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 I
shrugged off that experience, but it foretold a fascination with what
was to come. Sometime after this experience, the three of us moved to
Montreal. Within two months of this move, my marriage was over and my
daughter and I wound up in Toronto, more aware of each other than we had
ever been. In one evening, I celebrated my wedding anniversary and ended
my marriage, all while eating dinner at Ruby Foo's.
It
was March of '82 when we left Montreal at my husband's invitation. The
train route to Toronto ended at Union Station and from there we rode the
subway to Kennedy station. With our two suitcases in tow, we walked to
my mother's apartment, which she shared with my dear stepfather.
I
had originally intended to return to Guelph. But Mom and my stepfather
talked me into staying at their Toronto apartment with my daughter, where
I slept on the pullout bed in their spare room.
It
was tough trying to secure an apartment, and I played the waiting game
for a home of our own. I worked temporarily while I waited. I had $10,000
in the bank and was somewhat financially secure. I held off getting a
permanent job until I was settled in my own place and had my furniture
and possessions with me in Toronto.
I
found an apartment, and my stepfather, who never let me down, saw that
my furniture was delivered. I then applied for a job with a bank and after
weeks of their deliberating, I was offered a permanent position. My life
seemed to be settling down.
My
daughter and I went to the Canadian National Exhibition on Labour Day
weekend, and I was to start work the following Monday. We walked through
the CNE and I don't really remember all the details, but I began to play
the games of chance. It was fun. In fact, as closing time came my daughter
and I were all smiles, thrilled to have enjoyed ourselves for the first
time since we left Montreal.
After
that I lived for the CNE, and began buying $2 instant scratch-and-win
tickets. I was consumed. One of the early scratch-and-win tickets also
had a number for a future draw with a prize of $100,000. I eagerly kept
all these tickets in anticipation of the future draw. One day I counted
them up, I had over $200 in useless tickets. I began to realize that something
was wrong. I searched for the number of Gamblers Anonymous and hesitatingly
called. That night, unlike the other nights I called, someone answered.
I
told him that I thought I might have a gambling problem, and that I had
been buying lottery tickets. The reformed gambler on the other end of
the phone scoffed at me and said buying a few lottery tickets was not
gambling. He had gone to the track for years and that was real
gambling. I told him I had bought more than a few tickets, but he was
not impressed. Not being at all forceful, I hung up. I decided that I
would try the racetrack and that weekend - fearful, but drawn to it, I
made my way to Greenwood Racetrack.
It
was overwhelming to a novice: noise, crowds and strange odds, which I
would later become a master at, showing displayed on television screens
beside the horses' numbers.
Thoroughbred
horses were running that day, and asking help from a ticket seller, I
made my first bet. The horse won and I lined up to cash my $5 winning
ticket.
I
asked a man in line ahead of me, obviously also a winner, how much I had
won. He said the horse had been at 4 to 5 odds and I would get back $9.
I was disappointed. The man showed me his winning ticket: a $100 bet.
I wasn't so much impressed as in wonder at someone risking so much money
when the payoff was so small. Obviously, he was adept at playing "sure
things": the bane of all gamblers.
I
made some other bets, but finally I made two or three at once; one of
which was a show bet on a horse going off at 20 to 1 odds. I was learning
about odds quickly. I went to put my tickets in my wallet and I couldn't
find it. Frantically, I dug around in my purse. Of course I couldn't have
lost my wallet, I told myself, but my search was fruitless. I was in a
panic.
I
retraced my steps, but my wallet with $17 in it and my means of getting
home were gone. The track was a long way from where I lived. No one knew
that I had actually come to a place like this alone. How would I get home
and explain my shame, not only at having gone, but also at being the victim
of a pickpocket.
A
prickle of fear was all over my body, but I calmed myself and hoped that
maybe one of my horses would win. Having nothing better to do, I nervously
watched the race. My 20 to 1 long shot came home. I cashed the winning
ticket and got back $6, enough to get home and back to real life.
I
left the track sobered by my experience. But I would return to that haven
of shame and compulsion many times in the years that followed and walk
a tightrope of living a dual identity.
In
a way, I would remain true to my nature and not be dishonest or cheat
anyone involving a money transaction for the sake of gambling. But to
myself, I heaped lies onto lies and my self honesty was diminished. Thus
what I was changed forever. Changed too, was how I would look at
the people who passed through my life. I regarded the addicted as fellow
travellers for whom, at times, I would share an unspoken empathy that
did not always produce sympathy. The unaddicted became God's chosen; just
normal folks, but sometimes within me I wondered if they too harboured
a secret self. I regarded anyone with a forced smile or show of gaiety
with suspicion.
The
compulsion to gamble took a firmer grip on me. I left reason and reality
behind on the nights when I discovered that I had inadvertently brought
my banking card. One night when I discovered the card, I made a frantic
trip to the automatic teller to withdraw money and then raced to the betting
window just in time to make a huge bet. It never mattered if I won or
lost; though I usually lost. Winning just kept me in the grip and atmosphere
of the racetrack, but I always left with nothing in my pocket. I would
trudge out and wait by the bus stop at the Harvey's.
Sometimes,
but only sometimes, I had the $1.60 to purchase one of Harvey's wonderful
chocolate milkshakes and I enjoyed the reality and treat of it as I entered
the real world and shook off the horror and hopelessness of the madness.
The many trips I made to the banking machine drained my account, even
with my overdraft, and I would steel myself to survive until my next paycheque.
As
the bus moved through the darkness, I would look out the window and dwell
on how secure the homeowners were, but I knew that such a luxury as a
house of my own could never be mine.
Once,
when the bus stopped for a light at Greenwood and Danforth, I looked up
to the top window of the bank. Perched on the window ledge was a lone
pigeon, which huddled on the ledge with its feathers ruffled outward,
the small head turned around and buried into its back feathers as it sought
shelter from the bitter night cold, and I wondered in whose grip we both
were held.
Then
a series of events came out of reading horoscopes, an amusing pastime
for some. My sister, who was also born under the sign of Libra as I was,
played a game with me during our evening telephone calls.
We
speculated for what we read made us believe that soon the heavens would
be with us. We found a new horoscope that forecast hope and promises for
us both. I took special meaning from a forecast that urged me to look
into a relationship from far back in my past and deal with it, for there
I would find the key. I remembered a love I had encountered when I was
17 and the great dysfunctioning that had begun for me with that love.
I began to explore my early past and how I was still living with it.
I
continued to go to the racetrack, but I carried a memory of someone I
had loved, now dead. My betting frenzy increased and my feet dragged with
the sheer hopelessness of it all. Then one night my gambling frenzy peaked
as I sat in the smoking room, hanging my hopes on the outcome of the televised
races. I bargained with God that he should let me win one time and secure
enough money to walk away forever from that place and go no more. I kept
making trips to the banking machine, buying more and more vouchers, only
to lose.
I
was in more of a fever that night than ever before. As I frantically purchased
my last voucher, I believed I heard the ticket sellers talking about me,
but I made a bet and sat at a table to watch the outcome of the race.
The force of my need to win was so great that I called upon Heaven to
let me win as a sign that I could walk away. Heaven answered with silence
and I lost the race. But I got up and walked away feeling that something
had left me.
In
the weeks that followed I went no more to Greenwood. I told those who
loved me and who grieved over my compulsion that it was gone. What took
hold of me was a thirst for the beauty and caring of life - the small
joys. I began to have money in my pocket and was now able to purchase
the little things I had learned from gambling to do without. I looked
to a future when I would have enough money to buy more expensive items.
This
metamorphosis had not begun just with the horoscope. With my sister's
help, encouragement and sympathy, we talked and I exposed the true horror
of the gambling and my helplessness. Many factors all came together. In
the end, I was someone who cared about smiling at people and listening
to them. However, because of my nature I still cared too much about everything
else, but not myself.
I
took myself back to age 17, when my odyssey had began and then arrived
at 50, still the same person. I lived the filling of those years trying
to deal with the disapproval the world had heaped on me when I was 17.
I sought safety in marriage and created a child. My reality for many years
was to put my heart and soul into being a dutiful wife, but all that I
offered my husband was rejected and I began gambling. I heaped scorn and
abuse on myself by gambling, but within I knew I had been true to myself.
I never stole or cheated to gamble, and if I borrowed money, I always
paid it back.
I
was 50 and my future was to learn to find small joys and the perks of
life. I bolstered myself with daydreams of a man I once loved and a sometime
belief that we could be together. Perhaps true heaven, even on earth,
is the ability to dream dreams.
Our
mood of the moment is how we look to our end. The gamble of life and the
chances we deal with are our reality. In despair we want oblivion, but
if we have ever achieved the brass ring, we cling to the pleasures of
life and want more.
At
50 years of age, I cared again. I never made a mark on the world, save
for those who loved me and those with whom I dealt fairly. I wondered
sometimes if I even wanted to go 'round on the go 'round of life yet another
time, if I had the chance. I was not certain if I wanted to go.
I
took better care of myself and I laughed more; I gained my daughter's
respect and I functioned and went to work everyday. I had money in my
pocket and most days I lived in the reality of the world. I had come to
terms with life.
But
someday, if you feel a hollowness or if you're in a place and it sparks
an echo within - you know - they call it deja whatchamacallit, then remember
this tale and think of me. If you listen closely, you may hear me laughing
as I go around again with a certain someone, reaching for the brass ring.
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