Stuck on Walk

Odds (Short Fiction)

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

The walk sign at Covent and Ashmore has been stuck on walk for two years, the kind of time where you know an old lady took a bus to a city council meeting to complain about it.

Someone is gonna get killed.

No one has yet because I would have known about it.

Big city, but a small neighborhood.

Chuckie Marquardt is gonna ask me for a few bucks before I get on the bus.

Saniyann Winston is walking up Ashmore in a dress so tight her sweat must be building up inside her.

Double Z has a fresh bottle of wine between his legs, smiling. Only time he doesn’t smile is when the Alternachurch Van pulls up and they try to get him sober with Jesus.

Chuckie slaps me on the inside of the elbow to get my attention to bum him some money.

I hate being touched on the inside of the elbow.

No. Lick my ass, Chuckie, you aren’t getting any money today.

The rednecks who live on the other side of Parkway still call Chuckie “Chickie” from when he used to wear eyeliner, used to want to be Mike Ness. Chuckie was a junkie and a shitbag guitar player, which is weird because I’ve known some junkies who were great.

I get to the casino about ten minutes to one.See the same electrician vans in the parking lot I always see. Some deli somewhere is down a cooler because some fuckstick thinks his craps strategy is gonna buy him Lions season tickets.

Maryelle is here, on the Buffalo Gold next to my Dancing Drums machine,her oxygen on wheels next to her. Someone knitted her a little decorative thing to go on it, like the oxygen tank has a hat.Maybe she knitted it herself but if she could knit I think she would have told me.

I pull the chair to the left, closer to the winning ticket cash out than the slot you put your money in.

Positive Mental Attitude.

I’m gonna take more out than I put in.

I crack the knuckle on my left ring finger, the finger that would have a ring on it, probably, if Shannon Adronicz hadn’t been a lesbian. She wasn’t a lesbian when we were freshman, far as I could tell.

I say “C’mon, Pete” after I put eighty bucks in fives in the money slot, right before I push the first button.

Maryelle thought my name was Pete at first, thought I was pumping myself up.

But Pete ain’t my name.

Pete was the name of the harness driver I was yelling at from the rail at Hazel Park Harness Raceway, the night I hit my only trifecta.

Animal rights protesters used to stand across the street saying the race track was cruel to animals.

The race track is gone now.

Wasn’t because the protests worked, it’s because Amazon bought the property. Now it’s a massive fulfillment center, thousands of humans toiling in a building with no windows, and there aren’t any protesters with signs about cruelty to humans.

I tap my left knee with my left middle finger and press the button, max bet, start big then massage the machine a little bit. Decrease the bet, make the machine think you’re gonna walk away if they don’t give you a little win to tickle your endorphins.

Maryelle is leaning in to her screen, looks like she doesn’t feel well.

I don’t ask, because I don’t talk to her. I let her talk to me then sometimes I answer. That way I don’t upset her rhythm, and she can’t upset my routine, not by talking, anyway.

Maryelle hits a mini-Jackpot for 17 bucks. That ain’t even a jackpot, but that’s what they call it. Then she tells me that they are probably taking her drivers license away because her eyesight is so bad.

She’s biting her upper lip with her lower teeth and she looks so damn sad I don’t know what to say and I’m not good at saying stuff anyway. I think lots of stuff, too much stuff, but I mostly keep it between my brain and me.

After a few more spins Maryelle asks what kind of car I have.

“I don’t,” I tell her, “ I take the bus.”

She tells me she’s afraid of the bus.

I nod, because I understand someone like her being afraid of the bus.

Maryelle has been sitting at the slot next to me for about three years. I know she’s got one grandchild who lives in Moscow, Idaho, and that sometimes she leaves the Idaho part out because that sounds more interesting and I know she smoked 2 packs of Virginia Slims a day until she quit the day of her sister’s funeral and I know she won some kind of award for non-profit accounting in the late 70’s but I don’t know where she lives.

I want it to be along the Gratiot line, because Jaquerion Viles rides the Gratiot, almost all day, every day. Jaquerion Viles has issues, big ones, but he wouldn’t let no one touch an old lady on the bus.

Honestly, there are more dudes on the bus like Jaquerion Viles than there are dudes who would mess with an old lady with oxygen tubes in her nose, but that’s not an easy thing to convince people of once that fear burrows inside them.

Maryelle says the doctor says she will be blind, eventually, if she lives long enough.

Because she spoke first I ask her where she lives, then I tap my left knee four times against the Dancing Drums machine because I had 5 Jacks, just not all on the same reel.

She says Grainer Park, and that’s the Lafayette bus line. It’s the next line over from the route I take. I could walk half a mile, take the Lafayette the wrong way to Grainer Park, meet Maryelle, then ride into the casino with her.

I’m thinking this while I feel the slot heating up.

It doesn’t emit warmth, I just mean the way the symbols are dropping on the screen it feels good, feels like it’s ready to pop, feels like it’s going to spit me out some winners.

I rub the right heel of my shoe on the carpet.

In my head, silently, I hum Hail to the Victors.

Maryelle is telling me a story, a long one for Maryelle, about why she likes to drive.

I’m missing details, but that’s okay because the Dancing Drums slot is feeling friendlier, like it is ready, willing, happy to give me a good payout.

She met a man driving.

Queens in both top corners, I touch my knees together.

“Beautiful music,” I hear Maryelle say.

I go max bet again.

Progressive jackpot is at 44,651.

Nothing.

Gonna stay at max bet. Crack the index finger on both hands with the squeeze of their own thumb.

At 44K I can give Maryelle bus fare for a year.

I tell the machine, telepathically, that I need to win to give this old, oxygen dependent, going- blind lady bus fare.

Max bet again.

The reels whir and spin, because that’s what reels do.

Maryelle says “guitar was gone.”

Some people think slot machines are entirely random. But they’re not. They’re programmed to respond a certain way to certain things like bet amount, time of day, etc.

Maryelle says “If I can’t drive, I can’t stop at the park on the way home.”

I max bet again and slip my right hand under my right leg.

Maryelle says “Vincent would absolutely spit out his supper laughing at me for buying a stranger a guitar.”

Vincent was Maryelle’s husband. He took her to Vegas, she told me, and got her hooked on slots. He died on Valentine’s Day. She told me that on Valentine’s Day. I had a good slot day that day.

The reels spin and stop on a tiny, attaboy, keep going win. Not even enough credits for a max bet.

“Anyway, he might be dead for all I know,” Maryelle says, and taps the max bet on her machine.

“Wait” I say, “I thought your husband died years ago.”

“Oh he did, silly. I’m talking about Chickie, the man I bought the guitar for. He played so beautifully.”

I feed eighty dollars into the Dancing Drums.

Maryelle has to be talking about Chuckie Marquardt.

She’s been playing slots right next to me for years. It’s… she’s…comfortable. She’s… I guess she’s my friend.

And I don’t want her to know I know Chuckie Marquardt.

“The buffaloes and elk aren’t cooperating today,” Maryelle said.

“You bought a stranger in a park a guitar?”

“He played me some songs a few times…not a total stranger…I stopped by one day… and he was alone, in the park. Someone stole his guitar…”

No one stole Chuckie Marquardt’s guitar. Chuckie Marquardt sold two guitars.

Maryelle paid for one of them.

I slid my chair slightly closer to the cashout slot.

Cracked the knuckle on my left ring finger, say “ C’mon Pete,” and hit max bet.

Maryelle is pressing the wager button on her slot machine, oxygen pumping into her nostrils.

I wanna push Chuckie Marquardt in front of a bus.

The Dancing Drums slot feels cold.

Maryelle is going blind.

Staring at the machine, listening to the gong, I tell it to spit me out some money so I can buy Maryelle’s car.

I’m waiting for her to say something, anything, so I can ask her if she wants to sell it.

*****