The Riviera

Miss Betty Mewn. Aged thirty-six and some. Never been married, nor any desire to. She has only held on to one thing in her life and it’s her little black book. After she fills one, she makes her way down to the Staple’n’Sons on the corner of West-Street and picks up at least three new ones. Everyone says she keeps them all stacked up on her dining table, not enough room to eat a meal for two, which is just too perfect for Miss Betty Mewn.

I never did much of anythin' - you know, what a woman supposed to do. I guess I just ain’t that. Got bigger dreams for myself. Ain’t saying I’m leaving but I ain’t sure I’m staying neither. See, got myself my little black book that I named Michael after my old church pastor, seemed like the luckiest man I ever met. It’s where I’m keeping my note on all them lotto wins that everybody ‘possedly winning. I don’no how much I believe but I got it written anyway. Looks something like:

WINNER: MS MCFADDEN, IOWA.

$2,000,000.

8 - 19 - 42 - 47 - 20.

Don’t be asking me why someone named McFadden been out in Iowa. Think her grandaddy got more of them answers. Anyhow, she got that money now and I still ain’t. But think I’m getting my math right this time ‘cause we got a new one coming today. Big TV lotto. Somethin’ around a MILL-ion’ doll-ERS. Think I might have them numbers guessed right.

Tell me it ain't gonna be…

Just… tell me…

…hell you got me checking the book.

The book says:

WINNING NUMBERS:

16 - 27 - 24 - 52 - 51

That’s my guess. It seems like the world knows it. It does seem to be my dream that one day I pick up Michael just with my two hands, and it’s my numbers on them pages. I hold up the book next to the screen on them lotto days and they fit. Like the puzzle of life, just boom, boom, boom; get to write my own name in there. Then it be some other poor soul that be keeping eyes on all money movements. But it won’t be me. Think I’ll be journeying myself to Mexico. Señorita don’t mind if I do.

My daddy taught me how to do the books. I think he always wanted himself a son but I just didn’t turn out that way, another bet he didn’t win. My daddy loved the horses which I never cared for much, he had a favourite called Lucky Strike. But what I liked to see is the money on the big TV, thinkin’... that’s my way. Them big checks the size of one of them recreational-vehicles that Miss Patty got parked on her driveway all the damn time. Anyhow, he liked the horses and he loved his book. He called it his bible and I sure didn’t understand why my momma never let him take it into the church building with him. I always got mine with me, everywhere and anywhere I go. Feels like I'm always hearing them bells. Them ones you hear on them programmes when people win the money. I hear the bells all the time in my head all the time.

See, on Tuesdays, I travel myself down from here to Nevada because what I want to do is legal around there. I take my truck and I tell my dogs I love ‘em and I always think maybe this is the time where I’m coming home with more than just one-dollar-chum for them and a microwave turkey roast for myself. I keep on going and just going. In between my lotto days it seems to keep me occupied, more-so than watching other people on my TV win other money that I ain’t involved with in any-which-way.

***

It's Tuesday and here we are. The Riviera Casino. Old town typed place. Building still looks like it got a big skirt on with all them veils hanging down the windows. Not my first choice on where to be but seems the other ones overrun with business-typed men and I ain’t sharing my machines with ‘em. Anyhow, the lights in here seem pretty. Hear them all the time sayin’ “Art Deco” but you truly don’t know what that means until you seen the inside of an old gamblin’ building. No matter how much of them antiques shows that you watch.

Betty pulls up a worn leather barstool, bursting from the sides, the foam sighing as she sits opposite the single-coin machine. Seeing herself in the reflection of the finger-stained glass, confronting the memory of her father and her hopes of winning. She pulls out her little black book from the front pocket of her men's-sized blue jeans, and begins to scrawl, in her perfectly scratched handwriting that her little black books are accustomed to. Between the narrow gap to the other side of her machine, an old man draws attention. Looking at each other in clarity, through the calamity of the company surrounding them. He begins to introduce himself with immediate charm and interest, looking down through the gap to the book placed on the shelf in front.

“Kept a book like that once upon'a'1950s… forgot most of what I wrote in it, most of dreams but real-life ones, you know.”

Betty looks over at him, between the machines. “You talkin’ to me, sir?”

The old man shifts back in his chair, scratching his flaking scalp in thought. Continuing without acknowledging the question. “Dreams I moved away, stopped doing all of this for something more. Dreamed I got away, through to the south of the border. Thing is, I lost that book. When I lost that book it was like I lost all them dreams too… ain’t moved from this place, hardly this chair since. Ain’t got the money to do either of them things.”

Betty moves over to the other side, sitting at the machine to his right. The voice sounded familiar, warm. Compelled to be closer to him. “That right? You tell me any more and I’m gonna start believin’ you’re my poppa reincarnate. Sent down from God as a messenger”. Betty sits still, analysing. His greying hair, his gold rings, the bowling shirt. “Thinkin’ of it, you even got the same smoking pipe. Bad for you, you know”. She gestures towards the pipe in the ashtray, pursing her lips in disapproval.

The old man looks down towards Betty's pointing finger and up to her face. Smiling slightly. “Mm, got it. Seems your eyes work well but your mouth needs some tuning”.

He nods towards the black book using a ripple of his hand to possess it. Pulling a pen from his bowling-shirt pocket, branded with the old local bank. Licking his fingertips, rubbing them together as if attempting to roll tobacco. He presses his thumb hard to the corner of the page and turns it over. “You ever bet on the horses?”.

He begins jotting down -scribbling almost- diagrams and arrows all over the page. Smudging the blue ink has he continues. Writing:

WINNING HORSE

MULBERRY JUICE

ODDS 2:4

Here's how to race the horses: know your bets! ...

---->

They are together still, holding each other up through the hours that they did not know had passed. Learning thoroughly the mechanics of each other's lives, and the theories that keep them together in this common-building. Betty pulls her chair out to leave, embracing the man as if he were her father. Holding her book behind his back open on the pages that they had written together.

“See you again sometime, maybe over in Mexico." Betty nods with genuine intention, trusting that she will see him again. “Please don’t still be here when I get back”, winking at him as she walks away and makes her way home.

***

Thing nobody knows about these books is, I kept my dreams in them too, just like him. Hundreds of ‘em, some filled with nothin’ but dreams. Stories of people I ain’t never met but can see ‘em in my mind. Been a year since that old man sparked somethin’ in me and I just now finally sold one of my stories on. Said they give me fifty-thousand for it. I took it, I got it. Think the story’s gonna be printed soon, maybe in a little black book again but this time it’s all typed and fancy. And there ain’t no notice to all my spelling mistakes neither 'cause someone went through and did all that. Story’s about meeting some man in a casino, nothin’ else about it, just meet him and feel for him like an old friend.

***

Betty returns to The Riviera, hoping her last words to the old man aren't true. Seeing him sitting in her space from the last time, a year before. She approaches him, with delicate concern “I see you truly ain’t moved since the last time. Nothin’ changed for you in a year?”

He looks up, with complete joy at her return. Smiling, “Nothin’ changed for me all year”.

Betty stares off, for the first time seeing everybody at their machines. Pulling their arms back, as if readying themselves for victory. Seeing herself as every face. She shuffles closer to the old man. Leaning in together, in an emotional exchange.

Putting her hand on his shoulder with trust. “You got me thinkin’ all that time ago. Your little book filled with them stories is like mine. I got tonnes of ‘em you should see, been stacking ‘em up on my dining room table. I sent some off to some big companies. Got one returned back with some confirmation typed up. Sold my biggest one, made fifty-thousand dollars… all for selling my dreams.”

The old man pauses, placing both his hands down on his knees. Looking up at her with a twist of his head “That right? A good dream, I suppose?”

Betty sits down on the chair next to him, matching her hands on her knees to his. “Yeah… here, tell me what you think... starts about a man I met in a casino who ain’t moved in years… thing is, in the story that I wrote, see, this man gets his lucky strike. Finally somehow gets the money to go down to Mexico like he talked about. Nothin’ like real life this story, is it?”

Betty slides an envelope across the old man's screen into his lap. Address scratched out, the old glue unable to keep the lip closed. The jackpot bells echo through the casino, as Betty and the old man watch somebody hit big, knowing that somehow it doesn't matter anymore.

She reaches out again, in reason. “Wrote that story before I knew you, but knew that one day I would know you. Go do somethin’ now. Heard Mexico been callin’ you since before I had ears. When I grew ‘em, it started calling me too”.

***

Yeah, I damn did write a check to some old guy at the casino, almost half of what I earned. Twenty-thousand to see him sorted, go wherever he could go in whatever years he got before him. An unexpected income.

See, it’s sometimes in this sometimes-the-sun-shine-life where you see people and I mean deep when you look at ‘em you know who they are. And you know they are good. Him and I, we see each other sometimes, crossing the same street, in the glorious country scenes of Mexico. Meeting sometimes in Cioppino's Bar. Drinking like old friends.