Sweet Nothing

by RICHARD LANGE

  Or how about the one where I had to sell everything we owned to pay off a loan shark, and we lived out of our car until I could pilfer enough from the cash register at the liquor store where I was working to get a room at a motel?

  Or how about how I promised again and again to quit gambling but didn’t, and when the truth finally dawned on Christine, she texted her good-bye while I was sitting at a poker table—Thx 4 ruining everything—and disappeared into outer space?

  No, Lupe doesn’t want to hear any of those, and I don’t want to tell them.

  “We made mistakes,” I say. “There was love there, but not enough.”

  Lupe frowns. “What does that mean? Did you leave her, or did she leave you?”

  “Me,” I say. “She left me. And the man I was then, I don’t blame her.”

  “But you’ve changed, huh?”

  “I get a little better every day, I hope.”

  “You’re full of s-h-i-t,” she says with a laugh.

  “I know what that spells,” Jesse says.

  THEY’VE BOTH GOT to use the restroom, so I lead them back under the grandstand and thread them through the crowd. We avoid the old woman picking through the trash, the drunk screaming in Spanish into his phone, the dude with crazy eyes who’s telling security he’ll smoke anywhere he fucking wants. A pigeon has found its way inside and flies frantically from one end of the room to the other, just above everyone’s heads.

  “Can you go with him?” Lupe says, nodding at Jesse when we get to the door to the women’s room.

  “Sure,” I say.

  I take his hand and walk him to the men’s. He steps up to the one urinal that’s set lower than the others and unzips his pants.

  “Need any help?” I ask

  “No,” he replies, like that’s a dumb question.

  He can’t reach the sink, so I pick him up and hold him around the waist while he soaps his hands and rinses them thoroughly, the way someone somewhere taught him.

  “Do you like war?” he asks me while drying each finger separately.

  “You mean like war war?”

  “Like war movies.”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Me too.”

  We meet his mom at the snack bar, and the two of them wait there while I make our bets. It’s going to be the favorite this time: Blue Moon. The guy in front of me puts money on him, and so does the guy in front of him. What I should do is lay down ten of my last twenty on the horse and save ten for Willy and Leon’s pick in the next race. But of course the wheels start turning: Lose the ten, and you’ve got nothing, not enough to make a decent bet on the next race, not enough to buy Lupe and Jesse dinner. Bet the whole twenty, and if you lose, you’re still fucked, but if you win, at two to one, that’s forty bucks, enough to bet on Willy and Leon’s horse and get a pizza, thus tiptoeing out of trouble once again.

  By now I’m at the window, and the clerk is waiting, and so is everybody in line behind me. There’s no time to double-check my logic, so I do what I always do in this situation: close my eyes and jump.

  LUPE SCREAMS LOUDER as the horses come into the stretch. Blue Moon has been in front all the way, but now Divalicious is moving up. I don’t want to root against Lupe, not even silently, but I do, fists clenching and unclenching at my sides. Run, run, run.

  The crowd is in a frenzy as the horses approach the finish line. It’s strange to see people act like that, shouting and sweating and jumping up and down. They look more angry than anything else, and I’ve had dreams where they turn on me.

  The madness continues until Blue Moon and Divalicious cross the line neck and neck at the front of the pack. Silence descends over the grandstand. It holds for three seconds, four, five, and then the word Photo flashes on the tote, and a collective groan rises. Everybody begins to speculate on what the officials will see in the pictures. It looked like Blue Moon to me, but I don’t want to jinx it by hoping.

  “Oh my God, oh my God,” Lupe whispers. She closes her eyes and crosses herself, moves her lips in prayer.

  A minute later, the results come up.

  “I won?” Lupe asks, her voice rising to a screech.

  “You won,” I reply.

  The old man behind us rolls his eyes as she yells and stamps her feet and waves the ticket over her head. She’s got a lot to learn, like how you shouldn’t gloat when you win, how you should think about all the losers around you, all those broken hearts.

  But, hey, maybe she’ll pay for dinner now. I’m down to four bucks and change. I keep reaching into my pockets, hoping to find more, because Leon and Willy’s horse, Rocket Man, is starting to look really good. Top jockey, top trainer. He hasn’t done anything in his previous races, so that means he’s due. And I’m not the only one who thinks so: He’s gone from five to one this morning to three to one now. I smell a winner, really and truly.

  Jesse drops his Spider-Man sunglasses under his seat, then bumps his chin trying to retrieve them. You’d think he was dying, the way he bawls. The littlest bit of a headache is throbbing at the base of my skull, and it’s like the kid is back there kicking it.

  “What’s wrong?” Lupe asks Jesse.

  He cries even harder.

  She grabs his arm, yanks him onto his seat, and takes a quick look at his chin. “Stop showing off,” she says. “You keep it up, and I’m not buying you a present with this money. I’ll spend it all on myself.”

  The sobs subside into whimpers.

  “Should we go?” I ask Lupe, hoping she’ll say yes.

  “Nah, he’s just tired. He’ll be fine,” she says. She starts to tell me another work story, something about a man crying while getting a molar pulled, but I’m barely listening. I’m too busy beating myself up for not being able to hold back any money for this race, the one where I actually have a decent tip. I can’t make the right move even with someone holding my hand.

  “Hey,” Lupe says, distracted by something on her program. “Did you see? The Tooth Fairy? I have to bet on him.”

  Seventy to one. One lucky pick, and she thinks she’s magic. I could use this as my excuse for what’s about to happen, claim she’s gotten too full of herself, showed her ugly side, but that would be unfair. She’s just a girl who hit a winner and liked how it felt. I’m the one who’s rotten through and through.

  I STEP UP to the window at two minutes to post. The clerk has a thin gray mustache and a mop of curly gray hair that might be a wig. A big ring shines on his pinkie, and a diamond stud glints in his ear. With his black vest and white shirt, he puts me in mind of a riverboat card shark.

  He runs Lupe’s ticket through his machine. The payout is $108.80. I have him apply two dollars of that to a win bet on Tooth Fairy.

  “How do you want the rest?” he says. “Twenties okay?”

  The horses have reached the gate. Mine will be the clerk’s last wager for this race. I’ve waited until now so that whatever decision I come to will be final. You could second-guess the move I’m thinking of making forever, and it’s going to haunt me whichever way it goes. It’s going to change the things I say to myself when I can’t sleep.

  “Sir?” the clerk says.

  I barely get the words out: “Give me a hundred to win on five.”

  The clerk repeats the bet as he types it in, then hands me $6.80 in change and closes his window. We’re gambling now, friends. I spin the cylinder and press the revolver to my temple. If Rocket Man wins, Lupe will never know I borrowed from her. If he loses—he can’t lose. I don’t even want to put that out there.

  I feel like my skin is two sizes too small, like I’m going to rip if I move too fast. I make my way gingerly to the nearest bar, spend Lupe’s change on vodka. The race starts as I raise the glass to my lips.

  The announcer’s voice bounces wildly in the cavern beneath the grandstand. “Rocket Man,” I hear, but that’s all I can make out. I move closer to a blurry monitor and crane my neck with the other men standing there. Rocket Man is in front, he’s in fron
t, and then he’s not. The favorite has finally come in, and Rocket Man is a distant third.

  Pow! My brains are all over the table. I finish the vodka and hurry to the exit leading to the parking lot. Lupe, Lupe, Lupe. Forgive me, chica. You deserve better. And, really, what chance did we have? You’ve got Jesse, a job, a place in this world, and I’m still walking a tightrope where every time I fall, it’s a mess.

  I get all the way to the gate before my conscience catches up to me. Betting Lupe’s money was my mistake. All she did was happen upon a crime in progress, and what kind of dog would I be if I stranded her here because of that? I’ll lie to a liar, cheat a cheater, and rob a thief blind, but that’s that world, not this one. In this one, I’m obligated to set things right. I’ll admit what I did, scrounge up the money to pay her back double, then crawl away on my belly.

  I turn and head back to the grandstand even though most of me still wants to run the other way.

  THE FIRST PERSON I see when I get inside is Paul. He’s hiding in a corner, watching hungrily as two drunks wave wads of money in each other’s faces. That gun has obviously given him big ideas, and I suddenly get an idea of my own.

  I sneak up behind him and bark, “Hands up!”

  He whips around, frightened.

  “Better be careful,” he says when he sees it’s me, then pats the bulge under his shirt.

  “Loan me twenty dollars,” I say.

  “Go fuck yourself,” he replies.

  “Security!” I yell, not quite loud enough to be heard over the din but loud enough to spook Paul.

  “What the hell?” he whispers.

  “Give me a twenty,” I say.

  He hesitates, licking his lips while trying to decide if I’m bluffing. His hand is shaking when he finally passes me the money. He’s angry, humiliated.

  “I’ll pay you back,” I say.

  “I’ll pay you back,” he says.

  It could very well end that way, but I don’t have time to worry about it now. I hurry to the betting windows, stopping only long enough to consult a tote for the current odds.

  My Hail Mary is this: I take the twenty from Paul and put it with the four dollars I have left in my pocket and box four horses, the two, four, five, and seven, in a superfecta. If these horses come in first through fourth in any order in the next race, I’ll win somewhere around a thousand bucks. It’s like throwing your last dollar into a slot machine—a sucker’s play—but it’s the only chance I’ve got.

  MY PHONE RINGS.

  “Where are you?” Lupe says.

  “I ran into a couple buddies. I’ll be up soon.”

  “But we’re all alone.”

  “A few more minutes,” I say.

  “You better have my money,” she snaps, then ends the call. My God, how many times has this girl been fucked over? I decide to hole up in the bathroom in case she comes looking for me. I find an empty stall and lock myself inside. At first I stand, facing the door, but that’s too weird, so I cover the seat with toilet paper and sit down. My day began in jail, and now I’m trapped in a racetrack shitter. Somebody’s made some bad choices. Again.

  Talk to a shrink or a counselor or the folks at Gamblers Anonymous, and they’ll give you all kinds of explanations for why you do it. They’ll tell you that it’s chemical, that you have a death wish, that you secretly want to lose in order to be punished for the sins of your past, that you’re trying to return to a childlike state where miracles still happen.

  It’s a lot simpler for me: I gamble because I want to win. I like to win. It makes me feel good. And you need something to make you feel good after ten hours of loading trucks for some prick who thinks you’re dirt, after sitting across the desk from a parole officer who’s waiting for you to violate, after listening to your mom put you down again like she has your whole life. When I take a chump for twenty bucks on a pool table or pick up a few pots in a card game, something opens up inside me, and I’m as good as everyone else thinks they are—no, better. For an hour or a day, however long my streak lasts, every move I make is the right one, and my smile can bring the world to its knees. The only problem is, it can’t last forever. You have to lose eventually so that someone else can win. Bitch and moan all you want, but that’s the first, and worst, rule of the universe.

  It stinks in the stall. I hold my nose, breathe through my mouth. Lupe calls again, and I let it go to voice mail. A text comes in a few seconds later: Where the f r u?

  I’m going to lay off the ponies after this, stick to what I know best, eight ball and hold ’em. I’m going to get serious about getting serious: practice more, enter some tournaments, start acting like the pro I want to be. The jail thing was a stumble, not a fall. I’m still standing, still in it, still the only one who can bring me down.

  The announcer’s voice comes crackling over the PA. The race has started. I unlock the stall and run out to watch it on the nearest screen. The shouts of the spectators fill the cavern beneath the grandstand so that I can’t hear the call, but three of my picks look to be in position coming out of the backstretch, and the final one is moving up.

  My heart is pounding, and I set off at a run for the finish line. Skirting the crowds gathered under the monitors, I burst into the sunshine and fresh air and push my way up front where everybody is yelling “Go! Go! Go!” as the horses cross the line, my horses: seven, two, five, four. I pump my fist once, just once, and those aren’t tears you see, you fucker. Those aren’t tears.

  I WAVE LUPE’S money over my head as I approach her and Jesse in the stands. “Hey, hey, hey,” I say, doing a little dance. Lupe isn’t having any of it. Her eyes are icy cold. She snatches her winnings out of my hand and tells Jesse to get up. He looks like he’s been crying.

  “Take us home,” Lupe says.

  “Whoa, now, at least give me a chance to explain,” I say. Old friends, I tell her, guys from way back. One of them had gotten married; another’s dad had died. I tried to get away, but you know how it is. Sometimes you have to hear a buddy out.

  “I don’t care if it was your mother you saw,” she says. “Nobody treats me like that.”

  “Like what?” I say.

  “Like a dumb bitch.”

  “Mom!” Jesse wails, upset by the swearing.

  “I’m sorry, mijo,” Lupe says. “I’m mad is all.”

  I thought she’d be happy to see me and her money, that the thrill of winning would do for her what it does for me: wipe away all the trouble it took to get there.

  “Come on,” I say. “I hit it big. Let’s celebrate.”

  “Celebrate with yourself,” she says.

  It’s a long, silent ride back to the valley. Jesse falls asleep in the backseat, and Lupe is busy texting, her hair hiding her face. I think about how excited I was this morning, looking forward to our date, and I wonder if there was ever any way it could have been what I wanted it to be.

  By the time we get to the condo, the sun is sinking fast, dragging the day down with it. I say something that I hope will turn Lupe around and make her see the good in me, something that starts with “Please” and that I’d be ashamed for anybody else to hear, but she won’t listen, won’t even let me help her unload Jesse. I watch in the rearview mirror as she unbuckles the seat belt, slings the sleeping kid over her shoulder, and carries him to the lobby without looking back.

  The streetlights come on as I’m driving to a bar I know with a hot backroom poker game. This normally gets my blood pumping, because I’m the kind of guy who does better at night than during the day. Night’s when my people are out and about. Night’s when the rules change in my favor. But right now I just feel sick. Sick of the hustle and the juke and the mask. I’ve got a pocketful of cash and luck running my way, but all I can think about is everything I’ve ever lost. And that’s no good, man, no good at all, because if you sit down to play carrying that load, you’re dead from the shuffle and cut.

  Gather Darkness

  A TEXT COMES FROM Vince. All it says is
Cal and Esther, and I have no idea what it means. Vince’s messages are often cryptic like this. I assume it’s because he wants to pique my interest in hope of receiving a response, but that doesn’t make his coyness any less irritating.

  I knew Cal and Esther at UCLA. We were friends, kind of, but lost touch after graduation. It’s been years since I’ve seen them, long enough that they don’t know about Julie, about Eve. Last I heard they’d gotten married. I think Vince still sees them now and then.

  So? I text him back.

  They’re having a housewarming June 12. Boys’ night out?

  I think about it for a minute, then text Sure without consulting Julie first. She doesn’t have to approve everything.

  My nigga, Vince texts back.

  My boss, Big Gay Bob, sticks his head into my office and asks if I saw the editorial about teacher layoffs in this morning’s Times. I didn’t, but I say I did.

  “The councilman wants to respond,” Bob says. “Give me something to run by him.”

  “Your wish is my command,” I reply in a funny voice, then spin around to my computer like I’m going to get started right away. Instead, I sit there and pick a scab on my knuckle until it bleeds.

  OUR CONDO HAS a small balcony that overlooks Wilshire Boulevard. The street is four lanes wide and noisy all the time. There’s always a bus making a racket or a couple of Korean kids racing tricked-out Nissans. Still, the balcony is the only place I can be alone. Five floors above the Miracle Mile, facing south, the orange lights of the ghetto like a fire burning in the distance.

  Julie and I have an arrangement: As soon as I walk in the door from work, I get a gin and tonic and a little time to decompress. Fifteen minutes on the balcony to myself, that’s all I ask. After that I’m ready to be a good husband, to do the daddy thing.