I rarely make post but I have a friend who is in some type of writing contest and this is his story of his life with gambling. This is exactly what he is submitting. Please let me know what you guys think of it good or bad. This is all 100% true.
Same Story, Different Face
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Blank page…The cursor flicks as if it has something to say. It has a story to tell and it is me who separates the story from destiny. The page begs for a memoir but the memory itself is hardly as poetic sounding as “memoir,” or shall be a knife compared to a sword. As I stare out the window, nothing has my attention, it’s just me versus me…and I’m numb from memories past, a ghost of a gamblers spirit. My wrist is weighted down by the heavy gun-metal band of my watch. The unforgiving steel digs into my skin like the fangs of a viper into its innocent prey. Twelve years I’ve worn this watch with no complaints. Twelve years. I’m taking the ******* thing off so I can write.
Finally, free from restraint, I ball my “un-cuffed” hand into a fist and massage at my wrist as though I was wearing away the years, the anger, the loss, the what might have been, the could’ve been, the will never bees, the mistakes, the good, the bad…my twenties. If, at 35, I could simply rub my temples and do the same to the memory, if, if, if. If ever, now’s my chance, the keyboards loaded and my fingers are on the trigger, should I pull it? Do I tell this story so elegantly dubbed a “memoir”…why the **** not.
What I’m about to tell you is not gruesome nor, did it ever make the news. What it did do is altar my life drastically. 360 degrees squared is what I believe the mathematical equation would be but hell…I failed algebra four times in college. Eventually, I paid a fellow student $600 to take it online for me. He got an A, and so that is how my college transcript reads. I never said this was a story about Good Will Hunting. I never claimed to walk the line. I only want to live a good life…like you. And this is the exorcism of me.
This is me...A rather unassuming guy, 150 dollar pair of shoes, 130 pair of jeans, nice shirt, coat, O.S.U hat on backwards and a watch that I had got as a gift. Pretty undetectable, now here's the kicker. I just got off the red-eye from Vegas and those 150 dollar pair of shoes...huh...478 and tax, 130 dollar pair of jeans...they were closer to 6, nice shirt...yeah, it's Versace, coat too, O.S.U. hat, twenty-five bucks at Kohl’s, had that for two years, and the watch...The watch, as I said before, was a gift from a friend. Throughout my life I've heard that some things are best left unsaid: I'm familiar with that phrase, but this story...this one time...this part of my life has to be told. At 35, I've never been married, never been engaged, had one serious girlfriend, attended multiple community colleges and one state school, I have a brother, two step-sisters, two handfuls of friends, great parents and an overall good life, but if you listen...Reeeeaaaaally listen to my story...You'll see how by allowing myself one, just one mistress, how I've put into jeopardy all and everything that I hold dear. How I've compromised my integrity, my devotion, my...Me! How I've put those around me second when my genetic makeup tells me to put those who are close to me first, how I've grappled with the goodwill in my heart, how I let Goliath beat David, how I succumbed to the temptation of eating the fruit from a fruitless tree. This IS the past ten years of my life... (Sigh) A decade...A god damn decade!
To some people wide receiver Randy Moss might be synonymous with a great wide receiver in the NFL, to others, maybe they think about Marshal University and the quintessential career that he had there. And yet others might bring up his minor legal problems in college, or the early NFL years that he was mentored by the great Chris Carter, but ya know what I think about...Ya wanna know what Randy Moss did for me in the fall of 1998? He introduced me to what would become the happiest, fuckin' hate this shit, most glorious, jacked-off bullshit, can't wait to the weekend, what the **** am I doin' days of my compelling life. He handed me the keys to the chastity belt of the woman who would consume my every thought over the next (as I said before) ten years of my life, the next ten years.
1998 Randy Moss's rookie year and the score of the first game is, Minnesota Vikings 31 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 7. Now, I don't give a **** about either team but in this particular case, I needed The Vikes to win by 3 to cover the spread...Hell, who couldn't use an extra 200 bucks! Everybody waited for Moss's fuckup moment, his big let-down, cuz that’s how people are, the guy gets a fuckin’ marijuana charge in college and his draft status drops and all the sudden he's the Charles Manson of the NFL draft and his whole career's gonna be a let-down, ha, not my horse, not Randy Moss. He continued to tear up the NFL that year and Vegas and the odds makers never caught on, they didn't allow for the Moss variable when they made the lines. Now, maybe I was naive, maybe they did allow for this, but I couldn't tell. I kept sendin' it on Moss and his Vikings week after week and eventually had a good little grip of cash for doin' nothing but being right on a football game. This can't be right, can it? I love you babe...and the season went on…I love you...the money I collected ever y week felt real, it spent real...I love you even more...Everything about it was real, can't wait for next season...That was 1998. Young love is always perfect because we are yet to figure out the flaws that inevitably lie in wait.
Fall 1999, I'm not rich, in fact, far from it. Honestly, I'm still bouncin' at strip clubs in South Florida but at 22 what the **** do I care. To some, that ain't bad, get to see some
and ass for free, hit the after-hours shit, occasional threesomes, it's all routine. To most, it's a known fact that strippers aren't REALLY paying their way through college, unless you consider cocaine and ecstasy abuse a highly sought after career. The closest thing these girls get to a bachelors’ degree is a two-for-one lap dance on some CEO's rooster while his wife thinks that he's workin' late from the office. Me, I didn't always fit in there, I love the scene, but just had a different mind-set. They were gettin' high on schedule one drugs meanwhile last season was the gateway to the drug of my choice...SPORTSBETTING! The Minnesota Vikings were 12-5 against the spread that year. That means I won two and a half more times than I lost. I can't think of a single god damn investment opportunity that pays that percent...tax free! Here's the best part the way I figure. Last year, I ONLY bet on one team...this year, I'm gonna bet on all of'em and really make good on my money. Its drop-tops and V.I.P come kickoff this year. I got 30 more teams to bet on and my “guy," my “guy" ...pays every week!
WEEK 10!!!!! I'm supposed to be at the club for work by 4:00 but that’s not gonna happen today. Ya see, it's Sunday and the 4:05 games all kickoff in the next seven minutes. I'm taking a pretty good beating, but if these two games can come through I could still be in decent shape, by that I mean only $1,500 down. If they don't come through, I'm down nearly $2,500 and that… that just isn't good. I've got the money, plus a few grand more, but I'm not tryin' to lose my V.I.P status all in one afternoon. If these two games can just hang-on until the two minute warning I'm good. I can rebound from a $1,500 deficit because there's a game comin' on that I really like. I can make up some ground. The problem is, I can't bet heavy on it right now cuz if these two games don't come through and I lose, then I can't afford to double down and make this shit right. Its three minutes after 4 o’clock and I gotta get my next bet in if I'm gonna do it. One of my games just went into overtime. I can't go out on a limb here cuz if I lose, I'm screwed, so I stick $800 on my "really like" bet and head for the door...I'm gonna be late, but I'm never late, the club will understand this one time.
Five weeks later, week 15 of the NFL season. “Are you ready for some football?” Hank Williams Jr. works the crowd on ESPN’s pre-recorded Monday Night Football commercial. (This, of course, many years before the iconic sports station separated ties with the country music legend for his remarks regarding President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner’s golf outing being compared to Hitler playing golf with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.) It’s been five weeks since I was late for my first shift at the strip-club but that $800 bet on the game that I “really liked” paid off so what the **** do I care if I’m twenty minutes late to some bullshit job? The answer to that question is: I don’t care. This attitude will become a theme over the next ten years of my life. I didn’t not care because I could live off of $800, I didn’t care because I realized how easily I could make $800 and that my friends, makes it really hard to punch a clock for ten bucks an hour. In fact, I’ve been late a couple times since and have been disciplined for my performance at work because I was trying to get updates on games throughout my work shifts. Apparently, cocaine and prostitution is fine but sports-betting is a definite no-no if you work at a strip club.
Hank Jr. had already asked me “If I was ready for some football?” which means we are minutes away from kickoff. I’m on the phone with my “guy” hiding in the back room like some kind of junkie tappin’ his fuckin’ forearm trying to get a god damn vein to pop out so I can place my next bet when my boss finds me. He’s pissed because some douche bag trying to impress a stripper needs his god damn tuna steak seared and I’m nowhere to be found…**** HIM! Are you ******* kidding me? So I stick my god damn spread sheet back in my wallet and head out to the dining room to see what this rooster **** wants…seared? Shut the **** up!
“Sir, how can I help you? I hear that there is a problem with your meal.” Really I could care less about his meal. All I’m thinking about is getting this problem fixed so I can sneak back into the kitchen and call my “guy” to get this bet in before kickoff.
Ya see, this was an upscale strip-club (as if… That just means the same ole pussy costs twice as much) in South Florida where these desperate ***** could offer one of the clubs many girls with daddy issues a fine dinner and try to impress her with his wallet because his 60 year old pecker didn’t work. The dining room was attached to the “performance hall” and thus made for great live entertainment while one would eat an expensive ala carte meal with a girl young enough to be his daughter…or grand for that matter.
“This tuna is not seared. I ordered it seared.” Is what he said. What I heard was: “Look kid, I’m obviously above you in our social caste system and I’m trying to **** this girl by impressing her with my knowledge of how to cook a ******* PIECE OF FISH.”
There I stood in my pristine black tuxedo, short on both, time and giving a ****. I needed to get this problem resolved and quick. Monday night only offers one football game and it was the last game of the betting week. Hank, had already asked ME if I was ready for some football before my rooster sucking boss interrupted me with this bullshit about some seared tuna. I needed my last fix. The game, ANY game, had become my needle. The bet had become my drug. I NEEDED the proverbial needle in my arm, the glass dick. I can feel the demons tapping my forearm under my jacket in search of a vein. My bowtie fastened ever so right, hands at my side as to appear proper. I tilted my head and squinted my eyes sharply, staring at the jackass in front of me. What I wanted to do was tell this dude to **** off and walk out the door. What I did do was; told the dude to “**** off” and walked out the door. It was a fun job but someone else can deal with his ******* tuna…I ain’t the one.
A couple years pass. I’ve had some good hits along the way, both hands filled with rolls of $100 bills. I’d definitely won more than I had lost. Don’t worry, that’s all about to change. Now that I look back, I wish I would have sipped on the calendar like it was fine bourbon, slowed down ya know, like my grandfather telling a story, savior it Jerry, savior it. I wish I would have let the rocks melt, take away some of the bite, the edge. I wish I hadn’t poured the last seven years into a three ounce glass and thrown it back like it was a shot of well tequila…hold the wheels. 2005 I’m in the middle of bum-******-nowhere but they got beer…and the game is on. By the time I walk in its third and goal and a field-goal will win the game. The problem is… I don't give a **** who wins... I need the goddamn points... I need a touchdown. Goin' into Saturday morning I'm down a little over three stacks bettin' on the NBA and my W-2 from last year reads just over $12,000...You see where I'm at…What the problem might be? These fuckin' cocksuckers take a knee in the middle of the field, now it's fourth and goal from the eight; here comes the field-goal unit. "Moootthhheeer Fucker!" The swearin' doesn't help, in fact, it only intensifies my emotions. "I hope this piece of shit misses the fuckin' field-goal and they lose the goddamn game outright "**** THEM, I don't give a shit if I am from their home town, ****'EM!" Ya know what the shit of it all is? I would've never bet on that game if it wasn't for the so-called EXPERTS. I didn't know shit about that game, but they all had it picked as their unanimous landslide upset of the week, so what do I do...I FUCKIN' SEND IT! I'm down three stacks but I want to make that back, and then some, so I put five large on it..."A GOD DAMN FIELD GOAL! ARE YOU FUCKIN' KIDDING, ME!" It's only Saturday afternoon and now I owe nine large with the juice and my "guy" won't take any more action from me cuz he knows I don't make it like that. Problem is...I don't got what I owe'em. My god damn stomachs turnin' so bad I can't even focus on what the people around me are sayin'. Have you ever seen your favorite pet get hit by a fuckin' car? You run out there to grab'em up and he's no longer whimpering because even the dog knows that he's dyin'. His eyes focused on you sayin' "how could you let this happen to me? I thought you loved me." Yeah, that’s how my god damn gut feels. I’m physically sick. Tuesday is “pay day” and I’ve only got $2,300 of the $9,4-and change that I owe. I’ve had two and a half days to mentally go bankrupt, and I succeeded. It was epic. I’d never ****** up that bad in my life up until that point. My “guy” wasn’t happy but he took what I had and put me on a payment plan…Hair of the dog, I found another “guy” and bet on air, on nothing. I simply bet that I wouldn’t lose until I came up with the money to pay my previous debt. It took me two weeks…this time. A Pollack should never play Russian roulette…When in Rome, Jerry…When in Rome.
2007-2009. What the ****! I know better, or should’ve. It’s not like me, but it was me. I would never do that…again, again, and again, but I did, I did, I did. (It’s the same old story: She only smokes when she drinks.) But this story doesn’t have a punch-line, this ain’t a joke. No green eggs and ham here. I just ******* derailed. The train was doing mach-ten. Jet engines on a goddamn ten speed. “Look ma’, no hands.” Uh-huh…I can see the footprints in the sand…they’re not mine. I don’t recognize myself…Gone. Same face, Pops…different story. You’re son ****** up.
“We can do this Jerry, come on man.” The only thing missing from this statement was: “Trust me.”
I’ve never been one for peer-pressure but it sounded good. That’s a lie. I didn’t want anything to do with it, that’s the truth. And here it is, the “but,” the money sounded good. All I had to do was call in the bets and use my name. The plan was simple. If I win; I collect, If I lose; ****’EM. And so it went. My friend knew all the bookies, of which none of them knew me, and he introduced me to them over the phone. The arrangement was structured as follows; I could bet up to one thousand dollars a game until I reached a cap of $15,000 to the negative…and so the plan was set in motion I bet $1,000 on a game…EVERY GAME and stood back to admire the beautiful disaster of what would come to be the next two and a half years of my life. I was betting $30,000 to $50,000 on any given weekend. I had no job. I had no bank account. I had no money (that I was going to give them.) What I did have over those two and a half years was eight different bookies of whom I owed varying amounts of money, including two of them in excess of $25,000 and $30,000. ****’EM!
Let me tell you what I’ve learned about gambling: YOU CANNOT WIN! Here me out. You can have pockets full of money and buy extravagant things. You can **** money off like you were printing it at home. You can impress your friends by picking up big tabs when shit goes right. You can buy designer this and designer that. You can impress some young lady with a role of $100 bills. You can act as though money is nothing. And FINALLY, you would be right. Money is nothing compared to your spirit, your soul, your character. Gambling is of the undead. It will suck the life out of you and move on to the next victim, different face…same story. Money like that comes and goes but you cannot get back the times you missed out on because you “had to watch the game.” You can’t get back that date that you blew off or the occasion(s) you let your girl down because all she wanted was to have a nice dinner with her man but “honey, the game comes on in ten minutes.” You can’t get it back fellas. The countless hours reading up on games and injury reports that tomorrow won’t even matter. That time is gone. It’s a disease and EVERY GAME IS THE SUPERBOWL. Hell, I don’t ever recall the leaves changing colors from 1998 until 2009 but I could tell you the score of damn near every football game. Since 2010 I’ve taken the time to go for long walks in the Fall…down along the Cumberland and Black Rivers. I’ve stopped to admire the majestic oaks and there beautiful colors and I can assure you this; Michelangelo’s easel doesn’t have anything on God’s. I’ll take that for a $1,000.
Sitting here now in my time of reflection, the mirror has cleared. The steam has all vanished and through the glasses scratched surface, I can clearly see my mistake…the misspent youth. I recall a time when this very same mirror held no battle scars…When the reflection revealed not a single defect. When steam did not gather and roll down its surface like tears. But as time has taken its toll on me, it has too, wore at the surface of my trusted old friend. And so here I sit. Scratched but not broken, with time, and with place. Wore, but not out. The mirror talks and patiently, I listen with my eyes. This time it is not steam that rolls down the mirrors surface, it is tears that pillage my cheeks and lips. It’s tears that free-fall from my jawline to my chest as if they were a reckless kid betting the odds against a criminal underworld. Here I am world…My soul, my anguish, my search, my sins, my mirror, my tears, my life… my story.
Same Story, Different Face
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</O<O</OBlank page…The cursor flicks as if it has something to say. It has a story to tell and it is me who separates the story from destiny. The page begs for a memoir but the memory itself is hardly as poetic sounding as “memoir,” or shall be a knife compared to a sword. As I stare out the window, nothing has my attention, it’s just me versus me…and I’m numb from memories past, a ghost of a gamblers spirit. My wrist is weighted down by the heavy gun-metal band of my watch. The unforgiving steel digs into my skin like the fangs of a viper into its innocent prey. Twelve years I’ve worn this watch with no complaints. Twelve years. I’m taking the ******* thing off so I can write.
Finally, free from restraint, I ball my “un-cuffed” hand into a fist and massage at my wrist as though I was wearing away the years, the anger, the loss, the what might have been, the could’ve been, the will never bees, the mistakes, the good, the bad…my twenties. If, at 35, I could simply rub my temples and do the same to the memory, if, if, if. If ever, now’s my chance, the keyboards loaded and my fingers are on the trigger, should I pull it? Do I tell this story so elegantly dubbed a “memoir”…why the **** not.
What I’m about to tell you is not gruesome nor, did it ever make the news. What it did do is altar my life drastically. 360 degrees squared is what I believe the mathematical equation would be but hell…I failed algebra four times in college. Eventually, I paid a fellow student $600 to take it online for me. He got an A, and so that is how my college transcript reads. I never said this was a story about Good Will Hunting. I never claimed to walk the line. I only want to live a good life…like you. And this is the exorcism of me.
This is me...A rather unassuming guy, 150 dollar pair of shoes, 130 pair of jeans, nice shirt, coat, O.S.U hat on backwards and a watch that I had got as a gift. Pretty undetectable, now here's the kicker. I just got off the red-eye from Vegas and those 150 dollar pair of shoes...huh...478 and tax, 130 dollar pair of jeans...they were closer to 6, nice shirt...yeah, it's Versace, coat too, O.S.U. hat, twenty-five bucks at Kohl’s, had that for two years, and the watch...The watch, as I said before, was a gift from a friend. Throughout my life I've heard that some things are best left unsaid: I'm familiar with that phrase, but this story...this one time...this part of my life has to be told. At 35, I've never been married, never been engaged, had one serious girlfriend, attended multiple community colleges and one state school, I have a brother, two step-sisters, two handfuls of friends, great parents and an overall good life, but if you listen...Reeeeaaaaally listen to my story...You'll see how by allowing myself one, just one mistress, how I've put into jeopardy all and everything that I hold dear. How I've compromised my integrity, my devotion, my...Me! How I've put those around me second when my genetic makeup tells me to put those who are close to me first, how I've grappled with the goodwill in my heart, how I let Goliath beat David, how I succumbed to the temptation of eating the fruit from a fruitless tree. This IS the past ten years of my life... (Sigh) A decade...A god damn decade!
To some people wide receiver Randy Moss might be synonymous with a great wide receiver in the NFL, to others, maybe they think about Marshal University and the quintessential career that he had there. And yet others might bring up his minor legal problems in college, or the early NFL years that he was mentored by the great Chris Carter, but ya know what I think about...Ya wanna know what Randy Moss did for me in the fall of 1998? He introduced me to what would become the happiest, fuckin' hate this shit, most glorious, jacked-off bullshit, can't wait to the weekend, what the **** am I doin' days of my compelling life. He handed me the keys to the chastity belt of the woman who would consume my every thought over the next (as I said before) ten years of my life, the next ten years.
1998 Randy Moss's rookie year and the score of the first game is, Minnesota Vikings 31 and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 7. Now, I don't give a **** about either team but in this particular case, I needed The Vikes to win by 3 to cover the spread...Hell, who couldn't use an extra 200 bucks! Everybody waited for Moss's fuckup moment, his big let-down, cuz that’s how people are, the guy gets a fuckin’ marijuana charge in college and his draft status drops and all the sudden he's the Charles Manson of the NFL draft and his whole career's gonna be a let-down, ha, not my horse, not Randy Moss. He continued to tear up the NFL that year and Vegas and the odds makers never caught on, they didn't allow for the Moss variable when they made the lines. Now, maybe I was naive, maybe they did allow for this, but I couldn't tell. I kept sendin' it on Moss and his Vikings week after week and eventually had a good little grip of cash for doin' nothing but being right on a football game. This can't be right, can it? I love you babe...and the season went on…I love you...the money I collected ever y week felt real, it spent real...I love you even more...Everything about it was real, can't wait for next season...That was 1998. Young love is always perfect because we are yet to figure out the flaws that inevitably lie in wait.
Fall 1999, I'm not rich, in fact, far from it. Honestly, I'm still bouncin' at strip clubs in South Florida but at 22 what the **** do I care. To some, that ain't bad, get to see some
and ass for free, hit the after-hours shit, occasional threesomes, it's all routine. To most, it's a known fact that strippers aren't REALLY paying their way through college, unless you consider cocaine and ecstasy abuse a highly sought after career. The closest thing these girls get to a bachelors’ degree is a two-for-one lap dance on some CEO's rooster while his wife thinks that he's workin' late from the office. Me, I didn't always fit in there, I love the scene, but just had a different mind-set. They were gettin' high on schedule one drugs meanwhile last season was the gateway to the drug of my choice...SPORTSBETTING! The Minnesota Vikings were 12-5 against the spread that year. That means I won two and a half more times than I lost. I can't think of a single god damn investment opportunity that pays that percent...tax free! Here's the best part the way I figure. Last year, I ONLY bet on one team...this year, I'm gonna bet on all of'em and really make good on my money. Its drop-tops and V.I.P come kickoff this year. I got 30 more teams to bet on and my “guy," my “guy" ...pays every week!WEEK 10!!!!! I'm supposed to be at the club for work by 4:00 but that’s not gonna happen today. Ya see, it's Sunday and the 4:05 games all kickoff in the next seven minutes. I'm taking a pretty good beating, but if these two games can come through I could still be in decent shape, by that I mean only $1,500 down. If they don't come through, I'm down nearly $2,500 and that… that just isn't good. I've got the money, plus a few grand more, but I'm not tryin' to lose my V.I.P status all in one afternoon. If these two games can just hang-on until the two minute warning I'm good. I can rebound from a $1,500 deficit because there's a game comin' on that I really like. I can make up some ground. The problem is, I can't bet heavy on it right now cuz if these two games don't come through and I lose, then I can't afford to double down and make this shit right. Its three minutes after 4 o’clock and I gotta get my next bet in if I'm gonna do it. One of my games just went into overtime. I can't go out on a limb here cuz if I lose, I'm screwed, so I stick $800 on my "really like" bet and head for the door...I'm gonna be late, but I'm never late, the club will understand this one time.
Five weeks later, week 15 of the NFL season. “Are you ready for some football?” Hank Williams Jr. works the crowd on ESPN’s pre-recorded Monday Night Football commercial. (This, of course, many years before the iconic sports station separated ties with the country music legend for his remarks regarding President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner’s golf outing being compared to Hitler playing golf with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.) It’s been five weeks since I was late for my first shift at the strip-club but that $800 bet on the game that I “really liked” paid off so what the **** do I care if I’m twenty minutes late to some bullshit job? The answer to that question is: I don’t care. This attitude will become a theme over the next ten years of my life. I didn’t not care because I could live off of $800, I didn’t care because I realized how easily I could make $800 and that my friends, makes it really hard to punch a clock for ten bucks an hour. In fact, I’ve been late a couple times since and have been disciplined for my performance at work because I was trying to get updates on games throughout my work shifts. Apparently, cocaine and prostitution is fine but sports-betting is a definite no-no if you work at a strip club.
Hank Jr. had already asked me “If I was ready for some football?” which means we are minutes away from kickoff. I’m on the phone with my “guy” hiding in the back room like some kind of junkie tappin’ his fuckin’ forearm trying to get a god damn vein to pop out so I can place my next bet when my boss finds me. He’s pissed because some douche bag trying to impress a stripper needs his god damn tuna steak seared and I’m nowhere to be found…**** HIM! Are you ******* kidding me? So I stick my god damn spread sheet back in my wallet and head out to the dining room to see what this rooster **** wants…seared? Shut the **** up!
“Sir, how can I help you? I hear that there is a problem with your meal.” Really I could care less about his meal. All I’m thinking about is getting this problem fixed so I can sneak back into the kitchen and call my “guy” to get this bet in before kickoff.
Ya see, this was an upscale strip-club (as if… That just means the same ole pussy costs twice as much) in South Florida where these desperate ***** could offer one of the clubs many girls with daddy issues a fine dinner and try to impress her with his wallet because his 60 year old pecker didn’t work. The dining room was attached to the “performance hall” and thus made for great live entertainment while one would eat an expensive ala carte meal with a girl young enough to be his daughter…or grand for that matter.
“This tuna is not seared. I ordered it seared.” Is what he said. What I heard was: “Look kid, I’m obviously above you in our social caste system and I’m trying to **** this girl by impressing her with my knowledge of how to cook a ******* PIECE OF FISH.”
There I stood in my pristine black tuxedo, short on both, time and giving a ****. I needed to get this problem resolved and quick. Monday night only offers one football game and it was the last game of the betting week. Hank, had already asked ME if I was ready for some football before my rooster sucking boss interrupted me with this bullshit about some seared tuna. I needed my last fix. The game, ANY game, had become my needle. The bet had become my drug. I NEEDED the proverbial needle in my arm, the glass dick. I can feel the demons tapping my forearm under my jacket in search of a vein. My bowtie fastened ever so right, hands at my side as to appear proper. I tilted my head and squinted my eyes sharply, staring at the jackass in front of me. What I wanted to do was tell this dude to **** off and walk out the door. What I did do was; told the dude to “**** off” and walked out the door. It was a fun job but someone else can deal with his ******* tuna…I ain’t the one.
A couple years pass. I’ve had some good hits along the way, both hands filled with rolls of $100 bills. I’d definitely won more than I had lost. Don’t worry, that’s all about to change. Now that I look back, I wish I would have sipped on the calendar like it was fine bourbon, slowed down ya know, like my grandfather telling a story, savior it Jerry, savior it. I wish I would have let the rocks melt, take away some of the bite, the edge. I wish I hadn’t poured the last seven years into a three ounce glass and thrown it back like it was a shot of well tequila…hold the wheels. 2005 I’m in the middle of bum-******-nowhere but they got beer…and the game is on. By the time I walk in its third and goal and a field-goal will win the game. The problem is… I don't give a **** who wins... I need the goddamn points... I need a touchdown. Goin' into Saturday morning I'm down a little over three stacks bettin' on the NBA and my W-2 from last year reads just over $12,000...You see where I'm at…What the problem might be? These fuckin' cocksuckers take a knee in the middle of the field, now it's fourth and goal from the eight; here comes the field-goal unit. "Moootthhheeer Fucker!" The swearin' doesn't help, in fact, it only intensifies my emotions. "I hope this piece of shit misses the fuckin' field-goal and they lose the goddamn game outright "**** THEM, I don't give a shit if I am from their home town, ****'EM!" Ya know what the shit of it all is? I would've never bet on that game if it wasn't for the so-called EXPERTS. I didn't know shit about that game, but they all had it picked as their unanimous landslide upset of the week, so what do I do...I FUCKIN' SEND IT! I'm down three stacks but I want to make that back, and then some, so I put five large on it..."A GOD DAMN FIELD GOAL! ARE YOU FUCKIN' KIDDING, ME!" It's only Saturday afternoon and now I owe nine large with the juice and my "guy" won't take any more action from me cuz he knows I don't make it like that. Problem is...I don't got what I owe'em. My god damn stomachs turnin' so bad I can't even focus on what the people around me are sayin'. Have you ever seen your favorite pet get hit by a fuckin' car? You run out there to grab'em up and he's no longer whimpering because even the dog knows that he's dyin'. His eyes focused on you sayin' "how could you let this happen to me? I thought you loved me." Yeah, that’s how my god damn gut feels. I’m physically sick. Tuesday is “pay day” and I’ve only got $2,300 of the $9,4-and change that I owe. I’ve had two and a half days to mentally go bankrupt, and I succeeded. It was epic. I’d never ****** up that bad in my life up until that point. My “guy” wasn’t happy but he took what I had and put me on a payment plan…Hair of the dog, I found another “guy” and bet on air, on nothing. I simply bet that I wouldn’t lose until I came up with the money to pay my previous debt. It took me two weeks…this time. A Pollack should never play Russian roulette…When in Rome, Jerry…When in Rome.
2007-2009. What the ****! I know better, or should’ve. It’s not like me, but it was me. I would never do that…again, again, and again, but I did, I did, I did. (It’s the same old story: She only smokes when she drinks.) But this story doesn’t have a punch-line, this ain’t a joke. No green eggs and ham here. I just ******* derailed. The train was doing mach-ten. Jet engines on a goddamn ten speed. “Look ma’, no hands.” Uh-huh…I can see the footprints in the sand…they’re not mine. I don’t recognize myself…Gone. Same face, Pops…different story. You’re son ****** up.
“We can do this Jerry, come on man.” The only thing missing from this statement was: “Trust me.”
I’ve never been one for peer-pressure but it sounded good. That’s a lie. I didn’t want anything to do with it, that’s the truth. And here it is, the “but,” the money sounded good. All I had to do was call in the bets and use my name. The plan was simple. If I win; I collect, If I lose; ****’EM. And so it went. My friend knew all the bookies, of which none of them knew me, and he introduced me to them over the phone. The arrangement was structured as follows; I could bet up to one thousand dollars a game until I reached a cap of $15,000 to the negative…and so the plan was set in motion I bet $1,000 on a game…EVERY GAME and stood back to admire the beautiful disaster of what would come to be the next two and a half years of my life. I was betting $30,000 to $50,000 on any given weekend. I had no job. I had no bank account. I had no money (that I was going to give them.) What I did have over those two and a half years was eight different bookies of whom I owed varying amounts of money, including two of them in excess of $25,000 and $30,000. ****’EM!
Let me tell you what I’ve learned about gambling: YOU CANNOT WIN! Here me out. You can have pockets full of money and buy extravagant things. You can **** money off like you were printing it at home. You can impress your friends by picking up big tabs when shit goes right. You can buy designer this and designer that. You can impress some young lady with a role of $100 bills. You can act as though money is nothing. And FINALLY, you would be right. Money is nothing compared to your spirit, your soul, your character. Gambling is of the undead. It will suck the life out of you and move on to the next victim, different face…same story. Money like that comes and goes but you cannot get back the times you missed out on because you “had to watch the game.” You can’t get back that date that you blew off or the occasion(s) you let your girl down because all she wanted was to have a nice dinner with her man but “honey, the game comes on in ten minutes.” You can’t get it back fellas. The countless hours reading up on games and injury reports that tomorrow won’t even matter. That time is gone. It’s a disease and EVERY GAME IS THE SUPERBOWL. Hell, I don’t ever recall the leaves changing colors from 1998 until 2009 but I could tell you the score of damn near every football game. Since 2010 I’ve taken the time to go for long walks in the Fall…down along the Cumberland and Black Rivers. I’ve stopped to admire the majestic oaks and there beautiful colors and I can assure you this; Michelangelo’s easel doesn’t have anything on God’s. I’ll take that for a $1,000.
Sitting here now in my time of reflection, the mirror has cleared. The steam has all vanished and through the glasses scratched surface, I can clearly see my mistake…the misspent youth. I recall a time when this very same mirror held no battle scars…When the reflection revealed not a single defect. When steam did not gather and roll down its surface like tears. But as time has taken its toll on me, it has too, wore at the surface of my trusted old friend. And so here I sit. Scratched but not broken, with time, and with place. Wore, but not out. The mirror talks and patiently, I listen with my eyes. This time it is not steam that rolls down the mirrors surface, it is tears that pillage my cheeks and lips. It’s tears that free-fall from my jawline to my chest as if they were a reckless kid betting the odds against a criminal underworld. Here I am world…My soul, my anguish, my search, my sins, my mirror, my tears, my life… my story.
