ISSN 1758-6488
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Men in Love Fiction |
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HER, RETOLD.
“He is exactly who we needed,” she says. “He is horrible.”
“Horrible is perfect.” He smacks me on the back, nudges his cowboy hat, says, “Start tonight, two hundred a week.” I tell him he said four hundred. I’m lying, we never talked money. He says, “I never say four, if I did said it would be three. I give three, every week we gross fifteen thousand. Twenty thousand, five hundred. Over twenty we talk. So be who we needed, it makes you money. Be horrible.” That’s how I remember it, fast, bored, cheerful, hard laughs, handshakes, smiles, instant hatreds. Like any new job.
The Wheel of Fortune is the oldest game on the boardwalk, a valuable antique if anybody thought it had any value. Bet your lucky number, only a quarter, a prize with every spin. I dropped my paper route money here in grade school, ten cents a bet. My father, and his father, and father’s father, lost nickels on the Wheel, pennies back in the Depression. The Wheel’s old now, it creaks and groans, wobbles, whines like a hurt puppy, droops crazily off its axle, flakes paint bits on my hair and arms. It’s hard work, lying all your life. Even wood dies from it.
What’s that matter, summertime at the Jersey Shore? You’re here to spend money you don’t know how to need. You try your luck. Many losers every time. And, no matter how unlucky everybody is, somebody wins – a ballpoint pen. Or don’t take the pen. Take a yellow ticket. Two yellow tickets get a plastic cane. Or trade two yellows for one blue. Ten blues and you win, but nobody ever does, a watch of gold. Six blues and you win, and once an hour anybody who spends ten dollars must win – a fuzzy white bear with a red heart saying I LOVE YOU! You win because we cheat.
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