“Oh fuck yeah,” said the other.
“I had one yesterday, thought I was going to split in two.”
“You get more than a couple of those and I want you to go see a doctor. That could be bad news.”
“Do you guys mind?” I said.
The one beside me turned. “Mind what?”
“We’re not all that interested in your friend’s anus.”
Arlene laughed and doubled her bet.
LATER IN the evening it seemed to me that Arlene had lost pretty much everything, but then she pulled out a thousand more dollars and started playing with that. Jonas was shaking his head.
“There is charity, you know.”
“What would you know about charity, asshole? Anyway,” she said, turning to me, “it took J. about two years to get his memory back, but when he did, he turned me in as fast as you can say jack shit. But they never could prove anything and I didn’t do any time. So he was back in the park, and to be honest with you, I’d had a long time to think about what I’d done, and I felt awful. I also realized I loved the son of a bitch and I’d do anything to get him back.”
“Well, it was good luck then that the murder didn’t take.”
“I suppose. I started sending him cards and flowers. Men like flowers, you know.”
“I know.”
“And I started cooking him dinners and taking them over and leaving them on his steps. And finally he let me in, and we started talking and I said to him, J., I still have four hundred thousand dollars. Let’s you and me find some way to spend it together. But guess what? The idiot didn’t want to spend his own fucking money. And he didn’t want me to spend it, either.”
“And he wants you to lose it all before he’ll take you back.”
“Bingo.” She raised her eyes at Jonas. “I should’ve married a smart man.”
She was betting a hundred a hand and losing it quickly. “I’m working to a plan,” she said. “Our anniversary is in three months. I started four months ago. I lose about two and a half thousand a night, I worked it out. So, we get to spend this time together, you know, like dating, and at the end, I’ll be plumb broke and we’ll be together again.” She smiled sweetly at Jonas.
“I just want you to know,” he said to me, “that I don’t know this woman at all, apart from here.”
“You’re such a prick,” said Arlene. “I’ll split that,” she told Earl. She had a pair of fives.
“You know you never split fives, Arlene. You can double down, but I do have a ten,” said Earl.
Arlene showed him her teeth. “Did you hear a word I was saying?”
“Yeah, but I have to help players through the tough hands if it looks like they don’t know what they’re doing.”
“I know what I’m doing. I’m splitting.” He hit her to seventeen on the first five, and she took a ten and a king on the second. He had twenty.
“I’m getting tired,” Arlene said to me. “I don’t usually split. It goes too fast.”
“If you don’t know her,” I said to Jonas, “then what’s that scar on your neck?”
“Trust me,” said Jonas, “if I had a patch over my eye, she would have told you she’d paid someone to shoot me in the head. Honestly. I come here a lot, and she always ends up at my table and eventually she tells someone this fucking story. It’s word-for-word most nights. I don’t even listen anymore.”
“See how heartless he is?” said Arlene. Earl dealt her a blackjack and gave her quite a bit of money. “This is ridiculous,” she said. “I’m all in.”
“Table limit’s three hundred.”
“Clear it, then.”
Earl spoke to one of the pit bosses and then came back and told her she could bet her stake if she wanted to. Arlene pushed it all out in front of her. Earl dealt her twelve against his seven. I had a hard nineteen, Hao fourteen, Mike and Jonas both hard twenties.
“Odds are good for little ones,” said Jonas to her. “Table’s minus seven with all these tens. I’d bet on something small coming next.”
“I have to hit anyway against a seven. Don’t I, honey?”
“The hell with you,” said Jonas. “You do what you want. Just when you’ve got that much money on the table, knowing the odds helps a little. That’s all.”
“Hit me,” said Arlene, tapping the table. Earl dealt her a seven for nineteen. “Again,” said Arlene.
“Ma’am, I really don’t think you want another card.”
“Hit me.”
“Ma’am?”
“Are you deaf? Deal me another card.”
“Look,” said Earl. “I’ve probably got seventeen. If I was allowed to tell you what I had, I’d say, hey, I’ve got seventeen, I’ve got a ten and a seven, and I’m gonna have to stick with it. But I’m not allowed to tell you my hand, so all I can say is, I probably have seventeen. Nineteen would beat me in that case.”
“You fucking dickhead. Hit me.”
“There’s no need—”
“HIT ME.” Earl peeled an ace off the shoe. Jonas started laughing. “Hit me again,” said Arlene. He busted her.
Mike and Jonas were bent over the table. Hao was pointing at his cards for a hit, but Earl was trying to collect himself. He’d just seen Arlene lose fifteen hundred dollars. “Give Viet Nam a card,” Mike said, wiping his eyes.
“What?” said Earl.
“Hao. He wants to hit to seventeen.”
Earl dealt him a three.
“See?” said Mike. “That’s the way you play like a man.” He and Hao shook hands.
Arlene stood up. “I’m done,” she said. “Are you coming with me?” She was looking at Jonas.
“She does this every night.”
“Why don’t you go with her?”
“Why don’t you?”
“I’m married,” I said.
“Well, so am I.”
“Main difference between you two,” said Arlene, “is that Jonas isn’t off gambling behind his wife’s back. Right, darlin’?” Jonas was shaking his head again. Arlene waited beside the table with her arm outstretched. “Are we going?”
“Every night I have to do this,” said Jonas, and he took out his wallet.
“Bets up,” said Earl.
“Do you have to be a prick?” said Jonas. “Just hold it for a second.” Fear flashed in Earl’s eyes as the pit boss glided past behind him. In a minute, it would be the video room for Earl. Jonas opened his wallet on the table and slipped out a thin sheaf of photos. They were department store studio shots. Twelve ninety-nine for the biggest package, but a rip-off because the colors always fade. A woman and two kids. “My wife,” said Jonas. “Betty. My little boy, James. My older boy, David.”
“You know,” I said, “I’m a photographer. I can do this kind of thing for you, but much better quality. Just as cheap.”
“Did you hear a word I just said?”
“I did.”
“Say their names.”
“Uh . . . Betty,” I said.
“To her.”
I turned to Arlene. “Betty and James and, uh, David.”
“Did you hear that, Arlene? Did you hear those names?”
Arlene’s facial expression hadn’t changed. She came over and kissed Jonas on the cheek. I guessed from previous evenings he knew not to struggle. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. A hundred and fifty thousand to go, baby.” Then she walked out.
Hao had brought his own wallet out, and he was spreading snapshots on the table. There were about fifteen pictures, all black and white, of old people and babies. Creased from being hidden in a shoe, or tucked into a hat. We all stood around looking at them.
I WANTED to tell Jonas that I believed his wife. I believed Arlene. No one who acts that crazy can be anything but a victim of love. I collected my chips and cashed them in. I’d done quite well. As I was leaving, I called Linda on one of the pay phones.
“God, where are you?” she said. I pictured her sitting up in bed, terrified and alone in the dark.
I saw her cross-legged, cradling her belly in her forearm.
“I needed to stop for a while,” I said.
“I thought you were going to be home hours ago, Tom. I was worried sick.”
“I’m two hours away. I’m getting back in the car.” I heard her lie back down. “I’ll be home soon.”
“You can’t do this. I have to depend on you.”
“I know,” I said. Hao went by in the background and waved a sheaf of bills in the air. What a real man does. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
She breathed out, resigned, relieved. “Love you,” she said, and hung up.
I had intended to tell her about all the money, but I thought it could wait. I got back on the road and started driving. The weather hadn’t changed much, and the headlights of oncoming traffic grew into bright, wet starbursts in my windshield. I got off the main road and took a quieter, secondary highway. It was dark, except for the rain flicking into the brightness of my headlights. At one point, I was driving through the town I grew up in, where my father had once owned a hardware store. I went through the blinking stoplights, and passed the store, and my dead father was there unpacking bags of birdfeed from a cardboard box. Then I had to heave the car back toward the center of the road and I drove the rest of the way home with all the windows down, the cold rain blowing through. The money was the only thing still dry when I got there.
Cold
I WAS GOING TO EUROPE TO MEET UP WITH AN OLD FRIEND whose life was falling apart, and my wife was unhappy about it. “Louis?” she’d said. “And who is this Louis?” It was hard to explain how a man I’d never mentioned before was now so important to me that I had to fly to Europe to be a friend to him. This unsuccessful conversation unfolded in many rooms, with me usually entering them second, in midsentence.
“—will still go one day. We will.”
“But you’re going now. To help an old friend.”
“Why does that seem so heartless to you?”
“Fine,” she said in a flat voice. She tilted her head at me and opened her eyes wider. “Is there anything else?”
“I don’t think so, Carol.”
“Then have a lovely time.” I listened to her bare feet pad across the wooden floor in the foyer. She was the kind of person who could infuse her footfalls with reproach. I stood there, alone, breathing heavily.
“You’d understand if you weren’t so bent on taking it personally,” I said.
I DECIDED to go simply because Louis was the kind of person who would never have asked for help. I was never called upon anymore for help or advice. I had no children, and at work—I owned a small business that custom-made insoles—the kind of aid I offered was rote and impersonal. When someone reaches out to you because they think you’re their last chance, you really do have to go. And in any case, I hadn’t been out of Toronto in three years.
Louis was flying in from Indianapolis, so we coordinated at Heathrow, where we were going to wait for a connecting flight. Louis came off the plane and he put his arms around me slowly, as if I’d bailed him out of jail. “God, Paul,” he said, “this is what it’s all about.”
I stepped back to get a better look at him. He was older, and pasty from his American eating habits. But his hair was still a short sandy brown and his face was the same round, tired baby’s face I remembered from our college days. He was wearing an Oxford blue button-down, but the collar was frayed a little, as if it had rubbed against his neck one season too many.
“Look at you,” I said.
“Look at you!” He reached over and squeezed my upper arm.
We stood for a moment shaking our heads at each other.
“Hey, listen,” he said. “I had an idea. I’m going to buy you a watch.”
I held up my wrist. “I have a watch, Lou. It’s a good one.”
“No, no. Something special for the trip—just for the two of us, so that in all the pictures, we’ll both be wearing our new fucking watches! You can throw yours out at the end of the trip.”
“You better save some of your money for alimony.”
“I just want it to be special.” He pretended to sulk. “C’mon. I’m buying you a watch.”
He bought us identical black Swatches in the airport store. A single blue-black gem marked twelve o’clock, and a disk mounted over the top of the face showed the time by means of another gem. So it looked like two distant stars, one rotating at the edge of another.
We went to the British Airways lounge and waited for our flight.
“Let’s synchronize,” said Louis. “It’s 4 A.M. local time . . . mark.” He snapped the stem of his watch into place.
I did the same. “Mark,” I said. I jarred the minute disk when I pushed the stem back in and my watch said 4:02. I turned my wrist away. The lady at the desk took up the PA microphone and invited the elderly and infirm on board.
THERE WASN’T a lot I remembered about Louis. Back in Indiana, we’d become roommates by force of lottery; I’d got there first and taken the bed by the window. When he showed up, he unpacked about twenty identical white button-downs with breast pockets, so I had him figured for engineering before he even told me. He had two belts, one brown, one black, and he kept a comb on his shelf, nested in a hairbrush, just like my grandmother used to. There were pictures of his mother and brother tucked into the upper corners of his mirror.
We didn’t become fast friends, but we were each exotic to the other, so a kind of common fascination took hold. He’d already decided he was going to marry his high-school girlfriend, Lorena, but I was having trouble getting past my third dates. (A goatee and an inclination to nervous laughter had something to do with it.) His steadfastness intrigued me. Lorena visited once a month, but he’d never get excited; it was as if they were already married. She’d come to the campus, hair all crimped, with a package of peanut butter cookies or else some sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, things she’d made in her mother’s kitchen in Elkhart, a four-hour bus ride away. She was horribly shy: if standing, she’d clasp her hands tightly in front of herself, as if she were naked. The three of us would make a few Carl Buddig corned beef sandwiches and talk about Elkhart before maybe watching a late movie, and then they’d sleep together in the other single bed, chaste as nuns. In the morning, he’d dry himself second on the only towel he owned. I could probably remember a few other things but there’s not a lot that hasn’t burned away. I don’t even remember much of myself, or what I thought of my life then.
On the plane, I watched the sun rise and angle into Louis’s face. He shuddered at it and turned his head down toward his feet. I figured out that he’d been married for almost ten years to Lorena, and I felt bad for him because it was over.
“So . . . you hanging in okay?” I asked him when he looked up.
“Oh, yeah.” He smiled wanly and arched his eyebrows out the window. “Looking forward to some brews and a bit of sightseeing.”
“And you’re feeling all right?”
He turned to me. I could feel the plane point down. “I just said I was.”
IN GENEVA, it felt like you could walk through the door of any one of the bright shining buildings there and order just about any crime you felt like committing. Only the sight of blood gurgling up through the polished sewer gratings could have convinced me I was seeing the city’s true face. The traffic police stood in little red-and-white-striped huts wearing cotton gloves. We saw one singing. It was sinister.
We got on a train and went to Basel, where I had some relations I’d stupidly contacted. The relations didn’t speak English, and they gave us spaetzle with gravy on it. One night, an uncle (I think he was an uncle) told us his whole life story in German. Louis kept nodding politely and saying “Da . . . da . . .”—which was Russian, but it was enough to encourage the uncle forward.
On one afternoon, we went to a big museum and walked through it, our coats draped over our arms. Impressionists, all dappled light and big frocks. The women in the paintings looked w
ell fed, like farm animals, and the gallery was packed with people speaking German and French. When we left, Louis said, “It was what I expected.” He said that a few times in the first few days. Kind of let down, but big about it.
After the second day I stopped trying to draw him into conversation, and that bear-hug grandiosity he’d shown at Heathrow was gone now, too. He walked along with his hands shoved into his pockets, seemingly lost in thought. I wanted to ask him what he was thinking, but there was an air to him at times like this that I thought wouldn’t have brooked interruption. Everyone has this side to themselves, some part they don’t want you prying into. I have it, although obviously I was not the person, at this time, who needed prying into. I felt a little . . . underused might be the word, but I reminded myself that talking about your feelings doesn’t come easily, even to some women, and Louis was getting to know me again. We did have a few laughs. He did his impression of a Swede trying to swear in English. “Eat my fuck!” he said, and we fell down.
We crossed into France and went to Avignon, where a big theater festival had just ended. Playbills were blowing across the town square. I called Carol.
“You having a good time?” she said.
“It isn’t about having a good time, sweetie. He needed me to do this for him.”
“You’re a big-hearted kind of guy.”
“I’m looking at him right now,” I said. “You should see him. He’s hunched over a little cup of coffee about fifty feet from here. He looks sad.”
“Well then, why don’t you go back and cheer him up?” She put the phone down.
At the table, Louis looked up morosely from his coffee. “I never met your wife.”
“Oh, Carol. She’s a big-hearted kind of girl.” Louis was sitting in his chair as if he’d plunged into it from a rooftop. “You know, I don’t think I ever saw Lorena again after ’87. She was pretty, I remember. Thin.”
“Not always.” He emptied a packet of sugar into his cup. There wasn’t any coffee in it, though. “She went up and down, like a blowfish.”
“Was her weight an issue between you two?”
Fidelity Page 6
