Roar Beneath the Race Track

I am more than the rotten and gored planks. What has decided to settle upon me, is garish. What once was mother rain, dusted with flecks of the sun and brilliance of the scarred moon, is salted anguish. I have no people, no ownership and no method of control, I simply am. The thoughts and wills of a millennium, those that forged, survived, thrived, and died, established my own will and consciousness. I am the land, the dew and all that trails forever in the minds of my own being.

But I am not loved.

Stables, whips, screams.

To win. To experience. The will to power in time that doesn't exist.

A race track.

Dresses, hats, suites and ties.

Traditions of old, that ignore the blatant control and demise of others.

The wants of a people trodden upon, they call for me, for something beyond the touch of wastefulness and greed.

-

You could breathe, that was fine, but the haze surrounded everything. I couldn't recall a time when the sun was so different, blotted out, an orb of reverberating orange and red, tumbling in the thick smoke, carried from the westen fires.

I’m so exhausted, working in the concession stands of the race tracks is worth the pay, 17 an hour plus tips! But that’s only myself and a handful of employees, for everyone else, 15, 12 and probably less for the people who could only speak spanish. I wouldn’t be surprised if their wages disappeared for some reason.

There is a horrid tension at the tracks, the employees have either broken down or left, while others remain because of the pay, in one day I had accumulated over $360. But to what end will this help? I only want to be with my dog, to cruise on my board in the open streets after the cool rain has dried, and to talk and listen. In the city, I am always on the stoop, that’s the easiest way to witness and take part in any new event. It’s exciting to know that without trying, your day will always remain important, an essential memory, a moment between one being and another.

The drive is an hour each way.

Wake up at 6 a.m.

Tend to the needs of the house pets and plants.

Dress and smoke a bit of bud.

These days I loathe the job, a frustratingly awful bore.

Get the drink.

Place the food.

Follow the server.

That’ll be $28 please?

For two cans of beer! That’s ridiculous.

They buy the garbage anyways, wallet clips, hand bags, and pressed pocket pants bloom with the checking accounts of the bored, fake upper class.

May I clear your table folks?

I’m sorry mam, but I am only a runner, I can't take your order.

Bathrooms are to the left, the white barn with green sidings.

How many can fit here? I hear they are preparing for at least 1500 people on a busy day.

I expect more.

The summer is constantly wet now, rain remains in the weather forecast. There's so much green, lush and brimming with a natural majesty. On arrival, the land is overtaken by the immense racing complex, a historical sight as those familiar with the yearly event place it. Historical is the cover word for classism and a strange old way of life that is willed back into existence once on the grounds.

I don’t want to be here, slinging overpriced bad food and false pleasantries to allow the customers to feel at ease. For they come to enjoy the scene. The atmosphere of horses set at the gates and whipped to speed, jockeys no taller than a child but guarded by monoliths dressed in stunners and pepper sprays.

They are worth millions!

If somebody knocked out a jockey's leg, then that’s one less problem on the track. I could see this being the case for the men who believe themselves to be in the mafia, or those who scream drunken names and stain shirts with cheap liquor and spiked seltzers.

At the bar stand, I would slide some free drinks, it was an easy way to assure a minimum $5 tip, and perhaps a good conversation or a sob story.

Two very large men, pit bulls with red beards, tattooed knuckles and the name Vinny.

Hey we got you, bodyguards man, bodyguards.

Is he being bothered anymore? Red beard puffs on the cigar, slams a swig, puffs again, glazed eyes and an eerie smile.

I’ve been where you're at, she says as I take the paper tray, a mess of precooked flat breads and frozen meatballs slung with cheap mozzarella, $16 maybe?

What does that mean?

I've been where you’re at?

But that’s how they all act, we are less than them, the help as one woman placed it, when the aggressive and demeaning stares hunted us down in our gray work clothes.

The third floor was the brightest, large box seats with placard names, tickets, pretzels, baked supermarket chicken. There is no grander scream at the tracks, then the wealth lost and gained here.

No, there is one scream.

On the first Sunday it had happened, it never occurred to me that the horses could be injured on the tracks. I heard no sound, probably I was in the kitchen with the staff, munching on a fried chip, and attempting to speak spanish with a co-worker. Nobody told us of the horse, and the days passed until I asked the question.

How often does that happen?

The young woman with half purple and half blonde hair, and a man whose face was mostly covered in the shadows of a red ball cap, locals.

About eight horses are put down a season.

They do it on the tracks?

They have to, they can’t move the horse.

Both faces contort in discomfort.

Where else can we work for this kind of pay though?

Neither are happy.

There is no joy here.

Why does a 60 year old man need to be placed in labor jobs, when he can barely move a box without horrible pain? The pay is good.

Why does an older woman fall apart in tears, an umbrella above her, the comfort of a hand on her back.

I've never yelled that way to a customer before hic NEVER!

Tears and snot fall to the ground, sucked into the wet earth, brown and muddy from the cold downpour.

Something strange is happening at the tracks, the first floor chairs are peeling from layers of red paint, seats for employees and the lower rabble rousers as someone put it. No breaks, no lunch, and an ever decreasing work population. Management is begging us to stay, pleading to find other workers, but they are comfortable short changing and forgetting to pay.

Something lingers in the air, it’s not the stench from pounds of spoiled food, or the sweet sickness from lingering beer cans, no, nor the obvious disdain between the employees.

It was a roar, behind the screaming cicadas, within the scrambled eyes of the mare, and the exhaustive footsteps of the help. A roar that seeped into my bones, and I knew others had heard it as well, because as we would meet, the realization hit, that our suffering is our bond.

-

I will cease to be, but I refuse to end so quietly. I, spirit of dominance that exists with the land, give thine self up, to sacrifice my consciousness and entire being.

For what?

But for the revolution, the revival, and the hope.

Hope is all that is required to spark change, yet that requires trust and time, neither I have. In place a plan to revert them to a state of animal, of what they have harmed and what they will become, it only takes curiosity to open the door.

-

Under the bar hut outside, the gray work shirt stuck, rain cascading in cold heaves, I sit and wait. Races will continue even in the downpour, it just means the track will have to be grooved and set all over again.

I’m alone, the customers inside or under the buildings roofs, a good spot that nobody can see me in. within the moment it appears, the faint outline, no more than jumping water in the air. A brown paper box, not floating, but held somehow above stone paths..

The approach is sudden, out of the rain the box floats to my feet, dry as dirt, not a drop on it. A familiar essence, a smell, and a thought.

Within is the life of land, should you open it, my wrath will consume all in the area. I beg of thee, open and set forth the curse, establish the path of what is right.

Gone was any figment of the being, in place was the box, absolutely normal in every way, brown paper tied in string. Exhaustion, micro sleep, something else at play.

It wasn’t a matter of what I saw, but truly boredom, whatever thoughts that had run through left the space of mind. Dried grass and pine needles, nothing else, but the fragrance was delicious. Another toss to the bin, a moment of nothingness as the day's relentless dullness carried away.

-

By the fourth week the tracks had closed indefinitely, the structure of the building was bad, but had only gotten worse as the humidity and storms slashed at the scene.

People began to go missing, and not just a couple, but hundreds of folks! It didn’t matter what area they had come from, age or so on, people came into the complex and suddenly disappeared, the track being the only connection.

With the shut down, deterioration was quick, there was a sudden flood that managed to rise into the tracks, swamping the entire place, destroying the ancient foundation and new equipment. An absolute loss.

What's Most bizarre are the wild horses, out of nowhere an explosion of a population, where once the racing grounds were filled with people, are now empty save the strange appearance of horse hoof prints within the pockets of the building that remain.

It’s still going on, and the missing people have sparked national attention, but nothing else could be found in its walls. If I were to visit those grounds, which I won’t, I bet it would smell of grass and pine, and that a roar could still be heard as the horses galloped away.