The Backup Asset

…41

Sylvia Copperwaite watched in a blur how the man sitting across from her raked the entire pot over the green velvet to his side of the poker table. His satisfied, wide grin was disgusting, showing discolored teeth, crooked, most likely about to fall from their rotted gums. A lifelong of poor hygiene, of smoking cheap crap, and drinking moonshine can do that to almost anyone.

She shuddered, thinking how different she was, how she didn’t belong with that crowd, yet there she was, again. She looked around the table, at the four strangers around her.

Horrible… this couldn’t be her reality, just couldn’t be true.

The truck driver at her left was about to deal.

“Ante?” he called out.

“Huh? N — no,” she said, after looking at her chips for a second. “I’ll sit this one out.”

“Hey, if you’re at the table, you gotta play, lady,” the man across said. “In, or out,” he said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder in a gesture inviting her to take a hike.

She only had two blue chips left, twenty dollars; that was all. She’d come in at 8.00PM or so with seven-hundred dollars, and now she was down to twenty bucks. She felt tears burning her eyes.

Where did it all go? Where and when had she lost her mojo? She used to win, and win big. She used to be able to read her opponents so clearly that she could almost tell every card they held, with accuracy, in cold blood. She knew who was bluffing and who had a strong hand. She used to know when to bet and when to fold. God… One night she’d won thirty-two large ones at a game, bought a new Volvo the next morning. But that was all gone… including that car. She’d sold it a year later, to pay off debts that piled up quickly once Lady Luck had decided to be a bitch and hung her out to dry. She drove a beat-up Honda now, bought from a curbsider for less than two grand.

“Hey, lady,” the man across barked, “either ante up, or take a hike, you hear me?”

She got up clumsily, arranging her skirt that clung stubbornly to her sweaty legs, and dropped her purse. Her belongings scattered on the floor — her lipstick, cell phone, car keys, her wallet. The man at her right obliged, reaching out under the table to help pick up her belongings.

“Ah, don’t bother, buddy, that wallet’s empty,” the brute across laughed, “I just cleaned that baby to the bone.” He continued to laugh, a coarse, disgusting laughter that made the other three men look away with embarrassment.

“Don’t mind him, miss,” the man helping her said, “he’s just your garden-variety asshole.”

She heard everyone talk like in a dream. Unable to articulate an answer, any answer, she stood quietly, her mouth slightly open, her brain unable to process her reality. They all seemed far, distant somehow, in an alternate plane of existence. Her eyes couldn’t focus; everything around her was a blur, a cacophony of sounds and images that didn’t make sense.

The man across whistled sharply and repeated the gesture with his thumb, inviting her again to get lost. She grabbed the two remaining chips and moved away from the table, heading for the cashier.

As she walked away, she regained a little more of her connection with reality, and she suddenly realized what was wrong. She was too desperate, that’s why she couldn’t win anymore. Back when she used to rake in all the chips on the table, she was cool about it, did it for fun, and didn’t really care. Now her back was against the wall, all her credit cards maxed out, and the line of credit exceeded and past due. That’s why, she realized, that’s why she felt forced to bet on a losing pair of stupid nines, when the smart thing would have been to fold and wait for a better deal to come. It’s written in the mathematical rules that govern chaos; the better hand will come eventually. All she needed to do was pace herself, so that her money would last the needed time she had to wait for the winning hand to show up. Huh… that simple. You can’t win at poker if you’re desperate or in a hurry.

She turned and went for the ATM instead, and put in her debit card as soon as the line of gamblers in front of her cleared up. She entered her pin and saw the option to withdraw cash was grayed out. She checked her balance; it showed $-2,482.27, and available funds $17.73. Even her overdraft protection was maxed out.

One by one, she tried all her credit cards, under the judgmental, impatient, sympathetic, or annoyed looks of customers waiting in line to use the ATM.

Nothing; no stars aligned to give her access to the little cash she needed to win again, now that she knew what she needed to do to get back in the graces of Lady Luck. Nada… she was cleaned out, with one more week left until payday.

Stifling a sob, she went straight for the cashier’s desk and actually made it, exchanged her two remaining chips for a twenty-dollar bill. She needed to eat until next Friday.

In the silence and bleakness of her apartment, she sat on the side of her bed, nurturing the few remaining drops of liquor she’d been able to squeeze from the bottom of some empty bottles. Her tears had run dry, getting the emotion out of the way so that her brain could take over and think rationally. She was an engineer; the years of discipline, deductive reasoning, and use of logic finally engaged in the process of identifying what her problem really was and figuring out how to fix it.

In the silent darkness of her bedroom she whispered, “Hi, my name is Sylvia, and I’m an addict.”