Fluke (27 page)

That would be an amazingly wonderful fluke, Adam-boy.

We finally arrived at the main area with what seemed to be fifty tables of varying shapes, design, and purpose.
 
It was a little overwhelming, and I figured it was best not to count my chickens just yet.

“I hope
Flukey
is okay all alone in the car,” Sara said to me as I scanned the room figuring out what the different tables were.

“I’m sure he’ll be okay, Sara,” I said, “And he’s not alone; he’s got forty pairs of your shoes in the car with him, in case he gets lonely.” I put my arm around her waist, smiled, and added, “Or if his little feet get cold.”

“We should have brought him in,” she said thoughtfully.
 
“He could have been our little good luck charm.”

“We don’t need luck, young lady,” I declared in a bad Texas accent.
 
“You’re with high
rollin
’ Adam Fluke.”

We decided to ease into the whole gambling scene.
 
We exchanged a twenty-dollar bill for two rolls of quarters from a lady behind a wall of glass that appeared to be several inches thick.
 
The sign by the booth advertised the availability of cash advances from what looked like every credit card that had ever been invented.
 
I poked a finger at it, and asked Sara, “Did you bring your ‘Maestro’ card?
 
They accept it here.”

“Come on, Adam.
 
Let’s get lucky,” she replied, blowing off my lame joke and dragging me to the quarter slots.

I went to town dumping my coins into slots.
 
I held fast to the theory that by betting the maximum of four quarters each time I was bound to win big, and I slapped the large spin button each time obnoxiously.
 
Each time I smacked the button, I made it a point to cry out, loudly and obnoxiously (because there’s just no other way), “Come on now…baby needs new shoes!” or “Let’s go, mama needs a
purty
new dress!” I amused myself, but got no reaction from Sara or the other gamblers.

The geniuses always go underappreciated.

I watched Sara as she conservatively dropped one quarter into the machine each time and then proceeded to use the handle on the side of the slot machine.
 
I looked around the room and noticed
the same phenomena occurring at every machine:
 
men used the button, and women used the handle to get their machine in motion.
 
Of course, nobody was slapping the button as loudly as I was.

“I think they should just label the button ‘Men’, and the handle ‘Women,’” I told her, verbalizing my thoroughly-researched theory.

“What do you mean?” she asked, with a playful smile on her face.

“Look around…all of the women use the handle, and all the men use the button.
 
Why do you think that is?”

“Well…” she began, thinking through it, “I think it’s obvious.”

“Obvious?” I looked around the room, and as usual, nothing was obvious to me.

“Men are afraid.
 
Everything is phallic to men.
 
They see these big handles, and they become intimidated.
 
They feel inadequate.”
 
She smiled gleefully about her answer and raised her eyebrows at me slyly dropping another quarter in.
 
“Women see the big handles as everything they’re missing out on in real life.
 
So they
jump
at it, they
grab
it, and they
yank
it down.”
 
She gave the handle a harsh tug as she finished and it set the drums inside her machine to spinning.
 
I slapped my button and tried to watch both machines as the mechanisms in each came to a stop.
 
I glanced down into my cup and saw that I had just spent the last of my quarters.
 
Ten consecutive tries without winning once, for Christ’s sake.

“WOW!
 
Adam, I won!
 
Look, I won!” she yelped, grabbing my arm and pulling me over next to her.
 
I looked into the display and saw three large cherry clusters aligned neatly across the middle.
 
Quarters were coming so fast that they were spilling out of the metal bin at the base of the machine, and we quickly put our cups underneath to catch them.
 
“I can’t believe I won!” she said again, overjoyed.
 
I kissed her quickly on the neck and cheek, and then leaned back into the stream of money which I had inadvertently moved away from to kiss her.

“Man, Sara, I wonder how much this is?” I said, and began scanning the machine to see if there was some sort of legend that would reveal what she had won.
 
The flashing “Jackpot” above the
machine caught my attention, and I quickly located “Jackpot” on the front of the machine (it was flashing also):
 
$1,000.00 for one quarter, $10,000.00 for four quarters.
 
“A thousand dollars, Sara.” I pointed at it to show her, and she yelped again several times bouncing up and down with each.
 
“That is four thousand quarters!
 
Wow is right.”

“Yay, Adam…. Yay!”
 
She continued to bounce and yip, and a man in a black suit walked over and began congratulating us.
 
His movements were smooth, and he looked like what I imagined someone in charge of a casino would look like.
 
The suit, the styled hair, the tan.
 

“Well done, miss.
 
My name is James, and I am in charge of the floor.
 
If you come with me we can get you straightened away over at the courtesy booth.
 
Congratulations,” he said.
 
“We will need to see your identification, of course,” he added.

“Of course!” she agreed, squeezing my arm.
 
We collected the last of the loot, and followed James to the courtesy booth.
 
“He asked to see my I.D., too.” Sara whispered to me along the way.

“Why is that exciting?” I asked her in a non-sarcastic way.
 
I really didn’t know.
 
Mr. Mafioso casino-man didn’t appear to have told us anything exciting.

“That means that he wants to make sure I am 18,” she whispered back, confidentially, “It’s a compliment.”

“Oh.
 
Right.”
 
We were then at a booth identical to the first one, shoveling piles of quarters into the metal bin, and watching as the lady closed it remotely from her side, and then withdrew the container, and emptied it into a machine that counted the quarters in an insanely speedy fashion, and digitally displayed the dollar value of what was emptied into it on her side.

As the lady finished the last load of coins and James returned Sara’s I.D. with another congratulations, the lady announced that the grand total was $1,007.00.
 
Sara had only made it through three dollars before hitting the jackpot.
 
“Would you like some chips, or maybe some dollar tokens for the dollar slots?” she asked us.

Sara and I looked at each other.
 
I was down ten bucks, and she was up $997.
 
Don’t push your luck, Fluke
, I told myself.

“We’ll just take it in twenties,” I told the lady.
 
Sara jumped again, and then jumped into my arms.
 
Sometimes you have to know when to stop.
 
“I love you, baby.” I told her.

“Love you, too!” she told me.
 
I made silly remarks on our way out about how she would truly have won big if she stuck to the ‘max-bet theory’ of mine, but it didn’t faze her, and I was just kidding anyway.
 
After all, a Fluke theory might have jinxed things.
 
Best to let her roll her own way.
 
She yipped all the way out of the building and to the car.

Twenty minutes and one near crash later (which came about as a lady who had to have been at least eighty years old drifted into my lane with her Oldsmobile, only taking notice to this important fact and moved back into her lane after my third blast of the horn, which made me wonder if it was her old age or the VW’s squeaky little foreign car horn that caused the slow reaction), we were back on interstate 10, but our excitement levels were significantly higher now than they were before the stop in Biloxi.
 
We chatted away, talking about the money, wondering if we should do something meaningful with it or just piss it away in an irresponsible, yet infinitely more fun, manner.

“That’ll get us a whole
lotta
beers on Bourbon Street, you know,” I pointed out, with my usual focus.

Christ, Adam-boy, only you would look at a thousand dollar windfall as beer money
, my subconscious whispered to me.

Sara, as usual, was a little more rational than I was.
 
She held the stack of twenty dollar bills between her tan hands and her was face scrunched up a bit, deep in thought, her brows furrowed in the cute way that they did when she was deep in thought.
 
This made me feel a little stupid for my beer money comment, but I shrugged it away, realizing that, for better or for worse, it was who I was.

“I’d normally frown upon that sort of thing, dear,” she said, turning in her seat, “but, under the circumstances, I agree with your sentiment.
 
Let’s have a little fun with the money.”

I smiled at her and placed a hand on her leg, rubbing her thigh.
 
I had a brief suspicion that she was working some sort of reverse psychology on me.
 
She wanted me to tell her no way, we should invest it.
 
I mean, she knew me pretty well.

Dutifully, I said, “Maybe we shouldn’t just blow it, Sara.
 
I mean, the whole beer thing was just a comment.”

There, I had made the token attempt.
 
I braced myself, wondering what she’d say to that.

“Nah.
 
Let’s have fun with it,” she said.
 
“I’m always so anal with my money, making sure it’s being utilized properly, spent wisely.
 
This money,” she said, holding up the bills and fanning them out like a deck of cards, “was a totally unplanned acquisition, and we should use it for entertainment purposes.”

I relaxed a little bit, realizing I had averted what would have been a tragedy in my eyes. I was not at all responsible with money; when I came into some, I wanted to spend it.
 
It was as simple as that.
 
The thought of winning a grand and socking it away was incomprehensible to me.
 
Of course, I would have relented if that had been what she wanted to do with it; after all, she’s the one who won the money.

“Well, it’s your money, Sara, so I won’t argue with you on that,” I said, squeezing her thigh.
 
“Whatever you want to do is fine with me.” I flashed a reassuring smile at her, letting her know just how sincere I could be.
 
It lasted for about two seconds before her face cracked into a smile.

“You’re such a liar!” she cried, laughing.
 
“You already had plans in your little head for how we could blow it, didn’t you?”

I raised my eyebrows in what I hoped would come across as a “Who, me?” expression, but couldn’t keep a straight face and started laughing.

“Okay, okay.
 
You know me too well,” I told her.

“I know I do, you
fluker
,” she said.
 
“But maybe I won’t let you use any of my money. Maybe I’ll just buy purses and shoes and makeup with it.
 
Maybe some new clothes for
Flukey
.
 
What do you think of that one?”

“Maybe I’ll just take it from you,” I joked, reaching out and trying to snatch the greenbacks from her hand.
 
She yanked her hand back just in time, and I came away with a handful of air.

“You just watch the road, boy,” she said, still giggling.
 
“I’ll put this somewhere safe from your greedy little paws.” She then folded the wad of bills in half, pulled the front of her t-shirt out, and stuffed the bills down into her bra, which made her right breast look oddly square shaped.