The Dog Boy, a 39-year-old man child, is being forced from his home. He has nowhere to go. Charon's Crossing, a failed racehorse, will be put down unless she wins her next race, but she has lost each one of her previous 64 races. The worst is certai...
For a cat, being a mouser is a hard life, but life is harder for the mouse. Today, Henry Billy Greene will become a cat.
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the cats and the mice
In a tone as flat as Kansas, a voice calls out, "20 minutes to post time. The horses are entering the paddock."
Speaking those same words in that same order happens to be some man's job, but his voice suggests little enthusiasm. It's like the lobotomy of time is working with such efficiency that the man forgets his thoughts before he ever has a chance to remember them. And yet, the effect on those listening is far different.
All throughout Pimlico's clubhouse and grandstand, mice skitter nervously and head toward the paddock. Though the space is cramped and uninviting, they lean anxiously over the rails that separate the cats from the mice and they carefully study the horses. They watch them walk, sweat, tilt their heads, prick up their ears, and bump purposefully into the other horses. Then one by one, the mice drift away and burrow themselves into newspapers with print so tiny that even the Minotaur might get lost in that maze of information. When they are certain of what to do, they lift their heads and artfully peek over the shoulders of the other hopeful mice. And then they wonder. How many came to the same conclusion? Which ones did not? Do they know a secret? Is it something I should have known? Do they look more confident than me?
Then every last mouse creeps toward the betting windows while studying the mice around them. They watch them walk, sweat, tilt their heads, prick up their ears, and bump purposefully into the other mice. It is one minute to post time. All bets must be placed. This single minute is the most perfect time on Earth – the time when all answers are the same answer – the time when each mouse is right until most of them are wrong.
When they reach the betting windows, the cats await them. They smell the mouse sweat, but it doesn't matter to them. They are indifferent to the worry because they have a job to do, so they wait emotionlessly behind windows decoding what they hear. Number two across the board or seven on the nose. It's a parley or a box, a part wheel, a full wheel, or a front wheel on this and a back wheel on that. It all makes sense if only for a moment.
Then the races are run. Afterward, the smartest mice gather in small groups and expound on topics like the quality of a horse's breeding, the quality of the competition, and (of course) the quality of those mice who so wisely picked the winner. The rest of them (the great quantity of mice – those who weren't quite so smart) skitter around the clubhouse and grandstand with their eyes cast downward hoping to find a winning ticket that was accidentally discarded.
A voice as flat as Kansas announces, "Thirty minutes to post time."
The cats wait patiently. They sit behind betting windows perfecting a slouch that will become useful if they are somehow able to stretch their nine lives into old age.
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