by Adam Berlin
“You going to make a photo album when you get back?” Gary said. “Show your folks where we’ve been?”
“I figured we’d see some things.”
I unlocked the car, put the camera on the dash and adjusted the seat. Gary reached for his ski jacket in the back, a giant blue one.
“If you get tired, wake me up. If I don’t wake up, find a rest stop and pull in. If you wake up first, start driving.”
“What’s the rush?”
“I want to get there by Sunday.”
He was already leaning his head against the door using the jacket as a pillow but he was looking straight ahead. I didn’t ask him why Sunday. I started the car, put it into drive and got on the highway. The car gripped the road even more powerfully from the driver’s seat than the passenger’s. I sped up to nine miles over the speed limit and weaved through a small pocket of traffic. By the time I reached the next exit Gary was snoring. I turned on the radio, kept the sound low, drove on, just me and the trucks and the exit signs passing by, just the road, feeling kind of lonely but kind of good too, disconnected in the right way and thinking maybe this was what I needed.
8
I DROVE THROUGH THE NIGHT. Heavy skies made heavier by the lights along the highway. The color of the night sky beyond the overhead lights reminded me of the ocean when a storm is coming and the crests have rolled slightly, turned white, made the gray behind grayer. With the darkness all around I could imagine it was ocean upside down. Water to pass under to get to the final destination. Land to move through to Las Vegas. Different elements, same idea, but the element mattered to Gary. No air. He wanted to drive instead of fly but driving at night made no sense, no sights seen, nothing new, just hours on the road. Whatever time we made was nothing compared to a jet. I needed time to study the game, to perfect the count, to get to know my cousin all over again or for my cousin to get to know me. Maybe that was some of it but it couldn’t be all of it. He had looked at me like sizing me up before a fight. Seeing what I had. He had to know that I could tie up his fat frame and hurt him once I got a grip on his flesh.
With the signs I counted off the miles to Pittsburgh. I listened to the DJ’s banter between songs, one radio station fading into the next as if the airwaves were formally divided by terrain. I pictured the map of the United States, multicolored, with the Jaguar a yellow dot moving along, making time, covering distance. It was a big country, a good place to get lost for a while. Pennsylvania seemed to go on forever but it would be dwarfed next to the western states, chunks of primary colors, swatches that led to the Pacific painted blue.
The Jaguar drove more smoothly the faster it went. Gary still slept with his head against his jacket. He was snoring lower now and more rhythmically. He had hardly shifted at all, the fat on his back and sides a comfortable cushion for muscle and bone. His lids flickered, maybe a bad dream. I went over the cards in my head and practiced the count. Plus one. Minus one. A deck started at zero and ended at zero. Like life. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, but with the right shuffle the fluctuations could be great like blips in a flat line. That’s when the moment had to be seized, the diem carped, the big bet made, the vulnerable limb grabbed and pulled.
There was a detour in Ohio and suddenly there was traffic under the dark skies. We were on a small two-lane road, one lane east and one lane west. It was stop and go, stop and go, orange detour signs pointing the way, blinking lights on top warning cars to slow as if they had a choice. I forced my eyes to concentrate on the braking taillights of a huge truck in front of me. The plates were from Louisiana. We weren’t playing the license plate game like we did as a family in the backseat of our Volvo, searching for all the states, trying to make all fifty by the time the trip ended, Hawaii and Alaska the rarest of finds, my mom making the official list in her flowing cursive. My mom always said they’d planned our days of sightseeing around us and how that was good, how they’d seen things they wouldn’t have normally seen. Each night, before we went to bed, my parents had us write about the day’s events in a diary. I filled the pages writing down the opposite of what my brother wrote. If Derek liked the blacksmith shop in Colonial Williamsburg, I’d write that the blacksmith was just a fake wearing a costume. If Derek described the thrill of the roller coaster at Six Flags Over Georgia, I’d write that the ride was too slow. My parents said it was nice to see how much I was enjoying the trip. I told them I’d enjoy the trip if I got to just enjoy it and not write about it, how I was surprised they weren’t collecting our diaries and giving us grades. My dad would look at me, disappointed. Then he’d take our soda orders, go into the hotel hallway, return with the cans and the bucket of ice. We’d drink our sodas and go to bed, Derek and I in one double bed, my mom and dad in the other, the sound of the late news putting me to sleep.
I felt a little dizzy from the hours of speeding. I turned the radio up.
The detour lasted for miles. The light started to come out. Dawn in Ohio. It was a freeing feeling with the sun not yet visible but the light illuminating new land for me. For a moment I forgot about where I was going and where I had come from and it was just the car and the road and the land and sky around me and no thoughts about what I was doing or supposed to do, thoughts that were with me all the time, echoes of conversations with my parents that I tried to squelch but could not or doubts about where I was headed that were my own. For a moment I could see clearly. There were no garages, no fights, no family, just me, speeding, and I felt pure like the Jaguar moving fast.
We were in farm country. Expanses of land with gradual rises and falls and barns and silos that looked movie-set fake, too peaceful for belief. There were streaks of purple on the horizon and I caught myself looking too long, the taillights of the truck too close to the windshield. I had to brake hard. I forced myself to concentrate on the stops and starts. There was no place to pull over and sleep. I glanced at Gary. His curly hair was matted down like a kid’s, a big kid, cheeks full of baby fat in the dim light. My parents said it was hard to believe but he’d been gorgeous as a child. He’d been a troublemaker, always, but as a kid it was cute, not evil, irresponsible, not criminal. Gary’s father told the gambling stories to my father, his brother, criticizing Gary’s abuse of money but proud also, his son the big shot, his son the high roller, his son who could take a group of friends to Vegas all expenses paid, forgetting for a moment that the potential money dropped at the casino tables more than made up for comped rooms, all-you-can-eat buffets, free plane tickets first class. My parents didn’t let us forget. They reminded me and my brother what was behind the romance. They didn’t want us getting the wrong ideas.
When he was five Gary filled a neighbor’s car with water from a backyard hose. At six he put Krazy Glue in the locks of every house on his street. At seven he broke into a Hostess truck and walked away with crates of cupcakes. At eight he stole an aquarium teeming with pet alligators, tiny babies, and put them in the pools and sewers of the neighborhood. Swimming kids were bitten. The other alligators grew full-size feeding on sewage, an urban legend made real by Gary.
Uncle Jack was constantly shelling out money to cover his son. It was a routine that lasted into adulthood. He paid Gary’s entire college tuition right up to the last credit before Gary dropped out just one class shy of graduation. That story was repeated at our dinner table, my dad furious because he’d been persuaded to pull academic strings to get Gary admitted. All Gary learned in college was how to gamble. The only connections he made were bookies. My uncle paid the rent when Gary was short on money but not too short to act the big spender with his friends. There had been other stories. Payments my uncle made to people who visited late at night. My uncle would shake his head and his eyes would go far away and he’d say When will he grow up? I don’t know what to do. When will he ever grow up?
It was stop and go for miles with the same truck in front of me. I hit the button to open the window to get some cold air in my face. It smelled fresh. I could hear birds calling out excitedly
like Ohio was new for them too, a new day, and maybe it was. I’d heard that a fish’s memory lasted two seconds and if fish had two seconds of memory then I figured birds might have no more than a day’s worth. And what about gamblers? How long did it take them to forget their losses before they returned to the casino or the racetrack or the phone where the bookie waited knowing the calls would come in? Gary shifted his weight. I looked at his sleeping face and his fat body. We didn’t look anything alike but he was my blood, my family, my name. Rose. Gary Rose.
It was beautiful the way the light started to take over the sky and the tip of the sun actually moved up from the horizon, not giving birth to a new day but looking like it was being born anew. I could make out where the crops had been planted and pulled, color variations in the burnt brown like the variations in state colors on a map only less varied, less bright, less dramatic, more real. It was what I expected America to look like. The detour ended and I sped up.
When Gary got older things that were once cute weren’t cute anymore. He went wrong and he stayed wrong my dad would say and he was still wrong now sleeping next to me as I drove and the odometer ticked off the miles behind us, from there, from wherever we were, had been, to Las Vegas. I had gone wrong too in my father’s eyes, the word he used to sum up how I lost my scholarship and how I decided to work in a parking garage and how, had he known, I dropped everything to drive with Gary.
I had been going wrong. Since I’d moved to New York I had been in fourteen fights, close to one a month. On the weekends I usually went to a bar, picked up a woman, drank with her, talked with her, went home with her or at least her number to meet up another time. Some nights I drank too much. I went to the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror, saw my eyes, too far gone to go back out and talk, flirt, whatever I did. My eyes were not the eyes someone would want to look into. I would stay in front of the mirror and look at my eyes and talk to myself and tell my family to go fuck themselves. I was a disappointment to them. I was the firstborn and I had never lived up. I hated school, probably no more than a lot of kids but their parents weren’t teachers. My dad sat upstairs in his office reading, writing, preparing classes, correcting papers, always telling me about my potential and how I was wasting it, and later he wanted me to get into a good college, and later he wanted me to do well in college, get a good job, a job that fulfilled my potential whatever that was. It made me crazy. It felt like a pin, started to feel that way after I’d been put on my back in the playground, after my dad went against me and my grandfather went against him, my grandfather yelling at him. But he was my father and my grandfather went back to Florida. He’d tell me about my potential and I’d get mad and I couldn’t do anything about it, couldn’t defend myself, couldn’t move away from the feeling.
It was a little bit like being crazy. It was being crazy. In my head I put my dad on his back and kept him there, pressed him down harder and harder until he was hurt and the craziness was in his eyes and there was nothing he could do, on his back, pinned. The picture came back to me when I was drunk. I would tell my father to go fuck himself and I would tell myself to go fuck myself, in the mirror, me in front of me. It wasn’t easy to say Fuck me in the mirror and call it a night. I’d feel the mat near my shoulders like I was about to be pinned. I’d feel the blood rush. I’d leave the bar and run to someplace where I had never been before. Another bar. Sometimes a club if that was the first place I saw, a line of people behind a velvet rope. I’d go in and get a drink. I’d stretch out my back from the week of work, sitting and standing, turning ignitions, driving down and up the ramp, working for tips. It wasn’t that easy. I would wait until someone was unlucky enough to cross me. Excuse me, can I get in here to order a drink. Excuse me, if you’re not using this seat can my friend sit down. Excuse me, do you know the time. Anything. Sometimes just a look that I didn’t like. It was in my blood. The balance. The strength. The speed. The instinct to find weaknesses in another man’s body. I would take them down. Beat them until my hands were stained with blood. Until they were out. Then I’d run.
A chill of December air went through me. I hit the button to close the window all the way.
9
MY NECK WAS STIFF when I woke. My mouth was dry. I didn’t feel rested at all. Gary stayed in the left lane and pushed the cars in front of him by riding their bumpers until they moved aside. Traffic was heavy so it wasn’t worth weaving. He seemed in a driving groove of his own.
“Where are we?”
“About twenty miles from Indianapolis. You sleep well?”
“Perfect.”
I looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was a little past ten. I’d been asleep less than two hours. I sat up, rubbed my eyes again.
“You ever been to Indianapolis?”
“No. You?”
“Never,” Gary said. “You want to check it out? I could go for something to eat besides the roadside usual. What’s Indianapolis famous for?”
“The Indy 500.”
“Thanks. Foodwise I can’t think of anything. There’s New York cheesecake. Philly cheese steaks. Boston beans. New Orleans gumbo.”
“Florida orange juice.”
“Hawaiian luau pork.”
“San Francisco sourdough.”
“Las Vegas buffets.”
“They’re a food group.”
Gary went after the next car in lane line, pushing, pushing.
“Wait until you see the spreads they put out at the casino hotels. Prime rib. Shrimp. Lobster. All you can eat for practically nothing. Pastas. Desserts. Ice cream. You can make your own sundaes. The Bally’s buffet is the best. They have a Chinese food station that has great spareribs, sweet and sour chicken, great egg rolls and fried dumplings.”
“I could go for a piece of fruit,” I said.
The overhead signs pointed to Indianapolis. On the side of the highway it was all the same. Fast-food places. Gas stations. A small shopping complex with a supermarket, a drug store, a video store.
“King,” Gary said.
“Let me wake up.”
“You should be able to count in your sleep.”
“Minus one,” I said.
“Jack, three, two, nine.”
“Plus one.”
“Ace, ten, ace, two, king, seven, five, eight.”
“Minus two.”
“Four, nine, eight, queen of hearts.”
“Zero. The hearts is the key.”
“The count is the key. Queen, two, six, king, five, five, two, jack, two.”
“Plus three. Start betting big.”
“Not bad.”
“You should see me when I’m rested.”
“You have to be rested. You have to keep the count perfectly. If you see me making mistakes, stupid tired mistakes, make sure I get up from the table.”
“How will I know?”
“I’ll teach you while we drive.”
“I assume we’re getting a hotel room when we get there. I could use a horizontal sleep.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll hook us up with two king-size beds and a view of the strip.”
Gary came up fast on the car in front of him. Indiana plates. The numbers added up to a plus four count. Gary rode the guy until the guy pulled over a lane. I looked out the side window to catch the driver’s dirty look.
“The way you play each hand depends on the count, but if you know the basic strategy you have a fifty-fifty chance of winning even without counting cards. Let’s say you have a ten and a six and the dealer’s up card is a seven, what would you do?”
“I’d probably stick.”
“Never stick. You always hit when you have a sixteen and the dealer has a seven showing. That’s the biggest mistake you’ll see at the table. It separates the men from the boys.”
“Chances are you’ll pull a card bigger than a five.”
“So?”
“So then you’ll go over twenty-one and lose.”
“Chances are you’re going to lose anyway. If
the dealer has a seventeen you’re going to lose with a sixteen so it pays to take a chance. I’ve got computer printouts based on tens of thousands of dealt hands. If you pull a card on sixteen you’ll cut your losses. Anyone who doesn’t hit on sixteen doesn’t know the game.”
“They’re playing it safe.”
“There’s a difference between playing safe and playing stupid. That’s stupid. Pulling on a sixteen may seem risky, but it’s smart.”
I wondered if this was Gary’s basic strategy for all his gambling. To attack instead of retreat. Like a wrestling strategy that said a good offense was the best defense. The only problem was that cards were cards. Cards didn’t care. They didn’t fear. I assumed Gary knew this too. I assumed he knew cards better than most. I pictured Gary sitting in an oversize lounger shuffling and reshuffling the deck, turning card after card after card over, studying computer printouts until he saw through the cards or saw them in a different way, had an intrinsic understanding of them like I understood the moves I practiced on the mat.
“Remember, you make your money doubling down and splitting,” Gary said. “You always double down on eleven. Unless the dealer has an ace showing, you double your bet. Chances are you’ll pull a ten, jack, queen or king and win twice as much money.”
“Unless you don’t.”
“Odds are you do. And always split aces and eights. You have two aces, they’re worthless. But if you split the aces and draw a ten on each one you’ve got two twenty-ones, two winning hands. The same thing with eights. Sixteen sucks. But once you split them you open yourself to all sorts of winning possibilities. You can even double down on a split and really rack up the money.”
“Guaranteed,” I said.
“I’m telling you. Winning is a matter of understanding the odds and I understand the odds. Check the glove compartment.”