“Where am I supposed to go?”

“I don’t know, George. But I hear they’re looking for your kind in hell.” I stand up and walk back down the stairs like I’m in a hurry. I bump into him to the point where he loses his balance. He does what he can to get his equilibrium back. But I ignore him, and head for the kitchen to straighten up, because he and everybody else knows that I like my house clean.

Hand After Hand

“You ready to call it a night, man?” Howie asks.

We been at the tables since I got off work. “What time is it?”

“Late. And I’m hungry. We ain’t ate nothing in going on five hours. I need to eat something before I go home. Come on, Cecil. Let’s cash in.”

I look down at my chips. Hell, what’s to cash? Chump change. I ain’t got but two or three hundred. Howie in better shape than me, but some nights is like this. We pick up our chips and take ’em over to the change booth, where one of my least favorite clerks is working: Betty Sue, a redneck from Reno who shoulda stayed there. She got a high-and-mighty attitude to go with that thin brown hair that look like a rat’s nest on top of her head. She act like it’s downright painful when a black man cash in, and right now I’m a little pissed ’cause I ain’t handling more than I am.

I don’t say a word. Just watch her fingers flip through them bills like feathers. Howie get his take and we head on over to the restaurant. It ain’t crowded, not this time of night. It’s a Monday. No big conventions in town this week. Thank the Lord. Which mean maybe we stand a chance on making a few dollars around here tomorrow.

We sit in a booth, where we can still see the casino and folks walking back and forth picking which slot machine looks lucky, which dealer looks like he’ll give you that winning hand after hand after hand. I would love to tell these knuckleheads that ain’t no lucky machines or no such thang as a good dealer. The odds is stacked against the gambler. Casinos is in the business of making money. So—some days they let you win. But most days you lose. It’s simple arithmetic. It shouldn’t take all day to figure out which of them days you on. But, hell, I thought everybody knew that.

A redheaded waitress comes over to take our order: she’s new.

“We’ll both have the well-done steak and eggs with hash browns and white toast,” Howie says.

She looks at me and I give her a look that says, “He said ‘we,’ didn’t he?” She turns and walks away. Her orange uniform don’t look so hot with her hair that color and her skin being so pale. I wouldn’ta took this job if I was her. There’s hundreds of places just like this one in this town that got uniforms that would go a whole lot better with that copper-penny color. But I’m just a man, so what do I know?