The Dad Report by Kevin Cook

Author:Kevin Cook
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

IN THE EARLY ’70S, Dad launched a small-time bookmaking business, mostly as a favor to his friends. There was Denny, a former hoops star who was now an assistant coach, and Steve, another local coach. Fred, the former college cornerback. Buddy, Jeff, a couple guys named John. Dad booked their bets for two reasons. The first was to keep the action close to home. Why should he and his cronies rely on a bookie? Dad had the Gold Sheet to set the lines (which he tweaked to take advantage of Buddy’s weakness for the Reds or Steve’s habit of betting on the Cardinals). His second incentive was the vig. Short for vigorish, an old Russian word borrowed from the loan-sharking world, the vig is a bookmaker’s cut of the action. It usually works out to 4½ to 5 percent, but can reach 10 percent, making sports betting a game in which you actually have to give 110 percent. On a good day, the vig might pay for our spaghetti and meatballs at Dad’s favorite restaurant, Italian Gardens, with candles and wicker-clad Chianti bottles on the tables. The vig also kept his asthmatic sedans topped up with gas. He practically collected old cars. He would write off all or part of a buddy’s gambling debt in exchange for an old heap and drive it till it boiled over once too often. At that point, he’d get it going one last time and putter to Indianapolis Raceway Park, where he would trade the car to a demolition derby promoter for a fifty-dollar bill. I tagged along a couple times. I liked the dust and noise and gear-churning chaos of cars ramming hoods on a figure-eight track until only one was left to take a muddy, flat-tired victory lap among the losers’ steaming husks. We’d get a lift home from one of the demo drivers, sweaty men who tended to look like Johnny Cash or Jerry Lee Lewis and smelled so strongly of gas and motor oil that I thought they might catch fire when they lit their cigarettes.

If Dad was booking that night, he’d want to get home before the West Coast games started. He’d need to be by the phone. If it rang while he was in the bathroom or feeding our dogs and cats, I’d grab it before my mom could.

“Is Ace there?” Denny’s familiar low voice. According to Dad, Denny bet because he missed playing ball. And because his job was beneath him and his head coach was a dumbass. Denny had called my dad Ace ever since he heard about Dad’s pro career.

“He’s out,” I said. “Who do you like?”

“Cincinnati, Atlanta. Detroit. A dime apiece,” he said. A dime was a hundred dollars, making me the middleman in a bet worth three thousand packs of ten-cent Topps baseball cards.

“Got it,” I said.

“Say it back.”

“Reds, Braves, Tigers, all for a dime.”

“Good boy,” he said. “Tell your pop I hope I don’t bust him too bad.”

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