, and the disorderly that usually goes with it. We're not holding our breaths for the subpoenas. If we're holding our breaths at all, it's because that smell of whiskey is getting to us.

Once I had just punched in and was counting my money to start the night shift. He flipped out on me because I couldn't take his bet, saying I was too lazy to work. This was like five seconds into starting my shift. The rest of the night, he stood on the other side of the glass, cursing me out and screaming at me and telling the other customers, over and over again, that I was a 'communist' and a 'disgrace to this country.' He really let me have it. For four hours. Didn't let up for even a bit.

The next day we were fine, he even tipped me a few bucks. You'll see that this is a recurring theme in the customer-employee relationship. Instant forgiveness. Though in Mumbles' case, the brain cells in charge of remembering that Monday probably didn't make it to Tuesday. But for the rest, they forgive out of necessity.

The customers aren't just the lifeblood of the corporation-- they're the lifeblood of the culture. But maybe more poignant is this relationship between the customers and us, the employees. In many ways, it's like an unhappy marriage. The hostility between us is thick. There is passive-aggressiveness, and aggressive-aggressiveness. There is constant bickering, frequent arguing, and occasional fighting. There is accusations of communism. But at the end of the day, we're still there for each other. We need their money. They need us to push the buttons on the machine.

Introduction

First things first: I've never really read a blog before let alone write one, please excuse any crudeness in my evolving style. And I don't need to be condescending or elitist there--I've never read blogs for a specific reason. I find individual lives extremely interesting, and with my addictive nature my life would be consumed with absorbing as many personal rants, anecdotes and musings as I could until my eyes dried out and my pixels burned out. This... fascination... with individual lives is why I took so unexpectedly to my job--not my addictive nature, though that's another story. As a writer, and just as an observer of the human condition, the OTB is a school like no other.

What is Off-Track Betting? Everyday there are literally hundreds of horse races going off all over the globe, and every race is being bet on. You could go to the track and pick a winner and make some scratch, but that's one track, and it's usually a drive out. The OTB is exactly what it says-- a location where you can make some bets and watch the races on TV. They're everywhere, and not all affiliated.

What do I do at the OTB? I take your bets, punching them into a computer and handing you a ticket just like I would with a lottery machine. I work for the New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation. I'm what they call a Per Diem (Latin: by the day.) I fill in for people on vacation or calling in sick, hopping shift to shift, branch to branch, across the five boroughs. However, I usually keep within Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan.

I've been there just over two years though to most of my co-workers I'm a rookie. Most of them have been there since the 80s if not the 70s. It says something about this job that people are so reluctant to retire.

This blog has one main purpose and that is offer a window inside a culture that, although right out in the open, is pretty much in the shadows. Most people don't dare step into an OTB parlor, and they don't know what they're missing. It's a regular human safari. Usually, more like a zoo.

I got a notice in the mail today, informing me that in six weeks the NYC OTB will be shut down and me and my fifteen hundred co-workers will be laid off. The reasons and politics behind this are complicated and eventually I will touch on them, but this isn't about that. It's about the days past, not the dark ones coming. To show you something you probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. Isn't that what most blogs, what most writing in general is for? I'd like to give my fellow co-workers as well as my loyal and diverse customers a voice. Even if not one person reads this (the OTB co-workers and loyal and diverse customers not being a Blog demographic) I will feel better knowing these words exist somewhere, even if hidden deep within the intangible regions of the world wide web.

One final note: if you know me, my defense of such an institution might be contrary to my passionate ideals and convictions. But what is life if not a serious of contradictions?

Welcome to my job, and right now my life. It's pretty off-track, and I hope that's what makes it interesting.