The Weeds

Coyotes had been up on High Ridge Drive the last couple nights. They were tracking something. My uncle used to talk about how some winters they would form larger packs and stalk unusual prey. Talk down at the farm co-op sometimes turned to stories of savage attacks that seemed to happen when certain circumstances coalesced. The weather, the moon, the aurora borealis, the early season departure of the geese, I never listened to it much. Old Will Drucker often told of the time during The Great Depression a five year old girl had been killed by a pack down by Motrin's Mill. Although not everyone had believed it was the coyotes that got her.

Right now their yipping was building to a crescendo and sounded like it was less than a half mile away. My blood chilled despite my best efforts to remind myself they were more afraid of me than I was of them. Or they were supposed to be. My pulse pounded in my ears, drowning out the crunching rhythm of my footsteps.

The lights from the city hung eerily in the atmosphere refracted through the trees and the mist that hung over them in the midwinter air. The walk into town usually took about forty-five minutes in good conditions. The fresh snowfall from the afternoon flurry made it a more arduous trek tonight. It had been more than half an hour now since I left home and I could tell it would likely be another half hour until I got there. The temperature was falling and my labored breathing was interrupted by a sharp pang in my lungs. I stopped, my breath exploding out in a crisp haze. After a moment I set out again.

This had better be worthwhile.

My thoughts turned to the article in Gaming Life that I had read at least a dozen times this week. Roulette had never been my thing, I was a blackjack player and an above average one if I say so myself. Other players at the casino would tell me I had horseshoes up the ass, but I didn’t think so. Or that I have a system. I don’t unless you call being one with the universe and one with the deck a system. In that case it might be but if it was it was mine and mine alone.

Years ago my friend Simon Chu would coax me to join him at the roulette wheel. I rarely did. He would tell me about his system of playing in one of three blocks of numbers that he identified as “hot” zones. He had a few other moves but that was his go-to. I vividly recall him sitting in his cab out in the weeds at Vancouver International, scribbling in a small black notebook he carried with him religiously in his back pocket, furiously working out new ones he hoped to try. He usually did well but the time or two I tried I got burnt.

Bad.

The Starlight Casino had opened in our berg just last month and this was my first visit. I’m no stranger to casinos having played in all kinds of them all over the world. The opening of this one had been vehemently opposed by a large contingent of the good Deerfield folk, but in the end big business won out. As much as I was looking forward to playing on some of the ten new blackjack tables, the article had convinced me to give the roulette system a try.

I finally reached the retaining wall at the end of the ally down behind Front Street confectionary. It cut across to Hudson Street and the casino was just a block from there. I tapped the swastika painted on the wall three times with my left foot as was my custom for luck and headed down the alley. Emerging at the other end I crossed swiftly and jogged the final lap and into the bright lights and mayhem of the Starlight. After wandering through a maze of slots the roulette table appeared in front of me.

I positioned myself in the crowd of onlookers to observe the wheel for a few rounds. I approached the table and produced a wad of bills and threw them down. The dealer scooped them away with his rake and the croupier counted them out then pushed four stacks of chips to me. If I read the action right I needed to put half my chips on 29 black now. Last call “NO MORE BETS!” The ball bounced onto the wheel, onto the pockets, onto the rotor and back onto the pockets and finally settled on 29 black.

I was stunned, it actually worked! I pulled my winnings in and asked the dealer to place them and the balance of my chips on 23 red. My adrenaline was off the charts but I was like a duck on a pond. Again the ball bounced and landed in 30 red, popped out, bounced twice, then landed in 23. I was sure I was going to pass out but fought it off; my head swam in the lights and confusion.

I didn't remember how I got to the cage but I waited coolly as the teller counted it out. Twenty thousand fucking dollars! There was no way I could walk home with that score.

Simon still drove cab but owned his own now. I called him to come get me. NOW! He was so excited for me. “You see? I told you that’s the game! Tell me all about it tomorrow; the flight from Toronto is landing… got to run.”

He dumped me a block from home and I started laughing deliriously as I shouted out the lyrics to “I’m In the Money.” I turned down the overgrown alley behind our house, I wanted to sneak in the back door and surprise the wife. The murky figure moved on me in a blur but I knew it was no coyote.