I brainstorm ways to get money to pay the electric bill. There’s a little in my savings account, but Dad has always forbidden any withdrawals because the $100 that sits in there is earmarked “for college.” He has good intentions. Honestly, he does. But I’m not sure how a $100 college fund can magically turn into thousands in one short year. I mean really. How?
It would take at least three weeks for me to receive a paycheck, and that’s if I started a new job, like, today. I could donate my plasma . . . but how much would I even make? Robbing a bank is probably out of the question, and there’s no chance of hitting the lottery when you’re too young to play it. It takes me all of six steps to get from the front door to the back, where I drop my backpack and stare out the window. Patchy grass, weeds, and missing fence panels . . . but nope, still no money tree out there.
I walk into the living room and give Dad a little nudge on the couch to wake him up. “Dad, I’m home.”
He opens his eyes, adjusts his pillow and says, “Hey, there’s my girl. How was school?” Same routine, same answer.
“Good.”
He grabs the remote, looks at the clock, and changes the channel.
“You want some nachos?” I say as I pull out the cheese and chips. Communicating from the kitchen to the living room is not a difficult thing to do in our small house.
“Nah. You go ahead.”
I stick my plate in the microwave and make no mention of the cut-off notice. What good would it do? Heading to my room, I decide to call Cass, knowing she’ll make me feel better.
“I don’t know why I ever thought I could pull this thing off. I should’ve never tried out. It was such a stupid idea. There’s no way in hell I’ll be able to afford cheer this year. No way.”
“Chelsea. Chill. You’ll make it work somehow. You always do. Look, you know I’ll help you as much as I can.”
“I don’t want your help, Cass. Thank you, but just, no. What I want is for my dad to get motivated for once in his life.” I look to make sure my bedroom door is completely closed. “I mean, just for once, could he take care of things? It gets so old.”
Cassidy’s mom is in the background telling her that dinner’s ready. She’s distracted for a second while she tells her mom how many tacos she wants. I picture her mom walking to their rich-people kitchen with granite countertops and layering the meat, lettuce, cheese, and tomatoes on shells for Cassidy. I know their kitchen. Candles, fresh flowers, and a dinner table that’s set with designer placemats and heavy, polished silverware. She comes back on the line.
“I get it, Chelsea.”
I laugh.
“No you don’t. You will never get it.”
We sit on the line with awkward silence for a few minutes. The thing about Cassidy is she truly feels bad for the situation I’m in. She begged me to try out with her, and although my financial situation is not her fault, I know she feels responsible.
“I’m sorry, Chels. I don’t know what to say except that I will help you. You know that. I never use all my lunch money, and I’ll just start giving you the change every day. We’ll make this work. Stop worrying so much.”
I exhale slowly into the receiver.
“I know,” I roll over on my bed. “Thanks.” It’s a nice gesture, but 1. Two dollars a day won’t dig me out of my hole, and 2. I’m not taking her money.
That night I lounge around in bed and flip through the channels.
After about twenty minutes of dozing, I come to and realize I’ve been watching an infomercial. A hair bun thingy that’s going to solve life’s problems for the busy, working mom of three kids. You just pull your hair up then pin the bun right on top and bam! Ready for work in no time!
Pointing the remote toward my box TV, I channel surf for a good while then stop to watch a poker game being played in Las Vegas. The World Series, or something like that. It’s a heated battle between the final two players, and the commentators make it even more intense. The camera gives us a glimpse of the prize money—neat stacks of cash that look like they came straight from a bank vault. A blonde casino model picks up a bundle and the camera zooms in to show the audience the $100 denomination on the corner of the bill.
This image stays in my head for three days straight.
__________
Although the casino is a half hour drive, mostly highway, it seems to take me all of five minutes to get there. I can see the flashing lights from the interstate and my car and heart accelerate simultaneously. When I take the exit, I wonder why they would build such a thing out in the middle of nowhere. There’s absolutely nothing else around but a single gas station across the street. A sign displaying a picture of their latest big winner, my guess is a truck driver, flashes the words, “I won $37,000!”
I wheel in as if I know what I’m doing and drive around to take a look.
The place is packed; there’s hardly an empty parking space in sight. An elderly couple walks arm-in-arm to their car, and they look as if they’re leaving a funeral. Obvious non-winners.
I troll the parking lot and decide to park in back. I sit for a while and take in my surroundings. A security guard in a bright yellow shirt rides around on his bicycle. Why is there security in a parking lot? Do people break into cars out here? Or could he be looking for underage gamblers trying to sneak in?
Breathe in. Hold it, hold it, hold it.
Breathe out. Blow it out.
I collect my thoughts for a few minutes and throw sunglasses on top of my head, figuring they will make me look a little more confident, somehow. That’s what grown-ups do, right?
I stretch up to my rear view mirror and apply lip liner, add a touch more eyeliner in the corners of my eyes, and use my index finger to wipe my front teeth. I stare at myself in the mirror. Can I get in? Do I look eighteen? I get this idea that I should have bought a pack of cigarettes to give my age a boost. Because obviously anyone who is old enough to smoke would be old enough to get into a casino, right? I wouldn’t necessarily have to smoke them, but if I hold a pack as I walk in the poker room, it may just seal the deal that I’m eighteen.
I dig my keys back out of my purse, start my car, and head to the gas station. If the gas station worker will sell me cigarettes, then I can walk into the casino with no questions asked. I turn the radio up, then off. Then back on again. I slip my compact car into the front space, and hope for the best.
I take another deep breath, walk straight to the counter, and look at the cigarettes behind him. I have no idea what the names of any of them are, so I just point to a white box.
“I’ll take a pack of those.”
And without blinking he mumbles, “ID.”
It wasn’t “Ma’am, may please see your ID?” or “Can I take a look at your ID?” It was a cold, hard, from the bottom of his fat belly, “ID.”
I open my clutch as if I have one in there. I thumb through my things hoping my school ID isn’t exposed . . .
“You know what? I’m so sorry. I left it at home. Is there any way you can just take my word on it this time? I’ll bring back my ID and show you tomorrow if I need to.”
And without a word—without even making eye contact with me, he grabs the cigarettes back off the counter and returns them to their home on the shelf.
“Sir, I can bring it back tomorrow, seriously. I’m old enough to smoke.” I’m at his mercy, and no doubt, he likes the power.
Still wordless, besides the “ID,” he shows me who won by ringing up the slushy for the kid that stands behind me.
“Gee, thanks.” I all but sprint to my car.
I’m stressed, but I don’t let it stop me. After all, my dad shares the guy’s occupation, and I know my dad would never sell cigarettes to someone underage.
Forget the cigs. Stupid idea anyway.
And in one smooth, uninterrupted motion, before I even have time to think about it, I’m back in the casino parking lot, getting out of my car, and walking through the back entrance along with a half dozen other people.
I have the urge to touch my forehead, my heart, and both shoulders, in a Catholic kind of way, and I’m not even Catholic. My heart’s pounding, and when I walk through the second set of glass doors, the smell of cigarette smoke takes my breath away. Literally. My eyes begin to water. I take a quick look and am surprised to see no one checking ID at the door. However, the feeling of everyone looking at me makes me a nervous wreck.
The ringing of the slot machines is continuous, and I wonder how much these people are actually winning. After spotting the sign, I make a beeline for the restroom so I can regroup and get my bearings.
I need deep breaths to calm down, but it is just next to impossible with the funk in the air. And the air just gets funkier when I walk into the bathroom.
A lady two heads shorter than me walks out of her stall and goes straight to the mirrors and sink. I enter my stall, even though I don’t need to use it, and lay toilet paper down on the seat. I crouch down and sit there for a little bit, hoping she can’t hear my heart that’s beating out of my chest. I wait.
Am I really doing this? Am I really going to go out there and try this?
The lady scuffles around. She takes an extra long time to wash her hands, and I picture her fluffing her white beehive hairdo. I sit still on the toilet and listen, then angle my position to look under my stall door. Finally, her silver ballet slippers make an exit. I close my eyes.
You are eighteen.
You are eighteen.
You are eighteen. I tell myself this until I believe it. Then I open my eyes.
I flush. I wash. I reenter the floor.
Lots of action here, in the middle of nowhere, Oklahoma.
I walk around and slip in and out of rows of slot machines for a few minutes. While I familiarize myself with the place, I see a line of senior citizens waiting for a dinner buffet to open, a couple high-fiving to a modest win, and pictures of familiar faces like Vanna White inviting me to come play their slot machines. A center bar serves a few customers as they take swigs of draft beer and play an electronic something or another.
Tucked neatly in a corner, I find the poker room. So I sit at a slot machine that’s near, dig around in my purse, and pretend to play. Slot machines are sheer luck, a risk I can’t take. Fortunately, I have a skill. Like an FBI agent, I watch every move in the room.
The cocktail waitresses with their spilling cleavages don’t intimidate me. The dealers with their tacky white oxfords and bowties don’t scare me, nor do the players, mostly males, average age sixty-five. But there’s this stud in a suit wearing an earpiece who’s obviously not listening to music. Just like the casino movies, he’s watching for scammers and bad guys; I just know it. Standing with his back against the wall, arms crossed, he acts like he owns the place. He talks into a little mouthpiece, and I’m dying to know who he’s talking to and what it is they’re saying. Probably talking to the mob boss upstairs, and probably saying, “We gotta underage on the Money Bags slot machine. Move in. Let’s get ‘er.” I turn away, and then look out of the corner of my eye.
A giant computerized waiting list hangs above the check-in desk, and all existing poker games are listed. IMMEDIATE SEATING flashes under the 3-6 limit game, and I wonder what that means. The man sporting a ‘stache at the front desk picks up the microphone, interrupting “Little Red Corvette” playing in the background.
“Chuck, your 5-10 seat is now available. Chuck.” He places the microphone down on the desk.
A cute little whippersnapper, I’d guess to be in his eighties, appears in no time. He takes off his glasses, cleans them with his shirt, and scoots to his place at a table. There’s a low buzz of conversation in the room, and the clicking of poker chips echoes from players fidgeting by stacking and restacking.
I busy myself, once again, by digging randomly in my purse.
You are eighteen. You are eighteen.
I discretely look around—all around—turning my head slowly to locate cameras disguised in starburst décor. I’ve seen it on TV before. Casinos have hidden cameras everywhere, in ceiling tiles, plants, decorations; they’re all over the place. “Eye in the sky” is what they call it. I sit for a few more minutes inhaling and exhaling slowly. Finally, I silence my cell, close my purse, and walk straight up to the ‘stache guy. Over his shoulder I see a fuzzy blend of green felt tables, a cashier window in the back, and a reach-in refrigerator stocked with bottled water.
I speak first. “3-6 limit, please.” My hands stay in my pockets to make sure no one can see them shake. No WAY will they find out I am a virgin poker-room girl.
“Seat right over there, ma’am.” He points to a table in the corner.
His calling me “ma’am” reassures me. So far, so good.
And faster than you can say royal flush, my ass is in a chair. I’m seeing visions in my head of Poker Boss in the back walking over, asking for ID, then calling for back up in his mic. Please don’t let that happen. Please.
I set my purse by my feet and scoot my chair closer to the table. I’m sandwiched nicely between an old lady with offensively bright red hair and an Asian guy. I join the table in the middle of a hand, and I sit on my hands in attempt to make them stop shaking.
“All in.” An old fart dripping with gold and exposed gray chest fuzz says from the end of the table.
“Charlie. Charlie. Charlie. Why do ya have to do that to me?” A not-as-flashy old guy responds. I stare at the community cards in the middle and wonder who’s got what. It’s immediately obvious that the people on this table are on a first name basis, and I’m in need of a sticky nametag.
Cozy Pops with a trucker hat and Flashy Grandpa engage in a stare down, and I get the feeling this isn’t the first time. The dealer reaches over to count the “All In” chips . . . a total of forty-two dollars.
“Forty-two to call,” he says.
Charlie clicks his teeth and stares over at the cocktail waitress wearing next to nothing. A long, hard stare, which tells me he’s trying to remove himself from the hand he’s right in the middle of. Hmm . . . Possible bluff?
Cozy Pops reads the bluff and pushes his forty-two over the line.
“I call.”
Charlie responds under his breath, “Son-of-a . . .” And throws his cards face down to the dealer. Doesn’t even show them to compete, and I’m already fond of Cozy Pops for calling his bluff.
Cozy Pops exposes his cards, jack/ten, and they match up nicely to the jack and ten in the community cards. Two pair for Pops.
Wow.
The dealer pushes a mound of colorful chips over to Cozy Pops, and Pops throws back one red one. Maybe a tip?
Wow.
The dealer, out of breath and rockin’ the scale at a minimum of three hundred, shuffles the cards, not in a traditional bridge-falling-down style, but rather he turns them all face down and scoots them around with his fingers as if he’s a little kid with finger paints. That’s interesting. You’d think they would hire dealers who know how to shuffle.
Too scared to make eye contact with my opponents, I stare down the dealer during his shuffle. His employee identification card claims he’s Mike Tanner, and the picture to prove it was taken about ten years ago. In the previous decade Mike was thinner and his hair was all pepper, no salt.
He scares me to death when he comes to a stop in the middle of his shuffle/finger painting and looks right at me. “Welcome to the game, Blondie. Need some chips?” The only bills I possess are five twenties that came straight from my credit union Savables account. Remaining balance: twenty-seven dollars.
I pull out all five bills—crisp and sticky—and place them on the table.
“Yeah, I’ll take some chips.”
“CASHING A HUNDRED,” Dealer Mike yells across the room, which makes me jump.
Nice.
If jumping in your chair doesn’t scream casino virgin, I don’t know what does.
He takes my cash, wads and wrinkles it, then places it under a row of chips. It’s like he’s the banker in a game of Monopoly with that tray of vertical chips in neat rows.
No time for chat, he moves right on to the next hand. Cards start flying across the green felt and all of a sudden each player has two cards facedown.
Everyone starts to peek at their cards and I do the same.
Ace of spades.
Three of hearts.
Then I return my hands back under my legs.
This is a decent start, but I don’t know how the hell to participate. What does 3-6 limit mean, exactly? I wait patiently and let it unfold. Although we play with the same fifty-two-card deck, the rules of engagement seem to be a bit more sophisticated than a friendly game at home.
__________
A heap of pennies sat in the middle of our glass table. Dad took a drink of his Coke and sat it back down on the folded paper towel that served as a coaster. He stared into my eyes. “Listen here, Pigtails. Don’t think you can bully me into giving up this four of a kind I’m holding.” He squinted and pretended to get serious.
Dad knew I didn’t bluff. If I placed a bet, I had something. Something good. My eyes followed the numbers for a second time to make sure I had what I thought I had. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Jack. Sure enough, they were all there. Dad himself had taught me to never move my hold cards around to make sure of my hand.
“Daddy,” I giggled. “You don’t have a four of a kind. It’s not nice to lie.”
Dad took the cards he held and moved them around. “Let’s see. Ace. Ace. Ace . . . ” He moved one last card closer to his eyes. “Yep, it’s an Ace.”
I laughed harder.
“Daddy, you don’t have Aces!”
“Well, how much are you willing to bet?” Dad nodded to my pennies.
I counted them out into stacks of five then pushed four stacks to the middle. “Twenty cents.”
Dad gasped.
“Twenty cents!” He rested his forehead into his palm and went into his exaggerated deep-thinking mode. “Twenty cents, you say?”
I swung my legs back and forth in my chair and blew my bangs off my forehead.
“Yep. Twenty cents.”
“Are you surrrre you wanna do that?” Scare tactics were his go-to move. “I mean twenty cents would take over half your stack if you lost.”
“Daddy. The bet is twenty cents. Call or fold.”
He stacked his pennies in groups of tens. Then waited a couple minutes contemplating whether he should push them to the middle or not. “Well, I don’t see how there’s any way you could beat these four aces I’m holding.” He looked up really quick to see my reaction.
I leaned into the table and gave him a long, hard stare.
“Well I think you’re bluffing,” Dad laughed and pushed his pennies to the middle. “I’ll call your bluff.”
I jumped up on my knees and revealed each card one at a time.
“Read ‘em and weep! I’ve got a seven. Eight. Niiiiine. Ten. And jack.” I slapped my hand on the table.
Dad peered down at the cards.
“Well what do you call that?”
“A straight, Daddy! I have a straight!”
He inspected the cards using his pointer finger to scoot each one as he named them.
“Well, well. A straight indeed-y.” Dad looked down at his cards then scratched his head. “Wait a minute! Where’d my aces go?”
He tossed his cards down for me to see.
“Daddy I knew you were bluffing!”
I stood in my chair, stretched across the table and scooped up the pennies, knocking the neat stacks over toward my end of the table.
Dad watched patiently as my little fingers built towers of pennies. I rested my chin on the table and marveled at the tall stacks. He stood, in true poker fashion, and clapped his hands together just once to pull me from my jubilation.
“Ante up, Pigtails.”