by Tyler Keevil
‘I’m immune to alcohol.’
‘I’m just saying.’
I slid on to one of the barstools opposite him and kept drinking.
‘First time in Reno?’ he asked.
‘Yeah – but I been to Vegas before.’
‘Vegas is a hell of a town.’
‘It was,’ I said. ‘It really was.’
In Vegas, the three of us had gone to dozens of casinos. We’d tried the high-end ones, like the Bellagio, and the gimmicky ones, like Circus Circus, and the famous old ones, like the Flamingo. We’d ended up at a budget casino called the Sahara, with one-dollar blackjack and a Moroccan theme, near the end of the strip.
As soon as we got inside, I downed two Jägerbombs and started acting like a dildo. I refused to gamble with the girls. I’d decided they were cramping my style. Instead I played blackjack at a table with a bunch of frat guys, who were there for a bachelor party. We all sat with our elbows on the table and our sleeves rolled up. Whenever a hand paid out, we hooted and hollered and gave each other high-fives – talking big, betting big, losing big.
At the Sahara’s blackjack tables they had a side bet called Madness. If you bet on Madness and got a blackjack, you won the usual payout plus a bonus. The bonus depended on this digital display that generated random numbers, ranging from one to a hundred. You multiplied whatever number came up by your Madness bet to calculate your bonus. It could pay out huge, but it was a pure gimmick. Side bets are for suckers. Everybody knows that.
Just before midnight, Zuzska drifted over and leaned on my shoulder, in that way girlfriends do. All the frat guys were eyeing her up and pretending not to.
‘Bet on Madness,’ she told me.
I laughed. The guys laughed too.
‘Forget Madness, babe.’ I’d never called her babe before in my life. ‘It’s a scam.’
‘Bet on it anyways.’
‘I’m not betting on Madness, okay?’ I shrugged off her arm.
‘Let me bet on it for you, then,’ she said, and dropped a stack of chips on the Madness circle above my playing area.
I casually brushed the chips aside. ‘Save your money, babe. No way is my chick betting for me.’
The guys all chuckled. That was the way to do it. They needed to be taught, these women. As the dealer shuffled, Zuzska crossed her arms and waited, smouldering like a match. The cards started coming. I got an ace first, then a jack of spades. Blackjack. The Madness display cycled through its numbers, coming to rest on seventy-seven. It hadn’t broken fifty all night. I would have won close to eight hundred bucks. Me and the frat guys were too shocked to speak. Even the dealer looked shocked, and it’s their job to stay composed. The only one who wasn’t shocked was Zuzska. She just shrugged and rapped me on the head – as if to demonstrate that it was empty.
After my third Asskicker, I told the Madness story to the bartender. He didn’t seem all that interested, but he had to listen. It was part of his job.
‘She’s obviously a witch,’ I said.
‘It could have been a coincidence.’
‘Of course it was a coincidence,’ I said. ‘But it was the kind of meaningful and synchronous coincidence that could only happen through witchery. Female witchcraft.’
‘If you say so.’
He didn’t sound too convinced, this guy.
‘She did it in Monte Carlo, too,’ I said. That was the only other time we’d gone to a casino together – when we were travelling in Europe. ‘Not the exact same thing. It was even weirder, what she did in Monte Carlo. She’d been winning steadily all night. I’d been losing big. I was, like, three hundred euros down, and she was five hundred up.’
‘Having a good run, huh?’
‘But she didn’t even know what she was doing!’ I slapped the bartop with my palm, emphasising the point. ‘She was betting randomly, blindly. Moving from slots to blackjack to craps to those super-risky games like Punto Banco and shit.’
‘Only high-rollers play those games,’ he said.
‘That’s what I’m talking about.’
He was polishing an Asskicker cup, using his fake arm to twist the towel back and forth against the base. It made him look more like a real bartender, which was cool.
‘Then, at the very end of the night, after I’d blown my whole wad, she bet all her winnings on one spin of the roulette wheel: half on black, half on red.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Exactly. We all thought she was nuts. The dealer, the pit boss, the other players. But she was just feeling things out. Once the ball was spinning, and just before the dealer stopped the betting, she moved her chips on black over to red, for no reason.’
The guy paused in his polishing, and squinted at me.
‘And red came up?’
‘Yep. She’d doubled her winnings on one spin. We waltzed out of there with over a thousand euros. Then she wanted to steal a pedal boat. We pedalled way the hell out. In the middle of Monte Carlo bay, I asked her why she’d chosen red. You know what she said?’
The guy said he wanted to know. He was a nice guy.
‘She said, “Red is the colour of love, of life. Black is the colour of death.”’
The guy put down his cup, next to the stack of a dozen others. ‘Your girlfriend sounds like a real humdinger,’ he said.
‘She’s not my girlfriend any more.’
‘Too bad,’ he said.
He didn’t sound very surprised.
The casino got busier, which meant the bartender got busier and couldn’t listen to me. Other customers came up to order Asskickers. He swivelled back and forth on his stool, taking money and giving change and dumping margarita mix into plastic cups. The only time I got to talk to him was when I ordered another Asskicker for myself. I did that frequently. I filled up on Asskickers. I must have drunk half a dozen, maybe more. Pretty soon I felt ready to kick some ass.
‘She’s not the only one who can bet big,’ I said. The bartender was serving up a hotdog. He didn’t pay much attention to me. Nobody did. ‘I don’t need Lady Luck, or even a lady, to luck out. I can show her. I’ll top her. You just watch.’
I shoved off my stool and staggered over to the cash machine. Before leaving, I’d raised the cap on my account, which meant I was ready to dance. I withdrew two thousand dollars – almost all the money I had left from selling my camera – and stumbled, bull-like, towards the roulette wheel. Players were clustered around it. When they saw the look in my eyes and the cash in my hand they got out of my way. The betting surface only had a few chips scattered across it. I was thinking, look at these losers, gambling for chump change.
‘Big daddy’s here,’ I said, slapping down my bills. ‘Gimme two Gs’ worth.’
The dealer – a thin Native kid with his hair in a ponytail – took the money and placed a monstrous stack of chips in front of me. I divided it in two and piled half on red and half on black. The other players watched, murmuring and whispering to each other. As the wheel started spinning, I let my hand hover over the stacks, like a magician about to perform a trick.
Then I pushed the chips on red over to black.
The dealer said, ‘No more bets.’
The ball whipped around in whirring circles. We all watched, leaning closer and closer, waiting for the ball to drop. Eventually it did. It clattered around like a jumping bean. It popped off a red number, danced along the rim, and settled down in black. Then it seemed to change its mind and leapt two more places along to the green zero. The wheel slowed to a stop. Red or black wouldn’t have mattered. I’d been destined to lose from the get-go. The dealer raked up the chips, in that apologetic manner they have. People were still murmuring, whispering. I was still standing there. I stood there for a long time.
chapter 53
While I was gone, the cat had been busy. I found her crouched on the driver’s seat with her snout covered in black gunk. She must have been rooting around in the mulch that lined the gutter. She had something clamped
between her jaws that looked like a dead animal. At one time it might have been a rat, or maybe a squirrel. Now it was just a soggy mess of flesh and fur. She’d opened up its stomach, too. Purple guts had spilled out across my seat.
‘Jesus Christ, cat,’ I said. ‘No wonder you’ve got worms.’
I had to grab her by the neck and shake her before she would let the thing go. I used my notes from the border to scoop it up. The innards left bloody smears on the upholstery. I flung the remains towards a storm drain, and then shook out my hand and did a little shimmy – the kind of shimmy you do after touching something disgusting.
‘Bad cat,’ I said, bopping her on the nose.
I slumped into my seat and started fumbling around with the seatbelt. The metal bit slotted into the buckle, but wouldn’t click shut. Eventually I gave up and threw the Neon in gear. It revved in place, refusing to go forward. I’d forgotten to release the handbrake. The cat was watching all this through slitted eyes. She could tell I was half-cut.
‘I know, cat – I’m breaking a vow. But we have to get out of here. Before those bikers catch up with us. Before we get stuck in this fucking cesspit forever.’
I pulled out and wobbled down the strip. The Neon swung back and forth like a ship without a rudder. I took a corner too sharply and jolted over the kerb. The cat snarled at me, as if warning me to stop, and when that didn’t work she flew into one of her feline freak-outs: hissing and spitting and leaping all over the place. She attacked the upholstery, and the door panels, and the cup-holders. She even attacked me. She pounced right on my lap and started clawing at my chest. Driving drunk was hard enough without her tearing at me like that. I smacked her with the back of my hand, catching her full across the ribs. She bounced off the passenger door – thump – and landed on the floor. Then she stayed down there, trembling.
I hadn’t meant to hit her so hard.
‘It’s your own fault, cat,’ I said. ‘You were asking for it.’
An entry ramp appeared and I steered towards it. It tossed me over a hump and on to a highway. I merged blindly, hoping for the best. Somebody honked. I honked back. Then somebody else honked. Pretty soon we were all honking at each other, like a flock of geese. I flicked on my hazard lights. I was obviously a hazard, to them and myself. I kept hitting the brakes too hard, making the Neon lurch. Each time, my stomach lurched with it. I could feel the Asskickers rampaging around in there.
On the outskirts of Reno, I saw a rest area coming up. I aimed the car that way and swerved in. The drivers behind me honked good riddance. As I tried to park, my front wheel well came up against the guardrail and scraped along, shrieking like a buzz saw. As soon as we’d ground to a halt, the cat leapt out her window.
‘Wait, cat!’ I said.
I shouldered open the door and stumbled after her, but only made it three steps before I went down on my hands and knees, clutching my stomach. I retched a couple of times, as the Asskickers bucked their way up my throat. Then they leapt out and hit the pavement hard, bursting apart in a mixture of margarita, blood and mucus.
I knelt there a while, with streams of saliva trailing from my lips, staring at the mess I’d made. It seemed as if I’d been puking ever since I’d set out. Or ever since I’d found out. Anything I put into it, my body regurgitated. My oesophagus felt swollen and inflamed, as if I’d been drinking gasoline.
Eventually I stood up. My cat had disappeared.
‘Here, cat,’ I called. ‘Here, girl.’
She didn’t come, and I didn’t know where to look for her. I perched on the hood of the car to wait. The paint was hot and seared my palms. Beside the car was an outhouse, and a phone booth. I stared at the phone booth for a few minutes without registering what it was. Then I remembered: a phone booth contained a phone. A phone could connect you to people, like a lifeline. I shuffled over to it, worked a few coins into the slot, and pawed at the buttons until I managed to dial Beatrice’s number.
I don’t think it rang. It seemed as if she picked up instantly, almost magically – in that way that happens sometimes.
‘You’ve reached She-Ra, Princess of Power.’
‘Beatrice?’ I said. ‘It’s me.’
It came out as a croak. My throat was fucked.
‘Trevor? Are you all right?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Where are you, honey?’
‘I don’t know, Bea. I don’t know what I’m doing. I killed this eagle and I met this fucking hitchhiker and I stole a bottle of mezcal and these biker guys are after me and I blew two grand on roulette so I’ve only got three hundred bucks to my name but the thing is, I don’t really care about any of it. None of it’s meant anything. And now my cat has run off. I hit her and I think she hates me.’
It must have sounded insane to Bea, but she didn’t interrupt. She just waited for me to finish. Then she said, ‘Everything’s going to be okay, honey. But I need you to tell me where you are.’
‘At a rest stop by Reno.’
‘And you’re drunk.’
‘I’m shitfaced.’
‘Okay. I’m going to come out there and meet you.’
‘No!’ I shook my head, like a belligerent child. ‘I don’t want you to do that.’
‘Then this is what you’re going to do.’ She’d adopted that familiar feminine tone, soothing but firm. ‘You’re going to sober up. And you’re going to get back in your car. And you’re going to drive straight out here on the I-80, to see me.’
‘I don’t know if I can make it, Bea.’
I coughed a little as I said it. It was like the death scene in some shitty Western.
‘You can make it. You’re close.’
I rested my forehead against the glass of the phone booth. It was dotted with cigarette burns. In the background, at Bea’s end, I could hear a swishing sound – like a broom being swept back and forth.
‘Where are you?’ I asked.
‘At the beach, in Golden Gate Park. It’s beautiful out here. Just wait till you see this city. It’s like Xanadu. We’ll surf perfect waves, and drink beverages with ridiculous names, and find a coastal cure for your desert blues. We’ll party like we used to, like we did the year we met. It’ll be epic.’
I closed my eyes, trying to imagine it. All I saw was the reddish shadow of my eyelids. ‘I don’t want to cause any trouble. For anyone. For her, for you. Anyone.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said. ‘Promise you’ll come.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Sure I will.’
I wasn’t sure, though. If anything, I was pretty sure I was lying.
‘If I don’t make it…’
I wanted to say, ‘Tell her I love her.’ But, before I could, my money ran out and the line went dead. I slumped against the side of the booth, still clinging to the receiver. After a minute it started to beep and the automatic voice came on, telling me to hang up the phone. I left it dangling there.
I shuffled around the rest area, looking for my cat, working my way from one end of the parking lot to the other. Even though it was insanely hot, I was shuddering and hugging myself, like a guy in a blizzard. As I searched I made little cooing noises. Then I thought I heard an answer, coming from the other side of the guardrail. I stepped over it to check there, among the dirt and litter and shrubs. And I found her. She hadn’t made it far. She was under a sagebrush, flopped on her side. Next to her in the dust was a puddle of puke. Apparently we’d both been puking at the same time
‘You goof,’ I said, crouching down. ‘Did that thing you ate make you sick?’
I scratched her ears. She was too weak and hurt to fight back, or fend me off. She let me stroke her, and even let me pick her up. I carried her to the car and laid her on her seat.
‘I’m sorry, cat,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I hit you and I’m sorry it’s turned out like this.’
I reached for the crumpled pack of smokes on the dash and tapped out a dart. I didn’t know how long we would have to wait for me to sober
up enough to drive. Probably a while.
‘If we’re going to get through this rough patch, cat,’ I said, ‘I may have to break another vow: my vow of silence.’
I reached for the radio and pinched the knob. I was expecting to hear some kind of epic rock song about being on the road, about getting through tough times, about surviving.
‘Here we go, cat.’
I turned the knob. The radio went ‘click’. I fiddled with the buttons. I couldn’t get any stations. I couldn’t even get any static. The fucking thing was broken after all.
chapter 54
We lumbered on towards the evening sun, dragging our shadow on the tarmac behind us. I’d gone the wrong way out of Reno, and had to double back to find the I-80. From there the highway rolled west, up a series of gradual but steady inclines. We were leaving the Great Basin and entering the Sierra Nevada. At least, that was what it seemed to show on my map. The landscape changed, and the plant life changed with it. Shadscale and greasewood and other desert shrubs gave way to arid hillsides and woodland At first there were a lot of juniper and pinyon trees, and then, as we got higher, that changed to big lodgepole and sugar pines.
We passed the border into California. Rather than the usual interstate welcome sign, there was an actual border, with booths and checkpoints. The guards were searching for fresh fruit. You couldn’t bring fresh fruit into California, apparently. You could bring loaded handguns, and sick cats, and all your personal baggage, but not fresh fruit. They gave the Neon a cursory glance and waved us through.
The steep grades were taking a toll on the old girl. She’d developed an odd clicking sound, as if something was stuck in the wheel. Also, any time I stopped paying attention, she veered left, drifting into the next lane. I guess I’d messed up the steering alignment when I’d hit that guardrail. As I drove I kept drifting and correcting, drifting and correcting, half-sick and half-asleep. The cat was no better. She lay sprawled on her side, eyes closed, breathing shallowly. We weren’t going to get to San Francisco. Not before nightfall, anyways.