A boy at another table is staring. I make a scary face but he don’t quit. I stick out my tongue and he shoots me the finger. I ain’t having that. I pick up a knife and say, You best watch yourself I’ll cut that fucking finger right off. His daddy wants to fight. Jesse pushes between us and says he’s sorry says I’m simpleminded. The boy’s daddy says I ought not to be out if I don’t know how to behave.

Jesse tells me to get my ass to the car and keeps pushing me and saying how stupid I am. Johona tries to cool him off. It’s no big deal, she says, the kid was a brat. I stop walking and start crying. I ain’t stupid. I ain’t simpleminded. I’ll beat you black and blue if you don’t get a move on, Jesse says. That’s no way for brothers to talk, Johona says. We’re standing by some slot machines. She holds out a handful of quarters. Feeling lucky? she says to me. Stop crying and you can have these.

She lets me pick the game. Star-Spangled Sevens. I put in a quarter and pull the handle. A red seven comes up a white seven and nothing. You got to get three sevens to win anything. I put another quarter in and another and another and lose every time. I ain’t lucky. I ain’t never been lucky. I put my last quarter in and pull. Come on, Johona says, big winner.

Click click click. A red a white and a blue seven. The game goes to whooping and quarters rain into the tray. I’m hooting and Johona’s hooting and even Jesse’s got a smile. That’s when darkness falls like a hood over my head like when I seen the wop in the mine. This time I see Jesse walking on a road as the sun rises. Walking and not worried about getting burned up. Quick as it came the picture goes.

I seen you in the desert, I say to Jesse. What are you talking about? he says. You remember the wop? I say. I just seen you walking in the daytime. Jesse looks at me strange. You were having some kind of dream, he says.

I know you got to be sleeping to dream but I let it lie. I scoop the quarters into a cup and Johona takes me to the money lady. She empties the cup into a counting machine and it adds up to ten dollars and twenty-five cents. I’m rich, I say but ten dollars ain’t rich.