Being a deeply self-conscious individual, I think I love the idea of people recording my stories more than I like actually listening to it. But that's the hyper-critical part of me that doesn't like enjoying anything and can only see the flaws in what I've produced. Hokey as it may sound, I feel genuinely blessed that anyone would find my writing worth their time and talent to record.
The folks at the Prompted Podcast always do a marvelous job, so I was happy to hear they were interested in doing another one of my stories for their gambling themed episode "Casino Vice."
Episode links:
Original story text:
6 Black
Red and Bobby hustled through the gold and red maze of pillars, velvet chairs, and whirring slot machines, Red in the lead, Bobby hanging on by a pinky finger.
"It's so loud!" Bobby shouted over the jangling toots and tweets of won and lost games, of dealers calling cards and short-skirted women selling drinks and cigarettes. He jammed his free hand over his ear, but it made no difference.
"This is it! This is it!" said Red, pulling Bobby up, pointing ahead down a line of circular tables, surrounded by moats of low-slung men in old clothes and wreaths made of tobacco smoke. "Like I saw it! Just like I saw it in my dream."
They called it roulette. A French game, for sophisticated men. Bobby watched closely as Red pulled him closer and closer to the table. A long table with a spinning wheel at the center and a grass green covering lined over with numbers and colors. Red lifted Bobby up as the wheel spun and a silver ball danced out, skipping and jumping and rolling across the perimeter of the wheel.
"Like I saw it!" said Red, dumb with joy, squeezing Bobby across the middle just a hair too tightly. "This is it. This is where it happens."
Bobby nodded, struggling out of his father's arms, down to the floor. He stepped forward and put his hands on the wood. It was smooth as glass. Glossy and fine.
Red pulled a roll of bills out of his pocket. Even Bobby could see his hands were shaking. Red stepped toward the table, arms outstretched, like he was bringing a babe to baptism. The men at the table looked at him, then looked back down at the table and the work before them. A man in a white shirt and red vest pointed across the casino floor. "Chips, sir," he said - a warning, a command, but certainly not an invitation. "Chips only."
Red bowed, low and deep, and stumbled away across the casino, leaving Bobby behind. Bobby picked at the carved lines in the rim of the table, feeling the eyes of those tired, slouched men, but ignoring them. Waiting for his father.
Red came back invigorated, clinking plastic chips in his hands. It was a small pile. Even Bobby could see that. But Red swooped to the table, eyes bright, mouth pressed in a crooked smile. He watched. He learned. Every now and then he looked down at Bobby and winked. "This is how I remember it. How I saw it. We just gotta wait. Wait for the right moment."
Bobby waited. And so did Red. At one point, a woman in a black dress bumped into Bobby, knocking him down. But no one said anything, and Bobby just got back to his feet.
"Ready?" said Red suddenly.
Bobby blinked. "Huh?"
"I just remembered," said Red, swallowing as he rolled the chips in his hands nervously. "It wasn't me. It wasn't. It was you. You did it." He lined the chips up into a neat stack and pressed them into Bobby's hands. Even Bobby was surprised at how well they fit in his little hands.
"It's all on you," said Red, lifting Bobby up onto his hip, hanging the boy up over the table. "I know you can do it. I saw it. Yes, I did. I saw you do it. This is why we're here. Everything on one roll, okay? That's how you did it in my dream, right? Go ahead. Go ahead and put it all down on the square you want. That's how it happened. That's how we won."
Red was squeezing too hard again. Bobby couldn't ignore the looks this time. The men were all staring at him. Waiting for something. Waiting for Bobby to choose.
"All on one," said Red, urgently, squeezing just a little tighter. "That's how we do it. That's how we win big."
"But I don't..."
"Bets down," said the man in the vest. Red shook the boy.
"Now, Bobby! Now!"
Bobby dropped the stack on the table. Six. His age. The only number that felt like it meant something.
The wheel spun. Red didn't let go. Just kept squeezing and squeezing.
The wheel spun and the silver ball popped out. It danced and skipped. Bobby couldn't even find the 6 on the wheel. Maybe they didn't use that number. Maybe.
The wheel slowed down. The ball slowed down. Red squeezed even harder. So hard, Bobby thought he might faint.
The ball stopped. Dropped. Settled in.
Black 33.
The world stopped, too, but only for Bobby and only for Red. The man in the vest gathered up Red's chips. Some men got more chips, others lost chips. The game went on.
Bobby was breathing and so was Red. Slowly, so slowly, the fog started to lift.
"Why six?" whispered Red, setting Bobby back down on the floor. "Why six? You didn't pick six in my dream."
Bobby shook his head. "I'm six. It was... it was all I could think."
Red closed his eyes. "You ain't six, Bobby. You ain't. Why'd you do that? Do you know what you did? Why'd you do it? You ain't six, okay? You ain't six!"
Bobby couldn't think what to say. Couldn't see what he'd done wrong, but knew just as clear that he'd done something wrong. "Six in April," he said. "I turned..."
"You ain't six!" roared Red, shoving the boy to the ground. Some men looked. Some of the women in short skirts looked. No one did anything. "I saw you win. You won. That's what was supposed to happen. That was all our money, Bobby. That was it. Why'd you pick six, Bobby? Why'd you do it? Why you so mean? Why you so mean and so stupid? Huh? You ain't six, Bobby. You ain't."
Red clenched his fists. Bobby knew what happened next, but he didn't actually, because Red just walked away. Out into the maze of red and gold. Into the noise and the swirl of people and smoke. Red walked away. And Bobby sat next to the roulette table, where the men now went out of their way not to look at him.
The carpet was red and gold. Bobby absently traced the line of a flower in the weave. Then he saw something just there, where the bottom lip of the table turned to shadow. A chip. One chip. Bobby picked it up. He would give it to his father when his father returned. They had something now. Not nothing. And maybe Red would play it this time, like in his dream - his first dream, the one he told Bobby about on the bus over. The one where he won and they had money and they bought good food and a good house and Bobby's mother got that medicine they all said she needed, but never got. That was a good dream. Bobby wanted his father to come back, if only to hear that dream again.
But Red didn't come back. And he didn't come back. And he didn't come back.
Bobby couldn't see what came next. He'd been living his father's dream for as long as he could remember. He felt he was too young to have his own dreams. Too young to make those dreams come true, like his father had tried to do.
So he stood up. He couldn't see over the table. He couldn't see the board. He held up his chip and poked the man in front of him.
"Six, please," he said, in a voice loud enough to cut through the clatter. "That's how old I am."