by Adam Berlin
The campus police were called and they took me out of the gym in handcuffs. My eye was half closed. My ribs hurt. I tasted blood from my nose. My father had jumped on my grandfather’s back to keep him from killing the landlord. The landlord had unfairly raised the rent and my grandfather had gone after him. For the family. Evan Kessler had taken away my dream and I went after him. There was a connection there but it wasn’t the same at all. There were no issues of justice or morality or family. I was in the wrong. I had beaten him but I had not beaten him on the mat. Evan Kessler was as far as I could go and I had felt my inferior balance, my inferior strength, my inferior speed. I had to go after him and when I thought about it later, I knew why I’d really done it. If I never wrestled again, I would never have to stay on my stomach for fear of being pinned, losing completely, losing, my dream done, Olympic gold gone, the other guy’s hand raised, not mine.
I was kicked off the team immediately. Evan Kessler’s coach filed criminal assault and battery charges against me. My parents had to pay a lawyer to get the charges dropped. The college held its own hearing. They let me graduate but didn’t let me attend my own graduation. They would send me my diploma. They wanted me off campus as soon as my last final was done.
My dad drove in to pick me up. My things were already packed. We didn’t look at each other when we passed, carrying boxes from dorm room to car. It was a long ride home and silent. We pulled into the driveway. He walked into the house. I started unloading the boxes from the trunk. I heard my mother scream. One long scream from the kitchen with no words attached. It was like my scream in the playground when I had been pinned. My parents had been looking forward to the ceremony, to watching their first son marching in the processional with cap and gown, to embracing their first son after the dean handed out the diplomas.
“You were great,” Gary said.
“Stop talking about it.”
“Why? That was a great fight.”
“Just stop.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Time’s running out,” I said. “I thought you’d tell me when you were ready to tell me, but we’ll be there by tonight. How much money do you owe?”
Gary turned his eyes to the road.
“I owe,” Gary said.
“How much?”
“I owe a lot,” Gary said and his voice was low. “I owe so much that no one wants to take my bets. You can only bet what you don’t have for so long. They were going to come after me. They were calling up my dad’s house, but he’s all tapped out. I wasn’t sure how far they’d go. If they’d break my knee or both my knees or worse. I thought if I got to Vegas and got on a streak I could make it all back. I could pay them off and I could pay my dad the money he’s paid for me over the years and then I’d be free.”
“How much?”
“About a hundred grand.”
“About?”
“I owe one hundred thousand.”
“Sometimes it’s no fun to talk about things.”
Gary kept his eyes on the road.
“Are you scared?”
“I am scared,” he said.
I noticed again how small his hands were and how the fat started at the wrist and just kept going.
“I have to turn my luck around in Vegas. Monday is when I have to pay up. That’s the deadline. That’s why I have to get there on Sunday. In case they track me down.”
“Do they know where you’re going?”
“Not yet. That’s why I didn’t fly. Who drives to Vegas from New York?”
“Us.”
“It’s a small world, the gambling world. Everyone knows everyone. I guess you figured out why you’re here.”
“I guess I did.”
“I wasn’t wrong about you. I’d heard you were strong. Your dad used to tell me how strong you were. And we’re family.”
“And that.”
“If you don’t want to do this I can understand. I won’t hold it against you. I’m going to win. I’ve been studying hard and I’m due for a streak. But if you want me to put you on a plane when we get there, I’ll understand.”
“I’m in,” I said.
I touched the knot above my eye.
“What about you?”
“What?”
“What happened to you?” Gary said.
I looked at the sign. Interstate 70 was coming to an end in ten miles.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Something happened. You changed.”
“You haven’t seen me in over two years.”
“That’s why I can see the change. Why did you get kicked off the team?”
“One event doesn’t change a person.”
“One thing leads to another thing leads to another thing. I wouldn’t be driving to Vegas if it didn’t. You must have done something.”
I had told the story too many times to myself. I gave Gary the abridged version. Bold type. Simple pictures. I went after the wrestler who beat me in the semifinals. I picked up a chair and smashed his head in. I was kicked off the team. I lost my scholarship. I got my diploma in the mail. I needed some time to think. I moved to New York. I got a job parking cars.
“You never wrestled after that?”
“Never did.”
“You looked in fine form today.”
I touched the knot again. The pain was familiar. There was always some pain after a match, more pain after a good match. The knot above my eye didn’t count. When Evan Kessler beat me nothing had hurt. I’d stayed on my stomach.
“I could have been a contender.”
“Now put a little more feeling into it.”
“It’s just a bullshit movie line.”
“So what? Attach a real experience to it and you’ll make the line believable. If you use your own past and put it into the lines, the moment will be real. That’s what good acting is all about.”
“I could have been a contender,” I said.
“Much better. I heard it coming through. Dess Rose. I can see your name in lights right now.”
I sped forward. I looked at the signs. Interstate 70 became Interstate 15. Even numbers across. Odd numbers up and down. The highway was freshly paved to make the trip faster, to smooth out any hesitation, to keep the car speeding to Las Vegas.
“I hope the kid got new pancakes,” Gary said.
“I hope so.”
“His dad sure wasn’t a sandwich guy.”
I looked at Gary.
“No he wasn’t.”
15
IT WASN’T EXACTLY LIKE the movies but with the lack of sleep and the desire to get there and the darkness of desert miles it was close. The winter seemed to break as soon as we went over a hump of mountains. The air that had been cool coming in from Gary’s window turned warm. And then it was in front of us. Las Vegas. All lit up and someplace to go, the place we were going, the getting there gone. One long strip of lights and from the center of that line the lights separated into the outskirts of town, then separated more into the desert. As we approached, the strip became more defined, colors more distinct, the outline of tall buildings with flashing lights a row of beacons calling us in from a far-off shore and like a couple of sailors we were pulling into port with big dreams or at least Gary was. It wasn’t yet midnight. We’d made it by Sunday. Almost twenty-six hundred miles. I leaned back in the seat and watched the lights come closer and Gary started to point out the casinos, naming the names.
It was one of those moments and in feeling high I felt how low I’d been lately. The lights were beautiful. I already knew that the view would change up close like zooming in on a seemingly flawless face but while we drove closer I tried to just concentrate on the lights illuminating this piece of desert and it really did look like an oasis. Lights instead of palms. Casinos instead of water. A stewardess I met at a bar described to me what it was like flying into Las Vegas at night, jetting through miles of sky and then seeing the strip. I pretended we were flying. It wasn’t that hard. It wasn’t mu
ch different from what the stewardess had described before she took me to her hotel room.
My garage suit chafed my skin. I was overtired. I didn’t want to stand on line at a buffet. I didn’t want to stand behind Gary at a table. I wanted to stay in the passenger seat with Gary driving to the lights but never getting there. I wanted the lights to remain at a distance where they stayed beautiful.
Gary wanted to start playing right away. He’d seen these lights many times and to him they were just casino lights. I didn’t know how many hours Gary could gamble but I guessed his stamina would be good. He was a Rose. For hours on end my grandfather had breathed in the mattress feathers that filled the room until his lungs were coated. I pictured his two lungs, covered with white feathers like a pair of angel’s wings inside. My father had stamina in his own way. When I came home from school, he’d be upstairs in his study correcting tests, marking papers, working on his books about economic theory of which I knew nothing but saw in the hands of students as they walked across campus. They were reading my father’s words. That was more than I had ever done. Whenever a new book came out, he’d inscribe one to each of us. I’d open the cover and see To Dess. With Love, Dad. Then I’d close the cover and put the book on the shelf. He knew it but he never said anything. It wouldn’t have hurt me to read a chapter and tell him I’d enjoyed what he’d written even if I didn’t understand it.
Gary drove. The lights became names. We were Roses. That was why I was here. The color of love. The color of bravery. The color of anger. The color of blood.
The road widened. Smooth like a runway. We were landing. A neon sign advertised the best slots in town. Yellow. Blue. Red. A lemon. A plum. Not a rose but a cherry.
16
WE HAD NEVER BEEN valets. Lou with his slicked-back hair, grease under the nails from fixing cars on weekends or Berger cursing the world, standing away from the time clock so he wouldn’t hear the minutes punching out or me killing my own time. The guy who opened Gary’s door was a valet. No one-piece uniform but nice slacks, a cotton sport shirt with a collar, embroidered B for Bally’s. He politely held the door handle at attention like a military man awaiting at-ease orders while General Gary worked himself out of the car. I got out and shut my own door.
Gary handed the valet a twenty, out of tipping etiquette, money shown before instead of after when the car was picked up. The valet smiled.
“You guys drive in from New York?”
Maybe he checked off license plates to pass the time.
“All the way,” Gary said.
“I was there last New Year’s eve. We went up to see the ball drop. Talk about a crazy city.”
“We used to go to Times Square with liquor,” Gary said. “We’d buy small bottles of blackberry brandy, tequila, vodka and line our pockets with them. There’s no place to go drinking when you’re stuck in Times Square. We sold the bottles at a five hundred percent mark up and the drinkers would thank us for ripping them off. Supply and demand at its finest.”
“So you were the guy.”
“Listen, do me a favor and park my car close to the entrance. I’ll be doing a lot of driving in and out.”
“Whatever you want,” the valet said, the money already talking in Las Vegas. “I’ll put it on the first level, right near the exit.”
“Good man,” Gary said.
I watched the valet get into the Jaguar to see if his moves were any different. They weren’t except that the ramp in New York went down and his ramp went up. Gary worked another set of keys out of his pocket and threw them to me.
“I believe you’re quicker on your feet in case we need to make a speedy exit. You hungry?”
“Just tired.”
“You’ll wake up,” Gary said. “They pump fresh oxygen through the casinos to keep the players playing. Your lungs won’t know what hit them after breathing all that city smog. We’ll win some dinner, eat and get to work.”
“If you get tired we’re calling it a night.”
“Just keep the count and if I nod off then we’ll find a place to stay. Maybe we’ll get comped. You ready to start counting for real?”
“One, two, three.”
“Great.”
I knew how to count. I knew how to play each hand, at least on the most basic level. We had decided that I would stand behind Gary with my hand on top of his chair. I would wedge my fingers between the chair and Gary’s wide stretch of back to keep them hidden. When the count went to plus four, I would press my finger once into his back. When the count went to plus six, I’d press my finger twice. Plus eight, I’d press three times and he would start to bet heavy. On the minus counts, I’d rub my finger across his back like a minus sign. Once for minus four. Twice for minus six. Three times for minus eight. I was ready.
We went through the revolving doors and it was like being punched. A cartoon punch where the visual aftereffects, whistling birds or glittering stars, covered the pain. The casino right in the face. Cool air, bells going off, shouts, people playing, passing through, some dressed for a night on the town, some in sweats, cocktail waitresses in miniskirts and low-cut tops to show maximum cleavage, lights all over the place, too close. There were rows of slot machines, lights flashing, bells ringing, people sitting on stools feeding quarters to the one-armed bandits, pulling for the big jackpot that increased a dollar a second, digitally, lit up for all to see on a flashing sign while a brand-new Camaro rotated under it, part of the jackpot, thrown in for good measure to drive those bags of money home in luxury. Past the slots were the craps tables, players shouting for good rolls, stick men scooping dice. Past them were the blackjack tables, the players signaling with fingers against green felt whether they wanted a card or not, hit or stick.
Gary stopped at a ten-dollar-minimum table. The dealer finished the hand, removed the losers’ chips, paid off the winners. Gary pulled out a wad of bills from his left front pocket and put a fifty-dollar bill flat on the table. The dealer called out Check change for the pit boss to come over and see the transaction but for fifty dollars the call was only a formality, check change for chump change. The dealer counted out ten five-dollar chips, slid them over to Gary, put the fifty-dollar bill into the slot. I pictured an elaborate tunnel system funneling all those bills to some underground vault built deep in the desert sand. Gary finished squeezing himself into the seat and put two chips in the circle in front of him. He turned to me, quietly told me not to bother counting this one, this was just for dinner, something he always did, something he’d done the first time he went to a casino, a little tradition. He said he’d never lost his meal ticket yet. I watched the dealer’s manicured hands move clockwise around the table. He slid the cards into place, faceup for each player. The dealer put his own first card facedown and then he dealt around again and put his second card up, an eight. Gary had two pictures. Ten plus ten. A colorful gift of twenty. The dealer went around the table, didn’t even bother asking Gary to signal whether he wanted a card or not. The dealer turned his bottom card over for all to see. A ten. He had to stick at seventeen or over. House rules. The dealer had eighteen. Gary had twenty.
“Easy money,” Gary said.
The count for the table was plus two. I had done it automatically, two cards at a time. The dealer paid off the winners, gave Gary two new chips. He was up ten dollars. I did some quick math of my own. He only had to win ten dollars less than what he owed. Gary let the bet ride, stacked the two chips he’d won on his original two chips. The dealer dealt. Gary got a nine and a ten. Nineteen. The dealer busted after he had to pull on fifteen. The count was even. Gary let the bet ride again, added the chips to the pile. He won again. Gary was up seventy bucks. He picked up the chips, handed them to me, worked himself out of the seat and I followed him to the cashier’s window. It was true what they said about chips. They felt great. It was the greatest single idea the casinos ever came up with to separate a man from his money. Colorful, smooth discs with a nice weight to them displayed in generous stacks at every t
able. It wasn’t flimsy paper with serious green ink. The red chips, smooth against my palm, clicking against each other in a comforting way, promised a chance to win all night and all day and wasn’t this better than working a real job for a living. I followed Gary past the craps tables which were packed and loud and past the bells and lights of the slot machines to the cashier’s window, all winners here, all in a line. I gave Gary the chips and he put them on the marble counter. The cashier pulled the chips behind the protective glass. She unstacked the chips in stacks of five, stacked them back together, click, click, one short stack, announced seventy bucks and handed over the crispest fifty and twenty I’d ever seen. Gary kept the original chips he had bought in his shirt pocket. I guessed that was another little tradition.
“Food on the house,” Gary said.
“It’s your money now.”
“Thanks. I’m glad you were listening. But we have to eat.”
“Is this where you always gamble?”
“I’ve been here a couple of times. Usually I go to the MGM, but I’m not going there tonight. They don’t know me here except at the buffet line.”
“I see.”
“I can’t exactly go undercover. A false mustache or dark sunglasses won’t hide me too well.”