The Money Game

by Michael A. Smith

  “So, I shall not be as famous as Tom Cruise and you will not be Van Gogh.”

  “Not if the frustration of it all means committing suicide.”

  He again held forth his glass. “Here’s to Vincent and Willy, God rest their tortured souls. We, on the other hand, will be content together here on this stage called The Stadium, where we play the roles of marginal people. And do it quite well, I might add.”

  “I shouldn’t ask, Richey, but who are marginal people?”

  “We are. Mainstream people are at home in their four-bedroom colonial with their two-point-three kids, a shaggy dog, an imported car in the garage, a time-share at some vacation spot, a silently growing 401K plan, and a job with a six-figure potential — if things go right, or if one is willing to do whatever it takes to make them go right.”

  “That sure ain’t a description of us,” Carmen said, sipping her drink.

  “Nope, we’ve been marginalized because the economy rejected our skills and our chosen lifestyle. Our passion. Capitalism is much more dangerous to our freedom than the Commies ever were, Carmen.”

  “And what do mainstream people do on Saturday afternoon, Richey?”

  “Oh, as I recall, they watch TV and spend a lot of time cultivating their indoor flower pots and their image. They’re cardboard cutout figures living a lifestyle that Madison Avenue sold to them. They are the modern-day version of Willy Loman. They are deep into materialism and the religion that says if you accumulate a lot of stuff — especially the stuff that is advertised to make you thin, beautiful, attractive to the opposite sex, virile and widely admired — you have achieved the apex of life. The sine qua non. Nirvana. When these people go to live theater, they don’t care what’s playing, they just want to be seen. Show off their new expensive clothes and jewelry. Sit near the stage. When they buy art, they want a copy numbered less than fifty by some famous artist. So that their friends will admire them for having enough money to splurge on art. And, if they go to a movie, they want sex, violence and explosions!”

  He’d made her laugh loudly. “Richey, you should really write this material down and do a one-man show! Become a modern-day Mark Twain.”

  “And perform it for like-minded souls? Who would that be? These shit-head marginal people here in the bar? They only have money for booze and drugs, a little gambling. Their attention span is fifteen seconds, which is why they all twitter.”

  “There may be more people than you think who are doing what they have to rather than what they want to.” Carmen forced herself to smile, because occasionally she wanted to trade places with those mainstream people. Richey’s self-analysis had nailed her, too. She was an artist not fully committed to art. Was she a fake, like Willy Loman? Or, an enabler, like Willy’s wife?

  “The mainstream life isn’t all that attractive, Carmen.” Richey swung his glass through a 180-degree arc. “It doesn’t get any better than this right here. Cheap booze, fast-but-nutritional food, and a window on every perversity and abnormality known to humankind. A picture of life in its truest, rawest form. None of these people are happy or satisfied or trustworthy, and they don’t claim to be. There are few pretentions and no requirements to be here. I feel right at home.”

  In a way, Richey was semi-serious. For better or worse, he liked it here in this dimly-lit, loud place smelling of cigarette smoke, stale beer, cooking oil, chalk dust, perfume, and human sweat. Few of The Stadium’s customers were pretending to be anything other than professional or amateur drunks. It was part of Richey’s self-inflicted punishment for a life gone awry. He also worked a job he hated, which demeaned him. Could he be saved, or was the downward spiral too near the bottom?

  “We have only one hope,” Richey said.

  “What?”

  “To win the Keno ten-spot game. I’ve given up on everything else. Of course, that’s only a hundred grand.”

  “Not enough to make it into the mainstream?”

  “No, but it would fund a nice hiatus.”

  “What if we somehow got our hands on a couple of million dollars, Richey? What would we be then?”

  “Free, Carmen. Free.”

  “Yeah,” she said, looking at her watch and noting it was nearly four p.m. Richey would be here the rest of the evening. Willy Loman perched on a barstool. She’d leave in a few minutes and pick Marisa up, and take her and two of her friends to dinner at Pizza Hut. She’d be a mainstream person until about eight-thirty, watching television with her daughter and mother before returning to The Stadium. Richey would have spent his day bending his elbow, telling stories, and occasionally getting some exercise by walking around the pool table. He wouldn’t bother to take off his costume.

  Maybe they’d dance this evening to their favorite jukebox tunes. Carmen felt like getting drunk tonight. Then they’d go to his place and make love. She’d get home about two a.m. and tiptoe into her apartment, where her mother the babysitter would be asleep on the sofa, and her daughter safe in her own bed. It was a diminished variation of the American dream, but one she accepted for the time being. Carmen was not as bitter as Richey about her lot in life, which is not to say she didn’t want to change it.

  “Don’t feel badly, Carmen,” Richey said, as she got up to leave. “There’re some advantages to operating on the margin.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got an objective view of the whole thing. The audience always knows more about how things are really going than the actors on stage do.”

  Carmen kissed him on the cheek. “See you later.”

  Fearful he'd see the tears spilling down her cheeks, Carmen didn't look back as she walked toward the door. Richey might have given up on himself and life, but she wasn’t going to give up on him, not after seeing him the way he was at the audition. Carmen didn’t think of herself as a mainstream person either, although she sometimes admired their comfort and security. But for many of them, that came at a price, which was to compromise their ideals. She just didn’t see herself and other artists as marginal people. Rather, they were on the edge of the world, better able to see the stars and beyond. Richey had to quit grieving over not being what he hated, and embrace what he was. Carmen Salazar was a determined person. If there was a way for them to follow their dreams and be happy in the effort, she would find that path. And, she did, but it was too late.

  6/Have-Nots And Wannabes

  Just before noon on Sunday, Ace parked his old, rust-eaten Toyota Sentra in a parking space behind The Stadium, which occupied the last two retail spaces in a strip mall. Down a steep hill south of the bar was a vacant big box store originally occupied by Staples. Several local RV and truck dealerships, along with a marine sales and service company, had rented the large parking lot to display their products — at wholesale prices, or so a big banner proclaimed.

  “I wanna go down there and see them RVs,” Country said, wiggling all his fingers, as he tended to do when excited.

  “You wanna buy an RV?” Ace asked.

  “I would if I had the money.”

  Ace shrugged and began to walk down the hill. Walking through the exhibit might prove educational. After Marshon gave him five thousand dollars last Monday night and asked him to leave town, Ace was initially inclined to comply. But, he enjoyed screwing Kandie, plus he continued to assemble a cast of characters for his planned real-life production. Besides his new girlfriend, the actors included his good buddy, Country, an idiot who could be programmed to do whatever Ace needed him to do. In addition, there was Richey, the wishy-washy warehouse boss/gambler/actor/drunk, and his sexy Hispanic girlfriend, Carmen Salazar. They all fit nicely into a plot he’d concocted during sleepless nights in prison. That scenario required “buffers,” and these people would fill those roles nicely, whether they wanted to or not. Ace decided to stay a while longer, and try to transform the plan into reality. Besides, it would make Marshon nervous and the ghetto chief might increase Ace’s “separation pay.”

  “Boy, I’d sure like to have one of them f
ifth-wheelers, Ace!”

  “Really?” Ace asked, startled that Country had any upscale dreams.

  “Yeah, I like to camp out in the woods, Ace, so I can hunt and fish, like I used to do with Pappy. ʼCourse, we just slept on the ground, in a sleeping bag.”

  “You ever had a camper or a boat?”

  “Nope. I can’t afford that stuff, Ace,” Country said, a sad and wounded look on his face, as if he’d been denied a birthright.

  Ace lit a Camel from the pack nestled in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. “Well, let’s stroll through and take a look-see.”

  According to the banner tethered to two high-flying balloons, Sea-to-Shining Sea Recreational Vehicles, Inc. sponsored the exhibit. Other businesses represented included several companies selling boats and marine supplies, as well as local Ford, Chevrolet, and Dodge dealerships that had their tow trucks on display. Saturday’s cold snap had given way to a sunny autumn day, although it was still jacket weather.

  “Damn, they want five bucks to get in here, Ace. I’m broke.”

  “What did you do with the Biederman’s paycheck you got Friday?” Ace asked, looking up at Country.

  A confused look came over Country’s face until he remembered and said, “Richey cashed it for me and only charged me a dollar. I don’t like to deal with banks, Ace. After I chipped in my share of the rent and utilities to those guys I room with, there wasn’t much left. I spent a lot Saturday night at The Stadium, and maybe left the rest in my bedroom, Ace. Sorry.”

  Ace dropped a ten into a bottle guarded by a gray-haired old woman with a permanent smile plastered on her face. To Ace, it was one more clue that Richey had his fingers into a lot of small stuff — all of a questionable legal nature, but not enough to attract attention from Biederman’s management, or the cops. That, and his association with The Wheel, indicated that Richey didn’t mind breaking the rules in pursuit of money.

  “Look, Ace, look, Ace!” Country said, barely able to contain himself at the sight of a glistening blue boat. “A bass boat, a bass boat! Look at them seats. I bet they turn all the way around. And that thing there, you know what that is, Ace?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s a fish finder, Ace. I seen one before. It looks in the water and shows a picture of where the fish are.”

  “How’s it do that?” Ace asked, looking at the boat’s $15,000-plus price tag.

  “I don’t know, Ace, but it works. You can see pictures of the fish and get an idea about how big they are.”

  Ace walked down an aisle between various camping vehicles –– pop-up tent trailers, travel trailers, fifth-wheelers, and motor homes. All were open for inspection, so Ace climbed into a fifth-wheeler made by Sunny Brook. Stairs to his right led to a master bedroom that extended over the bed of the tow vehicle. One wall of the bedroom slid out sideways on tracks to make more room. The master bath was larger than the one in the basement apartment he rented from a widow who lived in an old house not far from Biederman’s. She let Ace drive her Toyota, in exchange for yard work.

  Another slide-out wall increased the floor space in the camper’s living and dining area. Bunk beds in the back bedroom made the floor plan ideal for the typical family of four, a sales poster proclaimed. Ace found a price list on the kitchen counter, read it, and whistled.

  “You know how much this is?” he asked Country.

  The slack-jawed country boy shook his head. “How much, Ace?”

  “Fifty-seven five, on sale.” Seeing the confused look on the dummy’s face, Ace elaborated, “That’s over fifty-seven thousand dollars, Country.”

  “Oh.”

  Ace took a deep drag on his cigarette, sucking in the smoke and the smell of new plastic. “How long would it take you to make that much working at Biederman’s at seven-fifty an hour?”

  Country frowned. “Let’s see. After taxes and all that other stuff they take out, I get two hundred and twenty-five dollars and forty cents a week.” He smiled, apparently proud that he could remember those precise numbers.

  “Let’s see, Country. About eight hundred a month, ten grand a year, you could buy this rig in about six years. If you quit eating and spending money on rent. And, drinking beer and playing video games.”

  Country frowned as he worked over that concept in his head. “I can’t do that, Ace.”

  “’Course, then, even if you bought this fifth wheel, what would you pull it with?”

  Like a kid in a toy store, Country said, gleefully. “I know, I know, Ace! C’mon outside an’ I’ll show you.”

  Ace followed and Country led him to a three-quarter ton Ford diesel 3500 series pickup with a sticker sales price of over $44,000. Ace watched in amazement as Country circled the pickup, reeling off statistics about axle ratios, tire sizes, and towing capacity. The same idiot didn’t understand where maggots come from and couldn’t keep track of his money.

  “You’d need to save up another four years for the truck, Country, and then about two years for the boat. Let’s see, if you didn’t spend a dime for about twelve years and saved every dollar you made, you could buy all this stuff.”

  Country looked sad and kicked in despair at the parking lot concrete with his boot toe. He whined, “But I got to spend my paycheck, Ace. Most weeks, I can’t even get by ’til the next Friday.”

  Ace lit another cigarette and glared at a couple who waved their hands in an attempt to disperse the smoke. Ace grabbed Country’s arm and steered him off to the side. Ace stood on the side of a hill so he could be face-to-face with the moron. Class was about to begin.

  “It takes a lotta money to get what you want in life, doesn’t it, Country?”

  “Yeah, Ace, it does.”

  “Some people got money and some don’t. Those that don’t got it, but want it, gotta take it from those who got it. Otherwise, where you gonna get it? Working won’t get it, right?”

  “I don’t think so, Ace,” Country said, anxiously, as if he feared a test.

  “Another one of Ace’s laws, Country. There’s only so much shit in the world and it ain’t equally divided. If it was, that would be Godless communism and we’d all fuckin’ hate that, right?”

  “Damn right,” Country said, tugging at the bill of the John Deere cap covering his unruly, dirty brown, curly hair. He wore the same gaudy plaid long-sleeve shirt, padded vest and jeans he’d had on all week. He never tucked in the tails of the shirt. Overall, Country was a mess, but Ace concluded that, at six-eight and more than 250 pounds, Country might be a formidable weapon under the right circumstances, and with the right guidance.

  “Since we can’t have communism, people like us gotta take from the people who can easily afford this shit, otherwise we won’t get any of this stuff, meaning we can’t take part in the American dream,” Ace said. He enjoyed confusing Country with ersatz logic, the primary means by which he planned to control the simpleton. “The American dream, understand? We’re entitled to the pursuit of happiness. It’s in the Declaration of Independence. You can’t be happy without money and what it buys, right?”

  “That’s right, Ace,” Country replied, frowning intently.

  Ace had come to understand the dummy’s coping mechanisms. Country apparently had learned long ago that to ask questions every time he didn’t understand something was to court ridicule from everyone. So, he usually agreed with everything anyone else said. Oftentimes, he acted as if he was thinking about the proper answer.

  “The world ain’t organized as it should be, Country. You ever hear of survival of the fittest?”

  “No, I only went to sixth grade in school, Ace.”

  “Well, that’s the way it was for tens of thousands of years until recently, when we became super civilized. It used to be that the strong took what they wanted. Weaklings got sloppy seconds. Now, the weaklings run everything. We work and they steal from us using computers, fees, legal contracts and made-up money. You think any Wall Street banker could beat me up in a fight?”

  “I don
’t think so, Ace. You’re the toughest guy I ever met.”

  “I’d kick their ass and make them suck my dick. That’s the way it was once and it’s gonna be that way, again, if my plans work out. You gonna be with me, Country?”

  “You betcha, Ace. I’m gonna do whatever you want because you’re my best buddy ever. Most people don’t pay no attention to me. They make fun of me.”

  “I’m glad to be your buddy, Country, and I’m gonna get you one of those campers and a truck … and a boat.”

  Country looked astounded. “How you gonna do that, Ace?”

  “I got a plan to get some money.” Ace steered Country in the direction of The Stadium. “You understand about assembly lines, like the one where we work. Biederman’s makes canned soup and juices. They could make as many as they wanted, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess so, Ace.”

  “The factories that make these campers could turn out as many as they want, too.”

  “I don’t know why not, Ace,” Country said, taking off his cap and scratching his head.

  “But, if everyone had a camper, it wouldn’t be special,” Ace continued. “Then, no one would want a camper and the factory would shut down and throw everybody out of work.”

  Country shifted a pinch of snuff from one side of his mouth to the other, as if it were a gesture of understanding. The frown and blank look on his face indicated he didn’t understand anything for certain.

  “You see, the whole economy is built on the idea that there always will be haves and have-nots, and wannabes,” Ace continued, refining the economics lesson. “Some people get more than they need and other people gotta want what they don’t have, otherwise the system don’t work. The system only works if people desperately want something and are willing do anything to get it. It’s the impulse behind ambition and competition.” Ace stared at the dummy until Country looked away. “What kind of person are you, Country?”