New Gospel

For want of religion, Arthur McGovern spends most days wrestling one-armed bandits at the Miner’s Claim Casino in Blackhawk, Colorado. On this day, he’s hunkered down in front of a Wild West-themed slot machine called Buffalo Bill’s Round-Up. Dropping in the requisite token, he reaches across the machine awkwardly to pull the lever with his opposite hand. At his age, he must alternate his pulling arm to keep from wearing out his shoulders. The wheel revolves through cartoon illustrations of mining equipment, gold nuggets, and precious stones. Luck comes when the pictures line up in the perfect combination. Arthur doesn’t come to the machines to try his luck; he comes to them for warped catharsis. The slots are proof of his life philosophy, that happiness is determined randomly, and perfect combinations are built to break. Outside of those two truths, he believes in very little.

Blackhawk is a hop, skip and jump from the old mountain home where Arthur has been wiling away his retirement. His whole career he had raced toward these days of nothing. Now that they’re here, he has no idea what the hell to do with them.

The Miner’s Claim is one of the smaller gambling rooms on the Blackhawk strip. Six tables for blackjack, one more each for craps and roulette. The slots take up the rest of the space. Eight rows of chirping, polished chrome machines line the right side of the casino. Their names range from the mythical to the nautical—Neptune’s Bounty, The Tomb of Anubis, Blackbeard’s Plunder. Arthur isn’t one for the sociable games, and he no longer has the patience for card strategy, so he bides his time at the slots exclusively.

He knows the malevolent workings of this place. He knows the casino has no windows so that he can never tell the time of day, so he will lose track of how long he has been there. He knows the comped rooms and meals are a pittance compared to the ungodly sums he’s poured down the throats of those infernal slots. And still he feeds them. As he had fed the ungrateful mouths of children long gone to brighter places, better lives. Just a phone call away, they tell him. Except for all the times when he calls and the phone rings on into nothing.

Unlike phone calls, pulling the lever of a slot machine is an action always met with a reward. Win or lose, Arthur is greeted with bright jingles and flashing lights. And he knows the bells and lights are meant to deliver his brain just enough serotonin to keep him pulling. Just like he knows the billboards lining the road on the way to Blackhawk are calling out to him specifically: Gambling Addiction? Get Help Today. He races past these warning signs in his Lexus coupe, often raising two middle fingers in their general direction, hoping the car will swerve so he can finally leave this world behind.

He feeds his machine absentmindedly, thinking, as he usually does, about when things were different. Renee was the difference. She kept the family intact. She kept his mind from drifting to vicious places. She made the world softer, more livable. And then she was gone. A brain aneurysm during her usual walk in the park. The paramedics didn’t even attempt resuscitation.

In between plays, Arthur sips Diet Coke with Lime from a big, souvenir plastic cup. He refuses the complimentary alcohol, at least. Renee hated drinking.  Along with the free food and rooms and the lack of windows, booze might loosen him up so much that he never leaves at all. He practically lives at the Miner’s Claim already--commuting to and from four days a week, staying overnight the other three. But sobriety is the last vestige of self-control he intends to take to his grave.

His souvenir cup of Coke sits next to an identical one full of brass tokens. Another trick. Each day he exchanges cash for these Chuck E. Cheese coins so he can feel like he’s playing a kid’s game instead of flushing away his life’s savings.  

Now knee deep in an especially bad losing streak, with his iced Coke melted down to water mostly, Arthur decides to go for a refill. He’s just about to get up when another gambler sits down at the machine beside him. A woman of thirty of so, slouching into the pleather seat like she’s just reached the end of an endless journey. Breathing in deep, she drops her own cup full of tokens into one of the two cupholders on the front of the device.

From the neck down, the woman looks like Sinatra ready to play Saturday night at the Bellagio. Crisp, all-black three-piece suit, a dove white cummerbund and tie, and a pair of crocodile penny loafers polished to a mirror shine. From the neck up, she looks like hell warmed over. Eyes puffy from crying, deep purple bags underneath. Her curly auburn hair lies flat and tangled, like the flames of a dying fire.

Arthur clocks everything about the woman’s appearance from the far corner of his eye, doing nothing to acknowledge her arrival. He sits at this same row of machines every day, on the outer periphery of the casino floor. A hiding place that the other strays always sniff out eventually. He wants them to come because he could use the company, but he’s careful to never be the one to start a conversation. Knowing how lonely he looks, he doesn’t want to come off as the old, nosy solitaire.

Fumbling irritably through her jacket pockets, the woman pulls out a flask and a pill container in the same hand. Using her other hand to open the medication, she raises the orange cylinder to her lips and tips in an indiscriminate dose. Shoving the pill bottle back into her jacket, she unscrews the flask and washes the pills back with a big swig.

Arthur feels a stab of concern blooming in his chest. The woman is around his daughter Kara’s age, though the two look nothing alike. Kara is a spitting image of her mother, dark brown hair and sharp features--like a sparrow, he always said. It hurts Arthur to look at Kara nowadays, but a different kind of hurt from what he’s feeling for his new, dejected neighbor.

After fumbling the flask back into her jacket, she pops in her first token and tugs the lever with a sigh. Collapsing back in her chair, she closes her eyes and listens to the wheel whirring. When the machine pings victoriously, her eyes flash open and she straightens up. A few dollars in quarters clink down into the change tray by her knees.

‘Hell yeah,” she cheers brusquely, looking in Arthur’s direction.

Glancing sideways, he congratulates her with a tired smile.

“You know, I’ve never actually used one of these things,” she says, staring into the machine’s fluorescent oblivion, feeding back a few of the quarters she’s just won. “Usually more of a craps gal, but I figured I’d hole up over here since I don’t feel like being around people.”

“Well, don’t mind me.” Tightening up at the shoulders, Arthur turns away and hunches closer to his machine.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant,” she lays a hand on his shoulder, sending a jackpot tingle shivering down his spine. “You I don’t mind.” 

Arthur turns back towards her and sees she’s smiling, an expression totally out of place on the worn horror of her face. “So, I’m not people then?” He asks, smiling back.

“No, man. You’re just a person. A person I can handle. It’s people I can’t do.” Laughing mirthlessly, she swings a dismissive arm behind her head toward the rest of the casino floor.

Her smile is bright, a bit more than he can handle. “Well—ahem!” To clear the frog from his throat, he takes a long of his watery Diet Coke. “Well, you haven’t been missing out. These things are a waste of fucking time.”

“That so?” She looks him up and down. “You seem to be pretty engaged.”

“Well, when you get to by my age, you’ve got nothing but time to waste.” Pulling the lever, coming up with nothing, he nods at the wheel to make his point.

“Oh, don’t worry man,” the woman breathes in a ragged sigh, plays her own machine. “It ain’t always about age. I’m twenty-six and I feel like I’ve been wasting time and perfectly good air from the moment I arrived on this planet. You know, I’m actually on my second life.” There’s another little jingle as a few more quarters drop into her tray.

“Huh.” Ernest raises his eyebrows in mock surprise. He’s heard far crazier shit from the other hard-luck gamblers who always find their way to him.

“Yeah, my heart stopped in the womb.” After pulling a bad round, she goes for her flask again. “They had to chop my mom open and drag me out. I guess I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic. And I always tell her they should have just let me go.”

“Jesus.” Arthur says, turning toward the woman with a disapproving glare. “What makes a nice young lady like you say a terrible thing like that?”

“Ha. How long you got, brother?”

Arthur shrugs, shows her his half-full cup of quarters. “Take me about ten minutes to get through this. Then I’m grabbing lunch. Or maybe I’ll call it dinner.” He checks his watch and reads 4:45 pm, meaning he’s been here for close to five hours.

“Well, to start at the end of an extravagantly long line of fuck-ups,” the woman begins, taking another pull from her flask, “my girl left me today.”

Arthur does raise his eyebrows at that detail, but quickly lowers them before she can notice.

“Just last night we were playing dress-up”, the woman gestures jadedly up and down her three piece suit, “having the time of our worthless fucking lives.´ Just this morning, she was gone.”

“Well, I’m real sorry to hear that,” Arthur says, meaning it.

“S’alright. At least she left a note. That sets her apart from most folks who have kicked me to the curb. Real nice note, too.”

Arthur doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing.

“You know what that’s like, man?” The woman asks, abruptly earnest. “To you have your woman leave you?”

“No,” Arthur replies, pulling his lever again. “But I know what it’s like to have her taken away.” Fixing his eyes on the rolling golden nuggets, picks, and diamonds, he bites his lip to hold back tears.

“Fuck, man.” She lays her hand on his shoulder again, and, for the smallest instant, the gesture makes everything alright. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you.”

They sit for a while in companionable silence. Neither winning shit, though, at least for Arthur, the company makes the losing sting less.

“You ever get afraid of your own voice?” The woman asks suddenly, after an indeterminate amount of time.

Arthur stops playing and turns all the way toward her, getting his first good look into her eyes. They are hazel, like his son Jake’s. Pretty, though dulled by the glare of the slot machine and the effects of whatever medication she’s on.

Renee was big on eye contact. Arthur had a way of looking away when they talked after he’d made her upset. She would tell him that keeping eye contact was the real measure of a man. That any man could say I love you or piss you off, but only a real one could do either while looking you dead in the eye.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Arthur replies, nodding sympathetically and trying to hold her gaze. Seeing that she’s nervous, verging on tears, he turns away. “What makes you ask?” he mumbles gruffly, taking another swig of Diet Coke to clear his throat.

“I can feel myself caving in is all,” she says, looking down at her feet. “I feel like she was the first person I ever met who helped me not be afraid of my own voice. Shit, if I hadn’t met her, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now. Striking up a conversation with some stranger in a casino. Spilling my guts. I just—”

She stops suddenly, and Arthur glances sideways as she shows him that nervous look again, like she needs something from him.

“I know what you mean,” steeling himself, he turns back and faces her straight on with a soft stare. “My wife, Renee, she did the same thing for me. Opened me up. Got me out of my head. Helped me to feel a bit less worried socializing, going to parties. Just… talking for the sake of it.”

“Well, what kept you from throwing in the towel when she passed?” The woman asks. There are tears glistening on her long lashes now.

“Well, I’m not sure I haven’t.” Arthur nods again toward the slot machine, then motions wide at the stale, tobacco-scented void all around them.

This devastates her. Her features slacken into a ghoulish expression and some of the tears begin to fall. Shrinking back in fear, Arthur is overcome with a sudden need to make it all better.

“But I’ll tell you one thing,” slapping his knee authoritatively, he searches his mind for the wise old guy thing he ought to say right about now. “At least I’m leaving the damn house. Coming here to waste my money, sure, but also hoping that I’ll meet someone like you. Someone to talk to just for the sake of it.”

The woman smiles again, and Arthur beams with pride. He had forgotten how good it can feel to cheer a kid up.

“And hey,” he goes on, confidence booming. “At least you got out of bed and came down from your hotel room. I know what kind of hell that must have been, but some days that’s the best we can do. Because you can’t live your whole life up here,” he lays his ring finger on his temple. “And if it took someone else to pull you out, well god bless ‘em. But once you’re out, you’re out, darling. You don’t have to go back in there,” he taps his temple again. “Even if you haven’t got them around to lean on anymore.”

Lost in the thrill of his pep talk, Arthur had begun to look past the woman and into all the glorious neon around her head. As she comes back into focus, he sees that the smile has faded from her face, and his heart begins to sink.

Evidently noticing his disappointment, she lowers her eyes and wipes the tears away. “What’s your name, man?” She asks, still staring down at the grim reflection in her shoes.

“Arthur. Yours?” He offers his hand.

“Zeena,” she says, locking his fingers in a firm shake. “It’s been real nice talking with you, Arthur. And I appreciate your words of wisdom. I really do.”

“Don’t know about wisdom," he mumbles in defeat. "But I’ve really enjoyed talking with you, too.”

“I’m glad.” As Zeena lets his hand go, she looks up and he sees that her eyes have glazed over again. “Looks like my tank is on empty, though,” she shows him her flask. “So I better be making my way to the bar.”

Rising uneasily, Zeena begins to gather her things.

“Hey, now,” says Arthur, laying a hand on her shoulder, feeling like his voice is coming from somewhere else. “I think you ought to join me for dinner.”

“You think so?” She raises her eyebrows at him.

“Yeah, I do.” Arthur raises his souvenir cup to her, grinning big. “Stick with me, honey, and you’ll drink free all night.”