ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife
Book One, Part One, Chapter 44: The Bright Yellow Sheet
The day after our huge Pick-Six miss, Ernie, Joshua, and I hold an informal conference at the dining table, a rare place for us to meet.
“I can’t keep playing the track the way I’m playing it,” Ernie says. “It’s not working anymore. I used to make money at it, but going after the Pick Six has eroded our capital. We need to think about income. We need more income.”
Joshua already has two jobs plus school. I work the newspaper route with him and edit and type Ernie’s turf articles. Just now, Ernie’s not writing fiction. In all these years he’s sold only one short story — to Fate magazine — plus the erotica novels to Carlyle Communications. Every other novel he’s written, including The Thoroughbreds, the coming-of-age novel Summer Afternoons, and Jacob and his Friends, about an alcoholic librarian who finds sobriety, lies in its white box on a shelf. So, too, does his memoir.
“Why write any more novels when I can’t sell the ones I’ve already written?” he’s asked me more than once. “Why write anything?”
Whenever Ernie has soured on the fiction, he’s turned to the track. It’s the see-saw he rides — now the fiction, now the track. Lose at the track, try the fiction again. But now they both seem like dead ends.
“I’m a good handicapper,” Ernie says. “I’ve lost money on the Pick Six, but I’m still a good handicapper.”
“You’re the best, Daddy.”
“I write articles for Racing Action and American Turf Monthly. I have a name in racing circles — even if it is a pen-name. Why not put out a tip sheet? If I can’t take down a big pot, maybe I can help others get a share of it.”
“That’s a great idea, Daddy. I’ll help you sell it.”
I don’t question Ernie’s thinking, either. It makes perfect sense to me.
“What’ll we call the sheet?” I ask. I answer my own question. “Your pen-name is Mike “Lucky” English. Let’s call it Lucky’s.”
“Of course,” Ernie says. “We’ll name the sheet Lucky’s Best Bets, and we’ll print it on bright yellow paper. It’ll be the bright yellow sheet.”
The Bright Family? At it again?
