Road to Paradise

  “Yeah? So?” she said calmly. “What kind of a fake ID would it be if it made me my actual age?”

  “Not a very good fake ID,” said Gina, sitting on the bed. “When’s your actual birthday?”

  “November 11, 1963. Off by a few days.”

  “A few days?”

  “Sure.” She smiled. “What’s 180 days in the scheme of things?”

  I stared despondently at the ceiling as if hoping to find counsel there. Score that one for Erv. So he was telling the truth about something. What else was he telling the truth about?

  Candy put on more gloop, and another shirt; she changed from blue to black, kept on the same blue miniskirt, making me believe she only had the one, and said, come on let’s go. Gina got ready herself. She’d never been gambling and was curious. I was drained. I didn’t want to be a spoilsport, though; the girls were going, so what was I going to do, stay home like an old cranky mother, say, you young ’uns go, I’ll sit here and knit? So we all put on our jean skirts and our faces, red lips and cheap perfume, we shared Jovan Musk between us, hoping it would smell different on each one of us, and took off for the casino boat, but not before I showed some practical angst. “How much is this going to cost? I can’t bring too much. I didn’t budget for this. I don’t want to lose all my money.”

  “Why would you lose all your money, Shel?” said Candy. “You’re so funny. Bring only what you want to lose, no more.”

  “Can I bring nothing? Because that’s all I want to lose.”

  “Bring a few bucks.”

  “I didn’t budget for this . . . I’ll bring five dollars . . . oh, cover charge. Well, I didn’t plan for more than two covers, and this is my second, so I’ll bring ten dollars, but that’s it.”

  “Bring twenty.”

  I’d never been to a casino, and didn’t know what to expect. The young man taking my money and checking IDs at the door, smiled flirtatiously at us. “You girls ready to have some fun?”

  “Well, we’re certainly going to try,” said Candy, raising her eyebrows. “That’s what we came here for, some fun.”

  “You came to the right place.” The lad grinned, but it turned out he was having us on, being wise with us, because under the merciless fluorescents, it didn’t look like anyone was having fun. Middle-aged people in polyester suits sat near poker machines, pressing down on the big metal handles. The place was filled with cigarette smoke and men in cowboy boots. Some older men shuffled from game to game, from seat to seat, with beer in their hands. They must have spent all their money, because they were watching, not gambling, but watching in a desperate way that told me they’d be pulling that lever, too, if only they hadn’t lost their last quarter.

  Candy walked around and we followed. She seemed to know her way around, so she led. She didn’t plant down anywhere, just watched, looking at the people playing the tables. Everywhere, at the blackjack tables, standing bunched and hunched over the roulette, people looked like they’d just lost their dog and were hungry.

  “Why is everyone so gloomy?” I asked.

  “They’re losing.”

  The overweight couple with their little buckets of quarters rattling under the glaring lights, the wife saying to the husband, give me more, and the husband saying, I only got a couple left, Doris, did you spend all yours? She wasn’t answering, Candy told us, because she was praying to Five Flower, the Aztec god of dance and games. “What do you know about Five Flower?” I said to her as we approached the blackjack tables.

  “Not much, Shelby,” Candy said, “but I know one or two things.”

  We watched two hands. The first time the dealer got a twenty-one after six cards, while the four victims each had two face cards equaling twenty. There was no stirring of hands or expression, no gasp of disappointment. One badly dressed older woman took a sip of her drink, while the three men pushed their ante forward. The next hand, everybody’s cards were awful and the dealer bust, and still no one made a sound, except to scoop their winnings into separate, meager piles.

  “Do you know how to play blackjack?” I asked Candy.

  “I do,” she replied. “But I’m not going to play. No fun here.”

  “That implies that there’s fun elsewhere.”

  “More fun other places, yes.”

  We continued our amble. Many of the tables were empty, dealers standing shuffling cards, trying to tempt us to sit down. We sat down. Candy tried to teach me, but I was a poor student, dunce-like in my denseness. I did what? What did I have to do? I had to give the grumpy Asian woman dealer five dollars of my money, and for that she would give me two cards? And the two cards had to come very close to twenty-one or equal twenty-one. “But what do I do to help the cards be twenty-one?”

  “Nothing,” said Candy. “But if the two cards add up to a small number, like a five or a six, you can ask for another card.”

  “Do I have to pay for another card?” I was so pragmatic. I liked that in myself.

  “No!” Exasperated.

  So I tried. I gave Asian Grumpy five bucks and bought a Jack (which Candy said counted as ten), and a two. “Now what?”

  “Ask for another card.”

  I did. It was another Jack. Candy shook her head. “Twenty-two. Not good, kid. You bust. Wanna play again?”

  “Why would I?”

  But I did. I gave the silent woman another five dollars and this time got a ten and a three. “Now what?”

  “Ask for another card.”

  “But what if I get another ten?”

  “That’s the risk you take. You can hold at thirteen if you want.”

  “I’ll hold.” The dealer got twenty. Gina and Candy glared at me as if it were my fault. “That’s it,” I said, taking my three chips and jumping off the stool. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

  But then two studs came over and sat down next to us; the waitress took our drink orders, and they played while I watched. Gina lost a little, won a little, but Candy steadily won while the dealer steadily lost, turning her twenty dollars into $150 before my drink was up. The boys, impressed with her skills, begged her to impress them further, and she duly obliged. In five minutes Candy made more than twice the money that Gina and I had made driving 800 miles across three state lines to deposit two dogs into a home of a woman who nearly came after us with a shotgun.

  “I don’t understand how you did that,” said Gina. “How could you bet a hundred bucks?”

  “Fearlessly. Bet if you feel like you’re going to win. If you feel like a loser, walk away from the table. Keep the stakes low if you’re cold. Ride it out. But if you’re hot, bet your house, baby, because the cards are with you.”

  “But you could’ve lost!”

  She shrugged. “So? It’s not my rent money. This is just found money. I still would’ve had more than I started with, which, as you remember, was nuthin’.”

  The boys didn’t want to leave Candy’s side, were mesmerized by her long bare legs, smiling, enigmatic eyes, and painted lips. This vision, perched on a bar stool, was making their heads swim. Clearly, the Jovan Musk did smell best on her. Even the name Geeeena did nothing for these drunken gambling boys.

  Finally Candy grabbed her money, stopped smiling, and despite their loud protests, said to Gina and me, “Let’s go.”

  “You didn’t like those boys?” asked Gina. “They were cute.”

  She shook her head. “There were two things wrong with them,” she replied. “They were drunk, and they were broke. That’s an especially unattractive combination in men.”

  The one drink was knocking me out. And unlike Candy, I wasn’t fearless. Talk about an especially unattractive combination: terrified and drunk. I was afraid to lose my hard-earned money. For me, it was like electric shock therapy watching Candy at the blackjack table putting another fifty-dollar chip on her doubled-down ten. Behind her, we strolled one more time around the stained carpet and the shuffling, penniless men with drinks in their hands. Finally deeming us done with the plac
e, she sat down “for just five minutes” at one of the poker machines.

  An hour later, Candy was still playing on the same twenty bucks. She had won fifty, lost it, and was now trying to win it back. Gina and I played, too. I liked poker better than blackjack, it was safer and slower for a coward like me. I could bet a quarter, and if I lost it, it was no big deal. If I won, it was also not a big deal. Candy tried to explain to me that betting a quarter, getting a flush and winning only seventy-five cents was squandering the blessings of the gambling demons. That’s what she called them, the “gambling demons.” “What’s the point?” she asked. “Are you having fun, winning and losing the same twenty-five cents? You have nothing at stake, you win nothing.”

  “Yes, but I lose nothing.”

  “Yes,” she said, “but you win nothing.”

  “I’d rather not lose, than win.”

  “Wow.” She turned back to her machine, bet the maximum, got a full house and won seventy-five bucks.

  “You will learn, Shelby Sloane,” said Candy Cane, our resident philosopher, “that sometimes you have to gamble everything to win everything.”

  Gina was trying to imitate Candy, and though she wasn’t brave enough to bet quite as much, she was doing well betting a dollar here and there; she was four times braver than me. Gina got so into it that an hour passed, then another, and suddenly I asked what time it was. No one knew; there are no clocks in casinos, there is no time, no day, no night, only the moment and the machine. The same heavy-set couple was still there, the wife following the husband, saying, give me a quarter, just a quarter, and him saying, I’m almost out, Doris. I keep giving you quarters and you keep losing.

  “What time is it?” I asked. They looked at me as if I were nuts. Doris eyed me suspiciously, clutching her empty bucket. He looked at his wrist.

  “Three o’clock,” he said.

  “It’s three o’clock!” I hissed into Gina’s ear. “Let’s go. Let’s go right now!” How did it get to be three o’clock?

  “How did it get to be three o’clock?” said Candy. “Maybe because we got here around ten, and it’s five hours later?”

  “We’ve been gambling for five hours?” I said, aghast.

  “Well, no. Gina and I have been gambling. I don’t know what you’ve been doing.”

  Gina laughed heartily. Gina! Laughing at me, taking Candy’s side. Oh, yes. They were pals now, a little gambling, and they were best friends. “Can we go?” I said, tersely. “I won’t be able to drive tomorrow.” I was such a wet blanket.

  “Sloane!” exclaimed Gina. “I’ve never had this much fun. Let’s stay one more night.”

  “You’re crazy.” I walked away, left the boat, and went upstairs. In all my clothes I lay on the bed, waiting for them to come back, and when they didn’t, I sat so I could see the sunrise over the Mississippi and opened my spiral notebook to make a new plan, look at my budget, write down a summary of yesterday. Sunset, sunrise both over one river, strategies, and suddenly I was unconscious in all my clothes on top of the bed. When I woke up, it was light, past sunrise, and the industrial warehouses were gray with morning.

  My two traveling companions were still nowhere in sight.

  I couldn’t believe it. They hadn’t come back yet! This was Gina, Gina, who not long ago had been saying how we had to drop Candy off at the nearest road sign, throw her out of the car like an empty can and move on, on, on, and here she was, out with Candy till half-past morning.

  2

  Five Flower

  They strolled in around eight, as refreshed and alive as if they’d had a full night’s sleep. They were joking, talking about their winnings, bumping into each other; they jumped on the bed, sat cross-legged and counted out their money. Gina did respectably—she got seventy-five dollars for her full night of trouble. But Candy laid out three hundred dollars.

  “I’ll give you a hundred bucks toward painting your car,” she offered.

  “I simply don’t understand how this is possible,” I said.

  Candy threw back her head and laughed. “I’m so hungry. Let’s go have breakfast.”

  “Candycane, I’m famished too,” said Gina, “but when are we going to sleep?”

  “We’ll eat, then crash. We’ll stay another night. It’s on me, girls.”

  “We’re staying here another night?”

  “Why not? Don’t you have to check out Earl something or other? Look, you,” Candy said when she saw my sour face. “Yesterday, you went sixty-nine miles in six hours, dragging your ass through Missouri dirt roads. When we go again, you’re going to have to drive properly. Or you’ll make us all insane.”

  Gina agreed, head nodding, arms flailing. She seemed to have forgotten that we were all set to leave Candy here in Bettendorf.

  Downstairs at the breakfast buffet, the corn beef hash tasted suspiciously like yesterday’s pot roast. “Aren’t you tired?” I asked. They didn’t even answer, they were too busy chatting about poker strategies, blackjack theories, patterns of winning. They were talking about the luck of the draw the way I talked about budgeting time and money for a two-week trip. Candy had even introduced Gina to the roulette table. “She’s so reckless,” Gina kept saying, but in the tone of someone who was saying, she’s a genius. “She’s trouble.” She is amazing. “She makes me take ungodly risks.” She is my hero.

  “Not ungodly,” said Candy.

  “Does God approve of gambling?” I asked sourly. Jeez, I was turning into the mother I never had. Just great. Dandy. Emma was never like this.

  “No,” Candy said happily. “Certainly not. The Five Flower Aztec god approves. But you know what our Lord approves of, fully and completely? Joy! And Gina, we had us some joy last night, didn’t we?”

  “We sure did, applecakes,” said Gina. “We sure did.”

  They ate, drank coffee, and then, with the caffeine still hot in their veins, crashed upstairs on the same bed, clothes off, just in their bras and panties, covers off, while I clucked around, walked gingerly like a chicken, ten o’clock, eleven, planned, wrote things down, fretted, then lay down and fell asleep myself.

  When I woke up, it was three or four in the afternoon, and the girls were still asleep, their bodies barely having shifted. It was quiet in the room, only the occasional footsteps in the corridor told me we were not alone. I took off my makeup, had a shower, put my makeup back on. I made much noise, which did not bestir them, so finally left for the lobby to find a Yellow Pages and call Earl Scheib about the Mustang.

  The news from Earl wasn’t good. The shop couldn’t do it; the unfriendly voice on the phone told me I had to contact a Ford-authorized Mustang paint shop, of which Scheib wasn’t one. “Can you recommend somebody?” I asked.

  “What am I, the Yellow Pages?” the guy growled. “Try Peter’s Paint and Body in Moline.”

  Peter’s in Moline also didn’t do it, but Friendly Auto Painting (which was not Friendly) in Davenport, did. Shelbys were made in only seven colors in 1966. I wanted black with white stripes? They would have to order the two sets of paint from Ford in Detroit, it would take three to four weeks to arrive, they’d need the car for three days minimum, and it would cost $1,500.

  I nearly passed out.

  Paint was expensive, Ford surcharges exorbitant, car needed a primer, two coats and a lacquer, the stripes were difficult, work labor-intensive. “You want it or not?” Friendly snapped.

  “Not,” I snapped back, but when I hung up, I was sad. Fifteen hundred dollars! Were they kidding me?

  I called Earl Scheib again. “I won’t do it,” the guy said. “Not even for two thousand. I’ll paint any car for two hundred bucks—except that one. My guys won’t deface a Shelby Mustang with a generic paint job. It’s pure vandalism. We can’t guarantee it, I can’t use my primer on it, the car will have to be stripped of its original color first. You want me to give you the labor charges on that? The car will be worth nothing after I’m done. Is that what you want? Why do you even bother having a Mu
stang if that’s how you’re going to treat it? Just get yourself a Maverick and be done with it.” He hung up before I could think of a witty reply.

  I trudged upstairs where the girls were stirring. When I told them of the paint charges and the wait times, they both snorted and sneered. “I told you,” said Gina. They filed into the shower, and by the time they were dried and made up, it was dinner time again. I couldn’t believe a whole day had gone by like this, a morning and an afternoon, of nothing, just sleeping in an unfamiliar room after pulling a metal lever the whole night and yelling into the phone at rude men.

  “You don’t find us despicable?” I asked them as they were putting on their shoes.

  “I find us kind of cute.” Gina smiled. “Come on, Sloane. Think about how depressed we were in that car. This is better, no?”

  We were depressed in that car. So what’s changed?

  “Should we just stay here?” I asked. “Maybe I can call for my mother to come and meet me in a casino in Iowa.”

  “So you know where your mother is, then?” asked Candy. I said shut up, and Gina laughed.

  “Sloane, it’s very clear to me and Candy that we can’t come with you,” she said, twinkling. “You’re too dangerous. Why don’t you just head out by yourself. We’ll take a train.”

  “You’re joking, right?”

  Gina tickled my ribs. “Scared you for a minute, didn’t I? Come on, let’s go. I’m starved.”

  We went to the buffet again. Candy, feeling generous, paid for us all, even bought us a beer, though Gina told her not to do that, since the drinks were free at the casino, and I said, “So what? We’re not going back to the casino, are we?”

  “Sloane,” Gina said, “we’ve been sleeping all day. What the hell are we going to do? Lie in bed and stare at the ceiling? We’re not leaving till tomorrow morning. We’ll go play for a little while.”

  “Famous last words.” I was sounding more and more like fifty-year-old Emma.

  Famous last words indeed. We went, and my true colors showed again, but one thing was different tonight. Candy showed me how to bet on roulette. I played five times, and on the fifth, my silly number nineteen came in, and I won two hundred and ten dollars on my five bucks. I got so excited that even I forgot about time for a while under the fluorescents. The older couples were still there, and the shuffling old men, and the sullen bikers, but there were some college students, too, and we hooked up with them during the latter portion of the night; Candy disappeared somewhere, Gina was still on the slot machines, and I was being wooed by a cut young man with glazed eyes. “Are you drunk?” I asked him.