Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter
They had argued over whether he should call his parole officer. “You’re not doing anything criminal,” she said. “They can’t do anything to you. It’s none of their business.”
“They think it is,” Jack said.
“Well, I don’t like it. I don’t like the way they try to lead you around by the nose.”
“Well, that’s the name of the game. I got to call him.” He reached for the telephone, and Sally walked out of the room. He didn’t see her again for two days.
After his shower he went down to the casino, wearing the lemon slacks and blue sport shirt Sally had gotten him as a present, feeling the clamminess of the air conditioning through the thin shirt. Sally wasn’t at any of the tables or in among the slot machines, but Jack wasn’t worried yet. He felt too good about the way things were going. He had to keep reminding himself he was not in prison any more, not even working in a bakery, gagging over the lard barrel or wiping damp flour off his face. He was now a well-set-up gentleman of leisure, making the “Vegas scene,” a young man for whom life had done a complete turnabout, the fiancé of a rich and beautiful woman. Jack wondered what it would be like, never having to worry about money again. Of course, he had never worried much about it in the past, but now he could do anything he wanted. He decided he wanted to go to college and study the liberal arts. It would, he felt, give him a greater opportunity to appreciate life. He did not mean to waste his life, the way these people were wasting theirs.
He watched them gamble: the fools at the little roulette setups making their nervous scattered bets, most of them with stacks of four-bit chips, one with a barricade of expensive domino-like plaques that Jack didn’t even know the value of; betting numbers or thirds or quarters, red or black or odd or even, betting against one of the most powerfully house-favored odds in the joint (it may have been a luxury hotel to some of the guests, but to Jack it was just a rug joint), bucking a vigorish that did not change no matter how trickily you bet. Jack had not always felt contempt for people who gambled, but now, with the prospect of being rich before him, he suddenly did not see the point of it. When he had gambled in the past it had always been for money, never for pleasure. The pleasure had come from winning money because he needed money. The people he saw around him in the casino did not look as if they needed money, at least not enough to buck the house. It was sensible, of course, to gamble against the house if your income was so small you didn’t have a chance anyway. A man making fifty a week and without hope of ever making more could come against the house odds with the genuine hope that he would win a fortune at the risk of almost nothing, because when you start with peanuts all you can lose is peanuts. Negroes shooting craps with relief money were far more sensible than the middle-class gentlemanwagering three hundred dollars he can afford to lose, for one reason: the Negro expects to win and the gentleman expects to lose. Gambling, Jack decided, belongs to the poor. The rich or the well-off just make asses of themselves. He liked this new attitude of his; it made him feel superior to everybody in the room.
It bothered Sally that Jack, after the first few halfhearted bets at the dice table, quit gambling. She had the fever. She was a slot-machine player, thumbing the heavy dollars into the machine as fast as the wheels stopped and the machine clicked, while Jack stood by and watched ironically. Sally figured that the slotswere the best gamble in the house because they were “fixed to pay.” So that people would take their slot-machine winnings and go to the tables, get hooked, and lose everything. But Sally was clever, she would win and quit; nothing could induce her to move on to the big deadly tables. Jack laughed at her.
“Fixed to pay?” he asked. “How do you figure?”
“Oh, everybody knows that. Some of these machines are set to pay off as much as ninety percent,” she said glibly.
“Which is eight and a half percent worse than the line at craps,” Jack said.
She gave him an odd look. “What are you talking about?”
“Look, if you put a hundred dollars into this machine, it pays you back ninety. If you bet the same hundred, a dollar at a time, on the pass line at craps, you get back ninety-eight fifty. If the odds are working. Either way, you lose money. You can’t,” he said dogmatically, “change losing odds into winning odds. No matter what you do.”
“Oh, nonsense. They must mean that the machines pay off ninety percent of the time; that’s entirely different.”
“Horse-frocky.”
“You’re infuriating.” But in a few minutes she moved over to a craps table and religiously bet the pass line, a dollar at a time. Over a period of seven hours, she lost more than three hundred dollars and went to bed with a splitting headache. She blamed Jack for the whole thing.
“I always win at the slots,” she said.
She had never been more feminine, and Jack loved her for it. But by the time they woke up again she was the old Sally. “You’re right, she told him. “I was wrong. But hell, we’re here; let’s play the dime slots, just for fun.” They did and it was fun, and they actually won a few dollars.
They were a little drunk most of the time, and it cut into their lovemaking just enough to keep them from overdoing it; yet, when they did come together it was good, and afterward, Jack would lie beside her and never want to leave her. Not ever. He wanted her beside him. He was afraid to tell her about it, actually, afraid she would laugh at him, and he would lose her.
On their second night there had been a floor show that Jack wanted to see and Sally didn’t. She was still in love with the slots, and Jack went ahead in and watched the show, very conscious of himself, very conscious that these were the big-name entertainers, the most famous people in the world, and he might later on be standing right next to one of them out in the casino or in the men’s room or someplace. The fact is, it was thrilling. Later he told Sally how he felt about it, and she scoffed at him and said, “They’re assholes, every last one of them. Believe me. But you go ahead and worship them if you want. That’s what they live on.”
“I don’t worship them,” Jack said furiously.
“Of course not.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“Why not? Does it offend your manhood?”
“Balls!” He went to the bar. When he came back to the machines, she was gone. He looked around for her, but she wasn’t anywhere. He went up to the room, and she wasn’t there, either, and he began to get a little nervous. It always made him go a little off-balance when she wasn’t around, and that was irritating. Even so, he undressed and went to bed with a bottle of I. W. Harper and a paperback mystery. Finally he was groggy enough, and he threw the book across the room and turned out the light. But sleep would not come. He lay in the dark waiting for her. He knew she knew other people at the hotel; she was always seeing someone and waving, or being talked to by groups of handsome young men and women whom she airily dismissed as “the television crowd” and never once introduced to Jack. She was probably at a party somewhere. He waited three hours or more, and when she came in, turning on the light as if she did not expect him to be there, or asleep, he said, “Where the hell have you been?”
She turned to him. “Ask me that again and see the last of me.” Her face was hard. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Jack nodded, hating the feeling of relief. “Okay. You’re right. Okay. Come to bed. I want you.”
She undressed slowly, in the middle of the room, dropping her clothing at her feet. “This is where we agree,” she said. “Without this between them, what man and woman can talk to each other?” She laughed, naked, her arms over her head in a deliberately corny pose. “You like me?” she teased.
“Bring that thing over where I can get my hands on it.”
“Come and get it.”
They made love on the floor, in the middle of the small room, and then, after the period of calm timelessness passed, she said, “We shouldn’t let this go. We ought to get married. What do you think?”
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“They think it is,” Jack said.
“Well, I don’t like it. I don’t like the way they try to lead you around by the nose.”
“Well, that’s the name of the game. I got to call him.” He reached for the telephone, and Sally walked out of the room. He didn’t see her again for two days.
After his shower he went down to the casino, wearing the lemon slacks and blue sport shirt Sally had gotten him as a present, feeling the clamminess of the air conditioning through the thin shirt. Sally wasn’t at any of the tables or in among the slot machines, but Jack wasn’t worried yet. He felt too good about the way things were going. He had to keep reminding himself he was not in prison any more, not even working in a bakery, gagging over the lard barrel or wiping damp flour off his face. He was now a well-set-up gentleman of leisure, making the “Vegas scene,” a young man for whom life had done a complete turnabout, the fiancé of a rich and beautiful woman. Jack wondered what it would be like, never having to worry about money again. Of course, he had never worried much about it in the past, but now he could do anything he wanted. He decided he wanted to go to college and study the liberal arts. It would, he felt, give him a greater opportunity to appreciate life. He did not mean to waste his life, the way these people were wasting theirs.
He watched them gamble: the fools at the little roulette setups making their nervous scattered bets, most of them with stacks of four-bit chips, one with a barricade of expensive domino-like plaques that Jack didn’t even know the value of; betting numbers or thirds or quarters, red or black or odd or even, betting against one of the most powerfully house-favored odds in the joint (it may have been a luxury hotel to some of the guests, but to Jack it was just a rug joint), bucking a vigorish that did not change no matter how trickily you bet. Jack had not always felt contempt for people who gambled, but now, with the prospect of being rich before him, he suddenly did not see the point of it. When he had gambled in the past it had always been for money, never for pleasure. The pleasure had come from winning money because he needed money. The people he saw around him in the casino did not look as if they needed money, at least not enough to buck the house. It was sensible, of course, to gamble against the house if your income was so small you didn’t have a chance anyway. A man making fifty a week and without hope of ever making more could come against the house odds with the genuine hope that he would win a fortune at the risk of almost nothing, because when you start with peanuts all you can lose is peanuts. Negroes shooting craps with relief money were far more sensible than the middle-class gentlemanwagering three hundred dollars he can afford to lose, for one reason: the Negro expects to win and the gentleman expects to lose. Gambling, Jack decided, belongs to the poor. The rich or the well-off just make asses of themselves. He liked this new attitude of his; it made him feel superior to everybody in the room.
It bothered Sally that Jack, after the first few halfhearted bets at the dice table, quit gambling. She had the fever. She was a slot-machine player, thumbing the heavy dollars into the machine as fast as the wheels stopped and the machine clicked, while Jack stood by and watched ironically. Sally figured that the slotswere the best gamble in the house because they were “fixed to pay.” So that people would take their slot-machine winnings and go to the tables, get hooked, and lose everything. But Sally was clever, she would win and quit; nothing could induce her to move on to the big deadly tables. Jack laughed at her.
“Fixed to pay?” he asked. “How do you figure?”
“Oh, everybody knows that. Some of these machines are set to pay off as much as ninety percent,” she said glibly.
“Which is eight and a half percent worse than the line at craps,” Jack said.
She gave him an odd look. “What are you talking about?”
“Look, if you put a hundred dollars into this machine, it pays you back ninety. If you bet the same hundred, a dollar at a time, on the pass line at craps, you get back ninety-eight fifty. If the odds are working. Either way, you lose money. You can’t,” he said dogmatically, “change losing odds into winning odds. No matter what you do.”
“Oh, nonsense. They must mean that the machines pay off ninety percent of the time; that’s entirely different.”
“Horse-frocky.”
“You’re infuriating.” But in a few minutes she moved over to a craps table and religiously bet the pass line, a dollar at a time. Over a period of seven hours, she lost more than three hundred dollars and went to bed with a splitting headache. She blamed Jack for the whole thing.
“I always win at the slots,” she said.
She had never been more feminine, and Jack loved her for it. But by the time they woke up again she was the old Sally. “You’re right, she told him. “I was wrong. But hell, we’re here; let’s play the dime slots, just for fun.” They did and it was fun, and they actually won a few dollars.
They were a little drunk most of the time, and it cut into their lovemaking just enough to keep them from overdoing it; yet, when they did come together it was good, and afterward, Jack would lie beside her and never want to leave her. Not ever. He wanted her beside him. He was afraid to tell her about it, actually, afraid she would laugh at him, and he would lose her.
On their second night there had been a floor show that Jack wanted to see and Sally didn’t. She was still in love with the slots, and Jack went ahead in and watched the show, very conscious of himself, very conscious that these were the big-name entertainers, the most famous people in the world, and he might later on be standing right next to one of them out in the casino or in the men’s room or someplace. The fact is, it was thrilling. Later he told Sally how he felt about it, and she scoffed at him and said, “They’re assholes, every last one of them. Believe me. But you go ahead and worship them if you want. That’s what they live on.”
“I don’t worship them,” Jack said furiously.
“Of course not.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“Why not? Does it offend your manhood?”
“Balls!” He went to the bar. When he came back to the machines, she was gone. He looked around for her, but she wasn’t anywhere. He went up to the room, and she wasn’t there, either, and he began to get a little nervous. It always made him go a little off-balance when she wasn’t around, and that was irritating. Even so, he undressed and went to bed with a bottle of I. W. Harper and a paperback mystery. Finally he was groggy enough, and he threw the book across the room and turned out the light. But sleep would not come. He lay in the dark waiting for her. He knew she knew other people at the hotel; she was always seeing someone and waving, or being talked to by groups of handsome young men and women whom she airily dismissed as “the television crowd” and never once introduced to Jack. She was probably at a party somewhere. He waited three hours or more, and when she came in, turning on the light as if she did not expect him to be there, or asleep, he said, “Where the hell have you been?”
She turned to him. “Ask me that again and see the last of me.” Her face was hard. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Jack nodded, hating the feeling of relief. “Okay. You’re right. Okay. Come to bed. I want you.”
She undressed slowly, in the middle of the room, dropping her clothing at her feet. “This is where we agree,” she said. “Without this between them, what man and woman can talk to each other?” She laughed, naked, her arms over her head in a deliberately corny pose. “You like me?” she teased.
“Bring that thing over where I can get my hands on it.”
“Come and get it.”
They made love on the floor, in the middle of the small room, and then, after the period of calm timelessness passed, she said, “We shouldn’t let this go. We ought to get married. What do you think?”
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