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Going to the Dogs

Mark Pearce

    It was late at night as I drove through south Florida, looking for a place to stop for a few hours’ sleep. My destination was Key Largo. From there, I would head on to Key West to see Hemingway’s home. This was the final leg of one of my cross-country trips. My play had closed in New York, and I was headed home, but taking the long route. I had come down the coast from Kitty Hawk, where I had viewed the Wright Brothers’ Memorial. The next few days would bring me across the southern coast to New Orleans, then home. But tonight, I was just looking for a place to sleep.
    I spotted a dive motel with fake palm trees and a small courtyard. The office lights were on, as well as the “vacancy” sign. I checked in and got my key.
    The courtyard had a couple of wrought iron tables and a scattering of metal chairs, all painted green. Although it was two o’clock in the morning, there were a couple of guys sitting at one of the tables. They had beer bottles and coffee, and apparently nowhere to go. They asked if I’d like to join them for a drink. I pulled up one of the chairs and sat down.
    Larry was wiry and dark, and had a fierce intensity about him. Tom was lanky and blond, with a relaxed, easy attitude.
    “We’ professional dog track gamblers,” Tom said, his chin resting on his chest, a proud smile on his face.
    “That’s right,” Larry insisted. “We’re professionals.” He went to their motel room and brought me a pile of dog track programs as evidence. “See?” he said. “We go to the track every day.”
    Three years earlier, they had been living in Illinois. Larry had shown up at Tom’s apartment, angry and bitter over his girlfriend leaving him. “Let’s get out of Illinois,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere.” Tom had suggested either California or Florida. Larry had chosen the latter because it had dog tracks. They had packed up Larry’s car and driven non-stop from Illinois to Florida, taking turns driving while the other slept in the back seat.
    They had rented a room in this dive motel and headed for the dog track. Quickly broke, they had sold Larry’s car and returned to the track to recoup their losses. When that money was gone, they had gotten jobs sweeping out a local restaurant.
    “But that’s just for money,” said Tom. “We’ professional dog track gamblers.” The words carried the same pride as the first time he had said it.
    The motel was run by an old Cuban woman. She came out at one point and asked if they were bothering me. She was smiling when she said it. She hugged Tom around the neck. “These are my boys,” she said. “I feed them when they got no food.”
    They both beamed; she went back into the office.
    Together, they made a great story teller. Larry would weave complex tales of the things they had done; Tom would sit silently, then interject some philosophical insight, tying together the things Larry had been saying.
    At one point, a hard looking woman with short, dirty hair came into the courtyard and sat down at the table with us. She was taking a break. She was a hooker, they explained; although that’s not the word they used. She didn’t seem to care one way or another. After a while, she went back to work.
    “Why you in Florida?” Tom asked.
    I told them I had had a play produced in New York and was now taking a meandering road trip home. Tom was pretty sure he had heard of me. I told him it was unlikely. No, no, he was pretty sure.
    A car pulled up. A man in a business suit got out and headed into the office. A few minutes later he came out and started up the stairs. “Do you know what time checkout is?” he said.
    “You can check out anytime you like,” Tom answered.
    The man smiled and nodded.
    “But you can never leave,” Larry added ominously.
    The smile froze on the man’s face. He edged up the stairs sideways, never taking his eyes off us. I don’t know whether or not he recognized the lines from the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” but I don’t think he rested easily with the three of us sitting outside his room.
    “You should write about us,” Tom said.
    “I will,” I promised. “Someday I’ll write a short story about the two of you.”
    “What will you call it?”
    “‘Going to the Dogs,’” I said.
    “That’s us!” shouted Larry.
    “That’s perfect!” Tom agreed. “Going to the dogs! That’s us to a T!”
    I had been concerned they might take offense at my play of phrase, but they had obviously reached that place George Orwell had referred to as “the deep underbelly, where you’re safe and warm; when you’ve sunk beneath responsibility, care, or insult.”
    Larry tore the corner off one of the dog track programs and wrote down their names and his mother’s address in Illinois so I could send them royalties someday.
    “No,” Tom insisted. “He doesn’t have to pay us. We’ professional dog track gamblers. I just want to see our names written.”
    I told them I needed to head on to bed. I had a long drive ahead of me.
    “You should stay over a day,” Larry said. “Go to the dog track with us tomorrow.”
    It was tempting. I almost stayed over. But I’ve read Faust, and I’ve seen the Twilight Zone. I knew I only had one chance to escape being a professional dog track gambler. If I didn’t leave by morning, years later you’d have been able to drive into that dive motel and find the three of us, sitting around a table, telling of the night I had arrived, and our adventures at the track, and how I had sold my car to recoup our losses. And how we were all three professional dog track gamblers.
    I packed up the next morning and drove on to Key Largo.
    But as I sat on the deck of an outdoor seafood restaurant, watching the sunset over the ocean and listening to a mariachi band, I thought of Larry and Tom, and all the characters in all the backwaters around the world. And I lifted my glass in silent tribute to the fascinating, intricate tapestry of life.

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