The next thing I knew, I had a young girl from Texas on my lap. I won’t go into the details of how I met her. Anyway, there it was. She was 23. I was 36.

She had long blonde hair and was good solid meat. I didn’t know at the time, at the time, that she also had plenty of money. She didn’t drink but I did. We laughed a lot at first. And went to the racetrack together. She was a looker, and everytime I got back to my seat there would be some jerkoff sliding closer and closer to her. There were dozens of them. They just kept moving closer to her. Joyce would just sit. I had to handle them all one of two ways. Either take Joyce and move off or tell the guy:

‘Look, buddy, this one’s taken! Now move off!’

But fighting the wolves and the horses at the same time was too much for me. I kept losing. A pro goes to the track alone. I knew that. But I thought maybe I was exceptional. I found out that I wasn’t exceptional at all. I could lose my money as fast as anybody.

Then Joyce demanded that we get married.

What the hell? I thought, I’m cooked anyhow.

I drove her to Vegas for a cheap wedding, then drove her right back.