Kip

Uncle Kip drinks his vodka tonic like it’s telling him a secret—quick and frantic before anyone can notice. His body sways to the pings of the slot machines, spitting out coins and false hope. There are two kinds of people at a casino—people who play to win money and people who play the slots. At this moment, Uncle Kip is neither. His drunk thumbs can barely push the buttons. But I don’t interfere.

It is my turn to watch Uncle Kip from afar. My cousin Jamie and I are taking shifts babysitting him. I stand a few slot machines away so that Kip won’t feel smothered. There’s nothing a drunk person hates more than being made to feel that they are drunk. So I stand by, half watching him, half pondering why I agreed to come to a casino in Iowa next to a crematorium. I mean, if I’m being honest, I know why I came. I just don’t want to acknowledge what we are here to do. I pretend this is a vacation. But still, right now, I am not without regret for making this trip. I’d just watched a woman take what looked to be an old fish taco out of her purse and throw it at a server to get their attention. Ah, paradise.

Another vodka appears in front of Uncle Kip like magic. He thanks the man who delivered it to him and compliments his glasses. The man isn’t wearing glasses, but he nods politely and backs away before my uncle can compliment him on any more imaginary accessories. Uncle Kip had always doled out praise to people as though he were paid to do it. It was compulsive. When I was a kid, I ate it up like gummy bears. He made me feel exceptional even when I was failing basic math. He fed me insults to say to other kids when they made fun of my hideous jeans. “Tell him you can get new pants, but that they’ll always be ugly,” he’d say. I reveled in his cruelty when it was to protect me. It was the purest form of love I’d ever experienced. It still is.

“They were out of chamomile so it’s some ginger and lemon shit,” Jamie says as she thrusts a steaming paper cup in my face. I take it even though I hate ginger.

“Your shift isn’t for another ten minutes,” I say. Jamie scoffs at me.

“At ease, soldier. It’s not that serious. I ran out of money anyway, “she says.

“You win anything?” I ask her even though I know she wasn’t gambling. Her puffy eyes and chapped nose tell me that. Jamie is a dreadful secret crier. But I commit to the bit. That’s what we do.

“No. The dealer sucked,” she says without looking at me.

I look to Uncle Kip again. This time he is hugging a fellow slot player because they won $100. Another vodka deep. Drunker by the minute. But happy.

“When are we gonna tell him?” I ask Jamie, already knowing it is a question she doesn’t want to answer.

“Not tonight. Let him enjoy it. This is supposed to be his last hoorah.”

“His last hoorah is in a casino in Iowa? That’s the bleakest shit I’ve ever heard,” I say as I try to drink my disgusting tea.

Jamie scoffs at me with more vigor this time. “You’re such a fucking snob.”

Her disdain for me is palpable. She blames me for why we are here. I feel like the server who got a fish taco thrown at them. The only difference is that I actually deserve it.

I try to tell Jamie that we are doing the right thing, that we’d be giving him a better life where he could be cared for properly, basically just parroting all the stuff I’ve read in the articles I selected specifically to clear my conscience.

“We will be over 400 miles away from him,” Jamie says with gritted teeth.

“It’s all we could afford,” is the best retort I can come up with, the one I’d said to her five thousand times in the last few months. It was true. But that doesn’t matter to Jamie. We’ll always be wrong for leaving Kip, no matter how sound the logic is. Jamie always clung tightly to him. As a kid she would jump on his back and Kip would just carry her around for hours. He knew that was what she needed.

I know Jamie thinks I’m being cold. When we were in our twenties and we disagreed about something, Jamie would tell me I was “offensively pragmatic” and “a robot with hair.” I never used to think she was right.

We both look to Uncle Kip again. He isn’t at a slot machine, but instead stumbling out of the men’s bathroom. Jamie and I rush over to him.

“What are you doing, Uncle Kip? You were supposed to let us know if you needed to go anywhere,” Jamie says, breathless with worry.

Uncle Kip kisses Jamie on the forehead. I look at his hands and see that he is hiding something under his shirt.

“What is that?” I ask him. He shrugs me off and tries to shuffle past me and Jamie. But the vodkas catch up to him and he blows his cover. A package wrapped in brown paper spills out of his shirt. Before I can see what is inside, Uncle Kip practically dives on the floor and shoves it back in his pants. Jamie and I are dumbstruck.

“Uncle Kip, what the hell is that?”

“It’s nothing you have to worry about. It’s just something I need,” he slurs back to me. For a moment, I contemplate grabbing the package out of his hands. But Jamie looks like she might evaporate from the stress. So I try something different.

“Why do you need it?” I ask him.

Uncle Kip exhales like he’s just made it to the top of a mountain. He knows why we brought him here. The moment is agony for all of us.

He takes the package out of his shirt and tucks it under his arm.

“Because I don’t do bingo nights, kid.”

Uncle Kip walks back to the slot machines and resumes his game. He drinks his vodka slower this time. There are no secrets left. Just grief.