Pass Line

Life is a Gamble

The sky was that strange blue-orange mix when the sun just cracked the horizon, a color that no one he knew could name.

The craps table has its own energy, own rhythm, and those two things can shackle you there longer than you ever intended to stay.

It wasn’t just the gambling. Ask anyone, Gareth Tomlin thought. It’s easier to jump from a blackjack table or skate from a roulette wheel than it is to ditch a dice run.

Tabitha’s favorite song came on satellite radio and Gareth thought he might have broken the display screen with his class ring when he swatted it off.

Tabitha might file this time. Even though he was up. Way up. Crazy, every deity from Babylon to L.Ron Hubbard smiling down on Gareth, on the pass line, on chips so thick he had to go to four cashiers just to keep the payoff in stacks of old bald Bens instead of a check. A pit boss noticed him and got him a two-person security escort to the car.

But the sun was up, he was done lying to Tabitha-not that it would matter, she’d know-and winning or not, he’d have to accept the consequences.

Gareth tapped his fingers on the dash, trying to conjure up the term.

Thrum, three fingers. Tap tap tap with his index. 

Pirate?

Pilates?

Fiero?

Pyrrhic.

All the cash in his pocket was a Pyrrhic victory.

He cut down Lawndale, mostly to get the sharply rising sliver of sun out of his eyes.

A man with a box stumbled from the third house.

It was early.

Was that guy getting kicked out?

Was he drunk?

Gareth eyed the berms down Lawndale. It couldn’t be trash day, no one else’s garbage was out.

The box wobbled as though the man had packed it so unevenly he couldn’t even balance it on a flat walk down the driveway.

Gareth thought about stopping to help.