The computer was set up on the table next to the TV. I had seen it there for the last six months or so and just figured he used it to play video games or surf the Internet for news headlines. But a class? My father?
“A class in what?”
“Greek mythology.”
“Greek mythology! Ha!”
He said, “Greek mythology. I’ve always been interested. It’s a good class. I’m learning a lot. I wish I had gone to college. If I could do it all over again, I would go to college. If I could do it all over again, I would give up the women and the drinking and the gambling and I would spend more time with the learning. Now turn the volume back down, quit this damned mushiness, and let a dying man watch his game in peace.”
I turned the volume back down. Then I turned it back up.
“What now?”
“You would give up the gambling?”
“Yes.”
“You gambled?”
He closed and then opened his eyes slowly. He said in a quiet voice, “I was a serious gambler, I’m ashamed to say. Your mother has some idea. She thinks she knows, but she’s not even close to knowing how bad I was. I was good at hiding it. I was good at lying to her. But I could never catch any luck. I was an unlucky gambler. I was bad. How much I lost. What I lost could have bought this house three times. What I lost could have sent the three of you to college, no problem at all. I’m ashamed to say it, but it’s the truth. I’m a big fake. I let you down. I let everybody down.”
“No, Dad. It’s all right. It’s all right. You kept a roof over our heads.”
“You have your mom to thank for that. If she didn’t start stealing from me to pay the bills, the roof would have been taken away. Oh, I can’t lie to you anymore. The roof was taken away. I hit rock bottom. I lost the house.”
“You lost the—”
“I lost the house. I couldn’t pay the mortgage. I couldn’t pay the second mortgage. My friend K, you remember K? You called him Uncle K. He’s not your uncle. You have a white uncle? But when you gamble, everyone becomes your friend or your uncle because everyone you know you have to borrow from. K and me, we were friends for years down at the docks where we worked. He was good with money. He didn’t gamble. He had good credit. He really bailed me out that time. Saved my ass. When the bank foreclosed, he bought our house and let us live in it. We pay him rent. He’s a good friend. A real good friend. He saved our house. He saved my face with my children. He saved my face with you. But when I die and when your mother dies, everybody will find out the truth about the house. They’ll know I was a goddamned fraud. There’s no inheritance.”
“Dad—”
“I can’t tell you not to gamble, son, because it’s a manly thing to do. It’s what we do. It’s like drinking or smoking or chasing women. It’s what we do. But if you haven’t started, then don’t start. If you’re doing it, then handle your business, don’t let it handle you. Don’t let it go too far. Take what you can and get out. And don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know about it.”
“But Dad—”
“Please turn the goddamned TV back down so we can watch the game.”
“But—”
“Please. Please. Please.”
My father got his wish. He died two weeks after he finished his course in Greek mythology. When the grade came, it was an A-plus.
56.
(A Fourth Definition of Insanity)
When I told him t’fetch,
He buried his bone.
When I told him to sit,
He shit.
When I told him t’eat,
He runned away from home,
And I ain’t never seen him nor since.
My father told us that one. He used to say it all the time. He called it his old stupid dog song. I think I understood it better after he told me he was a gambler.
As a gambler, I have a complete understanding of insanity.
I hit my first royal flush the day after my father died.
MEDITATION
A gambler is nothing but a man who makes his living out of hope.
—William Bolitho
A gambler is nothing if he is not an optimist. Why not win it all?
Why shouldn’t it be possible to win it all?
—P
57.
(My Beloved Allergy Boy)
My son sends me a birthday card.
He never forgets my birthday, my allergy boy. He’s in high school now. It’s one of those made-up cards with lots of blank space that you can write in and say something special. There’s a picture of a brown-faced father and son (drawn in cartoon) playing chess on the front. On the inside, the words are, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DADDY. OH, AND BY THE WAY, CHECKMATE!
That’s my boy.
In the white space, my son has written, thanks for being a great dad, p.s., today’s Cash-3 numbers will be 123, ha-ha, love always, your son. Real sweet.
Of course, I play the numbers. Straight. I have to drive way up to Idaho to play because Nevada has no lottery. Ha-ha-ha—Nevada has no lottery—ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. So I put a grand on it.
Of course, it comes in. Straight. 1-2-3, just like that. I have just won $500,000 in the Idaho Pick-3. Seems like when you really don’t need the money, you just keep on winning.
I call C.L. and tell her about it. She asks me to send it to her right away, she really needs it. Who can need $500,000 right away? So we get into a fight.
She hangs up on me.
I call back all night, but she never picks up. When I stop calling, the phone rings. It’s C.L.
“You never really loved me.”
“Yes I did. I loved you with all my heart, but you couldn’t get that monkey off your back. What was I supposed to do, huh? Watch you destroy yourself?”
But she has already hung up. She hung up in the middle of the word “monkey.”
I call back all day, but she never picks up.
That night, after my class— Yeah, the casino gives me money and comps to teach a bunch of tourists colorful, useless stuff about gambling. Yeah, imagine me as a teacher. But I like to talk. They like to listen. They like to dream about hitting it big like me. I’m a hero to them. With my diamond rings, my Rolex, my cowboy hat.
Like I was saying, that night after my class, this Australian guy is bothering me with theories about play and crap about addiction—stuff I don’t really care about because it’s all a bunch of crap, really. The truth is, you’ve got to be in it to win it. And if you’re in it, you’re probably going to lose big. And I’m telling him this to get rid of him, but he’s a pest, following me down to the casino, then out to my car when I pretend I’m sleepy and going home (though I live in the casino, in the hotel upstairs). This is what happens when you do these damn classes. It must suck to be a real teacher. They couldn’t pay me enough to do this for a living for real.
I turn to the Australian guy and say, “Look. Here’s the deal. Gambling is a serious addiction and I don’t want to be irresponsible. You look like a nice guy. I don’t want to sermonize like the happy gang at GA, but I don’t want to glamorize the thing either. There’s enough of that going on these days on the Internet and TV. I make money gambling because I am lucky. It’s pure luck that I earn what I earn. The best advice I can give you on gambling is my father’s advice to me: If you haven’t started, then don’t start. If you’re doing it, then handle your business; don’t let it handle you. Don’t let it go too far. Take what you can and get the hell out. And don’t tell me about it. I don’t want to know about it. In fact, I never want to see you again, buddy. Beat it. You’re a pest and you talk funny. Stop bothering me. I swear I’m gonna call security on your Crocodile Dundee ass.”
The guy goes away pissed.
Screw him.
I’m not in the mood to be nice. I’ve had a long, hard day. I’ve got to get some gambling in.
Then I remember my beloved allergy boy. I call him and thank him for the card. Thank him for the 1-2-3. I tell him, “Thi
s is just between you and me. Don’t tell your mother. Please do not tell this to your mother. She would kill me. She hates me giving you guys stuff, but I’m sending the money home to you.”
He squeals with delight. He’s the luckiest kid in the world.
“But there’s something you have to do with it. You have to put it in a secret account I don’t know anything about, okay?”
“Okay.” Still squealing.
“I’m serious. I don’t know when I’m going to hit rock bottom. I want to make sure you guys are taken care of.”
“Rock bottom? You’re rich, Dad. Richer than all my friends’ dads put together. You’ve even been on TV.” Still squealing.
Kids. God bless ’em.
I miss being surrounded by them on the bus. I take it back—it must be great being a teacher. Maybe I should teach. Maybe I should write a children’s book and teach them not to gamble.
Or teach them to do it right.
“Just promise me you’ll do what I say.”
“Okay, Dad,” he says. “You can count on me.”
“I mean it.”
“Serious.”
“And whatever you do, never, ever, ever start gambling, okay?”
“But we could be like a business. I could give you numbers to play.”
“Stop kidding around.”
“We could be a team.”
“Stop making jokes. This is serious. Do what I tell you, okay?”
I can’t make sense of his answer for all the squealing.
He’s the luckiest kid in the world.
He’s got $500,000.
That night at the table, my seat gets hot. I win another two million. That’s the way it goes. When you really don’t need it, you just keep winning.
I call C.L. and inform her answering machine (she will not pick up) that I am sending her $100,000. I ask her to forgive me.
She does not call to say thanks. She does cash the check.
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT THE RAIN
58.
What I know about the rain is that when it falls, there’s like a million drops of water per second. The grass gets wet, so does the sand.
What I know about money is that a million dollars isn’t a lot.
The poor say, I wish I had a million dollars. Why do they say that? The poor will have a million dollars. Over their lifetime. Twenty-five thousand dollars a year times 40 years of working, say driving a bus (not counting raises, not counting promotions, not counting overtime and second jobs), equals one million dollars. So you will have your million, but it is not a lot.
I see a million dollars at my private Hold’em table every night stacked up in chips. One night I won a million. One night I won two millions. One night I lost three millions. Don’t get excited. It’s just three millions sitting side by side, and a million isn’t much.
I hear the regular people say, Honey, what are we going to do? We just lost our last $500. They’re going to kick us out of our room. How are we going to get back to Peoria?
They’ve got suitcases full of touristy T-shirts and children with nice haircuts and a bunch of glossies signed by Wayne Newton, but waiting outside for them is a car with no gas. They’ve got a wallet full of charge cards that won’t charge anymore. They’re on the verge of divorce. Their little church picnic, it seems, got detoured into Sin City.
It’s not even pocket change for me. It can make or break them. Five hundred dollars.
How many drops of rain is that?
What I know about the rain is that it falls on the just and the unjust. But sometimes the just, and their brood of tow-headed children, can’t catch 500 drops to get back home. Me, now, if I took a mind to it, I could put a dollar on every drop of rain that falls for a second. For 15 seconds, at least. That’s today. Last month, I could do it for a whole half-minute. A million dollars a second for 30 seconds.
Yeah, I play with the big boys. I am one of the big boys. In Vegas, I’m what they call a whale. When I place a bet, it can break the house. When I place a bet, they call upstairs to the big boss to ask for permission. When I place a bet, everyone holds their breath.
“… and I used to be a school bus driver. Yup. Got a few minutes one day, I’ll tell you my story. I’m nobody’s judge, but why bring children to this hell, Daddy? Kids. God bless ’em. Here’s 500 bucks—here’s 1,000 bucks. Take it. No, don’t thank me. It’s just rain,” I tell him. “Rain. Whales are awash in rain. You heard me right. Now get your ass back to Peoria. Have a nice day.”
The rain hardly ever falls in Las Vegas, but today it is coming down. There are people outside just looking at it fall. I am one of them. It reminds me of Miami, where it rains a lot, especially in May. When we were kids, it seemed it rained every day after school in May. You could set the clock to it. Two-thirty, the school bell rings. Two-thirty-one, here comes the rain. Afternoon showers. Girls hated it. Boys loved it. We would take off our shoes and splash in the puddles all the way home. Throw mud balls at the girls and their colorful umbrellas.
There’s another gambler out there looking at the rain. He’s about my age. Well-dressed. Wearing one of those cowboy ties that look like a shoestring, what they call a bolo. His body is tanned and lean. A lifetime chain smoker, he’s puffing thoughtfully on a cigarette. He’s a good Hold’em player. I’ve never gotten the best of him, though he’s gotten the best of me once or twice. I don’t hold a grudge. Let’s call him U.
U is one of the big boys, too. U is a whale.
He was born on the family farm in Wisconsin. A dairy farm. He was the middle child of seven, all girls except for him. All lanky, big-boned, fair-eyed farm folk were U and his female siblings. All aching to do anything in life but go into the family business.
His older sisters married well, and early; the younger ones, who are still single and in their 30s, are more into collecting college degrees than husbands. One heads an architectural firm. One, the scientist, is a top technology consultant. The baby of the family, the psychiatrist, is a college professor and writer of several very popular books on depression. She was on Oprah twice.
I once asked U if he was jealous of his sisters’ success. He answered, “Can’t say that I am. They’re my sisters and I’m proud of them. Besides, with the kind of money I make doing this … it’s kind of embarrassing, but I’d bet you I’m richer than all of them put together. Ha-ha. They should put me on Oprah.”
U hated school, so he ran away from home at 16, lied about his age, and joined the army. He wanted to see the world. He wanted to learn about life. What he saw was Asia. Japan. Korea. The Philippines. Thailand. What he learned was how to gamble.
“I used to go to this gambling house in Manila every time I got leave. There was this woman there who was kind of a local celebrity with the cards. I used to like to play against her, though she usually cleaned me out. Heck, it was good just watching her play. She knew every angle. She knew all the tricks. Man, this girl knew her poker. I tell you, she could play the game without even looking at her cards and clean out most men I know. You don’t expect a woman to be that good with the cards, and she wasn’t cheating either. She wasn’t the best-looking thing in the world, and she was almost as old as my mother, but I spent some quality time with her, if you know what I mean. It was worth it, too. Cards wasn’t the only thing she taught me.”
When the army finally spit U out, he was 30 years old and ready to go high stakes. His father, still sore at him for sneaking off, was twisting his arm to take over the farm, which was not what U had in mind at all. But he made a deal with himself (and his father). He would give it a year trying to earn his living as a gambler, and if he failed he would make his father happy and take over the farm.
Six months later, U had banked his first million. Two years later, he had won his second World Championship of Poker tournament.
“Two in a row. Yeah, that’s me. My Filipina honey taught me real good. The funny thing is, I’m not like most gamblers. I’ve never had what you would call bad luck.
The cards seem to always fall my way. And when the cards aren’t working, I make my own luck—I bluff and win. In some ways, I’m not a gambler at all. Not like you … and some of the rest. For me it’s all business. I feel like I’m a corporation, you know? It’s all business. I got a job to do, I go in and I do it. I take no pleasure in it at all. I mean, I’ve been doing this going on ten years and I’ve never been broke, never been through a down time, never had a bad run of luck, never come close to going back to the farm.”
“What ever happened to it?”
“My big sister and her husband, the doctor, took it over, then sold it first chance they got after my daddy was in the ground. I don’t think he ever forgave me for that. But I’m no farmer. That life’s way too hard.
I hated it.”
“You like gambling, though?”
“I hate this, too,” he says. “Poker has to be the most boring game in the world. You sit there hour after hour after hour, throwing away shitty hands, waiting for a good draw, only to get your ass beat on the river by some chaser. Maybe that’s why I’m so good at it. I hate it. It bores me. I’d rather be fishing. I’d rather be on the farm, ha-ha. I’m just here for the money.”
Today U sees me leaning up against the wall, sheltered from the rain under the valet parking canopy, and he strolls over. He gestures with his eyes, Want a cigarette? I accept one from him, though I am trying to quit again. He goes to light it for me, but I tuck it behind my ear. He smiles and assumes my pose next to me—butt propped against the wall, left knee slightly bent. Two successful gamblers, enjoying a quiet moment outside, watching the rain. One in bolo tie. One in black cowboy hat. Between the two, there’s got to be 30 million dollars. Last month it would have been closer to 50 million, but I’ve had a bad streak. I lost my focus a little bit. The good players could read me like a book. See, try as I might, I’m not like U. For me it’s not a business. I still like the rush too much. I still do it for the rush. Not the money. I have lots of money now. Thank God.
U says, “Remember that girl I was with?”
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