52. His Big 4-0

The DING-DING-DING, WHOMP-WHOMP-WHOMP,CHING-CHING TING-TING of the slot machines ratatated through my head with percussive density. Angry clouds of cigarette smoke lingered over the maimed poor, hunched protectively over their pulsating gambling machines. Apparently gone were the days where one had to exertingly pull a lever, as now the downtrodden simply had to push a button to make electronic screens spins with apples and oranges and little pots of gold they would never win. Ah, the benefits of a modern world. And above the DING-DING-DING, CHING-CHING TING-TING sang the dulcet tones of a Dokken/Poison/Ratt medley played from hidden speakers.

I was in Hell in our local Indian casino.

When Thad and I first gotten back together, we used to go to the Casino now and again, as he loved it. But I had quickly grown to hate it, as the place was so depressing, full of the old and disabled and destitute and hopeless, all spilling their coins to the giant golden Indian god of gambling. And after one especially morally appalling trip involving the sighting of not one, but two people with stumps, I finally put my foot down and refused to go any longer.  But as it was his 40^th birthday, and this was the one thing he really wanted to do, I had to agree.

“I’m having such a blast!” Thad screamed, running by to stop and grab my hand like parishioner to a particularly lachrymose priest. 

“Great! Great!” I winced, really trying to fake it.  

He smiled crazily and ran back over to Bettina, who was lighting up another cigarette, drunkenly propped up against a slot machine like the lady she was.  

We had been in this den of gambling inequity for almost three hours now. As planned, we had picked up Bettina at their house and headed out to the Casino, out across the river and into redman lands: the Chickasaw Nation. We had his birthday dinner in the big restaurant, and it was fine except for all of the elderly with oxygen tanks and face bandages. Thad had ordered grandly and then complained about most of what he ate, as was his way. Bettina had requested a small glass of wine, which then turned into two more before the check was handed to me. Our big Injun waitress may have once been a man, but I was not sure.  

After dinner we had retired to the gaming area of the establishment, as Thad’s favorite thing about the Casino were the slot machines. He loved the lights and the DING-DING-DING noise and the thought that he might win enough money someday to never ever have to take orders from his parents again; but he never did. He lost, just like everyone else there, except when he lost he just lost his allowance. When they lost, they blew all of their government check and then had to go home and eat cat food for the rest of the month. Charming.

But for now Thad was happy, thrilled to be with Bettina and thrilled to be feeding money I had given him into a large flashing, singing machine. The two of them ran among the blinking and blaring machines like enflamed children, having the time of their damn lives. And I looked at my watch wondering how much longer I was going to have to smilingly persevere.    

“Are you sure you don’t want to play?” Thad said, dancing back over to me a few minutes later, whimsy in his eyes.

“No, no. I’m fine here,” I said, patting the table in the food court I current held down. “I’ll just watch our cokes. You go have fun.” I felt like the father watching his son play in the ball pit at McDonald, if the ball pit was full of sin and the dying elderly.   

“You know she’s just lit,” he said, thumbing back to Bettina.

“Is she on hard liquor yet?”

“Oh, of course!”  he laughed.

“At least it’s on her dime now.” I huffed.

Ignoring my jab he said, “Thank you for letting me invite her.” He was sincere. “This is a great birthday.” He touched my hand, which in a redneck place like this could get you kidnapped and tied to a fence and left to die if you weren’t careful. But by doing so in such a public place, I knew he meant it.

“Sure,” I said, snapping my hand away, not wanting to be slain as Pantera blared in the background.  

Thad giggled and ran back to Bettina. I watched them both light up, as the Casino had some sort of Satanic pact with the cigarette companies so that you could leisurely smoke anywhere within the entire grand hall. And drink. And probably purchase a woman of leisure.  But as I watched Thad take an extended drag off of one of Bettina’s long brown black lady cigarettes, I knitted my brow,  jealous as all get out that I could no longer smoke, but he could. He had recently just gone back to smoking in front of me, now sporting it enough that ashtrays again dotted the backyard like mushrooms after a spring rain. He still said he wanted to quit, or at least he did between cigarettes.

With small eyes I watched them laugh and exhale together, and just hoped that that was the worst of his current vices he had picked up from living with her. The fact that he had remained sober through all of his 40^th birthday proceedings was amazing to me. I had also not heard any more of Spandex Hair Mane, and let me tell you, I had been listening. And as this was the last hour of his birthday, and so far he had not combusted, we were almost in the clear. I mean, I had really figured he would have taken back to the bottle by now, amid fits and birthday curses, but no, so God love him and fingers crossed.

In fact, as his birthday had neared, he had seemed to take it in stride. His parents had a little party for him up at Ma’am’s, but I was not invited, as his parents would be there. This cut me, but I swallowed it, thinking ‘it’s just Thadworld. He deals with my shit; I deal with his.’ So then the next day, Mom and Becky had come over and brought him presents. And some of his other friends had called or sent cards. And then earlier today I had given him his gifts-some clothes and an Xbox gaming system, which seemed a gift a 40 year old man should be embarrassed to ask (nee begged) for, but he was just thrilled and couldn’t wait to start fighting zombies, or shooting aliens, or driving over prostitutes, or whatever middle-aged men did in those weird masturbatory games.

 But this Casino night was the end of it. This was it. He would be 40. And apparently okay with it.  

A loud bell went off down a long row of machines and I glanced over to see an old woman doing some sort of victory dance with her walker. As I looked over the waves of unwashed masses, and how happy they seemed plugging their last dimes away at a hope that would never come to them, it made me think that maybe the unexamined life might be worth living.

When I turned 40 two years ago, it had torn me up. I had felt unaccomplished, indigent, useless, as I was only an Associate Professor with only two published books, had only sort of travelled extensively, was heavy but in good health, and who had just gotten back together with the love of his life. But I didn’t have a novel published, or own an island, and thus I had been morbidly depressed.

I looked up to see Thad trip by, chasing Bettina, heading to the bank of Price is Right glimmering and popping machines. He was smiling, with apparently not a  depressed thought in his head even though he lived off his parents, had no job, had not finished school, and the only real accomplish he could stamp on a resume besides catching me, was that he had recently trumped his twenty-year alcohol addiction. But he was happy, so happy right now. Maybe he was the lucky one; the one with the uncluttered mind.

And I loved him and envied the Hell out of him for it.    

About ten minutes later Thad slunk back over and took a mournful drink of his coke.

“Did you win anything?” I asked, over the DING-DING-DING racket.

“No,” he said, downtrodden. “I just lost it all on damn Bob Barker over there.” He sighed dramatically.

“Are you ready to go?” I asked, hopeful.

“No…” he smiled, trying to be precious.

“Do you want some more money?” I said dryly.

“No…” he tried to fake, but then “Yes!”

I shrugged and pulled out my wallet, handing him another twenty.

“Yeah! I’ll be done soon!” he screamed, running back to Bettina and the flash-pounding machines, waving the twenty above his head.   

            I consigned myself to continue crowd watching as Motley Crue roared from above over the DING-DING-DING of the place. To add to the ambience, a trashy couple had sat down at the table next to me to have their dinner of nachos and cigarettes. They were lookers, with maybe a mouthful of teeth between them; luckily the nachos looked soft and gummy.   

Across the food court I saw something that didn’t make sense: the metal footrests of a wheelchair lying beside a trash can. I craned my head around to see if some wheelchair person had dropped them, but everyone around was ambulatory, and smoking. I looked back and tried to take in why the footrests would just be cast aside, as they had to be an expensive part of a wheelchair. But I couldn’t, which left me feeling weird and surrealistic.

Bettina walked by and winked at me. I smiled. She was a pretty girl; too bad she was an alcoholic. She strutted over to a waitress and ordered what I assumed was another cup of swill. Thad had disappeared, I guessed in search of the perfect DING-DING-DING, CHING-CHING-CHING game.   

Now that I was almost done Sherpaing him through his hallowed birthday, I was becoming nervous about my upcoming Shakespeare conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I was on countdown to just over a month till I left, but Thad had told me I was not allowed to rambled about it until after his birthday, as I had stayed mum on the issue. The fact that I could travel at all amazed me, but it took weeks of worrying and list-making to get me through it. So I had already planned to begin really worrying about it tomorrow-post his 40^th- and the thought enticed me.   

Thad popped his head around a bank of TING-TING-TING machines and waved me over.

Gathering our cokes I walked over, “Yes?”

“Hey!” He said, “Check this out! I’m winning!” and he pointed to the slot machine he sat at. It was Wheel of Fortune, and he was up $10.  

“Good. Neat.” I could care less, but, again, was trying to be a good spouse.

An old geezer sat to his left, systematically pushing a button to make his  machine spin.

I watched Thad push the button and watched him watch the electronic display spin, and wondered how he didn’t wonder if the whole thing was fixed, as it clearly was. If we can’t trust electronic voting machine, why in God’s green Earth would we trust electronic slot machines?

He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and looked up at me, “Bettina gave it to me. Do you mind?”

“No,” I lied. “Of course not, it’s your birthday…” but the irony was lost on him as he leaned over to old man next to him and said, “Do you mind?”

The old man shrugged his shoulders with an implied, “Why not…”  

Thad lit up and smoke curled up and around his face and into my nose, and it smelled wonderful, but also kinda like failure. But more like wonderful, which made me want to smack him in the head. He pushed the button again and the electric display rotated and the machine went DING-DING-DING, and he did it again and it did it again, and he did it again and it did it again, and he was just mesmerized, hypnotized. But then after a few spins he began to lose, and dropped down to $5.

But next he pushed the button his machine exploded with PING-PING-PING and TWANG-TWANG-TWANG and flashing lights and as the display showed he had won $25 and Thad jumped up and down and acted like had had won the damn lottery and he looked up at me with the most joyous expression of accomplishment on his face I had ever seen, and I just softened as he was so happy, even though I knew it meant we would have to be here for hours more. 

And as the bell on Thad’s machine stopped BLING-BLING-BLINGING, the old man leaned over and said, “Wow! You did good!”

But it was how he said it that was the most interesting: he said it through a tracheotomy wand held up to the metal hole in his throat. And Thad just froze, cigarette held up in mid-puff as I tried not to laugh, as the look on Thad’s face was priceless. And after a second he said, “Thanks…” and turned to exhale his smoke discretely, and the man said, “Sure,” in his mechanic robot voice of doom voice. I really had to force myself not to laugh as Thad crushed out his cigarette and turned around and looked at me and mouthed, “Let’s go.”  

And for saving me, I mentally thanked Tracheotomy Man.    

We found Bettina at the bar (duh) and got her to wrap it up, even though she wanted to stay. She whined around a bit as she sucked back her glass of firewater, but now that Thad was freaked like he had seen his Ghost of Christmas Future, all he wanted was to be gone, so he just kept tugging on her to hurry.  

In the car driving away, Bettina in the backseat arguing into her phone with Bayne, Thad took my hand and whispered, “Thank you. You did everything right.”

“Well, my pleasure, baby. You deserve it. Happy Birthday.”

He squeezed my hand and I felt truly happy.  

As we drove out of the parking lot we passed an old drunk looking man scooting around in his wheelchair, and I realized where the discarded footrests had come from: He had just thrown them away so he could move around, unfettered.

 The power of that Casino was awesome.