Kill Switch

“The horses.”

Da loves the horses. I love the horses with him.

“The horses. Today?”

“First race goes off at twelve fifteen, Da. We need to get cracking if we are going to do this the right way. Right? The racing form, the grandstand…”

“And the first of the day,” he says, beaming, finishing our standard statement of purpose.

“The Triple Crown of earthly pleasure on a sunny day,” I say, pointing at the author of the phrase, him.

A horse, a beer, my grandfather, and a full race card. That to me is an embarrassment of riches. The fact that since I’m not strictly old enough and Da has to smuggle me the beer only adds to the fun. So much so that when my folks offered to throw a party for my high school graduation a month ago, I thanked them politely and opted instead to spend the evening after the ceremony at the track with the Old Boy.

I promised myself, anyway. With this being my last summer home before college in September. With this summer being different, in every way, practically every day, regarding Da. I promised myself we were going to be together just as much as I could manage it.

We are going together. This summer, the last summer. Everywhere, together.

He loves stuff. He’s never been a big drinker, but he loves a beer. He loves the sweaty musculature of a racehorse. He loves the awful smell of the race-day crowd that can make even the horses wince. He loves experience, and to be with him when he’s at it is to be splashed with all the overspill of his spirit.

He is a human great-day-out, my Da.

In a few minutes he is back from his room and all zipped up in his racing colors. Though they are not all that colorful. His pea-green tweed flattop cap, almost-matching baggy pants, button-down white shirt, gray jacket with lots of pockets-like a fishing vest with arms.

Still, he manages to look dapper as hell.

We are off to the races.

The sun is brilliant, and we are settled into the bleachers with a beer between us and a likewise shared racing form.

How it usually works, especially in fine weather, is that one of us does the reading while the other does the sipping and staring at the sky, the track, the birds, the other customers. Then we switch. Great system.

Only, as the sun warms my eyelids and the seagulls squawk for me to go order some French fries, I realize nobody is reading and filling me in on the day’s possible winners.

“What are you doing, Da?” I ask when I open my eyes and find him hunched forward, looking at the concrete step beneath our feet. His elbows are resting on his knees, the racing form resting on the ground.

He looks to me, the flattop cap perched at the precise slight angle, more like a beret, that he always prefers. He is showing me a puzzled face that is almost as puzzling to me. “What do you want me to do, Young Man?”

I point down at the form. “I want you to read me that, like you always do, so we can pick some winners.”

His eyes clarify, and focus, like they are mechanical eyes, like they are binocular eyes. “You don’t need me,” he says firmly.

Not crazy about the tone, so I change it.

“Of course I need you, Old Boy,” I say, bumping him playfully with my shoulder. Then I bend down and retrieve the racing form. “Always have, always will.”

I am stunned when I feel the grip on my arm. It is not the grip of your average old man. He lifts me right back up and brings my face close to his.

“You do not need me, Daniel,” he says. “You need to not need anybody. Do you understand me?”

The three seconds I waste being speechless convinces him that I do not understand.

“Needing people is death. Needing, is death. Once you have a need, you have a flaw, you have a weakness. Once you have a weakness, you have a bull’s-eye. You attract all the wrong kind of attention from the wrong people. Do you understand that?” He still grips my arm. “Do you understand? I might love you-not saying I do, but I might-but I don’t need you. Nor anyone else.” He says those last two sentences oddly loud, like he’s putting on a show for somebody. Though there is not another bettor within at least six rows of us, and their body language pretty clearly indicates they could not care less about an old guy and his grandson unless one was going to be riding the other in the third race.

“I understand,” I say.

He lets go, takes the beer, and relaxes back in his seat.

“Harry Horse,” I say after a few more quiet minutes. Da has had his eyes closed, so I know he is appreciating the surroundings like he should. I expect things to slip into place now for our grand day.

“What?” he asks.

“I have a horse here, in the first race. His name is Harry Horse. He’s thirty-three to one, but he’s placed in his last three races and he loves the dry conditions. This sounds really promising.”

He tips his cap back on his head. “Harry Horse?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That sounds like a horse you would have picked when you were six. Do you remember, when you were little, I’d let you pick one for me out of the paper and I’d bet on him?” He smiles broadly at the memory. “Remember that?”

“Remember it? I loved it. I lived for it. Never won a nickel, though.”

“That’s because I never went for your foolish picks then, either. Come, let’s go down to the paddock.”

He hops to his feet, springy and frisky as a colt, and starts bopping his way down the grandstand toward the little parading ground where everyone gets a pre-race glimpse of the big, beautiful athletes.

“Hey,” I call, running after him, “are you saying… you never bet on those horses for me?”

“Don’t be silly,” he says, not even glancing back at me. “Nobody in his right mind lets a child bet on a horse.” I can tell by the sudden hunch of his shoulders, he is having a nice little chuckle for himself over this.

“Hey. Hello, hey, Da, this is my childhood, my cherished memory you are toying with here…”

He stops and waits for me to catch up. As soon as I do, he starts jabbing me in the chest with his index finger. “You are not a child now, though, are you? It is time for you to get grown up. It really is.”

He is not poking me hard and in fact is not speaking harshly or meanly. Despite the words, the overall effect somehow manages to be warm.

Doesn’t keep me from feeling sorry for myself, or for my younger self, just the same.

“Oh, come on, now,” he says, grabbing me in a semiheadlock and walking me along. He would want no part of the moping. As his arm drapes around my neck, over my chest, his MedicAlert bracelet slips down his wrist. I see him look at it for several seconds as we walk.

I want no part of that.

“I still can’t believe you tricked me over the bets all those times, Da.”

That pulls him away from the bracelet. “What, you were just a kid. You didn’t need the money. What you needed was to know that your beloved grandfather was thinking of you and doing something nice for you, even when he was out having fun with his pals. Now that’s devotion.”

“But you never even did the nice thing!”

“But you didn’t know that! That’s what was so nice about it. And it shouldn’t offend you if a poor little old man saved a couple of bucks at the same time, right?”

“At no time were you a poor little old man. Ever.”

He laughs, pushes me sideways. “No harm, no foul. I looked good, you felt special…”

“A total win-win, huh?”

“Exactly. Cause if I betted on all those stupid glue-pots you chose, it would have been lose-lose. Mrs. Musby… Cotton Candy… Fuster Buster… what kind of numpty bets on horses with names like that?”

He does this trick too-making a fool of his memory-loss bracelet.

“You still remember the names I picked,” I say admiringly.

“Course I do,” he says. “You’re my boy.”

“But you never bet on them!” I shout, mock furious.