Nothing
By Michael Wolcott |
| Photo by Sarah Howard |
I love to gamble. I love how cheap and bleak and phony every casino feels, no matter what it pretends to be. I love how greedy we all are, and how faithful. Anybody will tell you that casinos always win, and that gamblers don't care.
The tease of something for nothing is just too much. Once, a long time ago, I put a dollar in a slot and the machine stopped cold. I thought the thing was broken. "Hey," I said to the casino guy," don't I get something for these cherries?"
"How about a thousand dollars?" he replied.
So I go back, and always lose. I manage it — take just fifty or a hundred, no plastic. When the money's gone I drive away in my crummy truck with its sprung hood and radical bumperstickers and sleep in the desert. The night air smells like sun-warmed railroad ties. I lie awake, brain buzzing on the bad juices of the casino, listening to the echo of bells and whistles, the tinny music of coins splashing into plastic cups. I close my eyes and see ghost trails of cards, dice and money skidding across tender green felt. I open them to find bony mountains clawing at a sky smeared with stars. No one is there. This is the payoff.
While I sleep, dense rivers of headlights stream east and west on I-15, between Vegas and the dry hills of southern California. After gambling, I have noticed, I do not dream. Ever. I wake rested though, in these basin-and-range mornings. I stay in the sleeping bag and make coffee while silver bleeds into the violet sky. A few birds announce themselves, and despite good reason not to, I feel something like joy.
Nevada is big, empty, unloved. It's where we test our bombs, dump our most vile poisons, forget the past and point cannons toward our future. When you leave pavement, don't count on Triple-A or your cell phone. The odds are even worse than in the casinos. Stay long enough and you will lose — flat tires, bleached bones, the potent dry silence. The desert wins, yet wants nothing that we have. The desert gives me hope.
