by Adam Berlin
“If I lived in the city I’d get a garage space,” Gary said.
“That’s where I come in.”
“That’s where you came in.”
Gary laughed and then stopped himself.
“Fuck it,” he said. “I used to lose jobs all the time.”
“I kept that job for over a year. I just asked for some days off.”
“And he should have given them to you. Fuck him.”
When Caparello returned to work, both his eyes would be black and his nose would be bent.
“I had this job delivering pizzas,” Gary said. “I was the fastest guy there and I cleaned up on tips. My boss was this Greek guy. Busy nights on the weekend he’d ask me to work late, two, three in the morning late, and I always helped him out. At the end of the shift I’d bring home a couple of large pies. The boss didn’t know about it, but I figured it was one of the benefits of working for a pizza place. They had great pizza too with this thick crust and great red sauce and the cheese melted over it. Really delicious pizza. One of the cooks was his son. An ugly looking guy with zits all over his face named Acropolis or something. We got in an argument one night about some bullshit and so he goes and tells his father that I’m taking home a couple of pizzas every night. The next day his father confronts me and I tell him that yes I do take home a couple of pies at the end of my shift since I’m not getting health insurance or any other benefits and he’s not even paying for the gas I use to deliver his pizzas at three in the morning. His father wants no part of it. He won’t budge. Two pizzas and I’m cutting into his profit margin. You know what the mark up in a pizza place is?”
“No.”
“A ton. Believe me, you can get rich selling slices.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“So I tell the guy to fuck off and he fires me. You know what I did?”
“You killed him.”
“I had a key to the place just in case. In the back of my mind I always think I might have to get back at someone so I play the angles. I snuck in after closing time with a bucket of blacktop, the stuff you use to redo your driveway. You know how sticky that shit gets when it’s hot and how much it stinks? I filled up both pizza ovens with blacktop and turned the ovens on to five hundred degrees. The next day I drove by and there was soot all over the windows and a sign in front that said CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS. There was so much melted tar in those ovens that that Greek bastard would have had better luck parking his car in them than making pizzas.”
“They never busted you?”
“They tried. I denied everything and there was no way they could put it on me. I hear their pizza pies still smell like a new driveway when you first open the box.”
Gary moved up on a car in the left lane, cut to the right, passed the car and went back to the left lane. He didn’t bother using his blinkers.
“My dad told me a story about a job he quit in the Catskills,” I said.
“Teaching in the Catskills?”
“No. He worked as a busboy there in the summers.”
“Do you remind him of that when he questions your garage duties?”
“No. He was fourteen. I’m not. One summer he was working in a new resort. It was his first night on the job and the boss was riding him, telling him to hurry up, said he wasn’t clearing the tables quickly enough, all of that. My dad was hustling, but the boss was a nervous guy and for some reason he had it in for my dad. At the end of the night my dad was walking through the dining hall with a stack of dishes, a giant stack, and the boss came over and told my dad he was going to let him go at the end of the night. My dad strained his head over the pile of dishes and asked the boss if that meant he was fired. The boss said that’s what it meant. So my dad nodded his head, said Fair enough and removed his hands from the dishes. The dishes smashed to the floor, the whole dining room went silent and my dad walked quietly away. The other busboys loved his gesture so much they passed a hat around at the end of the night and gave my dad a few bucks.”
“That’s the best way to do it,” Gary said. “Go out with a bang.”
Gary stepped on the gas a little.
“Sometimes that’s the way to do it,” he said.
I watched the rpm gauge jump, then settle.
“How much money did your dad get?”
“I don’t know. Enough to get him out of the Catskills. Grandpa would have dropped the dishes on the boss’s head and then gone to work on the guy.”
“I’ve got to get some gas,” Gary said.
The next service station was in thirty miles. Gary asked if I was hungry. I said I wasn’t. He said he could go for a snack. Gary put on the radio to check the scores. He seemed happy with most of the college basketball results. I asked him if he bet big on basketball and he said he hadn’t bet on these games but if he had he would have won big. I didn’t ask him how big. I didn’t ask him what kind of money he was talking about. It wasn’t my business. I punched the knob to change the radio to FM. “Brick House” started playing. Gary said it reminded him of his college days and he started singing along and so did I. By the time the refrain came on the second time we were screaming out the words. Mighty mighty. Just letting it all hang out.
7
IT WAS TOO BRIGHT in the McDonald’s. We were inside the Pennsylvania border, our third state of the night, past the signs for Bethlehem and just past Allentown with the steel factories working overtime a short distance from the highway, orange flames and blue smoke in the night.
The rest stop was packed. We pissed side by side in the urinals that flushed automatically as soon as we walked away, washed up in sinks that came on when hands went under the faucet, shut off when hands were removed. Water magic tricks to make life easier for Americans on the go, no time to lose, no time to waste flushing toilets, turning faucets. Gary’s back was too wide for the allotted standing room and his thick shoulder touched mine while we pissed. It took him a long time to get started. I was zipping up when he finally got going and he stayed there for a long time with his eyes closed, an effort to piss, his mouth open, breathing heavy. I washed my face in cold water to wake up. An old black man mopped out the back stalls. He looked tired and broken and didn’t look at any of the faces coming in and out, only at the tile floor that he pushed the mop over back and forth. The gray mop braids were like dead, emaciated tentacles. It had to be up there with the worst jobs like cleaning out the stalls in a porno shop at the end of a night or selling cow shit for fertilizer. We had that discussion at the garage sometimes. Listing off worst jobs while we did ours. Berger said that any job where a worker was exploited was a bad job and I told Berger I’d rather be a worker in a brewery tasting stouts and ales than be the boss of a manure stand. Berger said he’d rather be a dead dog than a living lion if it came to that. I really didn’t know what I wanted. The garage had been a place to pass time until something came to me and I believed something would come, some opening. The match would be even, hold for hold, point for point, and then suddenly there was an arm, a leg, a moment of imbalance and I’d make the moment mine. I knew what I didn’t want. I didn’t want to work where they thought I was stupid. I didn’t want to have to breathe easy every morning before I opened whatever door I was paid to open.
The road had been empty as soon as traffic for Allentown got off on the appropriate ramps but the McDonald’s was crowded. The uniformed kids behind the counter worked slowly with the whole night shift in front of them. Not a good job at all. Only two registers were open. A girl worked the fry machine, waiting for the automatic timer to go off, giant salt shaker in hand. Behind the grill I could see two capped heads waiting for their own timers to start flipping burgers. The corporation had it down to the second and I thought of the old days that I’d never known but only imagined where roadside diners were mom-and-pop establishments and the grill man smoked a cigarette balanced off his lower lip while he decided the right moment to flip the burger, place the cheese slice, toast the bun.
Gary ordered
two Big Macs, two regular cheeseburgers, fries and a vanilla shake. I just wanted a medium Coke to keep me up, not much ice.
“The ice is automatic,” the cashier said.
“I just want two cubes.”
“I can’t do that. When I put the cup under the ice dispenser it dispenses an automatic amount of ice.”
“You can’t do that manually?” I said.
“You’re welcome to fish out the ice with a spoon, but I can’t fill it up with soda.”
“Get two sodas if you want,” Gary said.
“Do you want two sodas?” the cashier said.
“No. Give me one with extra ice.”
The cashier took the cup and put it under the ice dispenser. The sound of ice hitting plastic went on for the programmed time and then the cashier filled the rest of our order, pulling out burgers from the appropriate shoots, putting a large cup under the vanilla milkshake spout. Gary paid and we found a table. I saw the black man with the mop bucket move past.
Gary concentrated on his food and I looked around, sipped my soda, wondered what a passerby would think of us. Gary in fat-man’s polyester pants and a big untucked shirt. Me in my blue garage uniform cut off near the shoulders. No one was really looking. Dead eyes focused on dead burgers, faces whitewashed by fluorescent light. I tilted my head down hoping for some shadow to distinguish me. Gary finished his Big Macs and unwrapped his first cheeseburger.
“I get hungry at night and then I usually crash. You up for driving?”
“I’m ready.”
“You ever fall asleep at the wheel?”
“Not yet.”
“I did one time, but all I lost was a front fender before I woke up. I was dreaming about a place with palm trees. I still remember that.”
“A near-death experience. Maybe heaven is tropical.”
“Not that near,” he said.
Gary finished off the cheeseburger in four bites, unwrapped the second one and stood up. He was too fat to maneuver in the McDonald’s seat bolted to the floor. I’d read that all fast-food places specifically designed their chairs to be uncomfortable after twenty minutes to keep the crowd moving. I could picture some guy in a lab coat holding a stopwatch and a clipboard watching for signs of sore asses. Gary reached into his front pant pocket, pulled out a thick stack of cards held together by a rubber band, put them on the table and squeezed himself back into the chair. The cards were from the Trump Casino, Atlantic City, blue backed with gold lettering. They were a little beat up.
“You know how to play blackjack?” Gary said.
“Twenty-one.”
“Right. It’s the only game where you can beat the house. It’s all math. If you watch what the dealer’s up card is and if you know how to play each hand perfectly, you can make a bundle. If you’re counting cards and you get on a streak, then you can monopolize on it.”
“This sounds like economics.”
“Just money,” Gary said.
He took the pile of cards, separated them into four equal piles and shuffled them in his small hands. He worked expertly. I wondered how much he practiced, like I had practiced the Hand Game. Before I visited my grandfather I’d have my brother squeeze my hand with both of his so I’d be ready. I always had to threaten him before he really tried to hurt me. Gary folded the four piles into each other.
“You should be a dealer,” I said.
“Dealers can’t play. At least not in their casinos. I’ve got two decks of cards here. In Vegas they use six decks. With one deck it’s easy to count. With two decks it’s harder. With six decks it’s very hard, but if you’re quick you can do it. It evens out the fluctuations, but there are still times when the count gets very high and then you up the ante. When you bet big you win big.”
“If you’re lucky.”
“That’s why they call it gambling. Cut the cards.”
I cut the double deck in half. Gary moved the bottom pile to the top and flipped the first card. It was a jack of diamonds. The jack was winking up at me and held a sword.
“Listen closely.”
I didn’t like to be told. Listen. Study. Be like your brother. I breathed easy.
“I am listening,” I said.
“This is basic counting. When low cards are removed from the deck, the player has the advantage. When high cards are removed from the deck, the casino has the advantage. The way to count is simple. Every time a two, three, four, five or six is removed from the deck you count plus one. Every time a ten, jack, queen, king or ace is removed from the deck you count minus one.”
“Low cards are plus one. High cards are minus one.”
“Great. The ace can be one or eleven, but for counting purposes it’s considered a high card so it gets a minus one. Seven through nine counts as nothing. When a seven, eight or nine comes up, the count stays the same. When a lot of low cards are removed from the deck then the remaining deck is considered ten rich. When the deck is ten rich, full of tens and picture cards, the player has a better chance of winning.”
“A better chance.”
“A good chance. A ten-rich deck can make you rich. You can always use tens. You double down looking for tens. That means the casino will let you double your bet in exchange for one card. Let’s say you have an eleven and the dealer has a nine. You double down and receive one card. If the count is positive, chances are you’ll pull a ten and have a perfect twenty-one. So you’ll win twice as much money.”
“What if the dealer pulls to twenty-one?”
“Then it’s a tie. No one wins. But chances are that won’t happen.”
“Just checking.”
“You also split looking for tens. If you have a pair, you can split it in two. You just put down another chip and the dealer separates the cards. So let’s say you have a pair of sevens. That adds up to fourteen and if the deck is ten rich, you’ll bust if you pull a ten. You’ll go over twenty-one. But if you split the sevens and start fresh and pull a ten on each one, you’ll have a couple of seventeens. That’s not a bad hand. And if the deck is ten rich, the dealer has a better chance of busting when he pulls. So any way you look at it, tens are good for the player. Low cards are bad for the player. When the deck is ten poor, all those low cards can kill you. Got it?”
“I’ll get it.”
“With six decks you have to wait until the count is high, until the remainder of the deck to be dealt is ten rich. Then you start betting big. So what’s that? Start the count.”
I looked at the one-eyed jack.
“Minus one.”
“Great. Picture cards count as tens so it’s a minus one. The remaining deck is ten poor.”
Gary flipped another card. It was a three.
“Plus one,” I said.
“Plus one and minus one. What’s the count?”
“Zero.”
“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to do this. You don’t even have to be an economics professor.”
“I guess I’m up to the task then.”
“Just kidding,” Gary said.
He flipped two cards at a time. A seven and a four. I did the math in my head.
“Plus one.”
Gary flipped two more cards and two more and I spoke out the count. He speeded up and I stuck with him through the deck.
“The cards come out fast, especially at the higher stakes tables. You need to concentrate on the cards and count perfectly.”
“A perfect count.”
In wrestling the perfect count was one. When I pinned my opponent, the referee slapped the mat once. Match over.
“Those are the basics,” Gary said. “When you have the counting down, when you can do it perfectly, I’ll show you more. I’ll be the one playing. You’ll be the one counting and together we’ll be the ones winning.”
“It’s that easy.”
“If we get on a lucky streak it could be. Here. I’m sick of carrying these around.”
Gary handed me the decks. I opened the chest pocket of my garage unifo
rm and put the decks in. They fit snugly. Gary finished his cheeseburger and worked himself out of the seat.
“I’m hitting the men’s room,” he said.
There was a small shop with tacky gift items near the exit. The shelves were crammed with souvenirs. Paperweights. Pen knives. Dolls. Glass bubbles with famous sights like the Statue of Liberty, the Liberty Bell, a bad replica of Mount Rushmore, the marines putting up the American flag in Iwo Jima. I shook Lady Liberty and the snow started to fall. There were racks of postcards, three for a dollar. I looked them over but there were none of Las Vegas. It was a long drive away and then we’d just show up, a surprise visit like Gary had surprised us when we were kids. This time I’d be the unexpected one. There was a special on disposable cameras. I bought a camera with twenty-four exposures and a built-in flash.
I waited for Gary outside. It was too light in the parking lot and all I could see was a big piece of moon and a few stars. On the highway some cars sped by but mostly trucks. It felt very late. It felt very far away from New York. My hands were cold and I tucked the bag with the disposable camera under my arm and rubbed my hands together. Gary came out and threw me the car keys.
“Stay on this until you get to the end of Pennsylvania. Then look for Route 70.”
“You have a map?”
“I looked at the map. That’s how you do it. Straight across the country going west.”
A man was walking to the rest stop. I asked him if he’d mind taking a picture of us and handed him the camera. I stood in front of the Jaguar with Gary, arms around each other’s shoulders, looked into the lens. The man said Smile and the flash went off. He asked where we were headed and I said Las Vegas and he wished us good luck.