AT THE DOG TRACK
Wednesday and Saturday evenings
were like winter all year round,
the chill air chased cigarette smoke
and stale beer smell across the concrete stands
of White City Stadium,
above the yelps of greyhounds,
the baying of bookies,
the manic twitching of tic-tac men
signaling the odds back to the boss,
the chalkboards chopped and changed,
number three, five to four, four to one the field.
Greyhounds were just numbers,
no “Secretariat,” “Sea Biscuit,” “Phar Lap,”
just dog one, dog two, dog three,
dog four, dog five, dog six.
My job was the lowliest, holding a gateway
between lower stand and upper stand,
my toes freezing in my school shoes,
only punters paying extra allowed through
to the better bar, the better view,
the better toilets, the bigger bets.
The races dully repetitive,
dogs pushed into the backs of boxes,
an electric hare set whirring on its inside rail
tripping the trapdoor as it sped past,
the hounds falling for the same old trick,
haring after the uncatchable, inedible lure,
bolting for the inside line,
scrambling around the bends,
kicking up dirt in the straight.
Two futile laps, the photo finish flash,
then scooped up by the handlers,
led back to the under-stand kennels
and who knows what fate for the failures.
I counted the minutes from six until eight,
a tea break, past the kennels, the dog handlers,
the stench of dog piss and shit,
fifteen minutes nursing a chipped white cup of pale tea,
listening to the old lags, fag ash falling
from the corners of their mouths
as they droned on, every other word “fuckin,”
“hotfuckintipmatefuckinnumberfourisasurefuckinthinginthefuckinlast”
The last race at ten, then home,
thirty windswept minutes along the A4
on my Lambretta Li 125,
the one pound fifty in my pocket
barely enough to cover petrol for a week,
and a copy of Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly,
less if I’d listened to a hot fuckin’ tip.
—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024
__________
Mike Hopkins: “I’ve had some terrible jobs in my life, but none more depressing than at the dog track. The first job I ever had was two nights a week, guarding a gate between the lower and upper parts of a stand at the White City Stadium dog track in West London in the ’60s. The stadium has since been demolished. My previous lives include many years as an IT analyst and shorter spells as an up-and-coming slam poet and a teacher of English in Vietnam.” (web)
