Ride the Lucky

by Kendric Neal

  “Like you said, fuck with a winner, bad for business. Now go.” Neely laughed. He had the money and was free to go. Neely looked at all three of them as they waited for him to step through the door. “What are you waiting for? GET OUT.”

  Neely got up and turned back, “One more draw? Double or nothing?”

  Gus's face darkened and Neely saw for the first time real violence in his eyes. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  CHAPTER 16

  He heard it in her voice when he called from the airport. It went from concern to resentment to something much worse…He tried, he made a dent at least—regret, apology, humility—when they didn't work, he resorted to pity. He pinned it on the accident, it wreaked havoc in his head. He'd go see the therapist she found three weeks ago, he'd make an appointment before the day was up. Where'd he go? Vegas, she guessed. Miami, he said. He liked the way it sounded coming off his tongue, he spun out something about South Beach, wanting to be around people, life, noise. In the end, he stayed in his hotel and drank rum. He found a Christian channel, watched it all day, well, listened really. He was too drunk to watch. He sobered up in the bathtub listening to salsa drifting up from the bar across the street. Another woman? He laughed. Yeah, sure, two, Ronrico and Bacardi. He wanted to escape himself, he couldn't do that in the arms of another woman. He thought of jumping from the balcony, he wanted to die. That was pretty good, he thought, something to humble her, something bigger to worry about to trump his mad escape. He came up with some nice detail, fleshed it out…dangling off the balcony, had an epiphany, realized he could never do that to her and the kids, realized life was beautiful, too much to live for, blah blah blah, boring stuff he almost slept through even while he was coming up with it.

  In a moment of true inspiration, he blurted out that he'd broken his fingers swinging himself back over in his joie d'vivre at rediscovering he wanted to live. They'd gotten wedged in the scrollwork, it was the Varadero, old school, they had 20's style scrollwork on the railings. Dead silence, longer than he'd ever heard from her before. Finally it was there. Nothing she said, she was still pissed as hell, but he heard the change. She was going to take it—the lie took root, they both watered it. She would make the appointment, he'd see the man twice a week. He agreed with mild reluctance. She latched onto the reluctance and blasted him—he caved. That's what told him he'd be alright. He'd get through this, he'd get back, she'd be angry, furious, distant, cold for months, maybe years, but he'd get back. She wanted her life back, he wanted his—they both had to take the medicine.

  He told her he loved her—after a moment she said the same. It was more than he would have hoped for, but there it was. How many people out on a limb as far as he'd gone got to climb back down again? He felt relieved, so he wandered over to the sports bar to watch the end of the late games and have a drink. He had two martinis and watched the Titans clean up on the Bills. That left him 6 of 8 for the day, up another $200K. The weekend of his dreams alright, that was some sure as solid-state luck the old biddy have given him. $5.7 million. Now his problem was hiding it. He'd won too much, that was a problem he'd never had before. But that was a problem there were professionals in every city more than capable of dealing with. That was a good boat to be in, and sure as hell better than the alternative—bailing and bailing while he sank below his head. Put back exactly what he'd taken, cover his tracks, throw the rest offshore. He could dribble some in here and there—unexplained bonuses, accumulated thriftiness—but there'd be a chunk hidden somewhere Hope wouldn't find until he was dead. And that was something he no longer doubted. That was the old woman's endgame, alright, he didn't see how he could avoid it. She'd kill him with good luck. What a sweet and nasty vengeance it was. He'd leave it in his will. It'd go to Hope in the end, and there'd be no explanation. She could wonder all she'd want, but she'd never find out.

  The twins had escorted him off the property. They'd let him clean up, grab a t-shirt and shorts from the gift shop, shove his tux in a grocery bag, and toss it in the trunk—his tab at the sports bar taken care of, no bill for services presented. They even waited at a local clinic while he had his broken fingers set first, how very nice of them, though he was sure it wasn't kindness, just the desire to avoid any undue attention at the airport. The nurse said nothing. Vegas didn't need explanations the way wives did.

  She was sitting at the kitchen table sipping her fourth cup of green tea (her addictions had antioxidants), with shoulders so tense he could have bounced a quarter off them. The kids were gone, she didn't tell him where, he didn't ask. It was better not to worry about prying ears. She was silent, which was a very, very bad sign. She didn't look angry, which was an even worse one.

  She stared at her cup, then at the stove, then at the clock, then at his finger splints. She listened with no expression, no reaction, and, Neely thought this was the worst by far, she made not a single interruption. At the end of it she simply looked at him and said “Are you going to tell me the truth now?” He would have laughed if she didn't look like she might punch him if he did. It was times like this he understood why a lot of men choose women who aren't all that bright. If you know you're going to screw up, why match wits with a National Merit Scholar?

  Sad to say, he had experience lying to the woman who loved him, so he knew just how to respond. Obfuscate his most dangerous truths by giving up smaller ones. It's an age-old strategem, used by liars for millenia, give something up, use it to cloud the issue, protect the key lie by throwing the fall guy under a bus. “I believe that woman cursed me.”

  He could tell by her look this gambit had succeeded—she was too surprised to hide it. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You want the real reason, I'll give it to you, but you have to keep an open mind and listen.” That had all been strung out for one reason only, to get in the words “keep an open mind”, a particular bugaboo with Hope who believed in psychic connections and supernatural phenomena and couldn't stand being mocked for it. It worked as intended, he watched her shoulders unclinch and her hands stop gripping her tea mug quite so hard. She was willing herself to listen. He could tell it was a tough battle; he admired her for it. “That old Native American woman at the funeral. She held my hands and whispered something to me. You know what she said?” Hope looked at him, waiting. “'Lucky.' That one word came out in a hiss. It was a warning.”

  Hope looked at him, absorbing this slowly, as it was having trouble getting past the anger blocking all ports. “That's why you went out to the logging operation?”

  “Yes. And you know what I found?”

  “They were all dead.”

  “No, not yet. There was a shrine on the stump of the tree that killed that boy. There was a shrine just like the one on the road where the accident occurred.”

  “So, she's some kind of shaman?”

  “I don't know what she is. You believe in that stuff more than me. All I know is another old-growth tree broke loose while I was standing there and killed those guys. Does that really seem like coincidence to you? Because it doesn't to me.”

  She stared at him now, not quite mad, not quite not mad either. “And if this has been on your mind, why didn't you tell me?”

  “Because I know what it sounds like. I know it's impossible. That's movie stuff, that's not real life. The accident was an accident, I didn't kill that boy. Those loggers were greedy, that was their only crime, they didn't kill that boy either.”

  “So why'd you disappear?”

  “Because maybe it is true. Maybe all that stuff really happens. Maybe there are shamans and past lives and psychic connections, and if those exist, maybe there are ghosts too. Maybe that kid has been dogging me, maybe he will til I die, maybe long after. It opened all that up for me, Hope, and I wasn't ready for it. I got scared. Scared I was next, scared—”, he paused for effect. He felt bad, he felt evil doing it, but he knew how to play it from here and he was going to give it his all. “—I got scared for Cullen, okay. I got it into my head that
that's how she was going to get me back. She was going to take Cullen. That's why she didn't kill me at the logging camp, she wanted me to suffer, she wanted to make me lose my boy.”

  He watched it work. It was slow-moving—like all people slow to anger, Hope was also slow to come back from it too. But this of course would work, he knew it would, that's why he came up with it. He'd counted on the reserve of love she had for him, but that had been sorely tested lately, he had to draw on greater reserves, her love for her family, for instance, for their life together. For Cullen. Now he was borrowing against his own kids' accounts, Jesus. She wanted a rational explanation for what was going on and he gave her one. The fact that it wasn't quite the truth didn't matter at the moment, he had to pull her back from the edge.

  “Neely, I—”

  “I know what you're going to say. You're going to say I'm cracking up. You're going to say I need help. Fine, I already made the appointment with that guy. I'll tell him everything and listen to what he has to say.”

  “I wasn't going to say that—”

  “Of course you were. What else would you say? You married an insane person. Or maybe not, maybe I'm just having a nervous breakdown, it happens. That guy I used to work with, his wife had one. They had to lock her up for three weeks. You met her, totally nice normal person.”

  “I don't think you're crazy. I believe things like that are possible. I believe it, I just don't believe it here.”

  “Well, that's fine, I'm glad you don't. I happen to believe it enough for both of us. I think I should stay somewhere else for now. I can't be here and put the three of you in jeopardy.”

  That too surprised her. In the days when his gambling had threatened to break them up and very nearly did, Neely had learned a great deal about how to lie to his wife. How to lie like a pro, how to make her really believe it. It was easy in a way, easy when you were working with someone who wanted to believe you. Who loved you. Candy from a baby, really. “I don't want you to move out.”

  “I couldn't live with it if anything happened.”

  “It's not going to happen. Maybe she did mutter something to you, maybe she wanted to curse you, but the rest of this is just your guilty conscience.” She stung him with “guilty”, he looked up quickly but realized she was talking survivor's guilt, not “just won $5.7 million when I swore to you on my life I wouldn't gamble” guilt. “I do believe in God's will, I just don't believe in curses. If you really killed her son, it might be different. As it is, you lived while he died. The rest is you.”

  Neely nodded, trying to look distraught, forlorn, but starting to crave a drink and wondering how soon he could ease his way into pouring one. Instead, Hope got up and came around and put her arms around his neck. That was a very good sign, and much earlier than he expected, though all in all he would have preferred the drink. “We'll get through it, Neely. You've worked yourself up over it, that's all. You should have talked to me. I thought that was our deal.”

  “I thought I was okay. I thought I was going to get past it, then watching those loggers die—” God, it was amazing how it all came when it had to. Haul out a little PTSD to ice the cake. “There are some amazing things in the world. Lots of things we don't know about or understand.” Like killer old-growth trees, Neely thought. The trees are coming to get me. They're pissed as hell and they're not going to take it anymore. Ridiculous, but the thought of the forest at night, hell, even the backyard made Neely sick with dread. All the lying to Hope hadn't changed the fact that he felt a sense of foreboding that wouldn't lift. Winning $5.7 million hadn't changed that at all.

  He met with Kurt Friedlander, who turned out to be 27 and look around 15. Neely tried to reserve judgment but it was hard when he was pouring his heart out to a kid who looked like he should have been dishing up Original Chickens at Chic-Fil-A, not hanging his shingle as a licensed psychotherapist. Neely manned it out, he told himself, for Hope, for Hope, for Hope…For all the stupid things he did to piss his wife off, there was a penance to pay and Kurt was his. Meanwhile, Kurt sat back and steepled his fingers and looked studious and thoughtful—in a 4th grade sort of way.

  “I don't think any of it's crazy, Neely. I've worked with a lot of veterans—”

  Really?! When?!

  “—and PTSD is a very real phenomenon. You were in a life-threatening situation, out of control, and it could just as easily have been you as the victim. You're still suffering its effects. It's like an echo, it shook your control, threatened your universe, naturally there'd be aftershocks.”

  Neely wasn't expecting anything to come out of this except appeasement to Hope, but now he was trying hard not to go over and slap this frigging adolescent silly. Or, more appropriately, give him a wedgie and a towel snap.

  “Aftershocks can be even worse,” Kurt continued. “There's some tripwire at the time of the incident, we're able to check out mentally but stay in the moment physically. That's how we survive. But living with it, that's a different story. You almost miss the physicality that drew you out of the psychological trauma, it kept you functioning. Later, when there's no longer a physical threat, the emotional impact begins to reverberate.”

  No longer a physical threat? I wouldn't take any hikes with me, cub scout. Not where there are any TREES.

  “You need to work it through,” he droned on. “Let those feelings pass through you, a lot of vets make the mistake of thinking these thoughts make them weak. On the contrary, it's a healthy mind's way of getting rid of the strain. Save it for later, toss it out in small doses. It's only when you try to block them or negate them you get in trouble. Anxiety, depression, drinking, risky behavior, a sense of foreboding—”

  Whoa, five for five.

  “—they're all results of blocking. You need to give yourself permission to grieve. Cry. Lock yourself in your bedroom and wallow in it, let yourself be sad. What I tell my veterans, this is the flu. It's not debilitating, it's not ultimately serious, it's just a bug that needs to play itself out. Til then it's going to make your life miserable, but that's it. Cough and sneeze til it's gone.”

  Neely stared at him, aware he was meant to speak now but at a loss for any intelligent words. If he could just sneeze one out, maybe that'd get his point across. Finally, he put something together, “I see. I see. It's important to just let it unfurl.” When he didn't know what to say, Neely just repeated something the person had just said. It always worked, especially if you added a new word or two—he was especially proud of the “unfurl”.

  “Exactly! Thinking that this means you're crazy, that's blocking it, that's standing in its way. Feeling it's okay, even healthy, that lets it through.”

  “I see. So—what you're saying is—this old woman, she really exists. She really put an old Indian curse on me and I'm gonna die.”

  The kid looked at him, about to agree, but then his face turned to a mask of confusion. Neely was delighted. “No, well, you can look at it that the old woman cursed at you. You know, she probably didn't speak English, was sad, maybe she was a little out of it, speaking Navajo or something, and you just misinterpreted. Your mind added the rest.”

  Navajo?! We live in North Carolina, kid, she was Naccahaw. Don't think we'll be seeing you on Jeopardy anytime soon. “Okay, she said something, maybe she was even mad, maybe she did blame me, but it's not a real curse. That stuff doesn't exist.”

  “We don't really know that, but that's the way to look at it, sure. There are plenty of people in the world who blame someone else for something bad that happened. They'd curse them if they could. What kind of world would that be? Sticking pins in voodoo dolls, making people's feet burn, does that all seem real to you, or more like a human invention to symbolize a desired vengeance or justice?”

  “Okay, okay,” Neely nodded wisely, his thoughts elsewhere. He was going to give up gambling, he swore when he got his reprieve from Gus and the robot twins, he just wanted to put something down on the Panthers-Bengals first.

  “You'd have to worry more if
none of this bothered you at all. If you felt nothing for that boy after watching him lose his life.” Neely looked meaningfully up at him. He was getting worried the line would change by the time Kermit let him go. “No emotional reaction means no sympathy. That's a sign of psychosis—psychopaths and sociopaths feel nothing for other people.”

  Neely decided to put $100K on it, that is if they were still offering 6 points by the time Opie was done. Why not? He had more than enough now, and this was likely the last time. He realized Kurt was looking at him. “Sociopath?”

  “Yes, a sociopath covers the fact that he feels nothing for other people by using glibness and superficial charm. He exhibits a lack of remorse, guilt or shame and a grandiose sense of self while lying, conning and manipulating others. He'll instead display extreme narcissism, shallow emotions, callousness and lack of empathy while exhibiting an extreme need for stimulation, leading to unreliability, irresponsibility and poor behavioral controls.”

  Neely was still thinking about the game when he realized the kid had finished. “Sorry, what?”

  Just a few short weeks ago a hundred grand on a game would have given him the absolute fits with anything less than a three-touchdown lead, now he fell asleep with the score tied. He won.

  Hope hadn't told the kids anything and they treated him normally at dinner. Cullen thought his finger splints were “diseased” and in a moment of glorious Homer-Burt bonding, helped him bend his middle finger splint into a permanent bird. Effective for the committee meeting at work the next day, Neely figured. He could always say the doctor set it that way. Jess had been more stoic, old enough to wonder about the confluence of a mysterious sudden weekend away with an odd and unexpected injury. Neely was almost positive they'd kept the gambling fiasco from her, so he figured she'd at worst chalk it up to dear ole dad going out on a bender or something. No, that might actually impress her, something more boring perhaps…just another notch in dad's downward slide into middle age…went snowboarding with his idiot pals and whacked a tree, danced on a table with Bambi and Thumper at some seedy strip club and fell off the edge. Her eyes only showed passing interest, though, which was a relief, as he had more than he could handle with Hope's direct and unwavering scrutiny.