Beginner's Luck Read online

"I'd love to, but I have this incredible allergy to crepe paper."

  "Then meet us at the pizza parlor later," says Gwen. "We'll save you some ribbons for your hair." She starts wrapping my head mummy-style with a bright pink streamer and I quickly ride off.

  Chapter 3

  Loaded Dice ♥

  Saturday morning I awaken to the aroma of frying bacon and my fourteen-year-old sister Louise's annoying red and black pom-poms scraping against my face. It's definitely a game day.

  "The superintendent called and Hallie's going to end up in R-E-F-O-R-M S-C-H-O-O-L." Louise spells out the final words in cheerleader style as if it's the name of the home team.

  "Umm," I say sleepily and turn over.

  At that moment the twins, Darlene and Davy, still in their flannel footsy pajamas with the trap doors, come twirling helter-skelter into our bedroom like uncontainable wildfire—six years old and a blur of bright red hair with orange freckles in flame-red pajamas.

  "Mom and Dad want everyone downstairs right now," Davy exclaims breathlessly.

  "They have thomething important to tell uth," Darlene lisps with excitement.

  "I'll bet we're getting a puppy," concludes Davy.

  A puppy. Yeah, right. Dream on. With nine people in this house there isn't room for a frigging fishbowl. "I wouldn't get too excited," I say. "Last time they called a meeting it was to announce that showers were being limited to three minutes and that if we didn't stop using the telephone so much Dad would install a pay phone."

  In the kitchen we all take our places around the long wooden table, Dad sitting at one end, underneath the black metal plaque with grace etched onto it in gold letters, just in case anyone needs a prompter, and Mom at the opposite end, next to Francie, the baby, who is perched in her high chair with a fresh rope of snot dangling from her nose. Francie is almost three and so technically she's no longer a baby. But that's all anyone ever calls her, The Baby. If you have six older brothers and sisters I suppose that's all you'll ever be, even when you're fifty-five. Personally, I like my position as number two, since it's easy to vanish. Dad is working all of that jock stuff out of his system with firstborn Eric, and Mom is always busy propelling a youngster through potty training.

  On the weekends breakfast is usually okay—scrambled eggs and bacon or pancakes. During the week it's crappy generic cereal with milk or instant oatmeal. Only by Wednesday the milk has usually run out and so we drink powdered cow, which tastes like watered-down baking soda. Usually I just skip breakfast at home and buy chocolate donuts on the way to school.

  When we all finish eating—total chewing time about two minutes—Dad clears his throat and yells at Teddy to either eat his bacon strips or leave them on the plate, but to stop pretending they're worms and twisting them around the rungs of his fork.

  Then Dad swipes at his mouth with a crumpled napkin and cheerily announces, "Your mother and I have some exciting news." I can deduce by my mom's nervous laughter that this is not "exciting" in the sense that we're all going to Disneyland or moving into a desperately needed larger house. "You're going to have a new little brother or sister," he says as if we can now begin the applause.

  Davy and Darlene screech with delight and enthusiastically wriggle in their seats. And why not? It's someone brand-new for them to torture, the same way Eric and Louise and I used to hold their heads over the toilet bowl and flush it again and again while Mom and Dad were out bowling. Teddy looks blankly from Mom to Dad as if to say, If you want to go to the store and buy another baby, what's that got to do with my baseball cards? Teddy is ten, towheaded, skinny as a straw, and his only concern in life is to meet a Cleveland Indians baseball player and become the team water boy. I've helpfully suggested that he concentrate more on the mascot end of things.

  Across the table square-shouldered Eric is hunched over his plate and certainly doesn't appear to be overly "excited." In fact, I know he's running the numbers to determine if there's any chance he'll have to triple up on a room. There isn't. But Eric has never been what one would call the Human Abacus, even when it comes to one-digit equations. We'd all better pray nothing happens to his right arm that would prevent him from making those long accurate passes out on the football field. When Eric finally does succeed in combining the birthrate with the existing architecture a look of great relief washes over his face like the sun emerging from behind the clouds, followed by a smile. "Congratulations," he says. "That's terrific, Mom." He kisses her on the cheek and excuses himself in order to get to the Astroturf. What a suck-up.

  Eric truly has nothing to worry about. The baby probably arrives next April or May. By then he'll have a football scholarship to Indiana University and by the middle of August be out of here for good in order to start practice. The Hoosier coach has been covering his every move like an old lady playing ten bingo cards. Eric's got it made in the shade of the stadium and the electronic scoreboard.

  Louise and I lock eyes across the table. If this is anything like Francie's arrival then we're going to get stuck making lunches, doing laundry, cleaning the house, and baby-sitting the twin terrors. And if it's a girl they'll move Darlene in with us. Sixteen is too old to be sleeping in Furby-infested bunk beds. Thank God I'll be long gone to Nevada by then. Dad catches our exchanged glances of horror and says in a gruff manner indicating that it would not be a good idea to be anything but very, very pleased, "Aren't you girls thrilled for your mother?"

  "Of course," Louise manages to say with forced cheer.

  Not able to make myself play the game, I bob my head while gulping down some watery orange juice made from concentrate. Mom purposely waters down all our juice to "stretch it." Likewise she mixes crushed oats into the ground chuck to make that go further. At this rate, make that birthrate, she's going to be mixing vats of wood pulp into our food after the new baby is born.

  "Okay, everyone get ready for the big game." Dad claps his hands as if he's already applauding one of Eric's miraculous passes. Mom scrapes Francie's face with a spoon and then shoves the twice-eaten gruel back into her mush.

  "Hallie, remain at the table, please," Dad says and then clears his throat, which he automatically does before ripping into any of us kids.

  The twins instantly and simultaneously begin to chant, "Hallie's a turnip!"

  "Shut up, you little twerps!" I swat Davy on the backside with my spoon as he escapes by climbing underneath the table and between the chair legs.

  "It's not turnip, dear, it's truant," Mom patiently corrects as they exit.

  "Mr. Collier from your school came over to the house yesterday," Dad sternly informs me.

  "Honey, what's the matter?" Mom interrupts him. "Why won't you attend school? Why won't you tell us what's wrong? They've tested you for dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, and even hearing loss."

  "What?" I ask, unable to help myself. But the joke flies right over her head.

  "For hearing loss," she repeats in a louder and more modulated voice. "They've tested you for everything and the bottom line is that you're not a stupid girl, Hallie. Do you think you need glasses? Is something at school bothering you?"

  Yeah, something there is bothering me all right. Basically everything.

  "Listen, I was in school all day," I lie. "I just missed homeroom and was accidentally marked absent." It's a pathetic story. Last year I concocted phenomenal excuses involving microtwisters and even saving the entire town from an attack by killer bees. Life has reached an all-time low. I've lost my will to con.

  "Don't lie to me, young lady!" Dad's face turns dark red as he pushes back his chair from the head of the table and says the word lady as if he means anything but. Ever since Francie was born he no longer has the stamina to smack us, thank God. Younger brothers and sisters have no idea the shit their older siblings endure while wearing down youthful energetic parents. By the time this new baby is a teenager it can just yank out Dad's oxygen tube or hide his hearing aid whenever he gets annoying.

  But now Dad just shakes his head a
nd paces the kitchen floor, occasionally striking the countertop with the palm of his hand in order to make me jump. To remind me that he can whack kids, that it's in his contract. And as soon as he gets a decent night's sleep, he just might do it, too. Dad is tall, clean-shaven, and broad-shouldered and you can tell that he played ball in high school and college. Whatever kind of ball—he played it. He's even got the bad knees to prove it. In the springtime he walks as if leaning into a strong wind. And you never want to ask him for money when it rains.

  "First, you're grounded until I receive a report card that demonstrates to me that you've caught up on your schoolwork."

  So much for the final three weeks of the racetrack.

  "And second, your mother and I aren't giving you the money to put toward a car. If your school reports are good, then we'll revisit the finances this summer." Revisit the finances is Dad's favorite expression after Who's going to pay for that?

  "What?" The money toward the car was my birthday present. It didn't have to do with good grades or bad behavior. "But Dad! The summer is nine months away! The summer just ended! And what about Eric? He got a car when he turned sixteen!"

  "Your brother Eric goes to school, plays three sports a year, and works part-time at the Star-Mart." Dad ticks these items off on his right hand as if I might need a visual aid. "Eric is using that car to make something of himself, to get ahead in this world."

  The translation here is of course that I would use a car to drive to the racetrack, pool hall, and Indian casino, and thus it would only serve as a motorized accessory to my inevitable downfall. My face quivers with approaching tears, but I refuse to give my parents the satisfaction. Last year I'd read this book The Light in the Forest about a white boy raised by Leni-Lenape Indians from the time he was four years old and I'd decided to also stand pain stoically like an Indian, and a good poker player, and to never show my emotions.

  "What if I pay for the car myself?" I ask to gauge exactly how bad the situation is.

  Dad looks at Mom, who is loading breakfast plates into the dishwasher, but she only gives the I agree with whatever you decide maternal shrug. Mom is fortunate that with her perfect complexion, wavy light brown hair, and hazel eyes she looks attractive without any makeup, because I don't know that she's going to find time to put any on ever again. As it is she's doing four barrels of wash and two truckloads of dishes per day. Once when I saw her wedding photos it was like, Who is that?

  "Pay for it yourself? I suppose that's fine," Dad says. "So long as you can cover the running costs. And earning the money better not interfere with your schoolwork."

  Obviously it upsets Mom that at least one of her children isn't going to attend college. Just wait until she discovers she's given birth to a high school dropout. In her maternal playbook truancy is just one pearl away from shoplifting on the add-a-bead necklace of life. From there it's off to mend fences at the women's prison farm outside of Lima, Ohio. I wish I were at the women's prison farm. Anywhere would be better than this house. In fact, solitary confinement would be a treat.

  Chapter 4

  Going for Broke «

  Monday morning I turn out of the driveway and pedal in the direction of school, just in case anyone is watching, but as soon as it's safe I veer off in the direction of the bank and my new life as a full-time gambler.

  My balance is $2,110.35. Another fifteen hundred is needed to buy even the worst junker. Eric had mentioned a cashier's job at the Star-Mart paying $6.25 an hour. Great, I'd have to work 240 hours blathering "cash or debit card" and the politically charged "paper or plastic?" while wrapped in a smelly brown apron. Forget it.

  When I ask to close my account the teller becomes suspicious. The manager wants to see some ID and inquires if the service has been disappointing. I explain that the drive-through window is somewhat difficult to operate from a bicycle but that once I buy a car I'll start saving again. He says that if I leave five dollars he'll give my account student status and it will remain open for another four weeks without any penalties. Foolishly I agree. There's no one quite so blinded by hope as a gambler betting her life savings.

  That accomplished, I dodge the seven-dollar admission fee at the racetrack by sneaking in through the laundry entrance where the uniforms for the grill operators and the smocks for the employees who man the betting windows are delivered.

  The weather has been warm and dry and as a result the track is fast and the handicapping is straightforward. Several hundred seagulls stand fanned out across the neatly manicured grounds, all pointing their yellow-orange beaks in exactly the same direction, letting the wind smooth their white and pale gray feathers. Looking at their robotic conformity reminds me of school.

  After ticking off my picks in the The Daily Racing Form I browse for cars in the Auto Swap Sheet. Soon a familiar voice singing his favorite folk song and paean to hookydom in a pleasant bass drifts across the stands: Run children run, the patteroller catch you, Run children run, it's almost day. That child ran and that child flew, That child lost her Sunday shoe. Approaching is a cheerful and dapper fellow dressed in green-and-white checkered pants, a navy cardigan, and polished white leather shoes, wearing a boating cap carefully arranged at a jaunty angle. The entire getup is his idea of a GQ magazine profile of the prosperous midwestern bookie.

  "What's new at the Rialto?" Cappy casually tosses off his standard greeting while extending a pack of Doublemint gum in my direction with one piece sticking out the top like a forced ace in a card trick. Whenever he's shuffling gum it means he's trying to quit the cancer sticks.

  "Thanks." The gum goes in my pocket for later. I'm like a squirrel hoarding any and all tidbits for the cold winter months ahead.

  Cappy sits down next to me on the bleachers, only we both face forward to keep track of any revisions flashed on the electronic tote board.

  "You look like a guy who's just beaten the odds," I say with a touch of envy.

  "Indeed I am. Cleaned up on a baseball game last night. Usually I don't stick my neck out, but it's been a good season and the boss is allowed to have some fun once in a while. That's the whole point of being self-employed, isn't it?"

  " 'Gratulations," I say. "Maybe some of your luck will wear off on me."

  "A good gambler—"

  We finish his maxim in unison, "never trades on luck. Luck is for losers."

  "You show me a winner or a war hero who believes in luck and I'll show you a racetrack for unicorns," adds Cappy.

  "I know, I know," I say. "It's the percentages."

  "Speaking of which, when are you going to come and work for me? This is penny-ante shit, Hallie. Just like Vegas roulette, where the hold is around twelve and a half percent no matter what schmucky tourist in a sequined sweat suit wins or loses. There's a reason they call it Lost Wages. And the only one who consistently makes money in this quadruped boiler room is the house, skimming their five percent no matter what nags run and no matter how you bet them."

  Of course, he's right. The owners of the racetracks and pool halls and OTB parlors and even the stockbrokers stay in business year in and year out. It's only the customers and the suckers who are washed away.

  "Thanks, but getting hit in the head with cue sticks while working the phones in the back room of your gin joint and inhaling secondhand smoke all night isn't exactly the career I had in mind for myself."

  "For you I'd be willing to tart the place up a bit—you know, put in a soda machine, buy some toilet paper, maybe even a spider plant."

  "Cappy, do the words house of correction mean anything to you?"

  "House of correction." Cappy poses with palm to chin and pretends to muse. "Let me see ... House of Blues, House of Pancakes, houseboat, House & Garden, House at Pooh Corner... house of correction, you say?"

  Eventually he hits his head like in a V-8 commercial. "Oh. House of correction. Of course. The clink. Sure, it makes me think of Pomp & Circumstance. The Crossbar Campus is where I got my high school diploma. And my best clients are in
a minimum-security lockup outside of Akron brushing up on their tennis. Show me a man with time and money and phone privileges and no access to pretty girls and I'll show you a profit."

  "Thanks for the offer, Caps. I'll think about it."

  "Okay, Calculator Kid, cogitate upon it. But remember, you don't earn a living in this business by playing the slot machines. You hafta own them. And I'd be willing to start you at thirty G's a year. Tax-free."

  The horses begin to high-step out onto the track and trot skittishly over to the starting line. The jockey on the giddy four-horse, Merrily We Roll Along, has to make a circle and reapproach the electronic starting gate.

  "Good luck, kiddo." He gives me a friendly clunk on the shoulder with his rolled-up racing form. "Stop by the office for a game of eight-ball sometime this week. I've got a new shot to show you. And in the meantime—"

  "Don't take any wooden nickels," we finish his well-known warning together.

  Chapter 5

  A Sucker's Diary ♠

  Finally the bugler in his formal purple jacket raises his silver horn to summon the thoroughbreds for the first race. It's post time. "They're at the gate," bellows the announcer's megaphoned voice, followed by the familiar whoop "They're off!" and then the thunder of hooves.

  I don't have any money on the first race. And I avoid the daily double after what happened last week. The fourth and eighth races are two-year-old fillies, total unknowns, and so there's no point in bothering with those either. You may as well spend your time with a Bible and a calendar trying to determine the Second Coming. To win big it's necessary to find the race where the horse has better odds than everyone thinks it has—not so much a long shot as a perceived long shot.

  Anyway, I know that what I'm doing today isn't smart. You never try to make a huge hit out of desperation, particularly when lacking a good-sized bankroll to back you up. The mark of a skilled gambler is to grind it out slow and regular-like, and every once in a while, when the sun and the moon and the stars all line up and the odds are in your favor big time, then you lay down the wad and clean out the house.