The dealing is over. Everyone checks, no more betting, then three of the players reveal their hands. One player turns his face down; he knows he’s not a winner.
My eyes and brain connect intensively. I can’t see their hands fast enough. Straight. Straight. Two pair; he didn’t make his full house.
I smile.
I laugh.
I’m euphorically dizzy.
I’m embarrassed by the mound of chips that are about to be pushed my way. The mound is HUGE.
The dealer asks, “Do you want to color up?”
I make eye contact with him. He interprets my blank stare as “I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about,” so he automatically starts trading my low denomination chips for larger ones. He scoops up the reds and whites and throws out some blacks.
Blacks are $100.
I have ten of them.
Ten blacks.
Ten.
Blacks.
I check them.
I recount them.
I protect them with my hand.
It’s when I start to feel pain that I realize I’m chewing the inside of my bottom lip in a cannibal-like manner.
Can this be real?!
I am in no way present in the galaxy in which we live when the dealer asks me to check or fold the next hand. I can’t speak. I throw my cards back in without even looking at them.
Calm down, Chelsea. Deep breaths. Neck rolls. Sit on your hands.
After four hands and still no composure, I excuse myself to the restroom. The norm is to leave your chips on the table to hold your seat. I take my blacks, drop them in my purse, and leave the rest. I string my purse crossways over my chest, and guard it as if it contains Donald Trump’s checkbook.
When I walk through the crowd I feel like I have some big secret.
They don’t know what I know.
I have over $1000 in my purse.
They don’t know this about me.
Should I go home? Order a beer? Find a karaoke bar? Shop for clothes? Or maybe it’s time to call Cassidy and tell her everything.
I don’t know what to do with myself and this secret of $1000. I regroup in a bathroom stall where I take out my chips, hold them in my hands, and examine each of them, one at a time.
Cherokee Casino. Smooth, black, and worn.
Stacked neatly, I cup them in the palm of my hand, and use my other index finger to move them from one slanted direction to the other. 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000.
Yes, indeed, they are all here.
I have $1000. I have a thousand dollars.
I place them back in my purse. Along with my cash and the chips back on the table, I’m at about $1300, something I’ve never had in my life.
Ten minutes later and I still can’t restore my composure. An entire bottle of Valium couldn’t contain my nerves right now and I decide to, as Kenny Rogers would suggest, “know when to run.” When I return to the table I sit politely through three hands and throw my cards back in each time without any betting at all. I look around for the spectator group that Nate was a part of. They’re gone.
I stand and start to gather my chips. The players freak.
Even Sunday school teacher Grandma chimes in, and she wasn’t even part of the big hand. Her wrinkled hand with protruding veins points right at me as she scolds.
“You can’t leave with all their money. This game just got started! Sit down little miss!” She points back down at my chair.
I laugh nervously.
“I can’t. I’ve got to get to work. Sorry.”
“Work?! Who needs to go to work after a win like that?!” A grizzly mountain guy holding his beer at the neck says to everyone at the table but me.
My response is not with words, it’s with action. I get the HELL out of there. These people hate me. My purse holds their wages.
Coincidentally (or not?), Nate is there as I exit the poker room. I jump when he comes from nowhere and places his arm on my shoulder.
“So, you taking it home?”
I just look at him.
“The money, your big win, are you getting outta here with it? They didn’t get it back, did they?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m out of here. It’s all right here comin’ home with mama.” I pat my purse and think how stupid that sounded. Mama?! I hope he doesn’t think I have kids.
“Do you need someone to walk you out?”
Is he hitting on me? Come to mama.
“All that money you got. I’d hate someone to follow you out. I can grab a guard to get you out to your car if you want.”
Darn. Not hitting on me.
“Oh, I’ll be fine. I’m a fast runner.” I get stupider with each sentence.
He laughs.
I laugh back.
Awk-ward.
“Alrighty then, we’ll see ya again, Chandra.”
I look at my watch to speed things along.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll see you soon.”
“Alright, Ms. Chandra. Don’t be hoppin’ on a plane to Vegas for a poker tournament anytime soon. Well, without me, that is.”
I laugh, yet again, “I won’t.”
I walk out of the poker room and head for the exit. Everything’s fuzzy in my head. Nate. Win. Nate. Win. WIN. I won. Nate.
I’m into the parking lot in my cloud of Nate and winning when a car pulls up right next to me. A tinted window lowers, and someone in the vehicle turns down the loud bass sound of the hip-hop music.
“Heeyyy little lady, you want to be a winner tonight?” A scruffy guy in a cocked Yankees cap hangs his elbow out the window. I don’t make eye contact. My pace quickens to a trot because my car is still far away.
I hear a can of something pop open, and some laughing. I glance out of the corner of my eye; it’s a car full of guys.
“Hellll yeah, she wants to be a winner tonight!” A voice from the backseat says, and they all start high fiving.
I walk even faster. The car moves at my speed.
I move my purse strap over my head across my chest and start a jog.
“Dammmmmn, girl, we ain’t gonna steal your money. We just wanna chat.”
Another one hollers out.
“Girl, we don’t want your money.” They all high five again. I cut through the aisle of cars to get on the other row, even though my car’s the opposite direction. I slow to a jog. The silver, beat-up, four-door speeds up and whips around, and they’re beside me, once again.
I get my phone out and act like I’m calling someone, knowing I can’t call anyone at all.
This time I get a look at the driver, a guy with black hair and a black mustache, a red bandana tied around his forehead. He says, “Oh, baby, who you callin’? 911?” He stops the car and shifts to park. The passenger car door opens and a couple of them pile out. One falls, and they all crack up.
I dart back to the other row, and they’re still laughing over the fall. I’m trying not to look, but I’m looking. My eyes move, my neck stays stiff.
While I’m jogging I realize I can’t scream. I can’t make a scene. I can’t rely on security or police, because I’m Chandra. A guy that I didn’t see gets out of the car jumps from out between two cars right in front of me. He reaches to grab my arm; he misses. He tries again; he gets my wrist.
Through my teeth I say, “Let go of me.” I jerk my arm back, but he’s got a tight hold.
“Now why you playin’ hard to get, baby?”
I keep pulling my arm.
“Get the hell away from me!”
“We just want to play, baby. You lose all your money at the casino tonight, baby? Is that why you in a bad mood?”
His friends continue to laugh; one is laughing belly down over the hood of the car.
“Leave me the hell alone!” I jerk back again. My vision blurs because my eyes are full of water.
“Oh, baby. We got money if that’s what you’re upset about.”
I hear more of them coming. Then, he sees something coming behind me and drops my wrist and runs to the car.
“Let’s go!” He yells to his posse, and they manage to pile back in, shut the car doors, and speed off. Their bass is turned louder than even before, and they screech around the parking lot until they’re gone.
What I thought was more of them end up being a security guard on a bicycle and Nate running behind him. The guard pulls right up, balances with one leg on the ground, and holds his bike handle with one hand, his gun with the other.
“Are you okay?” His yellow security shirt is a blur, and his question is the go ahead for me to start bawling.
Nate reaches us; the security guy gets off his bike and kicks the kickstand.
After Nate puts his arm around me, he steps back and starts looking for injuries.
“Did they hurt you? Did they steal your money? What’d they say?”
I don’t know which question to answer first.
“I’m okay.” I’m shaking horribly. I’m trying to contain the tears. “I’m okay, really.”
The security guard pulls out his walkie-talkie when he says, “Let’s call the police and make a police report.”
Shit.
“No, NO, really, I’m okay. Really, I’m okay, I promise.”
He’s not listening. He’s pulling out more stuff that looks to be communication equipment.
“Don’t call the cops, please. It was nothing, I swear.”
Nate intervenes, “Chandra, we’re calling them.”
“No, please. Please don’t call them. I’m fine; they didn’t even do anything. They were just playing around, is all.” I start walking toward my car.
His voice gets louder, not with anger, but because I’m getting father away.
“Chandra, come back. Are you okay?” He tries to catch up with me. “Are you sure you’re okay? Won’t you come back in and go sit in the office with me for a few minutes? I don’t think you should be getting in your car right now.” He hollers back at the guard to forget the call to the cops, and the security guard complies with a, “You sure?”
The guard backs off and Nate catches up to me, then stretches out his arm to hand me his business card.
“If you ever need me,” he says. “I mean if you ever get into trouble.”
Without words, I take it.