taken for granted by the old hands.
One of the old hands, Higgins, bit hard into his lower lip suppressing the profanity that would have followed the ‘F’ that had just formed on his mouth. He had lost again. Dregs of table etiquette tightened his bite.
He tore his concentration from the feverish betting frenzy and sat up in his chair. He looked at his watch, if only through pure habit. There was nowhere he had to be, no wife at home, no supper on the table and no kids to play with. He had forfeited all that two years ago. So the fact that it was eight p.m. was irrelevant.
Shaky hands sent up spirals of cigarette smoke that wafted across his face, urging him to join in. Before obliging, he paused to run his nicotine-stained fingers through his head of grey-flecked, black hair. His once-handsome face was now haggard with neglect and blotched with alcoholic overindulgence, removing any possibility of arguing the downside of his forty years.
He could not remember if his gambling had led him to drinking or if his drinking had led him to gambling. That was all a long time ago. The two seemed to go hand in hand these days; chips in one and a cognac in the other. His third hand was an ashtray that usually held a filterless cigarette, whose raking flavor completed his ritual of self flagellation.
He felt as though he was drowning, choking on self-hate. How had he gotten himself into such a dire strait? He waded back through the hazy avenues of his memory. Wandering back a few years to his favorite bar, he had been enjoying an after-work drink with some of his colleagues and, feeling a little high, he had decided to take a taxi home.
He found himself talking about casinos with the enthusiastic driver. At this point, he had been living in Vegas for three years and had always avoided the bright lights that he felt were for the tourists, besides which, his demanding job selling mining equipment in this state of Nevada had kept him well away. If that wasn’t enough, his wife and two young children would sap any surplus energy that he was fortunate enough to come home with.
However, every so often, he and some of his colleagues would spend an evening together as they had done that night. Higgins had found himself believing the driver’s story that a little gambling could supplement an ailing income. Coincidentally, recent months had been fairly lean for Higgins’ sales figures and with a few drinks under his belt, he had found himself agreeing to a little detour to the Eastern Promise Hotel & Casino. Such was his rapport with the driver, they even went in together.
His first impression was one of unbridled opulence. It was incredible; this place wove the fabulous wealth and deep mystique of the Orient into the perfect spell. The faithfully-reproduced architecture had to have been whisked here on a magic carpet directly from the pages of One Thousand and One Nights, he had mused.
When he had turned to share his wonder with his new friend, Higgins had suddenly found himself alone, the moist ten-dollar note for his fare still clenched in his hand. In futility, he had looked around for the driver, until the welcome offer of a complimentary drink dissolved any prevailing concern. Well, now that he was here, he might as well see what all the fuss was about, he thought.
At a glance, everybody had seemed too preoccupied with the many ongoing attractions to notice a new face and that suited Higgins as he observed the various games. Surprised at their simplicity, it wasn’t long before he had taken the plunge and joined in, getting used to the feel of the toy currency that enabled him to play these fun games. He remembered sitting at the roulette table for the first time. Every spin, he would rub his imaginary magic lamp with hope and more often than not, the genie had obliged. Such excitement, followed by the cashing in of his pile of play-money for the real thing was the icing on this sweet cake.
It was through pure luck rather than good judgment that he had won at first. Penny, his wife, was treated to a rash of useless gifts that she would have happily exchanged for his company. Over the following months they had grown apart, Higgins unable to wrench himself away from his new home and Penny feeling helpless. He persisted even when his beginner’s luck had long since run out. Soon he had begun to lose; heavily.
Higgins knew that he had given his cherished Penny no choice but to leave, and although he had seemed incapable of preventing it, he could not understand it. He didn’t want it, but he couldn’t stop it. All of his efforts were thwarted by the inexplicable rush that he would feel just thinking about the spin of the wheel. He knew the only way out of this whirlpool was down, how much further, he had no idea, but he sensed that he would soon find out.
Warnings from his wealthy brother, Brogan, who had lived in Vegas more than twenty years, reverberated in his ears: “You haven’t got a hope in hell. Can’t you see that? What the fuck do you think these places are, benevolent societies?”
“I can win next time. I’m overdue for a change of luck. I know it”
“You poor, stupid bastard. You just don’t see it, do you? What is it with you, drugs, or what? No sane man would pull your kind of shit. You’ve thrown away Penny, your friends and your money; you ain’t got a scrap of self respect left in you.”
“Ok, Big Brother, I hear you, loud and clear. I’ll quit soon, I promise. Listen, I’ve had a few unexpected expenses recently and I was wondering if you could perhaps…?”
“No fucking way!” Brogan had slammed the door of their relationship, anticipating yet another cash request. Brogan had given up and angrily pushed past the empty shell that had once been his beloved brother. Tightly wrapped in his selfish cocoon, Higgins had never even seen the tears in Brogan’s eyes.
With his mental soliloquy now ended with the usual self-justification, the craving for another cigarette abruptly tossed Higgins back into the present, his dire situation almost perfectly described by the paltry few gaming chips that were clutched in his sweaty left hand.
He would have to make his move soon. He couldn’t sit there all night staring into space, could he? Perhaps a few more minutes, he compromised. For the first time throughout this ordeal he plucked up enough courage to admit that he was afraid. Who wouldn’t be in these circumstances? Only yesterday, his car had been repossessed by the dealer; his sales job was on the line and he was four months behind on his mortgage repayments. His only asset was his wife’s refusal to demand alimony against the vehement insistence of her unsympathetic lawyer.
Penny had pleaded with her husband and tried to introduce him to professional help, but he had always scorned her efforts with an effluent of denial, refusing to accept that his recreation was not normal. Her worst moment had been when her drunk, angry husband had come home after another losing spree in that damned casino when he had actually raised his hand to her, and beaten her, leaping over that invisible threshold of marital trust.
She had confronted him about the missing money that she had been saving up for their eldest child’s seventh birthday party. Scavenging around, Higgins had found it in a biscuit tin in one of the kitchen cupboards. He promised himself that he would pay it back. The tin, like the promise had remained empty.
Even the tears that Penny had shed after lighting the single birthday-cake candle for the seventh time had failed to dampen his burning need to bet. Before this incident, Higgins was one of those men who despised aggressive men. He was the kind of man who would butt into an argument to defend the honor of a woman whom he didn’t even know. Now he had tasted the bitter pill of scorn that he had once prescribed. He was one of them. A wife-beater!
This shocking about-turn had twisted his values into worthless words, only to be spouted in barroom dialogues with anybody unfortunate enough to have struck up a conversation with him.
It was usually at this point that the desire for the anesthesia of his favorite cognac would rescue him from
