by Tim O'Brien
"All right what?" said Johnny Ever.
"Send in the bird."
"Even if?"
"Affirmative."
"And you understand the deal, Dave? No joke. There's most definitely a stockbroker in your future." The announcer hesitated, then cleared his throat. When he spoke again, his voice carried a mix of compassion and resignation. "Truth is, I'm not supposed to give advice—promise you won't let on to nobody—but in your case, well jeez, I honest-to-God have to recommend bailing. Cut your losses. Check out. Right now, Davy, you don't know what wounded is. Wait'll the Marla war starts—all that heartache, all them Harley dreams. You're in for a world of hurt, my friend, and morphine won't do nothin'."
"Understood," David said.
"And?"
"Green light. I'm taking the ride."
"You're sure?"
"I am. Yes."
Johnny Ever chuckled. "Okey-doke. But I'll say this much. You're one brave motherfucker."
3. CLASS OF '69
IT WAS just after 1:45 in the morning, now July 8, 2000, but a large portion of the class of '69 still caroused in the Darton Hall College gymnasium. The bar remained open, liquids flowed, someone's radio had been tuned to an oldies station, and considerable gray hair and good cheer were afloat upon a bustling dance floor. People had paired off. Moral footnotes were under scrutiny. Out on the dance floor, Spook Spinelli divided her time between Marv Bertel and Billy McMann. She had peeled off her sweater and was down to a metallic miniskirt and bare feet and a blouse that appeared to be constructed of red cellophane. Even so, she had trouble holding Billy McMann's attention. Right now, Billy draped a tablecloth over his head and vamped it up, feigning sexiness, feigning fun, but in his head he was rehearsing all the love-hate lines he would soon deliver to Dorothy Stier. He would definitely squeeze in the word "coward." He had not yet decided among several potent adjectives. At the moment, however, Dorothy stood in an open doorway at the rear of the gym, taking care of Paulette Haslo, who had recently crossed the finish line in a four-hour race toward nausea. "I didn't do anything wrong," Paulette was telling Dorothy. "Ask God. Be my guest. Ask. Nothing, nothing, nothing. All I ever wanted in my whole life was to take care of people, be a good minister, make everybody ... Jesus, did I vomit? I stink. Don't I stink?"
"You don't," Dorothy said.
"I do. Stinkeroo Paulette. Am I crying?"
"Sort of," said Dorothy, "but you don't stink. Tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong, except I'm a stinky, certified crook. All I did, I tried to be nice. Didn't I? I did. I tried and tried, just kept trying, and now I'm a putrid, barfing criminal. They arrested me."
"Don't be ridiculous," Dorothy said. "You're drunk, sweetheart, but you're not a crook."
"I am!" Paulette wailed.
A few feet away, in a corner, Marla Dempsey danced alone. Her eyes were closed. She wished she had never married David Todd, because in the end she had hurt him so badly, but she also wished that David could find a way to make her love him perfectly. The trouble, though, was that she had never loved anyone, much less perfectly. She'd made the effort. She'd put in the years. It occurred to Marla that maybe she wasn't human, that she was missing some special enzyme or love gene. Always flat inside. Always so gray and tepid and disconnected. And there was also the problem of David's ability to read her mind, to know things he should never know, as if someone were secretly whispering the future into his ear, every rotten detail. And sometimes he'd whisper back. A conversation, almost, or an argument from three decades ago. And for nine impossible years Marla used to lie in their dark bedroom, terrified, curious, listening to him mumble in his sleep—obscenities sometimes, other times begging for his feet to stop hurting. How do you live with that? How do you make a marriage? You don't. You pick a cold, gray Christmas morning, because that's when you can't stand it anymore, and you say the words and walk out fast and ride away on another man's Harley, and then for the rest of your life you despise yourself. You despise the fact that you don't know how to love, not anybody, not even yourself, and the fact that right now, at this instant, you're dancing alone.
Amy Robinson and Jan Huebner had emancipated a fresh bottle of vodka. Their conversation ran a crooked course from divorce to gambling to yeast infection and then back again to divorce. Thirty-one years ago Amy had been slim and tomboyish and cutely freckled; Jan Huebner had been a clown, very homely, swift with a joke.
"Tell the truth, girl, did you honestly love him?" Jan was saying.
Amy said, "What's love?"
Jan nodded, went pensive, then grinned. "Castration. Is that love?"
"Believe so," said Amy. "But here's what I wonder about. Way back when—like a trillion years ago—back then there wasn't a single doubt. Love was love. And we had plenty of it." Amy gazed out at the dwindling crowd. She was still slim, but no longer cute, and at present her consonants were under vodka pressure. "Oh, well," she said. "The world makes circles. One more drink, that's it. Then we take on the football team."
Minnesota's lieutenant governor and his ex-fiancée held fast to each other under the cardboard stars. They seemed paralyzed. She was a Lutheran missionary, he was a handsome, well pickled, newly married compromiser.
A prominent physician and an ex-basketball star, now a mother of three, soaped up in the women's locker room.
Ellie Abbott lay wide awake in a downtown hotel.
Out on the dance floor, a tall, silver-haired chemist, once shy and bookish, stiffened the drink of a retired librarian, once a prom queen. Neither mentioned it, but the years had leveled their bumpy playing field. He had become a Nobel prospect, she had become a recipient of insufficient alimony. Payback was in progress.
Spook Spinelli had given up on Billy McMann, at least for the time being. Spook was now gracing the capacious lap of Marv Bertel, whose star had risen, whose thirty-one years of patience seemed at last to be paying dividends.
Dorothy Stier wiped up after Paulette Haslo. "You'll be okay, give it time," Dorothy said, and Paulette yelled, "Criminal!"
Billy McMann walked over to join Spook and Marv.
Marla Dempsey danced.
David Todd lay dreaming of forever along a river called the Song Tra Ky. He was half tripping, half mad, shot through both feet.
"Call me Cassandra," Johnny Ever was saying. "Crummy pay, no overtime, but I take it super serious. I mean, Davy, what the heck you think déjà vu is? What you think horoscopes are for? Rabbit's feet? Indigestion? Bad breath? 'Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning'—I wrote the friggin' jingle. Irony? Invented it. Same-same with intuition: my own personal brainstorm. Omens, too. Premonitions, frisson, clairvoyance, portents, harbingers, all your basic nape-of-the-neck gimmicks. I mean, wake up. You think coincidence is just coincidence? Hell's bells, Davy, that's my day job. Jack-of-all-trades, you could say. Disc jockey. Cop. Duck whittler. Retired colonel, USMC. Not to mention hit-and-run artist and pharmacist and bigshot keyboard player. Even dealt some blackjack in my day." In the dark along the Song Tra Ky, there was a hissing noise. "Believe me, my friend, I could go on. I do. Name's Ever."
"And the freaky part is, I waited more than fifty years to get married," Amy Robinson told Jan Huebner. "Lasted two weeks. Barely got through the honeymoon. I remember we stopped at this gas station and I got out and went into the ladies' room and just sat there on the toilet—who knows how long?—half an hour, probably more. And you know what I was hoping? I was hoping he'd drive away. Forget me. Forget it was a honeymoon."
"But he didn't," Jan said.
"No."
"And then?"
Amy stood up and waited for her stomach to settle. "Then nothing," she said. She wobbled sideways, found her balance. "Come on, love. Put on your game face."
"What about our drink?"
"Fourth quarter, fourth down," Amy said. "Billy McMann's wide open, I'm throwing a pass."
Jan grunted and said, "Hail Mary."
4. THE STREAK
THEY WON
twenty-five hundred dollars before lunch. "We should quit," Amy said, and Bobby said, "I guess we should," but by dinnertime they had won another two thousand.
It was late summer, a weekend. They had been married nine and a half days and had stopped at the little lakeside casino on a whim.
"We'll take a room," said Bobby. "Why run away from good luck?"
"Why stay for bad luck?" Amy said.
By midnight they had won fifteen hundred dollars more, taking turns, a blackjack tag team. Amy organized their chips in tidy stacks of black and purple.
"Bet it all," said Bobby. "Six thousand, and we'll go to bed."
They bet it all and won with a pair of jacks and did not go to bed. They bet half their winnings. The pretty young dealer broke on a twelve. Until then, the cards had gone very well, but now it had become a streak.
"Seven in a row," Bobby said. "Put out six thousand."
"If we lose?" said Amy.
"We go to bed."
"For sure?"
Bobby played the hand: a black ace covered by a red queen. There was a warm, dreamy glow at the table. People were stopping to watch. The pretty dealer smiled at them.
"Your turn," Bobby told Amy. "Six thousand again."
"That's too much," said Amy.
"Go on. I believe it's called gambling."
She pushed out sixty black chips. She drew a nine and a four against the dealer's jack.
"Hit it," said Bobby.
"I can't."
"Close your eyes."
She drew a seven. The dealer turned over an eight. Altogether, they had won thirty-three thousand dollars.
"Please, please, please," Bobby said. He was giddy. He put a hand on Amy's hip for good luck, and they won again, another six thousand.
"Very nice," said the dealer, who was perhaps twenty-two or twenty-three, slim-hipped, with braided black hair and black eyes and brown skin. She chopped down the cards and shuffled.
"Newlyweds, that's nifty," the girl said. "I get married myself in October—October first—except with my luck I'll end up honeymooning in my fiance's Winnebago." She snorted. "As if I don't already know every square inch."
The dealer's engagement ring looked cheap and gaudy against the green felt. Amy tipped her twenty-five dollars.
"What about you?" the girl said. "Big wedding?"
"Pretty big," Amy said.
"Huge, I'll bet. Lucky stiffs like you, I'll bet it was one serious, pull-out-the-stops wedding." The dealer squared the cards and held them out for cutting. "You wear white? You know. Virgin white?"
"Blue," said Amy.
"What was your music?"
"Music?"
"At the wedding."
"Oh, that. One long blur, I'm afraid." Amy cut the cards.
"You should walk," said the dealer, "while the walking's profitable."
"Not a chance," said Bobby. "Six thousand again."
"She might be right," said Amy.
"She might be."
They were dealt a six and a ten. Amy stayed. The pretty dealer broke on a fifteen.
"Just my cruddy luck," the girl said.
Amy tipped her fifty dollars. A crowd had gathered, most of them silent or nearly silent. A man in a plaid sweatsuit giggled when Bobby pushed out twelve thousand dollars in orange chips.
"Can't do it," said the dealer. She stared at a spot over Amy's shoulder. "Six thousand—table limit."
"Two hands," said Bobby. "Six each."
"That's a real decent used car," the girl said. She waited. "What I'd do right now, I'd go upstairs and pull back the sheets. Start honeymooning."
"Deal the cards," Bobby said.
"I'm nervous," said Amy.
"This is how you win," Bobby said, almost crossly. He tapped the table with the palm of his hand. "Ride your streaks, go where the luck goes."
"But what if—" Amy looked at him. "We can lose, you know. People lose."
"Don't think that way."
He kissed Amy's cheek, a half kiss, then looked up at the pretty dealer.
"Let's play blackjack," he said.
The dealer broke again. They had won fifty-seven thousand dollars since ten o'clock that morning.
"God almighty, I swear, if I only had your luck," the girl said. She pocketed Amy's hundred-dollar tip, closed her eyes, shook her head. "Just once in my putrid life."
She broke the next hand, too.
"Shit," she said.
"Four hands this time," Bobby said. "Six thousand each."
Amy played. She hit a blackjack, a twenty, a seventeen, another twenty. The pretty young dealer broke on a thirteen.
The crowd yelped and applauded.
"I kid you not," the girl said, "my crummy, crummy luck."
"You're supposed to be rooting for us," said Amy.
"Hey, I'm rooting hard, doll. Sweet couple. Ritzy wedding."
Amy was fifty-two, a lawyer, and did not like being called doll. No one had to prompt her to push out another twenty-four thousand dollars, four stacks of orange.
"Win or lose," Amy said, "we quit this time."
Bobby said nothing. He cupped his chin in his hands and leaned low over the table. It was a small, dingy casino, a single square room with a Formica bar, four blackjack tables, and fifty or sixty slots. The customers were mostly locals.
"The thing about a streak," said the dealer, "is that you can use up your luck. Every bit of it—like me. And then there's the rest of your life."
"Which means what?" Amy said.
"Don't listen," said Bobby.
The dealer thumbed the cards. "Waste your luck here, what's left for the honeymoon? What's left for that rainy day in the suburbs?"
"Deal some cards," Bobby said.
The girl let out a breath and dealt. Bobby won two hands, lost two.
"No damage," he said.
"Please, let's take a break," said Amy. "At least a short little break."
"One last shot."
"Yes, but we've made a fortune. We're not here to gamble, are we?"
"You should be happy."
"I am happy."
"You aren't," Bobby said. He gave her a scolding look, as if she were a student in his junior high algebra class. "People don't get streaks like this. Let's both just enjoy it, okay?"
"Okay," Amy said.
The dealer shifted from foot to foot, eyed a pit supervisor to her left. The man shrugged.
"Listen to me," the girl said. "Those chips there, that's half a house."
"Now we furnish it," said Bobby.
He played four hands again, six thousand each. The girl dealt him two twenties, a nineteen, a seventeen.
She broke again.
"Piss," she said loudly. "What the hell's wrong with me?"
The pit boss murmured something. The girl nodded and said, "Sorry."
"We'll take a break," Amy said.
She began to put out a tip but then drew it back.
"Drinks on the Chippewa nation," said the pit boss, solemnly, with the inflection of a clock.
At the bar, just after three in the morning, they tallied their winnings.
"How long can it last?" Amy said.
"Not forever," said Bobby. "Sooner or later, I guess, the odds grab your throat, start to squeeze." He paused. "On the other hand, you never know."
"That's the math teacher speaking?"
"Yeah," he said.
"So why not quit?"
"Because I'm a lousy math teacher. Because I'm fifty-six years old, because I waited a whole lifetime for this."
"What about me? Did you wait for me?"
"Meaning what?"
"Bobby, we're not a couple of idiots, we don't chase pipe dreams. We settle for ... I don't know. We take what comes our way."
They looked at each other.
After a second Bobby stood up. He walked to the cage, cashed in, returned to the bar, and dropped one hundred and twenty thousand dollars on the Formica. The bills were strapped and inky-smelling.
&nb
sp; "Forty-five goes to Uncle Sam," he said. He flicked his eyebrows, a gesture that irritated her. "The fun thing now would be to bet the bundle. Every dime. Thumb our noses at the numbers."
"All at once?"
"It's pure profit. Their money."
"We'll lose."
"Fun, though."
The casino was now almost deserted. Behind them, a single slot machine made buzzing noises in the dark, harsh and cheerless. Two elderly gentlemen sat dreaming at the end of the bar.
Amy watched the young dealer.
"That girl, she's lovely to look at," Amy said, "but she wanted us to lose."
Bobby shrugged. "I doubt it."
"What then?"
"It wasn't about us losing. She wanted to win."
"Maybe so," said Amy. "But dealers aren't supposed to think that way. It's a job, that's all. A stupid, robot job."
"Not for her. Not tonight."
Amy tried to look away—tried to appreciate the stack of cash in front of her—but again, without willing it, her gaze slipped off toward the dealer. The girl stood alone at her table, arms folded, one hip cocked to the side.
"She is pretty, though," Amy said.
"Give it ten years," said Bobby. "Babies and Winnebagos."
"That's nasty. And you don't mean it."
"I don't?"
"You were staring at her."
Bobby chuckled. "I was staring at Lady Luck."
"Not sometimes."
"When?"
"When she shuffled," Amy said. "I'm gabbing away, you're staring."
"I love you."
"You loved winning."
"Well, yes, that is very damn true," Bobby said. He handed her a stack of hundreds; he winked and did the irritating thing with his eyebrows. "You should be celebrating."
"Then why aren't we in bed?"
"Because we're hot."
"That's why?"
"Don't spoil it," he said.
Amy closed her eyes. Why the image came to her, or from where, she had no idea, but she was picturing the organist at their wedding, a frail old woman in a crepe dress and crocheted white sweater. Bobby had chosen the music—a medley of show tunes—and something about the harmonics and the worn-out old organist now gave Amy the creeps. False sentiment, maybe. Or maybe it was the wedding itself, which had also been Bobby's idea, and to which she had assented out of guilt. They had been together four years. He'd been decent to her, assiduously decent, decent without flaw, and there was no question about Bobby's patience and humor and devotion and kindness and graying good looks. She truly liked him. And in the end, snagged by their years together, she had run out of excuses.
