BAD FICTION AND DIRTY LAUNDRY: DON'T TRY TO UNDERSTAND CRAZY

I got a note from My Editor.
Editor did not like the blog entry that was originally here.
Even thought about waking me up from a sound sleep to tell me so.
But thought better of it.
I've taken this one back to the "drawing board."

TALES FROM THE EDGE OF THE EARTH: I NEED A NEW SPACESUIT

Picture of "the artist as a young man," back when my biomechanical suit was still relatively new and all of the bells and whistles worked...including the hair feature....

By Grant McGee

Hangin’ out at the in-laws today, shootin’ the shit like I always do.

Those that know me know I’m full of it.

The sister-in-law noticed that I was limping.

Hell, even I didn’t know I was limping.

Hell, I didn’t even know I had six fire ant bites on my left foot.

“Damned ol’ diabetes,” I said.

“Don’t you have any feeling in your feet?” she asked.

“Well,” I said, “Sort of.   It’s more like the nerves in my feet are all jangled up.”

“He’s getting older faster than you,” sister-in-law said to The Lady of the House.

“Yeah,” I said.  “I’ve been sending cosmic mental transmissions to my starship to beam me up but I reckon they’re not getting my messages.”

Sister-in-law didn’t know how to take those words.  She’s most comfortable in her paint-by-numbers religion.  She just stared at me.

“It’s a call for help,” I went on.  “My biomechanical suit is breaking down here on this planet’s surface.  Diabetes, glaucoma, high blood pressure, macular degeneration.”

“Hell,” I went on thumping my chest, “It’s still me inside here.  I don’t feel six decades old.”

“You’re not leaving me here,” said The Lady of the House.  “You just need a new suit.”

I just need a new biomechanical suit.

I smiled.

I think The Lady of the House said more than she knew.

Or did she know exactly what she was saying?

Something simple?

Something spiritual?

Something simple and spiritual?

The secret of The Cosmic Electric?

Or is it even a secret?

BAD FICTION AND DIRTY LAUNDRY: SEX FOR CHRISTMAS

It was the Christmas the big owl flew right by the window.

It wasn’t exactly on Christmas but it was close enough.

A few nights before Christmas Tyler was in the living room watching TV when the shadow of the giant bird fell on one of the windows.  Wings wide, it was if the bird was diving for the house and pulled out of the dive at the last second.  Tyler saw the night bird, the flapping wings.

Tyler jumped up and ran to the window.

There was the owl flapping, illuminated by a street light, winging its way up and coming to rest at the top of the light pole.

The thing was huge.

Tyler wondered why.

There was probably a simple explanation, but he thought there was more to this.
Tyler believed this was some kind of sign, an omen.

Tyler went to his computer and looked up “owl crossing window” and “owl omen,” things like that.

Nothing.

The next day at work Tyler asked his pal, The Herbalist, what she thought of the owl flying by the window.

Tyler called her The Herbalist because of her constant talk of taking all kinds of herbs every day, including herbs for a daily enema which she had no qualms of talking about, referring to them as her “Daily E.”

“If you think it’s an omen then it’s an omen,” she said.

“But of what?” asked Tyler.

“What do you think it portends?”

“Something bad,” said Tyler.  Her questions sounded like a psychoanalyst’s.  Then he remembered, she mentioned that she was once a psychotherapist.

“Well,” said The Herbalist, “If you don’t know what it means then you’ll have to wait and see what happens.  When something happens that you connect with the owl omen then you know it was an omen about that.”

Many things in the hippie town of Bisbee, Arizona were described in such a Zen fashion.  Tyler didn’t actually know what Zen was but The Herbalist’s take on everything sounded like what he thought Zen might sound like.

It was also the Christmas of a Christmas Eve full moon.

It was the first Christmas Eve full moon since 1950.  There wouldn’t be another one until 2102.  That might have been fine and dandy except as Tyler and Alex were walking in the cold desert night in the border town of Naco there was a ring around the full Christmas Eve moon.

“Ring around the moon, trouble here soon,” said Tyler.  “That was in that Sandra Bullock witch movie, what was it…can’t remember…”

“’Practical Magic,’” said Katherine, “But I remember it as a Nicole Kidman movie.”

“Sandra Bullock has good teeth,” said Tyler. “That’s why I remember it.”

“You remember people by the weirdest shit,” said Alex.

They were walking back from a party at Katherine’s.  Katherine was an artist, working in oils.  Tyler liked her stuff.  She did a lot of landscapes.  One in particular he liked was of a town square deep in the interior of Mexico.  The painting reminded him of the first Mexican town square he walked in many years ago…dudes kicking back in the shade of palm trees, women carrying shopping bags.

Above all though, Katherine Carter lived by her art.  Prices on her works started at $1000. If Katherine’s art wasn’t selling in the galleries of Bisbee, Tucson, Scottsdale or Santa Fe she had no money for groceries.  Katherine refused to get a job, she believed it would corrupt her art.

It was in the middle of the year that Katherine hit a dry spell…none of her stuff was selling anywhere.  So for the past few months Tyler and Alex had been giving Katherine about $200 a month.

“It’s our job to support the arts,” said Alex.

“You know,” said Tyler, “This is weird.  I’m a manager, I’m not a millionaire.  I think it’s more of the job of the upper classes to support the arts.”

“We have the money,” said Alex.  “Between your job and my dance studio we’ll do alright.”

Problem was was that Alex bartered out a lot of dance lessons for the artists of Bisbee.  Her income barely covered the studio’s expenses.

“She’ll pay us back,” said Alex.

“I don’t believe that,” said Tyler.  “But it’s Katherine, so…what the hell.”

“Katherine says if she can’t she’ll give you that painting of hers you like.”

Tyler thought maybe that wasn’t such a bad deal.  Katherine had a $1200 price tag on that work.

Money for Katherine started in May.  Then June, July, August…  Finally in November a gallery in Santa Fe sent her a check for $5000.  Then another one of her works sold in Scottsdale.  A $1400 check came to her in the mail.

So Katherine had a Christmas Eve party. That’s why Tyler and Alex were in Naco.

After the dinner of tamales, posole’ and enchiladas preceded by copious amounts of beer and tequila Katherine handed an envelope to Tyler.

He opened it.

There was a check for $1400.

“Oh,” said Tyler.  “Money.”

He handed it to Alex.  She looked at it.

“Um,” said Tyler.

Alex kicked him under the table.  Tyler looked at her.  They locked eyes.

“Um,” he said.

Alex kicked him again.

Tyler handed the envelope back to Katherine.

“I tell you what,” said Tyler, “You take this and open a savings account for when those hard times come again.”

Katherine looked at Tyler and touched his hand.

“Thank you,” she said looking into his eyes.  She had big eyes.

Katherine had big boobs too, but he wasn’t supposed to look at those.  But he wondered why… if she knew it was just going to be the three of them this evening why was she showing so much cleavage?

Katherine nodded to Alex.

“Both of you feel this way?” Katherine asked.

“Sure,” said Alex.  “It’s why I was kicking him under the table.”

They all laughed.

“Well,” said Katherine as she stood.  “Then I want you to have your favorite painting of mine.”

“Oh my,” said Tyler.

Katherine walked over to the wall where the Mexican scene hung and took it down.  She presented it to Tyler.

Christmas Day came to Tyler and Alex’s house.  They had gotten each other presents.  They opened them in the morning.  Alex then went to the kitchen and started fixing up a lot of food, they were having a Christmas come-and-go buffet.  Friends were invited to come over between noon and 4 and have a plate or two, sit around and shoot the shit on Christmas Day.

And the friends came.

Old Lady D who had basically given the dance studio to Alex came by.  She and Alex sat and chatted to the exclusion of Tyler.  Old Lady D was married to a retired CIA dude who was dead now.  She knew Jack Ruby…the guy who gunned down Kennedy’s assassin…that was one story.  Then there was the story of when she took her New York City students to audition for “West Side Story” and was dismissed outright because the choreographer said her students “danced like they’d never been f*%ked.”

The Swansons came by.  The Swansons had cuts and bruises.

“Got in a fight in The Gulch last night,” said Mr. Swanson.  The Gulch would be Brewery Gulch where Bisbee’s beer joints stood.

“Yeah,” said Mrs. Swanson.  “He kicked some ass.”

“Nobody talks to my wife like that without consequences,” said Mr. Swanson smiling as he slapped a fist into a palm.

“They kicked each other’s asses last night,” said Alex after they left.  “You know that, don’t you?”

“Noooo,” said Tyler.

“Yeah, their fights are notorious,” said Alex.  “It started years ago.  He was abusive.  Then she started fighting back.  And they stay together.”

“Not dysfunctional at all,” said Tyler sarcastically.

More old hippie townsfolk came by, had a bite to eat with the town dance teacher and her husband with the racist Southern accent, at least that’s what he heard they called Tyler behind his back.

And soon the sun was setting on the day.

Alex was in the kitchen washing dishes and Tyler was drying.

“I was thinking about another Christmas gift for you,  but I thought better of it,” said Alex.

“Oh?”

“I was thinking about letting you have sex with Katherine for Christmas.”

Tyler set down the plate he was drying along with the towel.  He furrowed his brow.

“What?” he said through squinted eyes.

“You heard me,” said Alex.  “But then I thought better of it.  I thought it would just bring us problems.”

“What?” asked Tyler.

“You both want it so bad,” she said.  “If she had a tail she’d be wagging it every time you get near her, don’t tell me you don’t sense it.  Hell, if you had a tail you’d be wagging it when you got around her.  And you’re always looking at her tits.”

“No I’m not,” said Tyler.

“Ohhhh-kaaaaay,” Alex said real slow with a low voice.  “So you try hard NOT to stare at her tits.”

“Wait,” said Tyler.  “You mean you TALKED TO HER ABOUT THIS?”

“Sure,” said Alex.  “Tyler, it’s just sex.”

“Sex for you and me is something just you and I do,” said Tyler.

“Yeah,” said Alex as she kept washing dishes, “But I’m not so into it anymore.”

Tyler just stared at her.

“Oh we’ll DO IT, I’m just not that INTO IT,” she said as she kept washing dishes.

Tyler raised his eyebrows, sighed, picked up his towel and went back to drying the dishes.

“But like I said, it’s off the table.  After I thought about it I thought there’d be nothing but trouble.  You’d want to do it AGAIN or there’d be FEELINGS, and it would just be messy,” said Alex.  “Did you WANT to have sex with Katherine?”

Tyler laughed and kept drying the dishes.

“Well?”

“I really can’t wrap my brain around that,” said Tyler with a smile.

E P I L O G U E

After that Christmas Alex grew more and more distant.

They actually had some loud arguments with Tyler ending up sleeping on the couch.  This was something new in his life.  He was a big believer in patching things up before turning in for the night if there ever was an argument.

Those mornings-after Alex would wake up Tyler early and say, “I want you to move out.”

They’d talk, Tyler would stay.

Tyler and Alex broke up a year-and-a-half later.

Tyler kind of knew it was going to happen.

He had called his buddy Winston the week after that Christmas and told him about Alex’s idea of “The Gift of Sex with Katherine.”  It was an idea that messed with his head and he needed to talk to someone about it.

“Brother, I’m gonna tell you something…you won’t like it and you won’t do anything about it because I know you,” said Winston.  “But things are over for you and Alex.”

There was silence on the line.

“Really,” said Tyler.

“DUDE,” said Winston, “She’s outsourcing y’all’s sex from the relationship.”

“Wow,” said Tyler, “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“But like I said, you won’t do anything about this.”

“I can’t wrap my brain around the concept that it’s over,” said Tyler.

“I’m gonna tell you something else,” said Winston.  “Your friends have known for years…that you care about that woman a helluva lot more than she cares about you.”

“Hmmmmmm,” said Tyler.

And Winston was right.

About everything.

Tyler didn’t do anything about it, he kept hoping things would change.

But they didn’t.

And one day the caring just ran out.

Tyler left Arizona and moved back to New Mexico.

And Alex took up with a waitress…a woman… named Annabelle.

And things suddenly made sense.

Sort of.

-30-

TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST: EATING GOAT

by Grant McGee

            Thirty years ago, before I made my journey to The Great American Southwest, if someone had told me, “you will eat things made with fresh tomatoes, have green chile brownies and eat goat,” I would have had a good laugh.

            You should know I wasn’t a fan of fresh tomatoes, had no concept of green chile and didn’t know people ate goat.  I knew they were good for milk, feta cheese, trimming trees and butting you if you got in their space.

            Now I love salsa whether it’s fresh or from a jar.  I can’t imagine a grocery store without green chile (though there are plenty of them in Amarillo).  However, goat is not something I’ll be putting in my slow cooker anytime soon.

            I got to thinking about eating goat on a recent trip to Roswell.  The Lady of the House remembered one of the grocery stores there sold frozen rabbit.  The meat man pointed to where the frozen rabbit was usually stored.  There wasn’t any rabbit but there were some frozen cuts of goat.

            I remember the first time I learned of the epicurean delights of eating goat.

            I was a country music DJ in Roswell.  One of my listeners invited me to his house to have some barbecue and cervezas.

            Upon arriving at “Mountain Man’s” mobile home on the south side of Roswell he shoved a cold one in my hand.

            “Want something to keep it cold?”

            I barely had time to think.

            “Here, stick the can in THIS.”

            Mountain Man handed me this fur covered thing to keep my cerveza cool, also known as a “coozie.”  Most of the time they’re made out of foam.  This one was not.

            Now, there are some moments we remember all of our lives and there are other moments we remember more than others.  This moment was one of the latter.

            I held the fur covered thing in my hand.

            “Know what that is?”

            “I have no idea,” I said.

            Then he told me.

            “That’s a goat scrotum coozie,” he said with pride.

            I turned the thing around and around in my hand.

            I held it up to my nose and had a whiff.

            Gamey.

            Goat gamey.

            Mountain Man raised goats for sale to folks around Roswell who enjoyed the meat.  Goat heads were perched on many of his fence posts.  Goats and their kids played in a nearby pen.  It was a surreal scene.

            A fancy, big-city writer might opine, “It was a scene juxtaposing life and death in close quarters.”

            I’ll just say it was surreal.

            “I get $150 a goat,” he said with pride.  “I think I’m gonna start sellin’ them goat scrotum cozies at the flea market too, make some extra coin.”

            I just smiled, nodded in agreement and had a swig of beer as that goat gamey-ness wafted up to my nostrils.

            The next day I told my buddy Kent I had sat down to a meal of smoked goat with Mountain Man, his wife “Nighthawk,” and their son “Snake Boy.”

            Kent looked at me for a moment.

            “Where DO you meet these people.”

            I can’t say much about my first taste of goat.  It was smoked and kind of gamey.  It was okay.

            Mountain Man obviously thought I enjoyed the goat because he dropped by the radio station next week with a crock pot full of goat soup.

            It was seriously gamey, greasy stuff.

            I politely had a few spoonfuls, smiled, said “thank you” and he was on his way.  The boss came in a bit later and wanted to know what the hell was stinking up the building I told him about the soup.  He snatched up the pot, trotted out the back door and dumped the contents a good distance out in a nearby field.

            The next time I had goat was at a party in Loco Hills, New Mexico.  My buddy Wayne and I were providing the music for the get together.  We were invited to eat.  Along with the green beans prepared with strips of jalapeno and other tasty dishes was cabrito, that’s Spanish for baby goat, that had been roasting in a pit all day.

            I told the host about my previous experience with goat soup.

            “Oh no,” he said, “he must’ve cooked up an older goat.  Cabrito is a young one, a kid.”

            I hadn’t tasted roasted meat that good in years.

            The first time I ran into goat being sold in a restaurant was during my truck driving travels.  It was a restaurant in Pomona, California, a little place near the company terminal.  I always tried to eat at places that might offer some local flavor, like the time I had some great Cuban food in Miami:  fried plantains with black beans.  Anyway, this California eatery had birras on the menu.  I inquired as to what that was.

            “Goat,” said the man behind the counter.  “Very good.  You want salsa with that?”

            So it was sometime in late 2002 I had my very first goat burrito.  Every time my travels took me back there I had some more.

            I try to remain open to new gustatory experiences.  It’s how I ended up eating some kind of braided, chewy meat at a Sinaloan party. 

I found out later that was roasted cow or pig intestine.

But that’s another story.

-30-

THE HOTEL CHILD: MY MOM THE SOCIALIST

Actual factual picture of me and my mom as the family leaves Hawai'i.

by Grant McGee

If it were now… not then… I reckon they’d have called her a liberal.

But back in 1970 they weren’t bandying that word about like they do here in the future.

So I reckon Socialist is what someone might call her.

My mom, the Socialist.

But then, maybe mom wasn’t, maybe I just heard things she said and listened to things she told me and just thought she couldn’t possibly be a conservative, couldn’t possibly be a Republican even though she was married to one.

Now there was no doubt my old man was a conservative Republican, what with him derisively referring to President Franklin Roosevelt as “King Roosevelt.”  And then there was the time that the dude who leaked some secret papers about the Vietnam War to “The New York Times,” Daniel Ellsberg appeared on the TV screen during the evening news and my father yelled at the tube, pointing, “THAT MAN SHOULD BE CASTRATED.”  Not thrown in prison, not executed by firing squad, but castrated.

Yep, my dad was a conservative Republican.

But my mom?

Mom told me about the time, around 1964, when we moved into a southern city where my dad was managing a hotel.  She joined The League of Women Voters.  At that particular time and place, according to my mom, the league was getting black voters registered, something that caused a measure of controversy back in the day.

“Then your father told me to get out of the League,” said mom, telling me the story one day.

“Really?” I asked in wide-eyed amazement.

“He said he didn’t think that the wife of the manager of the top hotel in town should be involved with such rabble-rousers,” she said.

There was another time I was watching the movie “The Bird Man of Alcatraz.”  It’s the story of a fellow who ends up in prison for murder and while in there he starts to keep birds and study them, becoming an expert, writing books and such.  He ended up becoming real famous.  Burt Lancaster played him in the movie.

Anyway, so I’m watching “The Bird Man of Alcatraz” and the prison officials are transferring Burt Lancaster from prison to prison and my mom is walking by.  She stops, watches the TV screen for a few moments then says, “Man’s inhumanity to man.”

I was young and didn’t fully understand.

“What do you mean, mom?” I asked.

“Keeping someone locked up like that for their whole life, robbing them of any hope,” she said.

“But he killed some people,” I said.

“I know that.  But how long is enough?” and she walked on.

These thoughts came back to me the other day when I saw a fellow working in the back room of a store.  He had a severely cleft palate.

My mom’s voice came to my head from long ago.

“That boy will never stand an equal chance in society,” were the words.  “That’s why we need socialized medicine.”

It was something she said one morning on the way to school.

It was probably almost 50 years ago mom used to take me and Dead Kevin to and from school.  Dead Kevin wasn’t dead then, that would be 12 or so years in the future.

Anyway, riding with mom was always lively because she’d talk about all kinds of stuff.  Dead Kevin used to say stuff about the Bible and she’d take him to task over it.

“The end times are prophesized in the book of Revelation,” Dead Kevin pontificated one morning.

“Oh Kevin,” said mom, “The Bible is a book of history and a guide to good moral living, it is not a book of prophesy.”

Dead Kevin gasped.

“I’m shocked you’d say such a thing,” he said.

“How can you say that, mom,” I said.  “You teach Sunday School.”

“Because that’s what I teach.  The stories, the parables are a history of that region.  The lessons are a guide to good moral living, it’s just that simple,” she said.

So one morning we were on our way to school and we drove by a guy, older than us, we didn’t recognize him as going to our school.  And he had the biggest sticky-out ears you’d ever seen on anyone.

Dead Kevin and I laughed.

“You boys shouldn’t laugh at him,” said mom as she drove.  “That boy will never stand an equal chance in society.  That’s why we need socialized medicine.”

“What’s socialized medicine?” I asked.   I was just a junior high school kid.

“It’s health care paid for by the government,” said mom.  “Some countries in Europe have it.  You think that boy’s parents can afford the cost of surgery to fix those ears?  No.  He’ll be ridiculed and his self-esteem will be affected.  He’ll never reach his full potential.”

Socialized medicine.

It would be years before I realized my mom was speaking words that in some quarters would be considered fightin’ words.

And yet I never heard her mention such ideas again.

Was it how she really felt or just a passing thought?

One time when I was a lot older I asked my Aunt Margie, my mother’s kid sister, if she knew anything about my mom’s socialist leanings.

“Your mother?  A Socialist?  Oh my!” said Aunt Margie with a wry smile.  “I thought your mother was an elitist.”

“What?”  Now I was confused.  From one extreme to the other.

“There was that time you all were living at the hotel in Buffalo and we came to visit,” she said.  “Your mother told us to come up to your family’s apartment by way of the service entrance and elevator.  I always saw that as she was ashamed of us.”

So I don’t know.

Mom’s done “gone on to glory.”

I suppose I may have been wondering about her political leanings, trying to figure out where some of my silly notions came from.  Silly notions like this one time long ago I had this idealistic thought that people with children shouldn’t go to prison because of the affect it has on children.  House arrest yes, but not to “the big house.”  Luckily I kinda kept that thought to myself because I know of someone who did say that out loud and was practically laughed out of town.

Or the times that I have wondered aloud why we humans all can’t simply just get along with each other.  That thought was met with raucous laughter and queries as to my planet of origin.

And I guess it all really doesn’t matter.

Mom was mom.

And after all mom was the greatest mom ever.

                                                                                -30-

TALES OF THE SOUTHWEST: MY BIG COIN, HIGH DOLLAR GAMBLING CAREER

Actual factual photo of a twin-pack deck of cards with the railroad logo from the big railroad based in my home town of Roanoke, Virginia

By Grant McGee

            I was at a church rummage sale the other day and spied something with an old railroad logo on it:  A twin-pack deck of cards with the Norfolk and Western Railroad logo on it.

            Norfolk and Western is what they called the big railroad based out of my old hometown of Roanoke, Virginia before they re-named it the Norfolk Southern.

            Then the memories came back of the times I thought about playing Blackjack and gambling.

            I never have been much of a gambler.  I’ve known folks who were, folks who were raking in the bucks, lost it all and walked out of the casino with no more money than I had. 

            No, wait, I take that back, there was that time I picked up a wad of bills gambling in Iowa.  It was years ago during my one-year truck driving career.  I was team driving coast-to-coast with another driver who loved adult beverages.  We’d drop off our load and he’d make a beeline for a bar, any bar.  This meant I was the one who had to escort him back to the truck and that I was always first driver on the next load we got.

            Anyway, we dropped a load off in Council Bluffs, Iowa and my partner headed straight to a nearby casino for some beverages.

            “I’d rather read my book and hit the hay,” I told him once we parked up.

            “Aw, come on man, don’t make me drink alone,” he said.

“It’s not my thing, man.”

“Here,” he said, reaching for his wallet, “Here’s 10 bucks, sit and gamble and shoot the shit with me.”

            So while my compadre had cerveza after cerveza I played the video gambling game built into the bar.  After I’d won about 50 bucks I decided I’d had enough.

            “You gonna share?” my buddy asked.

            “Yeah,” I said, “Here’s your 10 bucks back.”

            Every time our 18-wheeler was in the neighborhood of the Acoma Pueblo west of Albuquerque we always made a point of stopping at the Sky City Casino.  They have this deal:  Show them your commercial driver’s license and they give you a $5 roll of quarters.  For my co-driver that meant a $5 start to a gambling spree that usually cost him 50 to 100 dollars.  For me, that meant $5 off a huge green chile cheeseburger platter in their restaurant.

            But as time wore on I got the usual tired feeling of working for someone.  You know the old saying:  Bosses are like diapers, always on your ass and full of shit.  One day it occurred to me that I could have a full-time career playing cards.

            It wouldn’t be poker…there’s too much hype around that game what with faking people out, wearing sunglasses so people can’t read your eyes, crap like that.

            Nope, Blackjack would be my game.  I felt it in my bones.  My time was now.  I was going to make a living raking in the big coin at the Blackjack tables of Vegas.

            The time came I had to run a load to Vegas, this would be my lucky trip.

            I rolled into Las Vegas…the opening riffs of Elvis’ “Viva Las Vegas” running around in my head… “Da-da-da, da-da-d-da, da-da-da, da-da-d-da…,” driving by the big places:  The Bellagio, Caesar’s Palace, Mirage and that place where a big beam of light shoots from a pyramid into the night sky, The Luxor.  I didn’t stop at any of them.  Instead, my big-time gambling career would start at a truck stop Blackjack table.

In Vegas it’s not unusual to find a Blackjack table at a truck stop, there are casinos and slot machines all over the place there.

            I bellied up to the Blackjack table with visions of dollars piling up in front of me.

            “I don’t know how to play,” I said to the dealer, a lady who gave off the feeling like she was at the end of her shift.  “Just what my brother showed me a long time ago about getting ‘21’ or less and beating the dealer.”

            “You’re kidding me,” she said.

            “I don’t know how to dribble a basketball either.”

            The dealer outlined the rules of the game, including the tapping of the table when I wanted another card.  I was ready to play.  I put $2 on the table.

            She looked at me over the top of her glasses, smoke wafting up from the cigarette that dangled from her lower lip.  “Two dollars?” She said.  “I think you should give that to me for making me get up from my chair.”

            I just smiled.

            I lost my $2 bet.

            “You wanna play again, big spender?” said the dealer.

            “Yeah,” I said.  I put another $2 on the table.

            On my second hand at Blackjack I won $4.

            “That’s it for me,” I said.  My visions of wads of cash flying into my wallet disappeared.  I couldn’t take this kind of risky behavior.

“You’re f*%king kidding me,” said the dealer.  She took a long drag off her smoke and exhaled.  She walked back to her chair, sat, then stared at me over the top of her glasses.  “Next time go to one of them hotels on the strip, big spender.”

“Maybe the Bellagio,” I said.  “I like the architecture.”

“And you’re a truck driver?” she said.  “You sure you’re not a flower arranger or something?”

            Sometimes I still ponder the life of a gambler.  I’ll be channel surfing on a Sunday afternoon and land on one of those televised poker tournaments.  I watch the players hunker down over their cards, some wearing sunglasses, others with the brims of their hats pulled low over their eyes.

            “Maybe I could learn poker and make tons of money,” I say to The Lady of the House.  She looks back at me and starts laughing.  Soon she’s laughing so hard she’s out of her chair and laughing down the hall.

            “Well, I thought it was a good idea,” I muttered to myself and kept flipping the channel.

-30-