Dog Track Days
You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way
On March 14, 2004, when Chris Benoit submitted Triple H with the Crippler Crossface and won the WWE World Heavyweight Championship, I jumped to my feet, ripped my shirt off, and high-fived a man known as Juan Cena. I wasn’t even a fan of Benoit, but like most wrestling fans during that era, I hated Triple H, so I rejoiced when he finally tapped out. We rejoiced. Dozens of us had leapt to our feet and taken to the floor, where the controlled chaos of the previous three hours tipped over into the truly chaotic. The crew of wrestling fanatics I’d gotten to know over the years, led by Juan Cena, screamed and cried and danced like the beautiful losers we were. The old, bald man I’d acknowledge with a nod over the years, shook my hand. The fat boy wrestling nerds I’d almost fought during a previous WWE pay per view, hugged me. The few women who accompanied their boyfriends and ventured into that den of pro wrestling iniquity, shook their heads, and laughed at their ridiculous men. Grown men screaming and crying over other grown men in tights. It was truly a safe space for the beautifully deranged and the socially challenged fans of that great American spectacle known as pro wrestling. It was the Flagler Dog Track, my favorite place in Miami.
From 2003 to 2007, during the peak of my wrestling fandom, I’d go to the Flagler Dog Track and watch WWE pay per views with my beloved crew of Miami freaks. The dog track charged ten bucks a pop for the luxury of sitting in a jam-packed room littered with televisions broadcasting the matches. The lone big screen was stationed in the middle of the room, so if you wanted access to it, it was crucial that you arrive on time and get a spot in front of the line with the other obsessives. As a wrestling junkie, I needed to sit as close as possible to the big screen, so I’d get there early and take my spot alongside the grown men carrying replica championship belts.
I don’t remember how I heard about the dog track showing the big WWE pay per views, but during that four-year span, I was there at least once a month, always on a Sunday. And now, at least once a month, I’ll think of my dog track days and the nostalgia hits me like a body slam. I remember all those people who’ve become ghosts.
I remember the old Cuban woman, who, with the help of her chihuahua, manned the parking lot. She was ostensibly the security guard, but not once in all those years that I saw her, did she ever stand up from the lawn chair near the entrance to the dog track. She didn’t have to stand, because no one—not even the nastiest Miami gangster—would dare cause trouble in her parking lot. She didn’t engender fear, however, but tremendous affection. She reminded you of your abuela. Don’t you dare mess with parking lot abuela. It never had to be said, because to mess with parking lot abuela meant that you would have to mess with us. We were there to watch a fake combat sport, but it would’ve gotten real real quick if we saw you mess with the queen viejita of the parking lot.
My interactions with her were mostly greetings and goodbyes, but I do remember that during a three or four month stretch, she complained about a toothache. I’d ask her about her tooth, and she’d say, “Mejor.” Why do we remember these things? Why are people like parking lot abuela so important to us? Why are they so important to us only after the fact? Like so many people at the dog track, I never saw parking lot abuela again after the dog track abruptly stopped showing WWE pay per views. I hope her tooth is okay.
Miami is constantly changing, so the dog track was never going to remain our debauched wrestling oasis, but that era captured what makes the city so special. At the dog track, I ran into people from all walks of life who I wouldn’t have met otherwise; the diversity of the crew, the mix of young professionals and recent immigrants, the overlooking of certain problematic—i.e., illegal behavior—it was all taken for granted. It was just Miami, where all kinds of weird ass people hang out and it’s all good, unless someone really fucks up.
The dog track has been subsumed by the Magic City Casino and I haven’t been back since, but on occasion I’ll drive by that working-class hood—I almost pull in. Maybe I’ll see them. Maybe I’ll see the guy I used to be.
I remember Juan Cena, whose real name I’ll never know. We nicknamed him Juan because his favorite wrestler was the all-American John Cena. Juan spoke no English and was clearly a recent arrival from Cuba, but he dressed and behaved exactly like his great hero, John Cena. He was Juan Cena. I can get all writerly here and tell you that Juan was learning to become an American and “assimilating” by aping John and what that says about the immigrant experience—but I won’t bore you with that. What matters is that Juan found us and immediately became part of our dog track wrestling family. I can still see him wearing Cena’s signature denim shorts and jumping to his feet after a Cena victory. “Juan Cena,” we’d say, and Juan would perform a few of Cena’s signature moves. What was your real name, Juan? Do you finally speak English? Are you an American citizen now? Are you still in Miami? Of course you are. Are you still a John Cena superfan? Do you remember us?
What will become of Miami now that it’s a burgeoning tech hub? Will the cultural outpost become a cultural capital? People ask me this all the time. Since these people are “intellectuals” I usually spin them a nice little yarn with the requisite buzzwords, but the truth is that I don’t give a shit. It doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t matter, because to those of us who went to the Flagler Dog Track, or places like it, Miami is a state of mind. We know it when we feel it. No matter who comes to town, we’ll know where to find the real Miami. At the dog track, watching wrestling, I was very, very far away from America, just how I like it. I want to use American currency and partake in American luxury, but I have no interest in living in America. I want to live in Miami, but I especially want to live in those parts of Miami in which America isn’t even a figment of my imagination—Flagler Dog Track Miami. I just didn’t know I wanted this back then, so I didn’t appreciate the dog track.
As a young Cuban-American guy obsessed with being American and transcending my “Miaminess” on my way to some imagined “real American” identity, the dog track slapped me back to reality. During my dog track days, freshly finished with my baseball career and beginning to entertain the writing life, I was in peak self-deception mode. I was reading the great American writers and listening to the great American music, but then I’d go to the dog track and hang out with the most Miami people imaginable. It was obvious to anyone watching that I was with my people, but sometimes it can take a long time to accept who you are. You can think yourself into an identity crisis and it takes a guy like Juan Cena to bring you back home.
The dog track wrestling days came to an end because WWE raised the licensing fees for large establishments broadcasting their events, so it made no sense for Flagler Dog Track to keep the show going. Just like that, the dog track wrestling crew, without a formal goodbye or party, was disbanded. I remember a lot about those days, but I don’t remember the last WWE event I saw at the dog track. Like everything in life, it was a moment in time, its importance only obvious after the fact.
I remember those Sunday night drives home after the matches were over, still buzzing from the dog track hilarity. Flagler Street was quiet at that hour, but still lively with that shady Miami action. Women in skimpy outfits perched on street corners, as the occasional car stopped. Viejos on bikes cutting you off, not a care in the world about the possibility of bodily harm. They knew a car wouldn’t hit them at that hour on Flagler Street. There was danger and darkness lurking on every corner, but I felt as safe and comfortable as I’d ever felt on those drives home. Sometimes, when I’d get home, I’d stay in the car, listening to Dylan and dissecting the night’s matches. The truth was that I didn’t want the spell to be broken. As soon as I got out of the car, the night would officially end, and reality would reassert itself. I had a fine life, but I wanted to extend that dog track magic—I wanted to live in that Miami. Even then, I must’ve known that those dog track days would come to an end sooner than later and that Miami was due for one great transformation after another.
A few weeks ago, I made the drive again. Miami’s been changing furiously the last few years, but that stretch of Flagler heading toward Little Havana remains mostly unchanged. It’s a working-class hood, where immigrants get by and make do. As the Cubans say, “en la lucha,” which translates to “in the struggle.” When I remember parking lot abuela and Juan Cena and everyone else in the dog track family, I think of la lucha. La lucha never ends, but you can counter it and even fend it off momentarily when you’re having fun with your people. I miss my people. Estoy en la lucha, but I don’t have my lucha libre people to make the struggle a bit easier.
I stopped in front of Magic City Casino, hoping to see parking lot abuela, but she wasn’t there. Like all the other abuelas I’ve known and loved, she’s gone now. La lucha is over for them. Magic City is a gritty casino catering to the older working-class Hispanic crowd, but the dogs and the wresting crowd are long gone. Still, it’s a very Miami place. It’s changed, but the spirit remains. One day, when I’m ready to be truly coldcocked by nostalgia, I’ll check it out. For now, I drive back home on that same street, still thinking of the same things, a little wiser, a little dumber, forever en la lucha.
No other form of entertainment combines the extremes of grandeur and absurdity quite like wrestling. Maturity is perhaps the ability to accept the latter while retaining enough childlike wonder to still be able to appreciate the former.
I once sat on the edge of a string bed in a common room in East Yemen. The only other occupant was a weather-beaten tribesman who had probably emerged from the desert on some errand and would shortly return the same way he had come. A wrestling show called Nitro was blaring out of a small TV, so loud that it was testing the limits of the built-in speaker. He was there watching it when I entered the room and put down my bag. I wondered what this man, who had undoubtedly experienced the realities of tribal war, thought about the implausible events unfolding on the screen.
Every town has a few venues like Flagler Dog Track. There is something that draws you to places like this and then keeps you coming back, but then once you are there it is always about the people; this weird blend of souls who have given up on themselves but haven't yet given up on life, and others who hold down respectable jobs, although you'd never know it. When these places close or change ownership and pivot, some of the old clientèle scatter like a flock of pigeons and resettle elsewhere. Others disappear forever, as if the spell has been broken and the madness that possessed them has been cleansed. I like to imagine them leading normal lives somewhere.
It took a macho working class WWE watching jock to speak truth about the contemporary literary scene because no one else had the balls to (I include myself in that statement, hell I’ll probably delete all my substack comments before ever querying agents).
I don’t think Alex Perez realizes how important he is to the world of literature. If anyone, as critic/author/editor/social commentator, has the power to move this medium past the puritanical rut where it’s spent the last two decades, it’s him.