2001-08-11 - 8:03 p.m.

pappazon's all red!

---

We�ve been having our ups and downs. That�s the way it always is with Marius, only these days they're all downs. You can never leave well enough alone. You�ve got a few bucks in your pocket, you can never call it a night. Because the hundred could be a thousand, if only you let it all ride on the trifecta on the last race at the betting parlor.

We roll up the escalator and buy a program. Sit down, flip through, scrawl down numbers. Flipping ash in the tray. Dead serious. Place your bet, sit down for the big race. He turns up the volume on the tiny TVs and flips the channel to his race. All around the half-empty parlor, people are doing the same thing, looking from their screens to their programs, then cursing quietly or clapping their hands.

Marius has about four different bets on this race to keep his bases covered. He holds his tickets in his hand as he watches. He�s got one bet on a long shot, Free Spirit, and he�s doing well. If he lands in the top three, Marius wins a few bucks.

�All right, we�re looking good, come on come on come on. Yes! Yes! All right!� he cries as Free Spirit nudges ahead of Lucky Day for third. He�s won a few bucks. Then he checks his tickets. If Free Spirit hadn�t beaten out Lucky Day, he�d have gotten one-two-three right on this other ticket. That�s two thousand dollars, easy.

�Oh, Shit!� he screams. He slaps the ticket. �I cannot believe it.� He writhes. He curses. He shakes his head in disbelief. He goes up to his fellow gamblers.

�Can you believe this shit? I had it. I had it.� The replay comes in, agonizingly. Free Spirit, the 10 to 1, nudged out Lucky Day by a nose. By a nose! He can�t help but feel that this was it, this is the race he�d been waiting for, his big score to get him back on his feet. And he�s had the door slammed on him again, his money is gone. He can�t believe he�d get so close this many times without winning.

But he has. After he�s sulked and wandered and lost a couple more races, he goes to cash in his tickets and take out his winnings. He�s down to about 50 bucks. But there�s one more race before they close down the parlor for the night. Everybody�s filtering out, the bar is closed, but he�s got to try one more time. He lets it all ride on an 8-1 shot on the last race. But just as the horses are getting set, the televisions turn out.

�We�re closed up, guys,� a manager says.

Marius pleads with him. �Aw, come on man, can�t you just keep it on for the last race? We just placed our bets.� The bar staff is all packed up and ready to go, just waiting for us. The manager nods relectantly and turns on a television up by the ceiling. As the bar staff watches us, we watch the screens, and Marius�s horse flops, finishing in the back of the pack.

�Oh, come on,� Marius says. And he rides back down that escalator, all the way down, all his money gone.

-

But soon enough we�re up again � Marius finds a hotel that will take his dog, right there in Wrigleyville, only four hundred bucks a month. We roll out to the girl�s house in the suburb and the dog, Melvin, hops enthusiastically into my car. Marius cuddles with him in the back, rubbing his fur and smiling. Everything�s okay when you�ve got your dog by your side.

And then, two days later, we�re back down. The hotel, it turns out, charged four hundred a week, and Marius is without a home again with time running out and nowhere to put his dog. As he sits at his booth outside the baseball game, he flips through the yellow pages in search of inexpensive hotels. No luck. Shit. He�s low on money, no place to stay. He�s packing up his stuff when Micky comes by.

�Give me the cell phone,� Micky demands.

�What do you mean, give me the cell phone. I�ve got to call to find a place to stay.�

�Well, guess what,� Micky says. �That�s not my problem. It�s my cell phone. Give it to me.�

�What am I gonna do? Where am I gonna stay?� Marius asks.

�That�s not my problem. Give it to me.�

As Micky drives away, he snaps at me. Marius left the case to the cell phone in my car last night, and I left it at home. �Get it to me tomorrow,� he shouts.

I�m ready for a break from Marius, too. He�s been calling me regularly, and I�ve been regularly not returning his calls. Now I�m going away for a week � my brother�s getting married � and he�ll have to find himself a new rider until then.

No driver, no home � what the hell? Oh, man. This is really bad, he says. What the hell am I gonna do? He could go to Wicker Park, he knows people there, maybe somebody could put him up for a few days, but�

�Fuck it,� he says. �Take me to the off-track betting. You can drop me off there.�

So we ride south down the highway into oblivion. I tell him I don�t think he should be gambling, but I�ve learned that you can�t convince people they�re wrong on such matters. He�s got to see if this is his lucky day, he�s got to find out every day, even if it drives him broke. And maybe this will be his lucky day. Maybe it�ll be the day he wins ten grand.

�If I win ten grand,� he tells me, �I�ll move to California.� This is the kind of thing you can do if you�ve got ten grand. It seems the only thing that could get him out of his current rut. He can just imagine it � a whole knew city of unknowns, a new playground to conquer. Chicago is old, constricting. Everybody knows him too well; they�ve all bought his videos. In a new city he�d explode, life would be new and exciting again.

And buoyed that that image of riding off with Melvin into the California sunset, he gets out of the car to try his luck. I wish him luck and take off. I wonder how he�ll get out of this fix, where he�ll sleep tonight after all his money is gone, but I�ll have to leave him to deal with it. I�ve got my own issues. In two days I�ll be flying out over the continent, back to my family in Massachusetts, and Marius will feel like a distant memory.

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