All or Nothing

by Preston L. Allen

  The gambler exclaimed: “Oh no! You’re wrong. Money for gambling I got. I just need money for food and gas.”

  Well, that’s the joke. Ha-ha.

  But ain’t it the truth? We always got money for gambling. We drive around in ragged cars, dressed in the shabbiest clothes, we go days without bathing or shaving, the roof at home is leaking, the light bill is unpaid, the cable is shut off, the phone is turned off, we have a regular account at the CashMyCheck store; at the CashMyCheck store they call us by our first names, we buy groceries on what credit cards aren’t maxed out, we buy Christmas gifts a week late on clearance, we buy Valentine’s and birthday gifts at the 99-cent counter at the drugstore and write in the card, It’s the thought that counts, we can’t afford wrapping paper, we can’t afford premium unleaded, we can’t afford the toll, we can’t afford to rotate the tires, we can’t afford auto insurance, we are hungry and we can’t scrounge up four quarters for a small order of french fries—but money for gambling we got.

  17.

  So I hit a MAX PAY for $100,000. Good for me.

  That was October.

  But like I said, by Super Bowl Sunday I had eaten through more than half of it. The Patriots beat the Panthers. I lost some money on that one, too. What do I know about sports betting?

  When the well runs dry, it runs dry fast.

  All that money … man, it was fun while I had it.

  Heck, I still had a lot of money.

  Heck, with close to fifty grand in the bank, I still had more money than I ever had before.

  Heck, if you win a hundred grand, the least you can do is risk half of it to win more, right? Are you crazy? Why not? You don’t want to win a million?

  By summer I had gone through three quarters of it.

  18.

  (A Definition of Insanity)

  My son has magic powers.

  He used to be allergic, but not so much anymore. He’s kind of outgrown it, but sometimes there’s a relapse. What happens is you get comfortable with that situation and then one day he’s wheezing again and his eyes have rolled up in his head so only the whites show.

  Now it’s after midnight and I have just gotten home from the casino and there’s almost no gas in the car and no way to get any because I have maxed out both my ATM cards. I’m watching the needle fall past E as we speed through the nighttime streets. My wife is in the back holding the nebulizer against his mouth. I’m praying, Don’t run out of gas, don’t run out of gas. We get him there without running out of gas, and they take him from us. This time it’s bad. He’s slipped into a sort of coma. He’s like this going on 45 minutes as they work on him. I’m thinking the worst, and my wife is saying it out loud, something about strawberry cupcakes over and over. She told him never to eat strawberries, but he wants to prove to everybody that he’s a big boy now and that he has outgrown his allergies.

  Then one of the nurses shouts Hallelujah! and he’s coming out of it. His chest has stopped heaving. His breathing is back to normal. The doctor is nodding his head and smiling. My son is smiling weakly.

  He opens his eyes and speaks: “9-0-8.”

  Or maybe he says, “I’m okay.” I don’t know. His voice is low and swishy with phlegm. My wife thinks he said, “I’m okay.”

  I heard: “9-0-8.”

  Just to be safe, the next day I play it every possible way—straight, box, front pair, back pair. I have to borrow money from the kids on the bus to play because my ATM cards are burnt up for the next 24 hours due to my late-night visit to the casino. From the kids on the bus, I collect 16 dollars. That’s good for four dollars each way.

  That night the 9-0-8 hits.

  I win close to three grand.

  I am not surprised at all. This is the same son who when he was real young used to ride around with me and write down the numbers that he saw on billboards and license plates. I hit like that quite a few times, too.

  So now I am good for a few days. A week. A month.

  A month and a half later, the losing begins to hurt again as I continue my downward plunge. Nothing is hitting. Nothing. And I’m kicking myself. If I hadn’t blown so much money at the casino that night, I would have been able to put a bigger wad on my son’s magic allergy numbers the next day and that would have made up for the big MAX PAY I won and then blew—am blowing.

  Day after day, I’m hopeful. I’m watching my son for signs of a relapse. He stays strong and the losing continues. One day, I find myself dragged to the grocery store by my wife. I find myself in the produce aisle fondling strawberries. Am I actually contemplating making my own son sick?

  What am I?

  Insane.

  Say it again.

  Insane.

  I put the strawberries down.

  My son shows no signs of relapse. This time, he’s outgrown it for sure. Everybody is happy, especially him—until the night he brings the empty carton of strawberries into our bedroom. We freak. My wife is already on the phone dialing the hospital.

  “I ate them all,” my son says, smiling wide, “and I don’t feel a thing.”

  He is eleven and a half and skinny and protesting, but my wife has him slung over her shoulder and is running out to the car with him.

  When we get to the hospital, the doctor is waiting, but there is no reason to wait. My son explains to him, “They were tasty.”

  The doctor checks him with a stethoscope, then hands him a lollipop and hands us a prescription for a dose of his medicine, for just in case.

  My wife and I decide that one of us should stay up and watch him through the night just in case. I volunteer.

  After a while he says to me, “Why are you in here with me, Daddy?”

  “Because you might get sick.”

  He gives me the look. He’s got long lashes and bright brown eyes.

  This is the son I could never fool. He’s the baby, but he’s smarter than all the rest of them. He knows me in a way the rest of them don’t. He remembers how it was driving around with me and writing down those numbers. I decide to be honest with him.

  “Because you’re lucky. You bring me good luck.”

  “I want you to be lucky, Daddy. What do I have to do?”

  I shrug. “Nothing.”

  I couldn’t say to him: All you have to do is get sick and go into a coma, Son. Then come out of it and tell me tonight’s Cash-3.

  “What’s lucky about me?” he asks.

  “Everything,” I tell him.

  He says, “Everything is lucky about me.”

  “Yeah. And I’m lucky to have you.”

  He falls asleep with me rubbing his head. He does not wheeze at all. But everything is lucky about him.

  The next day, I play his birthday, his weight, his age, his Social Security number, every way possible in the Cash-3. I put $10 on each combination. Altogether, all the possible combinations at 10 bucks a pop set me back close to $500. Then I think about it, go back and draw out another $500, and put that on it, too. Now I have 20 bucks a pop on every possible combination. If I hit, I will be rich. No guts, no glory.

  That night, the Cash-3 comes in 9-0-8 again.

  That, of course, is the one combination I had not played.

  Insane.

  Say it again.

  Insane.

  19.

  Yes, Lord. Yes.

  What I’m trying to do now is, I’m trying to win some of it back. I learned my lesson, Lord. I won’t do it again. That was too much money to blow. That was the heights of irresponsibility. A gambler is more asshole than head, but that was going too far. A hundred grand … oh my God oh my God oh my God, I had a hundred grand … I’m trying to get it back so I can do right with it this time. But it’s not working. These Indians, they’re not paying me anything. They’ve tightened up the machines or something, I know they have. They have a camera on me again. They know I won and they’re trying to take it all back. I know that’s what it is. It has to be. How do you spend over $75,000 and not hit anything big even on
ce, Lord? People right next to me are hitting jackpots all day like crazy. My numbers are coming up on other people’s screens. Chinese people. Why are they letting the Chinese win? Why aren’t they letting the numbers come up on my screen? How does that happen unless it’s fixed? I’m no fool. They’re mocking me. A woman gets off work, she’s still in her waitress uniform, she’s got no shoes on her feet, she takes the machine right next to mine and hits 20 grand on the first push—she wasn’t expecting to win, just dropped by to relax a bit after work, she doesn’t even have her ID so they can pay her off—she has to come back tomorrow with her ID, but to me it’s paying nothing. I wish I were Chinese. I wish I were a barefoot waitress who just got off work and came to a casino to relax. I have my ID!

  I’m such a fool. They suckered me in with that big win … but I have a new strategy. I’m playing it small these days. No more than a hundred dollars a day. The hardest walk is the walk to the door, but I will leave every time they take a hundred dollars from me. I promise. In fact, I will leave my ATM cards at home. There will be no way for me to get more money even if I want to. I will give it to them small and sparingly, I won’t go chasing Off Pairs. They will give some of it back. They have to. And this time when I hit, I’m going straight to Gamblers Anonymous to get my head straight.

  I promise, Lord. I promise.

  Lord.

  CROSSING THE LINE

  20.

  E.V.

  She was the pretty girl back when I drove the 262.

  The 262 was a sweet gig, the rich children of Key Biscayne whooping it up about nose jobs and designer handbags. Gucci was big back then. Mine, the driver’s, was the only black face on the bus, but that was okay. They were great kids, and it was a sweet route made even sweeter by the presence of E.V., the blond-haired, blue-eyed cutie pie who would become that year’s homecoming queen. She would win the thing hands down. She had it all—tall, skinny, the perfect smile. She was gorgeous.

  E.V. was smart, too. I would hear her back there explaining calculus to the football player she was dating. She had been accepted at Harvard or MIT, I forget which one—but she sure was a dream. She always sat near the front; I came to know her perfume. Wings. She was soft-spoken, thoughtful, and well-mannered. She always said goodbye and thank you when she got off the bus. She had this way of covering her mouth with her hand when she laughed. She had these innocent blue eyes—when she looked at you, you felt she was really looking at you.

  She had legs on her, too. I would glance up in the mirror and see these two pretty knees pressed together and wish, just wish. For a while there she wore a Band-Aid on one of those pretty knees for something that happened on the volleyball team. I would love to have seen her play volleyball. Don’t they play volleyball at the beach in bikinis? E.V. had such a nice tan you’d think she was something other than white. She spent a lot of time in the sun. That tan looked good on her. That blond hair.

  Ah, E.V.

  A couple years later, I started seeing her at the casinos. She remembered me, her bus driver. She would say hi and make small talk. She was still polite, still soft-spoken, still put her hand over her face to hide her mouth when she laughed. She was usually there with some guy—the guy would change a few times over the years—but the guy, whoever he was at the time, was always tall, good-looking, well-mannered, and rich. She would play the machines while the guy watched. She was even married to one of these hunky young guys for a short while, I came to learn. Then I started seeing her in there more frequently and unaccompanied. She was changing. She was losing weight and her tan, but never her manners. She still said hi to me, her old bus driver.

  One night, when I was down on my luck at the machines, $20 suddenly appeared over my shoulder. I grabbed the bill and then turned to say thanks to whoever was my angel tonight.

  It was E.V.

  It turned out to be a lucky $20, as I recall. The thing just kept on winning until it hit FIRST FIVE—it only paid $700, because I had been playing it for a mere 50 cents.

  E.V., who at that point still smelled nice, gave me a big hug for congratulations, and when I cashed out and tried to give her back the $20, she said, “Let’s have drinks instead.”

  Let’s have drinks, she said, not Buy me a drink. Calm down.

  So we’re drinking. She’s downing daiquiris and I’m doing Pepsi—I like to stay sober when I gamble—and she’s filling me in on her life. She never finished up her studies at college, her dad’s business went under, he took his own life, her mom remarried, to a bum who ran off with the rest of the money, and her mom’s most recent new man was nice, though not rich, being that he was a recent immigrant from Cuba, from whence they had all come. This surprises me.

  “You didn’t know I was Cuban? Really?” She laughs and covers her mouth with her hand. “We chopped off the –ez at the end to sound more American. Like Bob Villa? He’s Cuban, too, you know.”

  “I think I heard that somewhere.”

  “And the hair?” she says, twisting a strand. “Dark brown.”

  “I would never have guessed. What else is there about E.V. that I do not know?”

  “Lots,” she says, and proceeds to fill me in.

  E.V. herself is recently divorced, and also recently engaged—she shows me the ring, a small but pretty stone. She has two children from the first husband—two boys, six and four. They live with him in Boston. Her game is the machines. She loves the machines.

  “Have you ever hit it big?” I ask.

  “I pretty much hit all the time,” she says. “Fifty grand here, a hundred grand there. Last year I hit for $350,000. Remember the big one? That was me.”

  “You’re a lucky gambler. You must be loaded.”

  “Well, no. I mean, I’m not broke—no, but it takes money to make money. I play for the syndicate. You know the doctor?”

  “I know the doctor.”

  “So he gets half and Uncle Sam gets a piece. But still it’s fun to win.”

  “I imagine.”

  Her beeper goes off. After she checks it, she sighs. “Well, I have to go. It looks like bank number four is about to go, and the doctor wants us to take our places. You know how it is.”

  I nod.

  “You should play for the doctor. Would you like me to ask him?” she says.

  “No. I’m independent.”

  She looks at me. She still has those pretty eyes. “You ever hit?”

  “Yeah, lots of times, and I split it with nobody.”

  She nods her head at this. “Oh. Okay, well, wish me luck.”

  I raise my Pepsi. “You got it. Luck. Thanks for the 20.”

  “Thanks for the luck—and the drinks.” Laughing, she puts her hand over her mouth.

  And like that, she’s gone. Good riddance.

  She’s still a nice girl, but she’s falling to pieces. Her tan is gone, her teeth are in disrepair, her clothes are cheap and threadbare—and the way she swallowed those daiquiris, my God, four of them. She’s not even a real blonde.

  From then on, I would see her in the casinos and avoid her. At most, I would say hi.

  Then, about a year later, she walks right up to me and she looks like crap—pale skin, dark rings under her eyes, black teeth. Now she is a platinum fake blonde. And something new. Her smell. I’m not going to talk about her smell. No woman should smell like that. But the worst thing is this horrible boob job. To begin with, they are too big for her rail-thin body, and through her unbuttoned top I can see the red scars where the incisions were made.

  She’s a bold one these days. She steps right up to my face. “When can I see you?” she asks through blackened and missing teeth. An unlit cigarette dangles from the side of her mouth. It is an ugly mouth. I wish she would hide her mouth with her hand. Has it always been like this? No way. I knew her when. I do the math in my head: E.V. can’t be more than 29.

  She says again, “When can we get together to talk or whatever?”

  I flinch before stammering, “Well, we can have drinks.
You can have a daiquiri or two on me.”

  “Daiquiri?” she says, lighting the cigarette with a lighter that hangs from her neck on a grimy shoelace. “I need something harder than a daiquiri.”

  The way she says it, I’m shocked. This is not E.V. I don’t know who this is. I become the adult again. I say, “You’re kidding, right?”

  “You used to be my bus driver,” she says through ugly, cackling laughter. She points to my mouth. “That’s the voice you used to use when we were cutting up.”

  “You guys never cut up. You were good kids.”

  She starts that unnerving cackle again. Did I make a joke?

  “What I really need is some money,” she says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “I don’t have any.”

  But it’s hard to keep up with her. Now she’s saying, “Can I show you something? I want to show you something. Wait right here, please,” and she flashes me those pretty eyes. “Please.”

  She heads for the ladies’ room and ducks inside.

  She’s gone for like 15 minutes—I’m thinking, This is crazy. What am I waiting here for? I’m thinking about cutting out, but for the good old days, but for the girl she used to be, the girl who used to have those eyes, I wait. Finally, E.V. returns and grabs my hand. “Let’s go somewhere so I can show you. Your car.”

  Well, it has come to this. I have watched E.V. decline. I’m not sure what she is now. Crack addict? Prostitute? I pull my hand away from hers. “What’s this all about?” I say in my sternest voice. “No funny business.”

  She pleads, “I just want to show you. I promise.” She hooks her arm in mine; I smell her body, which is bad enough, but the smoke—no way do I want my wife to smell that.

  “And no cigarettes in my car.”

  E.V. flicks away the cigarette, then clings to me as we walk outside into the early-morning sun.

  It is Sunday again. I have been here all night again. My wife’s going to chew me out again. Or worse. Thank God I am up a few bucks. Thank God I won tonight. No doubt E.V. has scoped this out. No doubt this is what drew her to me. She saw me win.