San Diego Noir

I loved the hectic pace of the casino. I took some classes and learned how to deal cards and soon moved from the dining room to the casino floor. I worked the Pai Gow and black-jack tables dealing cards to old Asian women with too many diamonds on their hands and gray-skinned locals. I discovered I liked the gambling environment so I got a second job at the racetrack. I found myself dealing cards at night and during the day punching tickets for the most miserable bunch of optimists you ever saw. There were guys I’d see every day the track was open and there were people I’d see both at the casino and at the track. Where did they get the money to gamble full-time?

I ask because after too many years of dealing cards and keeping up with the ponies and not doing shit about my illegal status, I was mired in a financial shitstorm. This casino, unlike most gaming establishments, allowed its employees to play the tables as long as we weren’t in uniform. Some days I’d blow $200 at the track and another $200 at the card tables at night. Oh, I’d win a few, but the odds are always in the house’s favor. Soon, due to fiscal pressures brought upon by my creditors and unsound investments, I found I owed over forty large to various parties, none of whom I could afford to pay or continue to owe. I owed Eddie P. the biggest part of the nut, $25,000. I borrowed from him to pay Lazy Louis some of the $20,000 I owed him and another guy who I owed over $10,000. I’d been juggling for a while but it finally caught up with me. Living off credit is one thing, but owing these guys was another. Banks garnished your wages. Guys like Eddie P. and Louis took body parts for payments and killed you if you didn’t fulfill your obligation.

That’s when I finally listened to my cousin’s pitch about San Diego. I’d never paid him much mind before. The last thing someone without a green card wants to do is drive south, but I had few options in L.A. I left my two jobs suddenly and without much notice. The world I inhabited there was small and my creditors were everywhere. I had to get out fast. So when my cousin said, “Hey, we have a racetrack here. I bet you could get a job,” I told him see you in three or four hours. I picked up my two paychecks, snuck out the back door, visited my weed man, and didn’t stop until I got to San Diego—not the “real” San Diego but the barrio my cousin lived in.

Getting a job at the track was easy. The racing season in Del Mar is a big affair. People come in from out of town and businesses thrive. The hotels are packed and the restaurants and bars are full of revelers. Ask any local waiter or waitress about working opening day and you’ll hear horror stories. To me they were hilarious, tales of inebriated men and women coming in for dinner after a day of partying at the track. Some arrive already too wasted to place their next drink order. It’s not unusual to see a breast fall out over dinner, and there always seems to be some girl in a miniskirt splayed ass-over-tea kettle on the walkway. The thong has made this particular vigil worth waiting for. Occasionally there is no panty to speak of.

Del Mar, like all other tracks across the country, is open all year. The regulars don’t have a racing season. They come in year round betting on races as far away as Belmont in New York or Pompano Beach, Florida. There’s always a track racing. Regardless of this, opening day is opening day. And the people turn up. Women in hats and parasols showing off new clothes purchased strictly for this day, wearing sunglasses too big for their faces. Companies host parties in private booths where men in sunglasses drink too much and wear vulgarly logoed designer wear. The train pulls into the station half a mile away and unloads cars full of already-drunk partygoers. In Los Angeles it’s burnouts, and only on major race days does anyone dress up or host a party in private booths. Not in San Diego. They hang celebratory bunting. You’d think it was the World Series for six weeks.

I took my place behind the ticket machine on opening day, excited about the possibilities. I was in my element and it was a glorious day in North San Diego County. My slate was clean and the first thing I was going to do when I saved a bit was see about my immigration papers.