Sweet Nothing by RICHARD LANGE

scrounge up the money to pay her back double, then crawl away on my belly.
    I turn and head back to the grandstand even though most of me still wants to run the other way.
      
    THE FIRST PERSON I see when I get inside is Paul. He’s hiding in a corner, watching hungrily as two drunks wave wads of money in each other’s faces. That gun has obviously given him big ideas, and I suddenly get an idea of my own.
    I sneak up behind him and bark, “Hands up!”
    He whips around, frightened.
    “Better be careful,” he says when he sees it’s me, then pats the bulge under his shirt.
    “Loan me twenty dollars,” I say.
    “Go fuck yourself,” he replies.
    “Security!” I yell, not quite loud enough to be heard over the din but loud enough to spook Paul.
    “What the hell?” he whispers.
    “Give me a twenty,” I say.
    He hesitates, licking his lips while trying to decide if I’m bluffing. His hand is shaking when he finally passes me the money. He’s angry, humiliated.
    “I’ll pay you back,” I say.
    “I’ll pay you back,” he says.
    It could very well end that way, but I don’t have time to worry about it now. I hurry to the betting windows, stopping only long enough to consult a tote for the current odds.
    My Hail Mary is this: I take the twenty from Paul and put it with the four dollars I have left in my pocket and box four horses, the two, four, five, and seven, in a superfecta. If these horses come in first through fourth in any order in the next race, I’ll win somewhere around a thousand bucks. It’s like throwing your last dollar into a slot machine—a sucker’s play—but it’s the only chance I’ve got.
      
    MY PHONE RINGS.
    “Where are you?” Lupe says.
    “I ran into a couple buddies. I’ll be up soon.”
    “But we’re all alone.”
    “A few more minutes,” I say.
    “You better have my money,” she snaps, then ends the call. My God, how many times has this girl been fucked over? I decide to hole up in the bathroom in case she comes looking for me. I find an empty stall and lock myself inside. At first I stand, facing the door, but that’s too weird, so I cover the seat with toilet paper and sit down. My day began in jail, and now I’m trapped in a racetrack shitter. Somebody’s made some bad choices. Again.
    Talk to a shrink or a counselor or the folks at Gamblers Anonymous, and they’ll give you all kinds of explanations for why you do it. They’ll tell you that it’s chemical, that you have a death wish, that you secretly want to lose in order to be punished for the sins of your past, that you’re trying to return to a childlike state where miracles still happen.
    It’s a lot simpler for me: I gamble because I want to win. I like to win. It makes me feel good. And you need something to make you feel good after ten hours of loading trucks for some prick who thinks you’re dirt, after sitting across the desk from a parole officer who’s waiting for you to violate, after listening to your mom put you down again like she has your whole life. When I take a chump for twenty bucks on a pool table or pick up a few pots in a card game, something opens up inside me, and I’m as good as everyone else thinks they are—no, better. For an hour or a day, however long my streak lasts, every move I make is the right one, and my smile can bring the world to its knees. The only problem is, it can’t last forever. You have to lose eventually so that someone else can win. Bitch and moan all you want, but that’s the first, and worst, rule of the universe.
    It stinks in the stall. I hold my nose, breathe through my mouth. Lupe calls again, and I let it go to voice mail. A text comes in a few seconds later: Where the f r u?
    I’m going to lay off the ponies after this, stick to what I know best, eight ball and hold ’em. I’m going to get serious about getting serious: practice more, enter some tournaments, start acting like the pro I want to be. The jail thing was a stumble, not a fall.