TITANIC: JIMMY BRESLIN, RIP

i was not gifted with good hair

Ma sent me to the local discount

barber, who would mutilate my cowlick

making me look even worse

if i walked past the shop

on Addison Street

in summertime he would

wave me in, give me a buck and send

me to the Southport L station

to pick up the Green

Sheet, the tout sheet of the day

so that he could phone his 

picks into the bookie

i managed classroom boredom by

reading Damon Runyon stories,

Guys and Dolls, Blue Plate

Special and such, which led

to my college years horse playing

and academic underachievement

when they weren't running locally i'd bet

two bucks across the board

at New York City tracks

the race results were on page 1 

every day beneath the fold

on the Herald American, the first edition

hit the news stands at 2PM

almost instant gratification

in those glorious years

i met Ralph the Bookie

and Vic the Druggist's nephew

a clerk at the neighborhood downtown

stationery store who

also took bets - my school work suffered

but having become a reader i 

discovered the Daily Racing Form

--one immortal headline: FINISHED FULL OF RUN--

purchased at Chicago and Michigan

which none of my Loyola classmates

appreciated or wished to borrow

i'd think of the barber and his Green Sheet

when i'd visit the south loop warehouse

where Ralph the Bookie 

operated the freight elevator 

to place my bet

or in the Eye-talian grocery store 

with the steam table where the

B&O railroad workers lunched

along with Ralph, Tony, and so many others

i learned how to appear circumspect

these days when i mention Damon Runyon

to the smarties at morning coffee i get

a blank look, even from the guy with

the j-school diploma from an elite venue

among his countless excellencies

Jimmy Breslin wrote Runyon's

biography, as well as many other 

books and countless newspaper columns,

second in the trade only to Mike Royko

during my elective absence from the Vietnam war,

the summer of 1969, when Breslin

was on the mayoral ticket with

Norman Mailer--Vote the Bastards IN--

i thought to volunteer

in some meager capacity but decided

my escape to Canada was more urgent

as luck would have it the Great White North

found me unsuitable for landed immigrant status

O they're all dead by now, Ralph, Royko, Vic's 

nephew, Vic himself, Damon Runyon 

decades ago, then Mailer, in 2007--

and yesterday Jimmy Breslin

there's no finish to this meager

remembrance

nothing, nothing at all, except for

FINISHED FULL OF RUN

copyright © 2017 by patrick o'hayer