“Hi,” Pilate said, suddenly feeling very vulnerable. He laid three $20 bills on the felt near the words “Dealer Must Hit Soft 17.”
“Changing $60!“ the dealer said over his shoulder.
A strikingly attractive Native American woman pit boss insouciantly glanced at Pilate, then nodded to the dealer.
The dealer expertly stacked six $10 chips in front of Pilate’s position. “Good luck, sir.”
The old man nodded at Pilate, and the woman ignored him, instead shuffling her chips in one of her veiny hands.
Pilate placed a $10 chip as his bet, and the other players did the same. Not too many high rollers sit at the double sawbuck tables, Pilate realized.
All the same, he felt his pulse quicken as a king went to Big Red, a shitty deuce was thrown at him, and an ace was turned for the old man to his left.
The old man barely moved.
The woman toyed with her chips.
The dealer turned up an ace.
Pilate lit a cigarette. “Shit,” he said, louder than he intended. The pit boss cast a glare his way, to which Pilate flashed an apologetic look as he took another drag on the cigarette.
“Insurance?” the dealer said in much the same way someone would say “Excuse me“ if they burped.
No one took the sucker bet.
The dealer checked his cards and looked at the three players apologetically. He flipped a king: blackjack.
Big Red got a nine; Old Man River got a queen—a push. Pilate got a pathetic seven.
He took a choppy, cleansing breath as the dealer snatched up his chip. “Let’s see if you can do better this time,” Pilate said.
Big Red nodded in agreement.
The shingle-faced waitress dropped another vodka Seven beside Pilate.
He fished in his pockets and found $1 for her. “Thanks, hon,” she said.
Pilate noticed a pale, two-inch scar on one of her freckled breasts, pushed up grotesquely by her tight, sequined vest. In the next second, he chided himself for paying more attention to the sagging boob of the waitress than to his dwindling stack of chips. He glanced around quickly before slipping another $10 clay chip down for his bet.
Big Red did the same; Old Man River doubled his bet.
This time, the dealer had a six; Big Red a seven; Pilate a ten; and Old Man River an eight.
The dealer took his hole card.
Big Red hit for another six. Then she hit again, gaining a queen. “Bust,” the dealer said with all the sincerity of Alex Trebek on Jeopardy.
Big Red made a sound somewhere between a snort and a cough and looked away as the dealer scooped up her bet and cards.
“Double down?”
Pilate looked up into the dealer’s vacuous eyes, and when he did, his pulse quickened with the thrill of the temptation. “What the hell?” Pilate slipped his last chip beside the first.
The dealer flipped a card, a nine.
Nineteen? Not bad. Not the best, but not bad. Pilate felt like he could hear only the sound of his own heart beating, as if the slots and all the people had slidden into the Twilight Zone and were no longer actually present.
The dealer moved on to Old Man River, flopping down a queen. “Humph,” the man said, waving off another card.
The dealer flipped his card over, a seven. He could not stop until he hit seventeen or above, so he took another card.
For a millisecond, Pilate could feel the win, but that victorious sensation drained out of him like piss down his leg when the next card was an eight. Twenty-one. Damn him.
The dealer had drawn twenty-one the hard way, and in just two hands, Pilate had blown almost his entire stake. He now lacked enough money for a hotel room, and he knew the solace of free drinks would end the second he stopped laying down the coin. Pilate hung his head a moment.
“Sorry, sir,” the dealer said again, interrupting Pilate’s one- man pity party, the rote false sincerity perhaps tinged with an honest apology for the bad luck. “You made a good play there. Took balls, mister.”
“Thanks,” Pilate said, standing up.
The dealer started to write him off with a monotone “Have a good night“ when Pilate reached into his pocket and placed $75 on the table.
“That’s the spirit!“ Old Man River said, flashing a tombstone-toothed smile. “Like I said, you got balls.”
“Changing $75!“ the dealer called. The pit boss nodded at Pilate, her eyes narrowing.
Pilate pulled another drag out of the cigarette, slugged down the rest of the vodka, and slapped all $75 worth of chips on the felt.
“Sir, you sure you want to—” the dealer began. Pilate cut him off with a determined nod.
Big Red looked irritated at the dealer. “Let him bet. He’s bad luck. Maybe he’ll get it over with and leave.”
Pilate smiled at the old bag. “By all means.”
Old Man River glared at the woman. “Mariellen, you are as big a bitch today as you were the hateful day I married you.”
She glared back at him. “Oh shut up, Walter,” she said, betting another $10 chip.
Walter bet the same, drawing his John Deere green hat low over his eyes.
The dealer snickered, waited for betting to cease, and then dealt himself a jack. Quickly, a seven went to Mariellen, an ace to Pilate, and a four to Walter.
“Whoa, Nellie!“ said the dealer. He checked it in the table’s built-in mirror.
“Insurance?”
“Shit,” Pilate whispered. “S’okay, kid,” Walter said.
All waved off the sucker bet. The dealer let his cards rest: no blackjack.
Pilate sighed unintentionally loudly in an odd stuttering manner. The dealer offered Mariellen a card. She stabbed at the table with her fake pink fingernail. He obliged with a three. She was now in position for a good outcome—possibly even a blackjack if an ace turned up—no worse than a push if a face card or a ten decided to make an appearance. She stabbed the table again.
The dealer flicked a four down. Walter guffawed into his sleeve.
“Fourteen,” the dealer said. He was showing a jack, so she had no choice but to take another card.
The suicide king’s visage appeared.
Big Red Mariellen cursed, grabbed her purse, and stood. “Walter, let’s go.”
“But I gotta finish my hand.”
Only first it was Pilate’s turn, and he had no patience with Mariellen and Walter anymore.
The dealer flipped down a nine.
“Ten or twenty!“ the dealer called. At best, he would win, and at worst, it would be a push.
Pilate gave the cut-off sign.
Walter was given a six, then an eight, and he decided to sit on his eighteen.
The dealer flipped over a six, making a sixteen and forcing him to hit again.
Pilate’s stomach dropped.
The dealer snatched another card from the six-deck shoe and slapped it onto the felt. “Four! Twenty!“ He tapped his knuckles on the table in front of Pilate; it was a push. He snatched up Walter’s chip.
Walter stood, flipped a George at the dealer, patted Pilate on the back with a wink, and ambled after Mariellen, who was idling on her cankles at the casino door.
“Just you and me now, sir,” the dealer said.
Pilate read the name of the dealer. “Jake, I know this isn’t your problem, but I’ve had nothing but bad luck for the past couple years,” Pilate said, lighting another cigarette. He gingerly picked up the $75 in chips and held them in his right hand.
“Really? Sorry to hear that, sir. Shuffling!“ He expertly piled the spent cards into an intricate series of shuffles before packing them into the shoe.
The pit boss nodded and wrote something on her tally sheet. “Yeah,” Pilate said, taking a long puff, “and I got one last chance given to me recently.”
“Oh yeah?” Jake said; his eye flashed with rare interest, more characteristic of bartenders than blackjack dealers.
“Yeah.” Pilate tapped his ashes into the t
ray beside him as the waitress brought him another drink. “Ma’am, I’ll be right with you with a tip. Can you come back?”
She frowned but managed a weak but sweet “Sure honey“ as she walked away.
“Well, I think this here hand of blackjack might set the tone for a whole new chapter in my life.”
“If you say so, sir.” Jake smiled. “Are you ready to begin that chapter?”
“Yes, Jake. I am,” Pilate said, stacking the $75 bet carefully in the betting circle again.
Jake sighed deeply, his left hand reaching for the shoe.
Jake’s face was priceless when the blackjack bloomed in front of Pilate.
Pilate’s head dropped slightly. He couldn’t believe he had a caught a break; he hadn’t really convinced himself that that would be the case. Pilate took his winnings, a tidy sum, and stood up. He flipped a $5 chip at Jake.
The dealer smiled. “Quite a play, sir,” he said. “Quite a play indeed. Sure you want to quit now? You may be on a roll—a new chapter, like you said.”
Pilate smiled.
CHAPTER THREE
The hotel room was nice in a sterile, clean, Xerox copy sort of way. Pilate poured all the shampoo into the bathtub and filled it. As usual, he failed to allow room for any cool water to mix with the hot. He eased into the steaming bath as soon as his body could stand it, his hairy legs tingling; his tail end going in not unlike Bugs Bunny into the cannibals’ pot. As he acclimated, a contented sigh—again, not unlike the famous cartoon hare—escaped him.
Pilate snatched a green washcloth from the nearby basin, dipped the cloth in the water, and draped it over his face. He leaned back, the cool outer rim of the tub jarring him like the hot water had.
Pilate breathed through the hot, damp cloth. Music from the clock radio in the adjoining bedroom crowded his ears. The CD was a mix of different tunes Pilate had made a few years ago; he’d uncovered it while unpacking and repacking some boxes before the move.
Carole King sang about “…following where I lead…” and Pilate found himself back in that drafty flat back home, his young bride singing along with her smoky British voice.
She was slicing celery for chicken salad, green slices as thin as parchment paper, and her hips moved with the music. Pilate saw his image in the shiny surface of the toaster on the counter, grinning. A skinny thirty-something married to a wild, sexy, foreign, exotic beauty, and there he was, grinning like an idiot.
Sam turned to face him, smiling her crooked smile, holding a knife with one hand and placing the other on her hip. “Honey, I have to go, so here.” She thrust the knife between his ribs. She smiled and thrust it in twice more. Her eyes widened, her lips moistened by her pink tongue. She watched the blood flow out of Pilate as his astonished eyes rolled back in his head.
Darkness.
“And one to grow on.” A voice not unlike Pilate’s shattered the silence.
Though dead, Pilate snatched the washcloth from his face and looked at his torso. The skin was unbroken, the ribs intact.
In the candlelight of the hotel bathroom sat an old friend. Pilate had known him a long time—Pilate’s conscience and insecurity given humanoid form. Pilate called him Simon, a name coined long ago, somewhat of a homage to the fictional thief Templar, the man who was so comfortable in the dark. This Simon talked with a voice similar to Pilate’s, but he had a touch of the haughty, superior aristocrat in his accent for a reason Pilate had yet to determine. Simon perched on the toilet as if it were a true throne, lighting a cigarette.
“Damn it,” Pilate said aloud, looking away, disgusted yet relieved.
“Well, hello to you too,” he said brightly, as if Pilate had just greeted him on a cheery good morning.
Pilate looked back at him. As usual, Simon’s shape was all he could make out, except for the occasional flicker of the glowing ember at the tip of the cigarette, illuminating his smooth, familiar face. What few snatches Pilate could glean from experience with the specter revealed a smoother, less human, but somehow more idealized version of himself. He couldn’t be certain. “Ah damn it,” Pilate said, dropping the washcloth in the water.
“Shh…listen…new song,” Simon cooed, again puffing on a Dunhill.
It was Todd Rungren’s “Hello, It’s Me.”
Pilate consciously prevented the song from triggering another memory and demanded coldly, “What do you want?”
“Oh, come on now,” he said, again with his snooty singsong voice. “Do allow me the fun of walking down Memory Lane with you again.”
“Why? So you can twist my memories into something ugly? Something vile?” Pilate sneered, his hand slapping the surface of the bathwater.
“But you always gain so much from what I have to show you,” he said, sounding injured by the remark.
“I have come to the realization that you are nothing more than a byproduct of prescription medication, sir,” Pilate said aloud, reaching for the small bar of oatmeal hotel soap.
Simon waved his arms above his head. The metallic clanging of chains and shackles thundered and echoed in the tiny lavatory. “You may be a fragment of underdone potato or a crumb of cheese. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you,” he mocked. “Booo!“
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Pilate said.
“Maybe now we should go back to your wonderful, scene- chewing turn as young Scrooge in that dreadful community theatre.”
“Just shut up“ Pilate said, his eyes forward, staring at the dripping faucet. “And get on with whatever it is you want to say.”
“Shut up or get on with it? Which will it be?”
The ash from the Dunhill made a ssst sound as it fell into the bath.
“For God’s sakes, go on and get it over with,” Pilate said,
more demanding this time. “Certainly.”
“Thanks,” Pilate said.
“I just figured your wife would be the last person on your mind this time of year…let’s see, well, hmmm….maybe because her birthday was last month.”
“Maybe it was just the song and that was it,” Pilate said, playing along with Simon’s little act.
“Any chance of you getting out of this bath? I am reminded of the French Revolution and The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, all in the same moment,” Simon said, dropping the butt of the cigarette in the toilet.
“I am enjoying a hot bath, and I’m not getting out until I’m damn well ready to. So why don’t you go away and let me have some peace?”
Simon waved away the comment as if it was the buzzing of a bothersome insect. “No, no, I can wait. The sight of you sitting in there, wrinkling up like a prune isn’t so bad. I can bear it.”
“How nice.”
“How are you feeling? Your concentration will be very important now that you have a job again, you know. Can’t leave yourself open to…what was the word? Layoffs. Like at the newspaper.
Oh, and I see you haven’t taken your special vitamins lately, you naughty, careless boy. How long will it take you to fuck up this job without popping your pills like an obedient little drone?”
Pilate sat there, soaking and seething, stony silent.
Simon sighed. “I’m afraid I can’t wait after all, especially if you are not going to participate in this little conversation of ours. I haven’t much time, so I’ll get to the point. Something is going on in that head of yours to make you think more than a passing moment about the limey ex, and truthfully, I was shocked to see it was a sweet memory, until I edited it and made it more interesting,” he said.
“You know, I’m trying to get to a point in my life where I can think about Sam with something less than contempt, and you have to come along and ruin it.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I am only showing you what’s in your heart, as always. Whenever you think of her in a kind way, a loving way, you have to make it bad in the end. If you don’t, you’ll never get over that fear.”
“What fear?”
“That fear that keeps you running
away. The fear that has you driving hundreds of miles to a new life—a new chapter, I believe you told that dealer—in a horrible little town. The fear that keeps you hiding out from your logical path,” he said in a mocking, pitying tone that made Pilate want to hold him under the bathwater and drown him.
“Just shut the hell up, would you?”
“Well, for once, it is not me who needs to shut up, it’s you. You have just about talked yourself into trying again.” Simon chuckled as if it was the most ridiculous notion he’d ever heard.
Pilate looked at his shadowy features. He was somehow not nearly as formidable-looking as he had been in the past. “Trying again? Is that wrong?”
Simon rose from the porcelain throne. “No, as long as you can handle the consequences.”
“Consequences? Like finally meeting the right person and being happy?”
“Oh no.” He moved the two steps from the commode to the tub quickly. “The consequences are that the next time, you’ll be left with only this.” His smooth hands grasped Pilate’s head and pushed it underwater.
Surprised, Pilate choked on the warm, salty liquid that tasted of his own sweaty filth of the day. He thrashed at Simon’s hands, clawing at him, but Simon’s arms felt like wooden beams wrapped in steel cable. Amidst the thrashing, Pilate heard him laughing. When he did manage to rise out of the water for a second, his stinging eyes opened to an unbelievable sight: It was Samantha now, laughing and pushing him underwater again. Pilate let go and stopped resisting, and the pressure of the arms stopped pushing him down. His head lolled out of the water, his eyes red. “It…it wasn’t supposed to end…to be like this,” Pilate stammered, the words echoing off the tile.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cross College wasn’t exactly a dump, Pilate decided, but it was damn close. He knew from his research about the school that the campus was the second oldest in the state. Firsthand he concluded it was neglected, like the redheaded, unwanted stepchild any school without a football program usually is in the American Midwest.
Pilate trudged around the campus for an hour or so after he arrived. He was too early to get his keys and the move-in paperwork for his faculty housing assignment, so he again gave in to his reinstated habit and fired up a smoke.
Pilate's Cross Page 3