The Bet

Football, they say, is a game of inches. 

A single dollar bill is roughly 6.14 inches long and 2.61 inches wide. 

If one were to stack 10,000 one-dollar bills on top of each other, that would measure 43 inches high or 3.58 feet, a shade over a yard. 

1 yard, three feet, or 36 inches was the difference between putting $16,000 in my pocket and getting my hand broken with a ball pin hammer. 

The NFC conference championship game was decided by one yard. With 12 seconds left in the contest, the running back dove forward with the ball. Stretching every inch he had in his arms to get the ball over the invisible plane, into the end zone, to solidify the win and punch his ticket to the Super Bowl. 

That running back was tackled and halted one yard short of the end zone. Twenty-four hours later, the running back's team was dispatched back to San Fransisco. At the same time, I was held down by two greasy goons while a third broke every bone in my right hand with his trim hammer. 

- 

The big game is in ten days. The team who beat San Francisco, the team from Arizona, was now set to play the team from Baltimore for the championship. I sit uncomfortably on a plastic molded chair in a windowless white concrete-walled room illuminated by flickering florescent lights. The smell of cleansing chemicals plagues the room like generations of ghosts. I gaze at a betting odds paperback booklet, mouth agape. 

A man walks through a metal swinging door and looks at me with weary red eyes and a hound dog's limp mustache plastered onto a bald head. He gives me a nod that moves back to the right, beckoning me to follow him. 

The next room resembles a gym shower room. Tiled chess pattern floors with drains every four feet by three feet without the stalls. 

A stainless steel table stands solitarily in the epicenter of the room. My mother's lifeless body relaxing on top of it. The coroner had just finished his examination. 

The dark gray sheet is lifted from her face to display the person's pale and somehow younger-looking face. 

I nod, turn and exit through the door I had entered. Baltimore was favored to win the game. They were getting 3 points. 

- 

The week before the Super Bowl, I slept at my deceased mother's house. I took the couch as my own. It was ancient and springy. Mom had died in her bed. I can't sleep on that in fear of catching her bad luck. 

My hand is now heavily bandaged and is as worthless as a wart on the end of a stick. I was instructed by the estate lawyer to start cleaning out my mother's house of all valuables before the bank came to repossess the home. I had been given two weeks. 

I emptied a new room every day, starting with the bathroom and ending with the kitchen. Trinkets, coupons, toothpicks, receipts, stamps, piles of mail, deodorant, make-up, olive oil, Christmas decorations, doilies, oven mitts, several sets of salt & pepper shakers, antique coke bottles, famous painting prints, photo albums, socks, plants, throw pillows, box fans, lawn mowers, and gas tanks. 

None of these things had $13,500 shoved inside of them. 

But a bag of Epson salt underneath the kitchen sink did. Pink bath salts in a blue sack with a small envelope just large enough to hold something a trace larger than 6.14 inches long and 2.61 inches wide. 

I discovered the cash on the sixth day of my stay at moms. The night before, I went to the ER for my hand and was discharged at 4am the following day. I walked to my mother's house, and once home, I began to clear the kitchen. 

By 7:00am, I was sitting on the kitchen floor, spreading out the one hundred and thirty-five hundred dollar bills. As soon as I saw the cash, I looked at my phone and saw it was Saturday, one day before the big game.

- 

I park in the lot of the old Chinese restaurant in the uptown district. The long red fire truck had taken every available parking space in front of the Dublin Bar. The old battered wooden door is being propped open by a high-top barstool. Behind the bar, a giant ogre is pouring shots for five jolly firefighters. When I walk in, they scold me, and all twelve eyes go red with hate. They mad dog me as I walk past the jukebox and into the men's restroom. The sticky floor creates a record scratch effect as I shuffle to the urinal. Fresh ice has been poured into the basin, and the condensation puddled off of the handle above. I hear them all laugh and sing in chorus. 

In the back of the railroad layout bar is an office behind a pine door with a Guinness Stout sign. 

I sit on the cushioned rolling chair inside that pine door and slide over the envelope that smells like Epson salts on the stainless steel desk with the old school green desk lamp. 

The woman behind the desk grabs it, smells it, and sneezes. 

"Thanks," the woman says. She slides a long red fingernail along the end of the envelope and slices it open with ease. 

"How much do I owe you?" I ask. 

She opens a drawer and brings out a black notebook, a red felt pen, and a solar-powered calculator. She uses the red pen to type on the calculator with the curved screen. She eyeballs the notebook, types some more, and says I owe $9,000. 

"It was $8200 on Monday," I say, feeling my bowels boil. 

"The wonders of compound interest." 

She takes what is owed out of the envelope and slides back the rest. 

"I'd like to place a wager," I say, pushing it back to her. 

The part of her face lit by the desk lamp is clearly frowning. 

Disappointed. 

A knock comes on the door behind me, and the big ogre from the front enters inside. He brushes by me hard, almost knocking me off the chair. 

He puts down a piece of paper with another envelope similar to mine. 

"The firebugs are all set."

She nods in joy and looks over the note. 

"Be sure you have your end in order tonight, will you?" She whispers. 

He raps his knuckles on the desk twice, turns on his heel, and is gone. 

She slides the paper and new envelope into her breast pocket, moves the black notebook to her center, and clicks the red pen open. 

"I want the points on Baltimore, parlayed with the total score over 39 points," I say. 

She makes a note and checks her phone quickly. She scrolls for a few, then makes another note. 

"$4000 parlay gets you $7200. Good?" I knew the odds from my booklet. She had shorted me, but there was nowhere else in town that would take my money.

I agree. 

"Wanna finance it?" She asks with a smile. 

I lift my right hand to show her the mangled mess of bones and tendons. 

She frowns in disgust before her lips and brow transform to sadness. 

"Never mix family with business." She says, closing the black notebook. 

I leave the bar with nothing left to lose.

-

The last bar in town to abide me darkening their door was a biker bar on the edge of town called the Night Owl. It is the last place an upright citizen with two nickels to rub together would ever want to watch the Super Bowl. 

I arrived early and drank three beers before the pretty actress/vocalist sang the National Anthem. Three minutes and twelve seconds it took her to finish that song. I used to bet on that too. 

The scrawny bartender with short blonde hair and a flat chest took pity on me by turning the volume up on the small TV in the corner to try and drown out the speed metal blasting from the digital jukebox.

The score was tied at halftime, 14 - 14, making the total 28, 11 points from 39. I technically need the points to get as high as 40. If they hit 39 or below, my bet is toast.

The other issue was Baltimore needed to win, but they needed to win by at least three points. If both scenarios come to fruition, I'll walk home with my $4000 wager plus another $7200 in winnings. Then and only then can I see my brother again. 

I was desperate, deranged, and drunk when the 4th and final quarter started. 

The score was Bal 20 - Arz 14 at the start of the 4th quarter.

Arizona quickly marched the ball into the Red Zone, their opponent's twenty-yard line. They stalled out and had a killer penalty that pushed them way back. They had to settle for a long field goal. 

The kick was a monster and would have cleared the post from 60 yards, let alone the 40 needed. 

Bal 20 - Arz 17

If the score stayed this way, I'm a goner. With five minutes left in the game, Baltimore broke off a long run that put them six yards out from the end zone. 

Two plays and a demoralizing holding penalty later; they were 18 yards out with two downs left. All they have to do is run out the clock, and the game is over. This was terrible news. If they ran out the clock, which they could because Arizona was out of time-outs, the score would be under 39 points, and Baltimore would not win by more than three points. 

The next play, a miracle happens. The quarterback, faster than he was brilliant, took off on foot quicker than lighting and saw a clear lane for him to score a touchdown and dramatically dove for the pylon that indicates the front corner of the end zone. Everyone in the stadium yelled at him to slide, run the clock out and end the game. But no, he wanted the glory he had imagined his entire life. He flew through the air like one of them fish that get tossed at Pikes Peak Market. By the grace of God, he was too short and landed out of bounds, stopping the clock at 37 seconds. Baltimore could no longer run out the clock without turning the ball over.

With no time-outs left, the Baltimore coach sends out his all-star kicker to put up 3 more points to make the game a six-point lead. 

God. Is this really going to happen? 

The biker bar, for once, began to get very silent. Even the grease balls were on the edge of their stools. The snap came clean, the hold was firm yet light, and the kick was swift as justice should be. 

Right down the middle! 

23 - 17! 

I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Forty points!" then I remembered there were still 30 seconds left in the game, and Arizona was going to get one more try to win. 

The kickoff went to the six-yard line of Arizona, which was perfect. It meant it forced the kick returner to run out instead of kneeling. 

After six heart-skipping missed tackles, the ball carrier was finally tackled at the 50-yard line. 

:18 seconds left. 

Down one: The undersized QB of Arizona rolled out to his right and threw back to his left, where a hefty bull-like running back was waiting with three blockers in front of him. It was a screen pass. 

Baltimore was not ready, and the running back went to the 30-yard line untouched until a swift linebacker caught up. 

:11 seconds left.

Down two: The nimble QB dropped back, surveyed the field to his left, then found a streaking tight end dashing across the middle. He was going to bust wide open. The short QB lofted the ball to the perfect spot where only the TE could catch it. 

Then the long arm and fingers of the Baltimore defensive end stuck his paw up as high as he could and tipped the ball up high into the air. 

The world stopped for the half second that the ball reached its apex, and for the eternal last half second it took for that bear paw to snatch it out of the air. It was an interception. Baltimore has the ball! 

The Baltimore defensive end took three steps. Two towards his end zone and one to a kneel in all the glory. 

Game over.

I toss my beer mug in the air, and it comes down hard on the sawdust floor with a thud. The bartender looks at me pitifully and laughs as she takes my pitcher away to be refilled. 

I had done it. I won. For the first time since my Mom died, I actually cried. I cried like I would never stop. The curse was finally over. 

- 

Monday morning, I called my brother to come to pick me up and said I had a surprise for him. He sadistically said he had one for me, too, but I was in a perfect mood. Not even his dreadful attitude could bring me down today. 

At noon he arrived at my Mom's house in his big body Cadillac. 

He never asked me where I wanted to go; he just started driving. To my surprise, he was moving uptown, exactly where I needed to go. To claim my $11,200. 

Slowly rolling down Main Street and making the right onto Platinum, I see the Dublin Bar, dressed in all black and taking an ashy nap.

The same firefighters I had seen two days before are winding up their hoses and heading back to the station. One notices me and smiles. He even put his hand over his heart as if he felt my soul breaking into pieces. 

With as much menace and condensation as he could muster, my brother laughs loudly, "Hope you hung on to your betting slip."

"The curse," I say softly. 

"Sorry, Champ. The dream was doomed from the start." 

- 

We drove to the Main Street Diner for lunch. I skulked into a ginger yellow booth and wanted to stick the bread knife through my eye. Both of them. 

We sat silently until the waiter took our order and returned with his milk and my ice water. 

"How'd you know about the bet?" I ask. 

"She's my competition. I have eyes everywhere, even in her bar." 

I think of the nasty bartender. I knew he was slime. Only deadly bacteria work for my brother.

"How is it coming with clearing out your mom's house?" He asks. 

"Slow. Taking out junk from each room bit by bit. Some of Dad's things were still in there."

He nods with slight amusement. 

"I am sure cleaning isn't easy with that hand." 

He points at my right hand in the soft cast.

"I manage." 

"I knew you would. As for the house, you can stop cleaning and just work on clearing out your personal belongings."

"Lawyer said I should get all her personal belongings out before they foreclose." The anger is rising in me now. Who is he to tell me how to handle my mother's home? 

"The foreclosure isn't going to happen." 

He says this with a smile and sips his milk. He left a small pencil mustache on his large upper lip, just as it was when we were kids. 

"I can see you're confused." 

"You're buying the house?" I ask. 

"In a way. You are going to sign the deed over to me. As payment for my $10,000, you gambled away." 

"But I had it. The game. I won, man. All of it! Plus some." 

"She played you, dummy. No one will ever see her again. She skipped town with a lot of people's money. She will be hung from a tree sooner or later, but buddy, you ain't ever seeing that money again." 

The world is suddenly cock-eyed. I see the world tilt to my left.

Vomit erupts from my stomach out of my mouth, and I catch most of it in my hands. Some hits the table, and a thin stream hits my brother in the chest.

"For the love of God, waiter!" 

I run to the bathroom, but both doors are occupied, so with as much dignity as I can muster, I pull my shirt over my face to catch the second wave of puke. 

I am asked to leave. Screaming is all I hear in the moist tent I had crafted in my misery. 

I sit on the curb by my brother's Caddy, wearing my winter jacket sans puke shirt. The Caddy automatically starts with two beeps and a vroom. 

He gets in, rolls down the passenger window, and says he will be by tomorrow with his lawyer to sign documents. He doesn't offer the ride. I never expected it. 

I stay sitting on the curb, looking out over the flatland of my hometown from the top of the hill that hosts its uptown. I can almost see my Mothers house from here. 

The low winter sun is already setting. 

-

Before I turn off the hot water faucet, I dump the Epson salts into the boiling water and start to undress. It takes a few minutes to get my whole body into the tub. My entire body turns red like a lobster. 

I submerge myself to my nostrils and wonder how long I can hold my breath. 

I dunk my head under. A long time, I think. 

I bet I can hold my breath for a long time. 

I bet.