Read the first two stories here:
On their way home, full from the totality
Mihai and Leonard argue near Family Dollar
i.
Richard scrolled page after page of log entries: wowvegas.com, cansino.com, us-sportsbook.com.
“How do you expect to pay all this?” Richard said coolly.
“I don’t know. Get a job, I guess.” Leonard didn’t make eye contact, he kept his face askance, splitting the moments with phony apathy. Inside, he was afraid.
“And if you get job, when will you have time for clients?”
“I only go out to dinner once every two weeks anyway. There will be nights off.”
Richard sighed. “And that is your problem. You spend no time developing clients, you have no depth, no back-up. For you, is all last-minute!” Richard leaned back in his office chair.
“In communist times, we had to plan everything ahead, we lived with constant shortage, never knowing where our next meal would be or when! And secret police were everywhere, especially at night.” He shook his head, “You Americans have it all and don’t appreciate it.”
“I know, I know, you have told me all this before…” Leonard was cut short.
“THEN WHY YOU NOT LISTEN?" Richard barked. “You will never gather power with out better clientele.” Richard leveled his hand over his own head. “Higher standard. You must dine more often. And this gambling.. this is so stupid. Do you not understand odds are against you?”
“I win sometimes,” said Leonard.
“Of course! Statistically, that must happen, but house always wins in the end. Look at all this time you spend on internet gambling.” Richard pointed at the total time column in the log file.
Leonard was surprised. He watched the log times go by amazed and embarrassed. “Dang, I guess I sorta over did it.”
“Leonard,” Richard said in a fatherly tone, “you have problem. This is not hobby, this is addiction.”
“Nah, come on, man!” Leonard smirked. “I just got lost in the moment, the excitement… I can stop.”
“And that, my friend, is what the addict says!” Richard giggled. “Look, why not just watch porn and sports like other rednecks? They seem happy with that.”
“I bet on sports.”
“Not the same thing, smart-ass.” Richard hissed. The giggle was gone now, he seemed to be losing his cool, gathering blue mist, but only faintly.
“You are going to pay this, all of it, not me and Mihai. We are tired of your bullshit.” Richard leaned forward. “You are going to go Gamblers Anonymous AND get a job. Mihai and I worked call center jobs for years when we came to U.S. You can do that in the day time.”
“I don’t need to go to no gamblers psycho group, man. I will just quit.”
“No! You will go or you can’t live here and we’ll see how long you last in trailer park with junkies!”
Leonard felt his face drain. “Richard, I know I fugged up, but I really don’t think I need to go…”
“You will go, redneck, and you will learn from all the other idiots.” Richard said, He spun around in his office chair to face him. “Ah, and another thing, you will not invite any to dinner. They are likely there because they have families and could be slaves. They can never be clients,” Richard paused. “Understood?”
“I am not a fuggin’ teenager, man…”
Richard turned blue, noticeably this time. “Understood?”
Leonard swallowed hard and understood.
ii.
“Why can’t I get my driver’s license back?”
“Because you are idiot. Too risky,” Mihai said, pulling a huge draw from a Marlboro. The Pacifica, in cruise-control, was loping down a Fort Worth freeway to an anonymous strip-mall, one of hundreds.
“I am a good driver. I always was,” Leonard glared back. He felt insulted. Not about being called an idiot, Mihai always called him that, but about it being too “risky.”
“How am I risky, exactly?”
Mihai took another deep draw from his cigarette then released smoke and words. “You have bad judgement. Bad judgment causes accidents, get you put in jail. You would die in jail if we didn’t get you out in time. You don’t have the power yet get out by yourself.”
“You are probably right there,” Leonard sighed.
“And you have no money for fines or bail or even…” Mihai pulled his Marlboro from his lips and looked and the glowing eye at the tip, “or even a stupid cigarette.”
“I don’t smoke.”
“You know what I mean.”
Silence and lights passed. Mihai flicked his right blinker to exit the freeway. “So, GamAnon. Gamblers Anonymous. What do you know about them?”
“I know Richard is making me go. He thinks I am addicted to gambling.”
“You don’t think you are?”
“No. I KNOW I am not. Things just got away from me.”
“Twenty thousand dollars in one weekend, my friend! Wow… it got away from you alright!” Mihai made a snorting laugh and clapped his right hand on the steering wheel. “Come on, my friend, if you didn’t have problem you would have stopped. Things only get away from addicts.”
“Well, I will compare what I did with the other people tonight. We’ll see.”
“Yes, buna, buna, we’ll see indeed. You know these addict anonymous groups are usually religious, they assume a higher power.”
“So, I ain’t no atheist, what’s that matter?”
“Well, you could be tempted, my friend, to make a client of one of them who is not yet a slave. That would be a bad idea. These people all know each other’s business.”
“I know, Richard warned me.”
“Buna, buna,” Mihai lit another Marlboro. “Do you know there are 12 steps?”
Mihai began a series of turns into an aging neighborhood. Cash advance and vape shops marching by every block.
Leonard squinted across at Mihai and kept silent for a moment. “I didn’t, but a sum-bitch like you probably looked them up, right?”
“Ha! You have caught me, my friend. These steps, they are the usual things: admit the problem, apologize to people, commit to change your redneck self.” He dragged on the cigarette. “Impossible of course. But you are going to love step 11!”
“I will, huh? What is step 11?”
“You will find out later,” Mihai giggled that bubbly giggle. It was the only girlish thing about him. “I will say you must act religious.”
“I know how to fake a prayer when I have to, man.” Leonard folded his hands and rolled his eyes to heaven.
“Ah, very good fake for Pentecost snake-dancing hick, but it is one thing to fool the slaves in church and quite another to fool people who truly crave protection in dangerous times.”
“So what do I do since you are so smart?”
“Be cool, don’t over-do it.” Mihai turned into a depressing strip-mall with a sticky looking pavement. “We are here.”
“Hey, right next to a cigarette store. That’s pretty much a Romanian church, ain’t it?”
“Very funny. But you are right, since I am here I may as well tip the Marlboro Man.”
Leonard had already hopped out of the Pacifica and headed for a paper-shaded door to what was probably once small market. As Leonard opened the door, brilliant florescent lights made him squint. There were no shadows to use. In the middle of the room were ten or so metal chairs empty except for one very Jewish looking gentleman in a blue blazer. The man turned his head to Leonard. “Hello, I am Sid, what is your name?”
“Leonard.”
“Well, Leonard, you are the first to arrive.”
No shit, thought Leonard, wincing at the obvious. He smelled cheap coffee and powdered creamer and styrofoam. Leonard nodded his head at the makeshift coffee bar. “Can I have a cup?”
“Of course, of course. You are new to the group, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I don’t even know if it is really right for me or not,” Leonard said in his best suburban as he poured his coffee. The styrofoam released its odor, one Leonard always liked.
“A lot of people say that. They always come back.”
“EVERYONE comes back?” Leonard asked, “Seriously?”
“Well, not everyone. If they don’t come back, meh… it usually doesn’t go well for them.”
Two middle-aged women walked in followed by a Hispanic man and woman. Then a biker with leather pants and a black t-shirt. Then an old man in a blue jumpsuit. They all took to the chairs, solemn and with few words.
Sid stood up. “Everyone,” he said, “tonight we have someone new: Leonard. He says he doesn’t know if this group is ‘right for him or not.’”
The two middle-aged ladies, who could have been sisters, snorted. The biker laughed out loud. “Buddy, no one who talks like that comes in here on their own. Did’yer wife make you come?”
Play along, Leonard. “You got it, man, the ole’ lady was really riding my ass.” That tiny bit of blue seemed to loosen the room and Leonard surveyed the many smells it released. Someone was sick. Someone was menstruating. Someone had money. He saw the little blue fade in the glare. Sid looked up. Did he notice?
“But I got a problem, I think,” Leonard continued. “I, um, lost twenty-thousand last weekend online.”
“Jesuschrist-on-a-crutch!” The old man blurted. He was the one who was sick. The latino man whispered something to his wife who gasped and put her hands to her mouth. “En un fin de semana?” It was she who bled.
Leonard saw his chance. “Si, senora. Aposté durante veinte horas.”
“Dios Mio!”
Her emotion sharpened a scent, directed it. She had the money. She was also, obviously, a slave. This complicated things. Or perhaps it simplified them.
“Ok, ok,” Sid interrupted. “We are off to a good start, but let’s all begin with our formal program, shall we.”
They explained the steps to Leonard with several boring digressions. When step 11 came, Leonard was ready. The group recited as their creed:
“We seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”
That was it? I can fake all that.
After that, Leonard heard nothing. An hour passed. He could not take his mind off the latina and her smell. Where did she have it? She had no purse. It must be outside, in a car. Too strong to be far. Yeah, a car. But I didn’t see what car. Damn, it could be hard to smell inside a car.
Leonard drained a little when he thought of Richard’s warning. But this lady was a slave and Richard hated the slaves. She couldn’t be a client anyway. Good plan: hurt a slave and score some cash.
As if on cue, Sid called a break. Everyone stood and stretched. Some to the coffee bar, others to the restrooms. Leonard angled to the front door and slipped outside like velvet. He ran to the Pacifica. Mihai saw him coming and put down the window. “Break time?”
“Yeah. Say, did you see a Mexican couple go inside earlier? What were they driving?”
“Like I watch everyone all the time… what am I, secret police now?”
“Forget it.” And Leonard sprinted away hearing Mihai calling back, “Redneck, what are you doing?”
What car? He closed his eyes and breathed. Breath, man.
It was just, just… there, a scent like the faintest sting of fulminating metal under the tongue… to my right, ahead. He walked now, twitching his head. missing nothing. He had never had it this good before. This was new. It’s in the pick-up truck, the blue Ford.
Leonard was at the driver’s door in a bound. He pressed his hand to the window, not bothering to check the handle, and the glass silently broke and fell away like crumbs, making no sound. He pulled the door open and slid in. Now what.
He felt it on his ear lobe, this time, straight down. He plunged his hand under the seat and pulled up a brown envelope thick with the scent of countless hands, oily with sin.
“We are starting again, bro.”
Leonard jolted back and froze. The biker was not two feet away.
“Sid sent me out here to get you. You ok, bro?”
“Uh, yeah man, I, uh, I’m just a little uncomfortable with all the “god” stuff, you know. I don’t really believe in god. Do you?”
“Not much. I don’t think there is like an old man with a beard and shit, but maybe there is something to it.” Leonard smiled inside, blue building in his teeth, cobalt’s electrons, a million azure knives.
The biker looked down, his eyes taking in the glass shards under the open door. “Hey, what the fug is going on Leo..”
And blue un-time cut him off into oblivion and without salvation.
He was pulled into the cab and landed softly on his right side, emptied but for the aneurysm.
iii.
Leonard stepped into the Pacifica calmly. “I feel better,” he said. “And full.”
Mihai eyed him suspiciously. “I saw blue, I smell it on you. I smell food, and money. What did you do?”
“I did everything I needed. Let’s go. Now.”
Mihai wasted no time and the Pacifica was back on the road. “What you needed to do was to learn to quit gambling. What did you think of step 11.”
“It’s their creed. Buncha bullshit.”
“We too, have a creed. Do you know it?”
“No, Mihai, but I am pretty sure you are going to tell me.”
“It is: ‘I shall love the lord of this world with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind.’”
“Yeah? Well, fug that. I love ME with all my heart and soul and mind.”
Mihai smiled.
“Same thing.”