by Jeff Strand
Margaret would understand.
Actually, come to think of it, Margaret was kind of upset when he went to the movies without her one time when she was visiting her mother. And the ticket price was somewhat less than what he'd lost today, even with popcorn and Goobers.
Ooooh. Goobers sounded darn good right about now. He wondered if the casino had a snack bar.
Stop. Focus.
The sudden realization of what he'd done struck Benjamin like an iceberg to the groin.
He was dead.
So very dead.
Gambling addiction hotline. They had to have a gambling addiction hotline. He'd call that and let an expert talk him through this. They'd have advice on how to handle a pissed-off spouse, right?
Or, better yet, maybe the casino had a Suicide Room.
He wanted to cry, scream, puke, faint, rip out his hair, and spontaneously combust all at the same time.
He needed to get out of here. He needed to sprint for the exit, drive home, march straight up to Margaret, and tearfully confess that he'd...been mugged.
Perfect! He'd taken a thousand dollars out of the ATM to buy her a necklace for Christmas, and some ruffian had thrust a gun into his face and stolen his cash. It was an airtight scheme, except for the minor credibility gap in him buying a necklace with a thousand bucks in cash instead of using his credit card.
No, no, no, the hoodlum had stolen his credit card, and then immediately rushed to the casino to gamble away his ill-gotten gains. As long as the police didn't bother to check any of the dozens of security cameras in the casino, he'd be home free!
So very dead.
Okay, he had to calm down, concentrate, and figure this out. No faux muggings.
Logically, as long as he kept his losses under a thousand dollars, he wouldn't reach the next bracket of trouble. It worked under the same principle as a $1.99 bag of chips seeming much less expensive than a $2.00 bag of chips. Nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars would not be noticeably worse than nine hundred and eighty-five. So he had fourteen dollars with which to rebuild his fortune. One lucky spin and his problems would vanish.
Or maybe he could bribe Cindy to take the heat.
No, no, win it back. That was the plan. Win it back.
He pressed the "Max Bet" button and spun the reels.
He lost. Damn.
He lost again. Shit.
Lost again. Fucking shit.
And then...jackpot! Five hundred dollars! Benjamin nearly knocked over his stool as he cried out with joy. That cut his losses in half. This would be much easier to explain than losing nearly a thousand, so if he quit now he'd have an uncomfortable but not terrifying night.
Oh, thank God. Thank sweet, merciful God.
Of course, he now had another five hundred dollars with which to regain all of his losses...
* * *
Benjamin sat on the stool, gazing at the slot machine but not quite seeing it.
Two thousand dollars in the hole.
They were saving for Cindy's college education, and he'd blown two grand in a slot machine. How the hell was he going to explain this?
He glanced at his watch and, had he been drinking a beverage, would have done a spit take that caused liquid to jettison eighty feet from his mouth. It was almost ten-thirty. This was supposed to be a half-hour errand. Margaret and Cindy had to be sick with worry.
He quickly shoved his hand into his pants pocket, fumbled around for a moment, and yanked out his cell phone. Four missed calls. All from Margaret.
Benjamin darted for the exit. Or at least what he thought was the exit—this casino was like a maze. It was as if they didn't want you to leave. Bastards!
Surely he could come up with a cover story. After all, he was an intelligent man and he read a lot of fiction. What would Heathcliff do in this situation? He wouldn't put up with any lip from Catherine, that was for certain.
How the hell did you get out of this goddamn casino?
* * *
He somehow found his way out and stood in the parking lot. The cell phone seemed to give off an otherworldly, hellish glow. Benjamin couldn't explain how a blue light looked hellish, but it did.
This was a turning point. He could confess everything now and face the consequences, or he could create a tapestry of lies that could unravel at any moment and cost him his family.
The tapestry of lies sounded pretty good.
He dialed Margaret's number.
"Benjamin?" she asked, answering immediately.
"Yeah, it's me."
"Thank goodness! You had us scared to death! What happened? Are you okay?"
He couldn't do it. He couldn't lie to her. "I just gambled away two thousand dollars at the casino," he said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I left the hardware store, drove to the casino, and lost two grand."
"Is this something we should talk about in person?"
"I think so. I'm on my way home."
He hung up the phone and tucked it back into his pocket. The immense weight that should have lifted from his shoulders upon uttering the truth seemed to still be hanging around. In fact, it seemed heavier. Almost suffocating.
He needed psychological help. That's all there was to it. He'd talk to a shrink and find out if there was a chemical imbalance in his brain. He'd go to meetings, talk to support groups...whatever it took to get better.
When he finally got home, first Margaret and then Cindy gave him a tight hug. He couldn't help but think they were merely softening him up for the kill.
He sat on the living room sofa, a prisoner facing the jury. There didn't seem to be any suitable opening statements, so he simply blurted it out: "I've eaten more than seventy candy bars this week."
His wife and daughter stared at him, silently.
"I don't even realize I'm doing it. And I keep thinking 'Wow, this is way too many candy bars for one person to eat,' but I can't stop myself. And this evening I drove to the casino and I, I don't know, I just started popping money into the slots. I didn't even notice that you'd called. And by the time I was able to pull myself away I'd lost...a lot of money."
"Two thousand?" Margaret asked.
Benjamin nodded. Cindy's mouth dropped open.
There was an extremely long silence, interrupted only by the ringing in his ears.
"How exactly does somebody lose two thousand dollars in one evening?" Margaret asked, speaking very slowly.
"Credit card advances. They make it easy."
"I've heard of celebrities gambling away forty, fifty thousand dollars in a weekend," said Cindy. "Compared to that, Dad's playing with milk money."
Margaret glared at her. "Cindy, go to your room."
Cindy started to protest, then quickly seemed to realize that this was unwise. She stood up, gave Benjamin a sympathetic look, then headed down the hall.
Margaret gazed at him sadly, which was infinitely more painful than if she'd been screaming or shooting fire from her eyeball sockets. "Jesus, Benjamin."
"I know."
"We can't afford this."
"I know. I'll teach summer school."
"You teach summer school anyway."
"I realize that it's a lot of money. But if you think about it, it's no worse than if we got hit with some unexpected car repairs."
"You're comparing this to car repairs?"
"Not in terms of, you know, the amount of trouble I'm in, but in terms of financial loss—"
"It's not about the financial loss! I just want to know what made my husband do something like this!"
"I don't know. I really don't know. I may need help."
Margaret sat there, expressionless, for several agonizing moments. Then she bit her lower lip, as if trying not to smile. "Will help cost more than two thousand dollars?"
"I'm so sorry," he said. "I can't even tell you how sorry I am."
"We'll get through it. I love you, Benjamin. Don't worry." She stood up. "Let's get started on fixing this mess."
Benjamin tossed another Reese's Peanut Butter Cup onto the glowing red charcoal. The smell of burnt chocolate filled the air, and large globs of brown ooze had extinguished many of the coals. He really hadn't planned to go cold turkey on the candy addiction, but didn't protest as Margaret and Cindy gathered up his stash and made him prepare the ceremonial fire.
"Do we really have to do it this way?" he'd asked. "This smells horrible."
"Yes," Margaret had replied. "We do." No further explanation. As long as she didn't suggest that they cure his sex addiction by burning off his penis, Benjamin was cool with it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next morning, Benjamin sat in his recliner, sipping a cup of tea (they'd flushed his hot cocoa) as he listened to Cindy's goddamn alarm clock blare. How had he raised a child who was this lazy? Was the concept of "get out of bed when the alarm clock goes off" really so difficult for her to grasp? Was she so selfish that she thought it was okay to make him listen to this crap while he tried to enjoy his book and tasteless tea?
He was ready to just tilt her mattress on its side and dump her onto the floor.
Bitch.
He couldn't believe he'd just thought that.
He was irritable, that's all. As soon as Margaret left the house, before he even heard her start the car's engine, he'd begun a massive search for chocolate. Anything, even that unspeakably foul baking chocolate, would suffice. He'd finally found a half-full jar of light brown cupcake sprinkles and poured the entire contents into his mouth. Then he'd buried the jar at the bottom of the garbage, feeling more than a little ashamed.
It wasn't like anybody could prevent him from stopping by the convenience store on his way to work, or hitting up the vending machine in the teacher's lounge, but he'd given his word to Margaret. And she might have spies.
That alarm was about to drive him out of his mind.
Perhaps if he went in there and smashed it apart with a baseball bat she'd get the idea.
Don't take it out on your daughter. It's not her fault you went nutzo. Remember, she tried to cover for you with the whole thing about celebrities gambling away fifty grand in a weekend. She's on your side. Chill.
He was going to kill somebody if that alarm didn't stop blaring. Or at least break something. Better to break something. Something valuable that didn't break easily. Something he could beat into thousands of pieces with his bare hands.
He stormed into her bedroom and raised his fist over the alarm. Then he took a long, deep breath, and with a forced sense of calm shut it off.
"Sweetheart, it's time to get up."
She groaned and rolled over, facing the wall.
"You'll miss the bus."
"I'm riding with you today."
"Why?" he snapped. "So you can spy on me?"
She sat up and looked at him. "What?"
"You never ride with me. Trying to make sure I don't ruin your life by buying a Snickers?"
"I thought you'd want somebody to talk to! Jeez!"
Benjamin instantly felt like a complete ass. Even if her motive was just to prevent him from making a convenience store run, she was only trying to help. She and Margaret both.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean that. Of course I want you to ride with me."
"I'll take the bus."
"No, seriously, I am truly sorry. Please let me drive you to school. Okay?"
She nodded. "Okay."
They didn't speak the entire way there.
* * *
As Benjamin stood in front of his fourth period class, explaining exactly what would be on the final exam, his stomach started to hurt.
It made sense. When you pigged out on candy to that extent, you suffered gastrointestinal distress. Served him right. He was surprised it hadn't hurt sooner. Any negative repercussions to his behavior were a good thing.
But it really wasn't a "sick to his stomach" kind of feeling. More of a stinging sensation, as if he'd swallowed Halloween candy laced with razor blades.
He ignored it and continued. "Your best bet is to study old tests and quizzes. I'm not going to throw any curve balls at you. As long as you took good notes and kept the quizzes like I told you to, there shouldn't be any surprises."
Terry Friedman raised his hand.
"Terry?"
"I heard we get to use cheat sheets."
"I was getting to that." Benjamin picked up a stack of three-by-five index cards from his desk and handed a few to the front student in each row. "Pass them back. You each get one index card. As many notes as you can fit on that card, you can use during the exam. You may not share your cards. All notes must be handwritten. If you think I won't check, you haven't been paying attention this past semester."
A couple of students groaned. "Why does it have to be handwritten?" asked Tanya Kennerly.
"Because the point of these cheat sheets is not to give you an easy A. The point is to help you learn by focusing on the most important material and writing it down. You learn by writing things with an actual pen or pencil. You do not learn by cutting and pasting and shrinking the font. Everybody clear?"
The students nodded.
"Good. We're going to spend the rest of the period re—"
The imaginary razor blades felt like they sliced right through his gut. Benjamin winced but maintained his composure until the pain subsided.
"—reviewing whatever you'd like. If you have any questions, now's the time to ask. Tomorrow is not the time. Who's first?"
None of his students raised their hands.
"If nobody has any questions, then I expect to see a lot of A-plusses. And there are quite a few of you in this very room who haven't exactly been racking up the A's."
At this moment in his annual speech, he'd usually look pointedly at a couple of students who hadn't exactly been racking up the A's, hoping to put the fear of the cruel and heartless Mr. Wilson into them. But another bolt of pain struck him, and his hand involuntarily slapped over his waist.
This was definitely not chocolate-related. Kidney stone? Appendix ready to burst? The level of pain was right but the location was wrong.
Terry raised his hand to ask another question, but the pain wasn't fading this time and the final exam was forgotten. This wasn't something Benjamin could fight through until the end of class. It now felt like a razor-lined snake was slowly rotating inside his intestine. He'd broken into a heavy sweat, which he wiped from his brow as he struggled to maintain focus.
"I need to step out for a moment," he said, straining to keep the "oh my God I think I'm gonna die" tone out of his voice. "Do individual review until I get back."
He made it out of the classroom without incident, but nearly doubled over as soon as he shut the door behind him. He clenched his teeth together to keep from screaming and bit the side of his tongue, though he only realized this from the taste of the blood—his gut overwhelmed all other pain. Blinking tears from his eyes, he stood up straight and made his way down the hall toward the nurse's office.
The agony didn't lessen in intensity, yet it changed somehow. It felt like something was squirming in there.
Oh, jeez, I'm giving birth. Giving birth to an alien.
The nurse was at the other end of the building. He wasn't gonna make it. He needed to call 911.
His cell phone was in his briefcase on his desk.
And suddenly he felt the need to vomit. Though his dignity was not a top priority at this moment, he didn't want to achieve infamy as the teacher who puked in the hallway, so he headed for the lavatory. No time to make it to the teacher's restroom. He rushed past several doors, not caring if anybody saw him through the small windows, then pushed through the door marked "Boys."
He braced himself against the closest sink with both hands and prepared for the spew.
Nothing came up.
He stared at the sink, then as his vision began to blur he squeezed his eyes shut. Something was unquestionably moving inside of him. Something with claws or te
eth.
It almost felt like something was eating its way out of him.
There was a sudden urge to bash his head against the porcelain as hard as he could and knock himself unconscious to end the excruciating pain, even if it split his skull open. Somebody'd find him. They'd get help.
He reopened his eyes and spat some blood into the sink.
Whatever hungry little fiend was inside of him had to come out. He tried to force himself to vomit but only managed to dry heave. Even when he jammed both his index and middle finger as far into his mouth as he could, the only thing he accomplished was some gagging and choking.
Movement on the other end of the restroom. A student peeked out of the doorless stall at the end, and a trail of smoke made the reason for his bathroom visit quite clear—not that Benjamin cared at the moment. He ducked back into the stall, flushed the toilet, then quickly emerged.
"Mr. Wilson, are you okay...?"
Benjamin jammed his fingers even farther down his throat to no avail. He pulled them out, a thick rope of saliva dangling from his fingertips, then nearly lost his footing as the worst bolt of pain so far tore through him.
