The Play Book

“Hello, my name is Mel, and I’m an addict,” I said to the other five people in the room. This was my fourth meeting and my turn to get up and tell all, so to speak.

“Hello, Mel,” they all replied in unison. They stared at me in dull anticipation of my story. You see, we’re all gambling addicts. I attend a local chapter of Gamblers Anonymous, only at the urging of my best friends. It certainly wasn’t my idea. But here I was. What a pile of crap, thank you very much.

We’d spent the first hour hearing quick updates from each person and announcements from Curtis, our Leader. They were all settled in their conference room chairs, stirring their coffees and arranging cookies on a napkin to be eaten throughout the evening. Curtis with his double chin and clothes that were always too tight had an extra cookie on his napkin. He nodded at me with an encouraging smile to continue.

Sandy straightened her back, ran her fingers through her short hair to make sure nothing was out of place, then picked a piece of lint off of one of her pant legs. She smiled at her new wedge sandals that I’m sure she was secretly hoping everyone would notice. Rex slouched in his chair the same way he slouched every day of his life. He was six feet four inches and hated being taller than everyone around him. Travis was the joker in the crowd, mid-thirties, short hair and long beard. He was one of those guys that always had the whole room laughing. I’m not sure if I laughed at his jokes, or just laughed at him because he laughed so hard at his jokes. Then there was Amber. Passive aggressive, shy Amber. She was forty with three kids at home. A single mom who’d nearly lost everything because she always gambled her paycheck away as soon as she got it.

Me, I’m here because I didn’t care if I lost a few hundred here or there. I’m a blackjack dealer by day. If anyone knows the odds of betting in a casino, it’s me. And yet, it was hard to deny that I’d lost more money gambling over the last few years than I’d made. That was my sobering point.

“Mel,” Curtis said. “Go ahead, we’re ready.” He’d made a beeline to the snack table before I started to grab a few more cookies. He already had more than anyone else. They were chocolate chip from the store.

“Yeah, sure. Um, let’s see…it was, oh yeah, it was a Sunday night, following a three day weekend about four months back. As you guys know,” I glanced around the room at my fellow co-workers. “We don’t get a lot of new people in our little hole-in-the-wall casino here in Bum-fuck, sorry, Crossroads, Nevada.” I heard Amber wince. This was going to be hard to tell my story without my regular style of talking. That is – I swear a hell of a lot. But to ease her sensitive ears, I’d try to keep it as muted as possible. It wasn’t going to be easy.

“Anyway, that evening around ten-thirty or so, I noticed like five guys I’d never seen before in the casino. And they kept looking at each other, you know in a really odd way. And well,” I rolled my eyes and switched the weight from my left foot to right. “Anyway, each of them seemed to be playing at different tables and sending some kind of signals to each other. The youngest one, I’d guess around twenty-one, was at my table. He kept wiping sweat off his forehead and wringing his hands. That caught my attention. He’d look at buddies as if he was waiting for a cue. But it wasn’t gambling help he was in need of.” I lifted my left foot up a little and pointed to it.

“You see, this guy had an itch on his leg, and he kept hiking his foot up and scratching. And it wasn’t until after about ten minutes or so of him scratching his leg, that I noticed something on the floor next to his boot. A small black book. Now…I could have said something to him or just pointed it out, but instead, I waited until he turned to look at one of his buddies again and I quickly put my foot on the black book and drug it under my chair, and kept my foot on it.”

“A little black book? Was he a pimp or a bookie?” Travis chuckled, delighted with his own cleverness, with intrigue sparkling in his hazel eyes. He leaned forward and stroked his long pointy beard in interest. “What was in the book?”

Sandy pushed her shoulders back and gazed uncomfortably toward the door. She had a tendency to get bored easily.

“Well, when the pit boss motioned for me to take my fifteen minute break, I first reached down as if I was tying my shoe, right?” I wiggled my eyebrows and smiled. “Then I slid the book up my pant leg. I wedged it in the top of my boot so it wouldn’t fall out as I headed up for a cup of coffee. I got my coffee and sat down, pulled the book out and thumbed through it.” I noticed at this point all five GA members in the room were wide awake and leaning forward in anticipation.

Cool.

“Have you ever seen a football play drawn out on a white board?” I asked. Rex and Curtis both nodded affirmatively. No doubt they’d had their day on the field.

“That’s what it looked like. At first I thought why would anyone have a football play book hidden in their pant leg? But then I looked closer. It wasn’t a football playbook because the x’s and o’s weren’t on a football field; they were on the casino floor. They had all the gaming tables marked, the rows of slots and even the pit boss area. I turned the book around this way and that trying to figure it all out.” I could see the men’s eyes flicker with understanding. Sandy and Amber, on the other hand, looked completely confused.

“As I flipped through the pages I could see how they were going to maneuver their way around the casino floor and the security areas in their plan to rob the place.”

“What?” Amber’s mouth gaped open with shock and Sandy’s eyes were as big as poker chips. “What did you do?” Sandy asked.

“I called Zack, our head of security, and told him everything. He met me on the stairs and took the book, and I returned to the table. He told me not to worry; they would take care of it from there.”

“I don’t remember this, what happened?” Travis stroked his frizzy beard.

“If you don’t remember it, then you weren’t working that shift. All hell broke loose!” I laughed. “Security couldn’t really figure out what to do. I mean, they didn’t know how many guys were really a part of the plot. The black book wasn’t conclusive on that. And besides, we knew there were at least five gamblers on the floor, and it looked like they might have had a guy stationed at each exit. But we didn’t really know who they were, just some fucking land pirates.”

Amber glared at me.

“Well they were! And you know our security staff is, well…understaffed to say the least. So I guess they like put in a call to the Sheridan Police, but Sheridan’s what…ninety miles away?” The guys nodded their heads in understanding.

“So our guys did what they could do. They pulled the fire alarm!”

“That was that night?” Curtis said with a mouthful of cookies. “I remember that. I didn’t know it was for land pirates.” That’s what we called robbers in the desert.

“By the time we got everyone out of the building, Zack and his team nabbed the young kid that was at my table. He was the only one we had proof on. The others scattered like the rats they were, or so we thought.” I smiled at Travis who tilted his head and raised an eyebrow.

“Two guys managed to get all the money off the tables in the fire alarm confusion and headed for the back entrance. But I had stayed behind and tripped one of them with his bulging pockets. I actually had to sit on him while I texted my friends. They all came running and helped me hold the guy down until Zack and his crew could take him away.”

“So,” Amber raised her hand as if she was a first-grader in the classroom. “You said this was the turning point that got you into Gamblers Anonymous. How’s that?”

“A week later Mr. Sulfredge called me into his office,” I said and they all gasped. No one ever sees or hears from Mr. Sulfredge, the owner of the Desert Rose. “That’s right, I actually saw Mr. Sulfredge.”

“He’s real?” Sandy whispered.

“He’s real. And for saving the casino from being robbed, he rewarded me with a hefty bonus of twenty-thousand dollars.” I nodded remembering the feeling of holding that money in my hands.

“But still,” Amber insisted. “You weren’t tempted to gamble even a portion of that away?”

“Are you kidding? I wanted to gamble every cent of it away. You know how our brains work. I was sure, as you would have been too, that if I could sit down at the blackjack or poker table with that much money, I’d be able to retire for life. Right?” They all nodded furiously. Curtis even stopped eating for a moment and wiped the cookie crumbs off his chin.

“But my friends, Uma and the other girls, they sat me down and had a long talk with me. It was a painful fucking talk,” I rolled my eyes at Amber. “Sorry. I had the shakes so bad wanting to trade that money in for chips. But they wouldn’t let me.”

“Good friends,” I heard Sandy murmur.

“I’ve been given so many eviction notices on my apartment over the past few years I treat them like parking tickets that you stuff in your glove box and never look at again. Anyway, my friend Raven lives in the little trailer court, you know the one,” I pointed off to the back of the room meaning in that direction.

“Oh yeah, it’s actually a nice little court. And only a block from the casino,” Amber said.

“Yeah, well, there was a small trailer for sale and they only wanted nineteen thousand for it. So my girlfriends held my hand through the whole process and I bought it. At least space rent’s a hell of a lot cheaper than an apartment. And now I own my own home.” I shrugged, grumbling a bit from betting withdrawals.

“But the whole ordeal made me realize that by not gambling, I had something of value. I have a home now. And I promised them I would come here.” I shrugged, sat down in my chair and grabbed a cookie off of Curtis’ stack. “Anyway, that’s my fucking story. Turns out, I have my own play book now.”