Anon
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This part’s a touch trickier to spell out.
But basically, two times a week at half past the hour, people like me show up at places like this.
Places like this, being where we each take turns trying to pinpoint the exact moment everything went to shit.
It’s all we ever do.
“Thanks Susie,” says the room.
Tonight, there’s a dozen of us gathered together in a big group circle, waxing on and on about what it was like our first time.
The beginning of the end.
Gino’s parked to my immediate right, oblivious to his surroundings. His stubby thumbs take turns crushing candy, both nails gnawed down to the quick. Crimson claw marks wrap both his wrists like kudzu vine.
Checks out.
“Dave, you’re up.” Says the group leader. “Try and keep it under five so everyone has a chance to share, okay.”
Today’s a Thursday, which means we’re in the banquet room of Summerlin First Methodist, reminding each other about how everyone makes mistakes, and how we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves.
We assure one another that if it weren’t for our bum luck, we could all be happy.
It’s pretty much unanimous.
If the Universe would stop conspiring against us at every conceivable juncture, things would be different.
Better.
Looking around the room, there’s Twelve Step Big-Books busted open and laid across a few laps. The house loaners are sprawled out, exposing battered pages, a majority of which lay sectioned in scaling hues of neon highlighter. Evidence of the those who’ve come before us.
Notes from the lost.
It’s no big secret there are groups like ours, meeting in rooms like these, in most major cities. But the Vegas local’s a special bunch. For understandable reasons.
Though, to be fair, in this situation you might want to envision special as someone who got short-changed in the chromosome department, rather than the special you’d call your first kiss.
A unique lot.
That’s for damn sure.
But we’re no albino alligators.
No.
It’s more the uniqueness one might attribute to an eco-friendly startup company that specializes in crafting artisan pocket-pussies from broken glass and gorilla glue.
I peek down at my home screen, a chat prompt preview says, “Wish u were here baby,” with a big veiny cock pic attached.
Par for the course.
A man wearing mismatched socks and grease-slicked chinos stands, tugging at the hem of a thrift store bargain-bin button-up, clearly two sizes too small for him and most definitely not pressed. He says, “Hey, y’all. Name’s Dave, I’m an addict.”
“Hi Dave,” the room says.
If you were a newcomer this evening, you’d see all the usual suspects in attendance. If you were to glance over the crowd, you’ll find mostly solemn, shallow stares poking back at you, if any at all.
Empty eyes, perched above sunken cheeks.
Faces are tanned, but hardly healthy.
You’d call our clothes worn, before faded.
Less designer.
More distressed.
Dave inhales, says, “I’m from Fort Worth, originally. Journeyman welder by trade...”
If it were your first time joining us, you might look down next to everyone’s feet and spot an assortment of coffee-stained Styrofoam lost in a forest of aluminum chair legs.
Perhaps there’s a miniature Pomeranian named Daisy, who naps on a shrunken pillow, while all around her, twelve sets of feet tap, shuffle or shake.
All pretty standard, as it were.
And just so you’re aware, members will often fidget. Others may scratch. Jaws clench, and release.
Fingers might thrum rap, tap, tap…
And that’s us, in a nutshell.
Anxiety-ridden wrecks.
“Came out for the Resorts World project few years back,” says Dave.
His left hand sends shivers through a plastic cup, the duo trembling together towards two cracked lips. He says, “It all started at the bar...”
An acrid musk spills out from Dave’s feet, but is dulled slightly by the ozone of perpetual coffee brew. He says, “I’d sit up at the bar-top after work. And ya’ know how it goes. You get you a couple cold ones in you, start feeling good, and they’re just right there in front of you. Making all them noises. Almost like they was calling your name. So, I says hell, let’s give her a day in court, see what the verdict is.”
If you were here with us this evening, you’d learn that we all have the same illness.
We’re sick, you see.
Dave sways in place, steadies himself, clears his throat. His head hangs, the eyes studying the vinyl flooring below him as if it hid a solution in its faux grain patterns.
This is nothing new.
Each of us, looking for answers in all the wrong places.
Stuck.
Dave says, “Six months later, got shit-canned for stealing copper from the show-up yard…”
For some of us here, the disease will be terminal.
Dude from Jersey named Carl, used to show up for the Tuesday Nooner. Decent guy. Liked micro-brews and the Bills. Liked shooting dice even more.
Now, the only thing remaining of him is the divot his femur bone left in the asphalt below the Treasure Island parking garages.
Not out of the ordinary, truth be told.
Dave takes a swig from his quaking cup, “Took out so many of them short term loans, unemployment check’s gone before it even come. That’s ‘bout the time I started shacking up in my truck, till I sold it. By that point, I’d stopped sending money home.”
Our former group leader, Al, loved him some high-limit Blackjack action. Walked into Ceaser’s one Christmas eve with a hefty hunk of cash, claiming he’d been the heir to a substantial family estate, yada yada yada.
Well, Al stayed at that same table from Christmas Eve on into Christmas day, and on through the end of the year festivities. Until New Year’s Day, when he placed his last five-dollar chip in the wager box, waved off a dealt twenty, and then watched the dealer pull six consecutive cards for a twenty fucking one.
Rumor has it, Al gathered himself, got up, thanked the staff, pushed in his chair and walked right out the doors.
Security was alerted of a possible fire on the upper parking deck about ten minutes later.
Turns out, Al had doused himself with gas inside of his eighty-five-mustang hard top, before attempting to fire up one last ciggy to cap things off.
Oh, and that so-called inheritance, it was his kid’s college fund.
Not atypical, if I’m being honest.
Dave says, “The wife and kids were making do with our savings for a while there, until I emptied that out too...”
Some of the group is feigning interest, but we’ve heard this spiel before.
No need for spoiler alerts.
Truth be told, there’s only one possible outcome after a shitshow reaches its critical mass.
Once we’ve passed a certain threshold, there’s a fixed trajectory.
Total annihilation.
It’s what we can all look forward to, if the treatment doesn’t take.
Our future.
The catch is there’s only a single risk factor, and it’s entirely preventable.
Turns out.
This is the gift we give ourselves.
Dave says, “Wasn’t too long before the house back home was foreclosed on. Wife took the kids, moved back in with her folks in Amarillo. Served me divorce papers that July...” He looks to the room for solidarity, but spots only the group leader tapping a clock face, slicing the bridge of his hand across his throat.
Dave nods, “Yeah. I… uh, I lost everything. But ya’ know, I haven’t placed a bet in twenty-four hours. Praise the Lord. Thanks for letting me share, y’all.” He sits, melting into the blue plastic of a chair. Eyes slicked over, cheeks curled a cherry red.
“Thanks for sharing, Dave.” Says the group leader.
“Thanks, Dave,” from the group.
Gino is swiping left on everything except blonds and dogs now, but he pauses to check the opening line for the Mavericks game. And the Suns game. Then the Lakers. Miami at Houston. Celtics at home versus Milwaukee. He checks the over-under for The Bachelor Season finale. He checks the lines for the seventh, eighth and ninth race at Santa Anita, and finally he re-checks yesterday’s Powerball results against the smeared sets of black digits scribbled across his palm.
Hi, my name is triggered.
You see, Gino took to sports betting like a toddler takes to a hot pan of grease. Zero fucking clue what he was getting himself into, ended up scarred for life. Surrounded by the giant mess he made. Looking like an ugly burned idiot.
But without the scars.
Gino’s my only real friend.
“Always take the points under 3 at home.” Gino says. “3’s a no brainer, bro.” And he’s back to window shopping for soul mates. Or a house pet. “…needs a little tweaking,” he says, “Once I hammer out the details, fuckin’ surefire, baby. All day.” He brings five fingers together and kisses them softly, while extending his arm away from his mouth, “Muah.”
Hello, I’m delusional.
“Yeah,” I say. “Right.”
Besides your sport bookie banditos, aka Gino, you have your slot-jockeys like Dave. There’s Pete, the self-proclaimed card counter. He chocks up his two-year losing streak to a shitty run of variance.
Hi, I’m in denial.
There’s the lady who got her military paycheck on a Thursday evening, left base and was halfway across the state and on the tables by sun up.
Thirteen hours later when she’d lost it all, her toddler was already gone. Cooked to death in the back of the car. She’s Candice. And she’s the reasons those signs exist now.
You have the ex-advertising firm exec who slowly embezzled company funds to fuel his baccarat habit. When all was said and done he’d nabbed nearly three million dollars and was sentenced to four years in a state penitentiary.
His name is Tony.
Gloris was from St. George, Utah. A few hours north of here. She’d come down weeks before Christmas on a mission for the Church of Latter Day Saints, in order to use the funds donated by the congregation to purchase Christmas gifts for children and the elderly.
The sick and the disenfranchised.
Needless to say, she never made it to the shopping outlets.
Hello, my name is heartbreak.
If you asked a regular person if they thought it wise to take money you can’t afford to lose and use it to play games you don’t understand, facing odds that cannot be beat, and they’d most likely call you a crazy person.
Dare I say, mad.
But honestly, if you’ve never dealt with the thought process of somebody in the grips of a full-blown, pathological gambling addiction, there’s no way to explain it.
Because it doesn’t make any sense.
“What about you, Guy?” the group leader says, “What was your first time like?
Be me.
A compulsive degenerate, working the steps.
Here’s the part where you say you’ve got it figured out.
“My first time coming here was a little different,” I say. “I was still a kid.”
The group leader chuckles, “That’s what they all say,” and, “A lot of us were.”
I check my phone, a message preview says, “I want to sniff your hair bun.”
I pocket the phone, “Okay.” I say, “Suit yourself.”
...a sneak peek at the next episode, Monsters
Back before all this…
…it was my brother Danny and me zipping through a darkened desert night in the backseat of a car we’d never laid eyes on until earlier that day, when it skirted to the curb outside of our school and the man driving said, howdy boys.
Danny looked at the man, then at me, then back at the man, “You’re not supposed to be here.” He said, “We’re not supposed to talk to you, either.”
Sirens cried out from somewhere.
The man in the car checked the little mirror above his head, smiled and said don’t worry, Champ, I talked to your mother. She’s on board.
In the car, under the mirror, a big nest of purple plastic was gently rocking back and forth as all the other people went around the man’s parked car. They were yelling, “Get out of the road.” They were yelling, “Asshole.”
The man leaned across the seat, popping a door open. He said we were going on an adventure, then he waved us in with one of his hands.
Cars honked.
People yelled.
Sirens got louder.
Danny was looking down at me and I smiled, “Adventures.” I said, “Like Indiana Jones.”
Danny turned back towards the man in the car and said, “I don’t know.”
People kept yelling.
Cars were honking.
Sirens cried louder.
Then the man had both hands back on the steering wheel, squeezing it like he was driving the car already, like he was driving really fast or something. Then his smile went away, and he said get… in… the… car. And then his smile, it came back, and he said please.
And we did.
Coming soon