by Adam Berlin
A baby fell out of the window.
You’d think that his head would be split.
But good luck was with him that morning.
He fell in a barrel of
Gary held the note, then belted out the refrain.
Shaving cream.
Be nice and clean.
Shave every day and you’ll always look clean.
My dad had a nice voice too. It filled the car and all the kids listened. It was hard for them to believe that a parent could fool around that way. They thought I had the best father on the street.
“He used to test me on things all the time,” Gary said. “Birds. Trees. Things I’d seen. Math problems. I always thought that if I ever had kids I’d treat them like your dad treated you two. I used to love visiting your folks when I was young. I even remember when they got married. I was the ring boy. I hid the ring in a stuffed mushroom until Grandpa gave me one of his looks.”
“My mom always tells the story about how you came long for the ride when your dad drove them to the airport for their honeymoon. You were leaning over the front seat, looking at my parents, sweetness and light, and all of a sudden you punched my dad in the nose.”
Gary smiled at that, pleased with his childhood antics.
“I was a sweet kid,” Gary said. “About as sweet as you were. I remember you used to squeeze all your muscles and force yourself to stop breathing. Your face would turn red like you were angry at the world. You were hardly old enough to stand, but you could clench up your muscles like a madman.”
“Supposedly Grandpa loved when I did that.”
“I’m sure he did. Grandpa was from another time.”
“In some ways.”
“You used to turn bright red,” Gary said, remembering the child with clenched hands, feet, teeth.
“I guess I did.”
“At least you kept everything inside.”
“I just didn’t know who to take it out on. Or how. Sometimes I wish I could keep it all inside and let the other stuff out.”
“Stuff,” Gary said. “The other stuff.”
Gary made a shhh sound, stretched it out like he was going to say shit but he didn’t finish the sound, not shit, not shaving cream. We listened to the radio for a while. We watched the road.
“I didn’t even bother telling your dad about my last plan.”
“What was it?” I said.
“I wanted to act. I wanted to be an actor.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t tell him.”
“It was just a quick dream. It came and went.”
“Did you do anything about it?”
“Not really. I was always too busy gambling. Then last year I enrolled in an acting class over at HB Studio on Bank Street, not far from where you live. I always saw their advertisements in the paper so I said what the hell and took a class.”
“I never knew you wanted to be an actor.”
“Nobody does. I didn’t want people asking me about acting. I talk about gambling all the time because everyone knows I’m a gambler.”
“How was the class? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I’m talking about it. The class was good. We did a lot of sense memory work. The good actors make method acting look easy, but if you don’t have specific memories attached to each line then the acting comes off like crap. I could see it in the scenes people did for class. When they put in some time and did their homework and figured out what made their characters tick, then the scenes went well. When they just recited lines, trying to get through it, the scenes sucked. Most of the scenes sucked. I think you either have it or you don’t with acting, but if you have it and you do some work then you’re on to something.”
“You sound like my dad.”
“I was great.”
“The next James Dean.”
“I was. I could act. I’d put myself in the character’s shoes and I’d do all my homework, attach a specific moment in my life to every moment the character was in or talking about and it all came naturally. I didn’t get nervous either. Once I was up there doing the scene I became another person and didn’t think about the people watching. The teacher took me aside after one class and told me to stick with it, that I had something. Maybe it’s from telling stories about gambling or maybe it’s from bullshitting people all the time, from being the life of the party when I have to be. The teacher wasn’t just saying it like you’d think, trying to keep the enrollment up in his class. He’s a working actor. Stage work, so you’ve never heard of him. He didn’t really care if we came to his class or not. When people dropped out he’d cross their names off the roster, no skin off his ass.”
The car in front of us didn’t move. Gary flicked the brights on and off, on and off, drove up on the car’s tail, hit the horn, hit the horn again and the car finally moved over. I didn’t bother looking at the driver’s face. I’d seen the gamut of expressions.
“It’s when I started auditioning that things fell apart,” Gary said. “I had a picture taken. I sent it out to some casting directors and got some calls. But when I showed up at their offices I realized that they had just called me in because I was some fat guy. A fat guy with a smile. That’s what they always told me. You’ve got a great smile.”
“You do.”
“I wanted to do more than just smile for the camera like a happy-go-lucky pig and sell cheeseburgers. I wanted to be a real actor. I asked them if they would send me out for film work, a more serious part here and there, but all they did was smile back at me and say I was cut out for commercial work. They said commercial work was where I could make some money. I didn’t need the money.”
“You should have pushed them.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. I thought about going to Hollywood. It all made sense. I knew about gambling and Hollywood was the big gamble. I knew I could act and I had all of these experiences that could be used to create serious characters, interesting characters. I’ve seen some crazy things. I’ve done some crazy things. I’ve lived through things that could layer a performance and make it real. There are so many movies about gambling and making money illegally and characters working on the fringe that I figured I’d be perfect. I had myself so fooled that I even checked out some local newspapers to see what rents were like out there until I finally accepted the fact that the casting directors in Hollywood would be no different from the casting directors in New York. I’d walk into their offices and they’d look at the size of me and the dollar signs would go off in their heads and they’d tell me I had a great smile. They’d see the same fat guy, the same flash-in-the-pan way to make a buck on a few commercials which was not why I wanted to go to Hollywood.”
“That’s stupid. There are fat people in movies.”
“You go to many movies?”
“I go to some.”
“Not fat like me. Jackie Gleason played Minnesota Fats in The Hustler, but he was about half my size. Orson Welles made it when he was young and in shape.”
“What about John Candy? Chris Farley?”
“I’m bigger than both of them were. You never see a man my size in a serious movie. I had Hollywood in my eyes so I wasn’t thinking. When I finally looked in the mirror and tried to see what the casting directors saw, I knew they were right for not taking a chance on me. I’m just a fat man. My eyes are embedded in a fat face and my fat face is stuck on a fat body. I took my acting pictures and threw them out.”
I didn’t say anything. I knew that once the pictures were thrown in the trash, it was over.
“That was my short-lived career in the acting business,” Gary said.
I just looked at the highway.
“So what about you?”
“What about me what?”
“What’s your dream?”
“I don’t really have one,” I said.
“There’s nothing you would do if you could?”
“That’s romantic shit.”
“So what? What we’re doing right now is romantic shit. D
riving across country. Feeling free. Making the highway our home. We’re two American guys going west looking for adventure.”
“Is that what we’re doing?”
“Sure.”
“I hope we find it then.”
“You must want something.”
“I used to dream of winning a gold medal. Being the best in the world at my weight.”
“What happened?”
“I wasn’t good enough. I lost to a guy in the division semifinals my senior year. Then I got kicked off the team.”
“Why?”
“I just did.”
“What did you do? Throw the guy down the incinerator?”
“I just lost it.”
“You showed your pain.”
“Whatever. I guess Grandpa was that way too, but he did it for the family.”
“For the family,” Gary said and he raised his hand like grandpa had done.
“Sometimes I feel like I need to do something or else I’ll go crazy.”
“I know.”
“But I’m crazy for doing it too. Out of control.”
“The worst is when you can’t even lose control. When you’re not even that free. When other people have so much control that if you lose it you could lose forever. That kind of fear keeps you from losing it all the way.”
It didn’t really make sense. When I lost control I felt no fear. Maybe I was still too young or too stupid. I heard in Gary’s voice and in his words something that hinted at something else and I knew he was starting to tell me the truth about our trip. I was still the kid cousin. He was still Cousin Gary. He would tell me why we were traveling to Las Vegas in time, when he was good and ready, when we had put in enough hours and miles together and could talk man to man, face to face, eye to eye with less of the past skewing our vision and more of the present making it clear.
“You hungry?” Gary said.
“Not really.”
“I can wait too.”
Gary started singing “Hooray for Hollywood” only he didn’t know any of the words. The only word he knew was Hollywood and for the rest of the song he just sang da da da. He went through it a couple of times and I looked at the highway in front of us and how the beams lit up an ever changing section of road so that the lit portion was like its own small world with its own small horizon that we could get to if Gary slowed the car and parked it and left the lights on and we started walking but even then it wouldn’t be exactly clear where the beam ended and the night began. I started to sing with Gary. I didn’t know the words either but our Hollywoods came out loud and clear and overpowered the music on the radio and covered up everything else as well. We must have sung for a straight five minutes and I almost wished we could sing all the way to Las Vegas.
12
GARY GOT PULLED OVER for speeding right outside a town called Sweet Springs. It took almost a full minute for Gary to dig his wallet from his front pocket. Gary joked that if he kept his wallet in his back pocket we’d be here the rest of the night. The cop laughed, looked over Gary’s license and registration and asked who Jack Rose was. Gary said it was his father. I registered that and suddenly, as if by not moving, by not blurring the edges with speed, everything was becoming more defined.
The cop returned the paperwork and Gary pulled gently out of the breakdown lane. Friday night traffic going into Kansas City became heavier. We could practically tap our shoes Dorothy style against the gas pedal and we’d be almost home if home was Kansas. There was a large billboard off to the side of the road advertising Harrah’s Casino and then another large billboard for the Flamingo Hilton Casino.
“They have casinos in Kansas City?”
“A few,” Gary said.
“Why don’t we stop here?
“I don’t want to.”
“I thought you were in a rush.”
“I don’t play on boats.”
“The signs didn’t say anything about boats.”
“They’re on boats. The hotels can’t build casinos on land so they’re all on these floating barges. It’s a legal loophole, something about water having a different jurisdiction. That’s why there’s gambling on cruise ships. I stay away from those too.”
“You never taught me that water affected the cards.”
“The last time I played on a boat I lost. In New Orleans they have the same setup. Every time I walked onto a boat I dropped money. And at least New Orleans had great restaurants.”
We passed another large billboard. It was for Harrah’s again. The advertisement read YOUR BIGGEST NIGHTS HAPPEN HERE!
“See,” I said.
“Don’t believe everything you read.”
“I don’t.”
I looked at the signs. I looked at the small skyline. Gary pulled off at the second exit for the city just as he had in Indianapolis. I asked if he’d changed his mind. He said he just wanted a real meal.
“What’s the famous food here?” I said.
“Filet of Toto with Wizard of Oz gravy.”
We found a restaurant with a full lot in front which could have meant it was good or just the only place still open.
A host in a ridiculous green shirt with ruffles sat us at a back table, handed over two plastic coated menus, also green. I went to the bathroom, washed my hands in hot water, my face in cold. I looked like I had been on the road for weeks. My hair looked flat and greasy. I needed a shave. There was no one in the bathroom. I unzipped my garage suit, pulled my arms out of the sleeves, squeezed some soap from the dispenser, lathered my underarms, bent over the sink, rinsed myself off. I flooded the bathroom floor but it wasn’t my bathroom.
Gary closed his menu. He got up to go to the bathroom. I looked around the restaurant at the people celebrating Friday night, all locals, all having a good time. I felt like having a beer but I knew I might be driving soon. Gary got tired after he ate. It took work to digest the quantity of food he shoveled in and so the rest of his body functions slowed. I looked over the menu. It was mostly meat. Gary sat down.
“You take a shower in there?”
“I wish.”
Gary signaled the waitress over. He ordered two steak dinners and two Cokes and gave her the menu. I ordered a Coke and the roast chicken. The waitress asked what kind of dressing we wanted on our house salads, saying housesalads, one word. Gary said blue cheese and I said I’d have the same. I was craving fresh vegetables.
When the waitress brought the salads I saw my mistake. There were globs of blue cheese dripping over my lettuce and tomato, large spoonfuls of bacon bits dumped over the blue cheese, dozens of greasy croutons topping everything off. I was surprised they didn’t serve the salad in a bowl made of lard. I tried to find an unadulterated piece of lettuce but the blue cheese had touched everything. I pushed the bowl away.
Gary finished his salad, asked if I was done, ate my salad and started spinning his empty glass. He told me to pull out the cards so we could practice a few hands but I had left the decks in the car. Gary tested me on the count. I didn’t make any mistakes. He said the count had to be perfect at all times, saying it more for himself now.
“We’re going to win,” Gary said.
“If we’re lucky.”
“That’s part of it. Good luck, good cards and a good attitude.”
“What does attitude have to do with it?”
He was spinning the glass and looking at me.
“You ever heard that expression ‘taking a bath’? A guy goes into a casino, loses all his money and says he took a bath. That’s a bad attitude. He was a loser before he even started playing because he didn’t feel he deserved to win.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know. What does ‘taking a bath’ mean?”
“I forgot.”
“No wonder the floor was so wet.”
“They can soak it up with some of their blue cheese.”
“We’ll be there soon. Think how good that shower will feel in Vegas.”
“I’m to
o filthy to think.”
“A guy who says he took a bath feels like he’s been cleansed somehow, that by losing money he’s clean. Which means that if he won money he would see it as dirty money. That kind of attitude will kill you. It’s your money. How you make it, whether working for it or gambling for it, it’s still your money. It shouldn’t matter whether a murderer tips you or a businessman. A buck’s a buck. There’s no morality attached to money and there’s nothing dirty about a wallet full of bills.”
“So how does that change the odds?”
Gary kept spinning the glass.
“It changes the way you play. Some moron who feels he doesn’t deserve to win will make double-or-nothing bets, or he’ll bet on hunches, stupid moves like that. He’ll do everything he can to give his money back to the casino. He’ll lie to himself, make himself believe he wants to win with his daring play, but all he’s really doing is taking a bath. He’ll walk out a loser and he’ll feel clean. You’d be surprised how many people go into a casino expecting to lose and even wanting to lose.”
“Do you always think you’re going to win?”
“Always.”
“You never have a doubt?”
“Not while I’m playing. It’s my money and I hate to lose.”
When Evan Kessler threw me around the mat I had felt doubt. I had gone into the semifinals thinking I could take anyone. I was in great shape. I had gone out every night after practice to the large parking lot between the gym and the theater and I’d run wind sprints by the dozen. I did hundreds of push-ups in my dorm room after breakfast, after lunch, before I went to bed. I flipped my mattress over and over. I was ready. When Evan Kessler almost had my shoulders pinned against the mat I had become panicky. It took all my strength to work myself around, to get off my back. I spread out flat on my stomach and stayed there. It was a completely defensive move. From that position there was not much I could do except not get pinned and as I pressed my body into the mat I already knew that I had lost. He was too strong and too fast for me. I just tried to ride out the time without getting pinned. That was my way to keep it clean. If I didn’t get pinned I could at least say I hadn’t been pinned. Never pinned on the mat, never pinned since I’d started wrestling. I should have believed I could win, I should have tried to win, I should have broken my fear and taken a chance and made my shoulders vulnerable. I didn’t. All I cared about was not getting pinned, not getting put in a position of complete helplessness, not losing completely. I just stayed on my stomach and waited for the time to run out. The referee raised Evan Kessler’s arm. I tried to control it. I was squeezing my hands together to feel the pain and not show it. We had to shake hands and he didn’t look me in the eye, didn’t feel I deserved to be acknowledged, and he was right. He had felt my body. He knew how I had wrestled. I walked back to the row of chairs where the rest of the team sat and I had to sit down and there was nowhere to walk it off and nowhere to run it off and straight ahead of me, across the mat where I had not done what I once believed I could do, where I had not even done what I should have done, was the one who had beaten me and so I had started to walk forward.