Now I will place this bet, move these chips across the felt, there now, all on red, safe, unobtrusive, a hidden bet when I need to hide. And now, I place my hand, my whole palm and my fingertips on the table flat, just to see if it will give way, a little pressure here, will this table hold my weight? It is entirely possible that it will collapse beneath me, for it has become a surface broken from the tangible world.
***
I see now that my chips have dwindled pathetically. I need to get back on track. I need to find my way again, no distractions, no way around what I’m actually here to do.
What am I here to do?
Ah yes, I am here to spend some time, to perhaps play for many, many hours of time without a break, and without losing too much of what I have. But for this to happen, I need to be comfortable and I need to be focused. So a little riskier bet is called for now. The gods have become displeased, as is apparent. They must want me now to change things up a bit, to put something on the inside, and how shall I do this now? Perhaps on twenty-three, for some reason I’m always drawn to that number, though it has never once come up when I’ve bet on it. In fact, the surest sign that happy little ball will avoid a slot at all costs is if it knows I have placed a chip or two there. All bets on the inside are simply offered up as sacrifice, necessary gifts to the forces that rule this little world.
So there now, twenty-three, and then perhaps seventeen, for here I cannot second guess myself, and certainly some on one and two but never on zero unless I’m in the mood to negate any good will I have accumulated both here at the table and in the universe above. Yes, twenty-three, seventeen, one, two, and now I’ll offer up a few on thirty-two just for fun.
And the hand and the stopped motion, all motion of course except the wheel which never stops and in fact which the croupier has had to slow down a few times this evening.
So I have offered up what I had to offer. And I have destroyed myself just a little in turn, and now I feel I must do this again, keep things different, this difference pushing forward to just one more spin of the wheel, just to show that I am operating in good faith, that I understand the gods and I know I always leave out the goddesses, perhaps there are goddesses too who look down on me at this table and pass judgment.
I must not show that I am uncomfortable. I must not show that I am desirous. I must appear stoic, staid, almost motionless, expressionless, an automaton compelled toward motion by someone other than me.
***
At some point in the near future I’ll need to break the rules. Because I have to use the restroom really very severely, and I’m getting tired on top of that. How long now, five hours I think. Not bad. I could stop here. Just take it all and cash in, go to sleep, but pee first of course.
But I’m not supposed to leave this table. It’s too early. I’m not supposed to leave yet. And besides, I know nothing about him as of now. I need to know something, anything, any tiny little treasure of information.
Treasure. Now why did I use that word? It’s funny, that’s not a word I would use every day. Could be a sign of something, my using that word treasure after having perhaps not used it for many years. Could it be a sign that tonight will be different? Something certainly is different about tonight. I wonder if ‘treasure’ is related to ‘treason,’ which may be related to ‘tread,’ but that has a different vowel sound so maybe there is no relation. I should really study more word derivations. What is that called again, the study of word origins, god I can’t remember what that’s called. It’s something I used to know. I know I knew this at some point. What the hell is that word, well of course now this will bother me.
I want to ask this man. That would be an excellent question to start some mundane, yet charming, slightly off beat, but hopefully intriguing little dialogue. Yes, I’d like him to find me intriguing. Or at least not boring. But what the hell are those people, those word people called? The words of this question are just on my tongue and I want to say them aloud, but then I’m sure he won’t hear me, he seems very into the game, seems to understand the solitude of this game, the single thread that runs between a player and the gods, unconnected to anything else, uninterrupted except by distractions such as these. I want to ask him the question and see him smile and if he knows the answer I will tell him how impressed I am and if he doesn’t know the answer we will have a laugh about it.
***
He’s following all of the rules.
He is, but I am not.
And it is strange and somewhat frightening the way I start to feel I own things that are not mine to own. Or that are not even in their natures to be owned.
Right now I feel I own this table. Because I have been here the longest. Because I have made what I started with last this long, because I have made jokes with the croupier, and I have seen a man tonight up ten thousand dollars then go down it must have been at least five thousand that he ended up losing after it was all done and he walked away, red eyed, red from anger or red from sheer exhaustion.
I have been part of the life of this table for quite a long time now, and so anyone who joins this little world is somehow beneath me, or beholden to me, or at least should look to me for guidance. I should be the guide, the one to let others know what the gods favor tonight at this table. I should be the one to introduce them to this universe, to show them around. I should be all of this.
And now I feel I own this man just because I have been sitting here imagining that he would like to talk to me and touch me just as I would like to do so to him. I have convinced myself of this somehow. How do I do that, when there is nothing to suggest it? But he must, why else would he be sitting here still?
He is following all of the rules right now. He must be looking away from the wheel, as is required.
He must be taking careful note of the marker as it lands, for that is the one true way to find out the outcome of any spin.
He must not be tracking the numbers that have come up.
He must be looking for distractions just as I am now absolutely distracted.
But I realize now I am much too distracted, I’ve lost my focus, my integrity. I have lost this table. While I have gained ownership of this man, I have lost this table. He owns it now, that is clear. I must sort out how I feel about this.
***
My eye itches, but I dare not scratch it. I need to resist this need to bring my fingertip just up to my right eyelid and scratch, dig in to the flesh to ease this irritation. My eyes hurt now with fatigue. Yes, I am tired. This is all getting quite tiresome. Why now can’t I leave? Why can’t I just take my belongings, well, in fact only my purse, and stand up, and walk away? What will he think then?
He would be destroyed, confused. He would question himself and his strategy, look for me here or there after he leaves the table much later in hopes of seeing me again, speaking with me, asking me to have a drink.
I do not leave because this man would be heartbroken. I am sitting here now out of pure philanthropy. Goodwill. Charity.
I should just put everything on red, let it ride until it’s gone. I should do this now. But instead I will shift in my seat, make sure not to scratch my eye though it still needs some attention, and quietly absorb the life outside this circumscribed little world, this little bubble of a universe from which I cannot escape.
Yes, over there I see a waitress and that man is clearly attempting to seem attractive to her, though she must not care, she must see hundreds of men every night who wish to be with her in some way, who wish to touch her. And now I’ll look the other way, to that woman sitting at the machine hoping, so hoping and hoping yet again that the next sound she hears will be representative of her tiny prayers being answered. And this woman is wearing a ridiculous hat, perhaps for luck, it can’t be that she finds herself attractive in it, so undignified, a hat like that.
Yes, this is good. I will continue to look ar
ound. It is a comfort in some way. I feel comforted knowing what is outside this frame of reference, the frame of the table and the croupier and the man beside me.
I breathe now, inhale and let it out and relax the muscles in my face, my nose, my mouth, my chin.
***
I need to pull my eyes away from now another man, at another table, blackjack? Something like that. I can never tell what all these tables are and most of the time have no idea what games are played there or why anyone could possibly find them interesting.
Nothing else interests me, really. Or at least I should say nothing else in a casino interests me except the wheel, this wheel that spins perpetually and yes even when I’m not here to see it.
I could be with my son one evening, listening to him laugh or telling him a story or listening to him tell me a story, and usually his stories don’t exactly make that much sense, but I love them anyway, yes even when I am as far from this casino as I can ever imagine the wheel still spins, and there are still people sitting here in this very seat which I now occupy, and the same set of croupiers come and go, and the same sets of chips are placed, are stacked, and are lost, and his world doesn’t stop when I am out of it, the rules stay the same, the gods are here for someone else.
Or are they?
There is no chance in this game. It’s all the whim of these forces, the chance that everyone speaks about is really only judgment. Do they approve, or do they not approve? Has one followed the correct procedure, or haven’t they?
And anyway the wheel in fact doesn’t care about any of it – it could take or leave the gods, it will turn around in its perfect inertia forever no matter what may come and go around it. And that is why I come back here. To feel part of something eternal.
Well, now I’m getting a bit too far out, a bit too philosophical about the thing. I come because it’s fun. I come because I see people, and sometimes I laugh with people, and sometimes I meet a person with whom I share an evening, or even a moment. I come to see outside this world, and I come to see inside it too. And I come to force myself to look up and down and to this point or to that point, or to this or that spot on the table, or into the croupier’s eyes sometimes to see what might be there.
***
My eyes are so heavy but of course I can’t show this either. I need what they call a second wind. I have no idea why people call it that. I should truly look things like this up when I get home, something about knowing the derivation would help me explain my circumstances at the moment.
I need a breeze re-breathed in me, a second wind, perhaps it’s a sailing term? Like a ship would need another wind to push its sails toward their destination. So then second wind is all about destination, about arriving somewhere, somewhere, and about needing help to get there. Needing help from whom? From the gods? From the forces outside one’s own control.
But if only those ship masters back then would have realized that the gods themselves are just as in the dark as he seemed to be, or I am right now, just as in the dark about what has or is or ever will happen. They are the classic third person limited teller of the story, they act as if they make the choices but in fact their actions are simple response to what they find out just like the rest of us.
So now, the ball has landed decidedly this time, quickly, without hesitation, on the number eighteen. And how would they have known that? How could they have known what the ball had in store, and how happy it is tonight and so will dance for a long time, or if it is sullen and will make up its mind quickly.
Yet still, I am beholden. Still, I must placate, supplicate, always be on the lookout for the moment things might take a turn for the worse.
***
Yes. I clench my hand just a little, a congratulatory move. Yes, I knew all I had to do was to change it up a little, to show that I’m still paying attention. I looked exactly away from the board, and kept my eye on the felt right beneath the croupier’s hands, I kept my eyes there until the marker was placed, and it all came around to me this time.
Now, to let it ride just one more time?
If I do, leave it on red. Yes, this is the right course.
But the surest way to lose is to leave it there, because I had really been thinking to move the chips to black. How long can it come up red over and over? No, it has to be black this time.
But then, I was thinking about even. All the way on the outside, yes, I know, but where? I’ll leave it where it is. That way I can’t be blamed for what happens. I’ll leave it there, and wait, and wait, and wait, this waiting is torture with that tonnage placed on red, just sitting there, like a sitting duck, as I believe some saying goes. Just waiting to be taken, to disappear under the table. Will they go? Will they go?
I have come so far, so far up after being so far down. I have decided that I will not care either way, that either way I needed to make a statement. No more hidden bets. No more cowardice. No more reflection and dismay. No. I will make a real statement, to say to all sitting here that I know what I’m doing, that I’m not a one-time player, some tourist to this region who maybe sits down for a moment but has no connection.
I do it so that each person understands that I own what is going on here. I own it again, because I have won something back. I own it again, because I have shown myself to be worthy. I had only needed a distraction, yes, a rather large distraction, or perhaps I needed a distraction from the distraction?
Either way, I have come upon this mountain of chips again, and he has said congratulations, and I have said thank you and now they are there, exposed, vulnerable, out in the open air on red.
***
The sounds of the chips being stacked, being counted, being tossed away, or tossed toward what someone hopes will be something great. There’s a real difference between those who stack their chips neatly, one atop the other in perfect cylindrical fashion, and those who really do toss them, jagged, imprecise, so that the croupier needs to constantly attend to the table, to put order to things.
There’s no one like that at the table at the moment. It’s all clean lines, except this woman insists on placing bets on both the first and second third. Here again is a woman doing that, and here again a patient man, wanting to tell her she is being silly, but refrains, and why? Not out of respect. A person would just tell someone flatly what they think, if respect were involved. No, it’s that old protective instinct that causes so many problems, that renders women helpless, unfortunate.
In a story I read somewhere an adolescent boy asks, quite genuinely, if a girl really has a mind, or is it just a bunch of buzzing bees up there. I can’t get angry at this. This woman somehow gives cause for that statement. And if that boy were talking about this woman in particular, I would absolutely agree. Was that Updike? Cheever? Updike, I think.
Things are going well, and now beautiful little even is my best friend, my best little friend there because it is being so good to me, but then again, now long can it come up even?
And there, over there, a scuffle of some sort. A fight. Is that really an argument that has broken out between those two people? What could that possibly be about? In this place of serenity, peace, communion?
I realize at times that not everyone shares my perspective on the beauty of the casino, the purity of its purpose, the sheer lack of concern it holds for all of our little troubles. There is no place for conflict in a casino.
And there again, I have kept my eyes where they need to be, and there again even, and there again these chips of mine grow in number, in their perfectly portioned stacks of ten, although now at this point, thought I hate when it happens, the croupier has decided to exchange my ones for several twenty-fives.
***
At times tonight I can hear the sound of my little boy’s voice in those machines over there, just slightly, something in the low hum of activity, the energy, the excitement in those whirs and beeps and whistles. r />
My little boy.
He is asleep right now, at home asleep. In his bed. In his red pajamas probably. Or at least I hope he is asleep, not driving anyone to madness as he does on those nights he has trouble sleeping. He’s so much like me when it comes to sleep. He is in his bed now. I hope, at least, that he is not wondering where I am, wondering why I wasn’t there tonight to give him a big hug and a big kiss and read him one of those stories he likes about the sad dogs. I hope he has just gone peacefully to sleep, eyes closed, dreaming, and that he will tell me about those dreams in whatever way he can when I see him again.
He is far away from me now.
Or rather, not far, but it’s just that there is no place for him here. No place really for the thought of him. It feels, actually, almost indecent to be dreaming about him now.
But now these sounds on the table remind me of the click clack of his toys as he brings them into the bed. Always he wants too many toys, and I must rescue him from the spread of them all over his bed once he is asleep. And he wonders each morning where his toys have gone, sad because they have fallen out of bed. Each night I must make this decision. Peaceful sleep now, or happiness upon waking. It is a difficult decision each time.
But now I have indulged far too long in this. He does not belong here in this place. Now I must stay focused, stay on target, stay here, with this man still next to me, and the one word he has so far said still clear in my memory, that one congratulations, congratulations, congratulations, a sentiment that has now seemed to vanish with sheer benign introspection.
He seems within himself now. Still following the rules.
The rules require extreme inward attention, the rest only background to the directions one is given at each spin. He is using blue chips, which he stacks in no particular amounts and no seeming order. I have no idea how he keeps track of things. How does he count them, how does he know where he stands?