“A Day at the Races” | Anthony Satori

“I hadn’t played the horses in years and was bemused with all the new names. There was one horse called Big Pop that sent me into a temporary trance thinking of my father, who used to play the horses with me. I was just about to mention it to Old Bull Lee when he said, ‘Well I think I’ll try this Ebony Corsair here.’

Then I finally said it. ‘Big Pop reminds me of my father.’

He mused for just a second, his clear blue eyes fixed on mine hypnotically so that I couldn’t tell what he was thinking or where he was. Then he went over and bet on Ebony Corsair.

Big Pop won and paid fifty to one.

‘Damn!’ said Bull. ‘I should have known better, I’ve had experience with this before. Oh, when will we ever learn?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Big Pop is what I mean. You had a vision, boy, a vision. Only damn fools pay no attention to visions. How do you know your father, who was an old horseplayer, just didn’t momentarily communicate to you that Big Pop was going to win the race? The name brought the feeling up in you, he took advantage of the name to communicate. That’s what I was thinking about when you mentioned it.’

In the car as we drove back to his old house he said, ‘Mankind will someday realize that we are actually in contact with the other world, whatever it is.’”

– Jack Kerouac