Slots

The lot in front of the casino was full, all the handicapped spots taken.

“Must be old folks' day,” Steve said.

Dorothy looked at him sideways, through her good eye. Her slot arm was primed. She’d been working it all week, first with a soup can, then with the dumbbell Steve found at Kmart. Before the accident, she’d played Blackjack, never slots, except to feed the machines on her way to the tables. It was hard managing bets from a wheelchair. Her left arm was useless.

“You feeling okay?” Steve said.

Dorothy nodded. Her head hurt. Her head always hurt.

Steve stopped the car and unloaded the wheelchair. He put Dorothy in a windbreaker and put her purse in her lap. “You warm enough?” he said. He kissed her head and said her hair smelled nice. She’d had it washed and set for the trip.

“Don’t be long,” she said.

He left her in front of the fountain and drove off, looking for a place to park. He must've known something was wrong. The whole ride out she’d faced the side window, pretending to sleep. It wasn’t like her not to talk. She'd try harder. Everything was good. The leaves were turning. They’d eaten breakfast on the road. Everyone told them Foxwoods paid better than Mohegan.

A man in golf pants stopped to talk. “First time here?” he said.

Dorothy said, “Yes.”

“You’ll like it,” he said. “Try the buffet.”

A shuttle pulled up and Dorothy glimpsed herself in the windows—the gray windbreaker, the wind lifting her hair. Sometimes she’d see herself the way others saw her and had to look away. Her sons blamed Steve, the youngest one especially. It was an accident, the other driver crossing the divide. The engine went through the firewall. Thirty years and they still gave him the cold shoulder.

The shuttle doors closed. Where was Steve? The last time they'd gone out—to a steakhouse in Elnora for her birthday—he'd taken a wrong turn, ending up in some housing development. They'd passed the same Crown Vic a half-dozen times until the cop pulled them over, wanting to know if they needed help.

Another shuttle pulled up and Steve got off. The man talking to Dorothy wished her luck. “Picking up strange men?” Steve said.
She rolled her eye at him. She wanted to ask him where he’d gone last night. He wasn’t at poker. One of the players had called the house—the game had been cancelled.

Steve lost a dollar in the first slot and moved on. The casino was pink and teal, with frosted hawks set in the walls and gold chandeliers. Dorothy watched the glowing machines pass. All the lights and bells made her heart beat faster. She’d loved Atlantic City until the reservations opened. There was no contest. Someday she’d like to see Vegas.

Steve joined the Wampum Club, broke a bill with the cashier, then took Dorothy to the restroom. The women fixing their faces watched them in the mirror. The handicapped stalls made it easy, not like their bathroom at home, where Steve, headlocked under Dorothy’s good arm, shuffled her between the sink and tub. He was big and she was tiny, but lately when he lifted her, he said he felt it in his stomach, along the backs of his knees. Sometimes she thought he could not do this forever. She'd heard his daughter in the kitchen scold him—he needed to take care of himself. Dorothy had family; it wasn’t like they were married.

“You’re getting heavy or I’m getting old,” he said.

“You’re old,” Dorothy said.

Steve rubbed his chin. He’d forgotten to shave.

“You’re not so young yourself,” he said.

Dorothy narrowed her eye.

On the way out, Steve pinched a handful of wet-naps from the basket on the counter. Dorothy shook her head. His shirt pocket bulged with Sweet n’ Low packets and paper napkins, drinking straws he’d swiped from the diner. Sometimes his cheap ways embarrassed her, like at Christmas. One year he gave her daughter-in-law a tabletop hairdryer he’d picked up at a rummage sale. Even she knew no one used those anymore.

Steve wheeled Dorothy around the casino, past the progressives and slant-top videos, around a red sports car on a lazy Susan. Dorothy scanned the paytables, searching for the right machine. Steve had been to Vegas once, years ago, when his son Butch got out of the service. They’d met at the airport and stayed the weekend.

“That one,” she said. It was a red, white, and blue quarter slot with bells and stars instead of fruit. Steve dragged the stool aside and pushed the wheelchair forward, tucked Dorothy’s purse into the winnings tray. He fed a bill into the machine, and Dorothy watched the credit counter race.

“Sevens are wild,” he said, fooling with his club card.

“I can read,” she said.

“No you can’t.” He pulled her glasses from the case clipped to his shirt and fitted them on her face. “Bet the max,” he said.

Dorothy rolled her eye.

The cocktail waitress came around and Steve ordered coffee. If he was seeing someone, she didn’t want to know, but it was there, a dull ache like the pain in her head. It wouldn’t be the first time, though she never knew for sure. Once she’d asked her son. “Ma,” he’d said. “What do you expect?” She hadn’t known how to take that.

The machines around her blurped and blinked. Bells rang, players hitting it big. Dorothy’s machine was paying out, too, here and there, enough to keep her in her seat. She liked the classic machines best—the backlit reels a blur behind the payline, the satisfying clunk of the brake. She knew the odds were the same with videos, but it was like watching TV, not quite real. Besides, she spent enough time staring at the tube.

“Hey, watch this,” Steve said, sitting back, his arms folded over his stomach. The screen above his machine flashed BONUS ROUND. A pirate and a skeleton duked it out over a treasure chest, the pirate slashing the skeleton to a pile of bones, then picking the lock with his knife. The chest exploded with gold coins. FREE SPIN marched across the screen. Steve slapped the bonus button. Dorothy gave him a thumbs-up.

“You’re not doing so bad,” he said, poking her credits' display.

“Don’t jinx me,” she said.

By the time the cocktail waitress came back with the coffee, Steve had burned through his credits. Dorothy used to love the tables, the players pleading for the outside chance, fists shaking, then heads. Now she loved slots, the defeats small and gradual. You never heard anyone lose.

“I’m gonna hit the poker machines,” Steve said. He kissed the back of her head. “You good here for a while?”

Dorothy tossed him a wave, her eye on the reels. Two bars, a star. Before she met Steve, she'd never gambled. There wasn’t ever any money. Her husband was sick in the head. He beat her and the boys until the boys ended up in a home. Then she beat him, punched him so hard he went through a window. It made her laugh to think about it. Her only regret was that she hadn't killed him. He did that himself, in a drunk tank with a belt.

Dorothy pulled three triple-bars, doubling her credits. She gave both arms a rest—hers and the machine’s—and played the spin button. If she overdid it, she’d feel it tomorrow in her neck. The machines around her filled up, players on either side. A woman in a rose suit sat at Steve’s machine, a bucket of quarters in her lap. Before the accident, Dorothy always wore skirts and heels, never left the house without lipstick. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d shopped for clothes, owned something that zipped up the back. Her elastic waist slacks came by mail. The blouses, too. Her shoes had Velcro straps.

The woman started winning and Dorothy started losing, the credits she’d built up shrinking to double digits. Playing was all that mattered, making a day of it. Last April her oldest went to Mohegan with his refund and lost it all before lunch. She’d leave feeling like a winner just breaking even. The woman hit three bonus rounds in a row and cashed out.

“You want this machine?" she said, her hand in the tray, quieting the rush of coins.

Dorothy shook her head. Wait till she told Steve. He was too impatient, jumping from slot to slot, never giving the machine a chance to warm up. Sometimes you had to lose a little to win.

“There you are,” Steve said.

“I’m right where you left me,” she said.

“Nope,” he said. “You were over there.”

Dorothy shook her fist at him. “How much did you lose?” she said.

“More than groceries, less than rent. You ready for a break?”

Steve cashed out her credits. He put the quarters in a bucket, put the bucket in her lap, and wheeled her toward the indoor waterfall, where the casino opened onto a concourse with kiosks and gift shops. The place was bigger than she thought. A lighted sign showed their position on a map. There was a keno lounge coming up, and a constellation of forks and knives past that. They were headed in the right direction, toward the food court and the Rainmaker. They could eat an early dinner, catch the show, do a little shopping, and hit the casino again.

The buffet the man suggested was on the far side of the food court, under the mezzanine. Dorothy looked around, nodding at the trees and fountains, the big broad-leafed plants. A two-story Indian aimed a bow and arrow at the skylights—the Rainmaker.

“You hungry?” Steve said.

Dorothy looked back over her shoulder. “I could eat.”

Steve waited in line and paid the cashier. The hostess lowered the velour rope and led them to a booth near the meat-carving station. From the looks of it, the price was right. The server brought their drinks and Steve hit the seafood bar, piling on the shrimp and clams. There was prime rib and mashed potatoes, carrots and some kind of bean salad. Sugar-free Jello for dessert. Steve said he wanted to show her the ice sculptures before they left. She hoped he was having a good time. They’d been looking forward to today all summer. He’d taken the day from work to avoid the crowds.

Steve cut her meat and tucked a napkin in her collar. “How you feeling, kiddo?” he said.

“Good,” she said. “Don’t forget your pills.”

Steve felt his pocket for the dispenser.

“You want that roll buttered?” he said.

Dorothy shook her head.

Steve peeled a straw for her coffee, wadded the paper in the ashtray.

“Steve. I want to go to Montreal.”

“Sure,” he said. “When?”

“After Christmas.”

“We’ll have to see about the weather,” he said.

“I know.”

They hadn’t been to the shrine in years, not since Dorothy’s mother passed away. The three of them used to make the trip every spring, Steve and her mother always hopeful, her mother posing with her before the crutches and chairs left behind. Dorothy knew she’d never walk again, had known it that first year when she was still in the nursing home, when Steve rented the apartment on Furman Street for the two of them. All those years he’d spent working her legs, ignoring her sons’ warnings not to get her hopes up. It wasn’t her muscles; it was her brain, the same as if she’d had a stroke.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Maybe we should see about renting a van. One of those ones with a lift.”

“What’s that?” Steve said, chasing his Jello around the plate.

“A van,” she said. “With a lift.”

“You afraid I’m going to drop you?” he said.

Dorothy rolled her eye. “If you put your back out….”

“My back’s fine,” he said.

It was thundering in the food court. The show was starting. Steve wrapped the extra rolls and zipped them in Dorothy’s purse. The server never refilled their drinks, but Steve tipped anyway, more than Dorothy thought she deserved. Steve was cheap, but generous, too. When the girls came to visit, he’d palm them bills, tens and twenties. Ice cream money, he’d say.
By the time they reached the food court, the storm was ending, the Indian going from blue to pink to yellow. The lights came up and a laser rainbow shone overhead. The audience clapped. A woman told them they hadn’t missed much, just a bunch of sound effects.

“Next time,” Dorothy said. “We’ll be back.” Between his pension and her SSI, they did all right. They could afford it.

“Where to?” he said.

Dorothy shrugged. “Souvenirs?”

Steve stopped at a kiosk for a roll of Tums, then trolled the mall, searching for a place that sold music boxes or snow globes, something she could keep on the stand beside her bed. The Pequot Trader was small, with racks of overpriced key chains and shot glasses, card decks in leather cases, nothing they wanted. They owned enough mugs. Steve parked Dorothy in front of the counter and waited for the clerk to get off the phone. There had to be somewhere they could buy a postcard.

“Steve. What time is it?”

“Why? You got a date?”

Dorothy squeezed her eyes shut. The fluorescents hurt her head.

Steve took a pair of earrings off the tree and turned them over, looking for a price.

“Is that for your girlfriend?” Dorothy said.

“Girlfriend?” Steve burped in his fist. “If I buy for one, I’ve got to buy for all of them.”

Dorothy stared at him, her face blank.

Steve put the earrings back. “We’re here to gamble,” he said. “Let’s see the other casinos.”

The casino opposite the bingo hall looked like a nightclub, with its blue neon and mirrored ceiling. Dorothy looked up and watched Steve wheel her through the maze of machines. He still had a full head of hair, but his ears were bigger, his stomach, too. She’d looked old for years—the damage to her nose, her eye, the whole right side of her head, aging her. She knew there was someone else, but there wasn’t anything she could do. She’d survived worse.

“Steve. Do you ever wish things were different?”

“Different how?”

Dorothy shrugged.

Steve kissed the back of her head. “You think too much,” he said. “Tell me where to go.”

Dorothy pointed to a gold-plated machine with a gopher on it, like the one she had at home. Steve was always bringing her oversized toys that sang and danced—Billy the Bass, Douglas Fir—things for her to look at when she tired of watching TV.

“This is a dollar slot,” he said.

“I know.”

“You’re gonna need more than a twenty.”

Dorothy watched Steve open his wallet and thumb the bills, counting. “This should do you,” he said, and fed the machine a hundred before she could stop him.

Dorothy hit him with her good arm.

“Win big,” he said. “They’ll send you home in a limo.”

Steve wasn’t gone five minutes when her machine locked up, the red call light flashing for an attendant. A woman thinking Dorothy had hit the jackpot stopped to watch.

“Not you again,” the attendant said to the machine. “I had a problem with this one earlier.”

Dorothy watched the attendant open the faceplate with a key, record something on a clipboard, then reach inside and press a button. The machine spit out a ticket with her credits. The attendant flagged the machine, moved Dorothy to the next one over—another Gopher Gold—and wished her luck.

The new machine was cold, every spin dropping the dumb gopher north or south of the payline. When she did hit—small stuff, free spins—the machine chittered, the gopher on the screen smiling down on her from a mountain of coins. Dorothy didn’t mind losing, but this was ridiculous. She paused between spins, trying to trick the machine into thinking she’d given up. It didn’t work. She bet her last three credits and lost.

“Steve,” she called, searching the mirrored ceiling, hoping he was a row or two over. She hated tying up the machine, but there wasn’t much she could do. She watched a man in a jogging suit play his way down the aisle and wondered what time it was, if Steve had forgotten where he’d left her. He was always doing that, wandering off, losing track. The last time they’d gone to Montreal, he’d left her and her mother stranded for over an hour outside the gift shop. They really needed to think about renting a van.

The casino was filling up, more and more machines ringing out. From where she sat, she could see the high-roller slots—the leather chair-backed stools, the velour ropes cordoning the area, making the players feel special. Someday she’d like to play a ten- or twenty-dollar machine, just to say she’d done it.

“You’re busted already?” Steve said, coming up the aisle, a small shopping bag swinging from his wrist. “I thought these would look nice on you,” he said, showing her the earrings from the gift shop. “It’s your birthstone.”

“No, it isn’t,” she said.

“Yes, it is.”

“No. It isn’t,” she said, and thanked him anyway.

“You want to wear them home?” he said.

Dorothy said she could wait. Steve put the earrings in his shirt pocket with a postcard he said was for Butch. This business about a girlfriend—it was between them, but it wasn’t. She knew that. Surly he'd had a few over the years, women he’d met through his buddies’ wives. They probably knew about her and understood. No one ever called the house.

“I can’t win for losing today,” he said, and wheeled her toward the back of the casino, past the nickel slots and Wheel of Fortune progressives, the jackpot on the LED down from the last time she’d checked. Dorothy spotted a Double Diamond and Steve stuck around, trying his luck with a five-reel. How could he lose with nine paylines? He dipped into her tray until she slapped his hand. He got a pen from her purse and wrote something on the postcard for his son.

They hadn’t talked in months, not since Butch called trying to get Steve to move to Arizona to live with him and his wife on the ranch they had outside Tucson. He’d never been close to either of his kids, but after their mother died they needed someone to worry after. Steve wasn’t used to all the attention, the weekly phone calls, the care packages his daughter drove up from Round Lake to deliver.

“Another hour and we’ll hit the road?” Steve said.

Dorothy nodded. She had a feeling about this one. Every other bet was paying off. Fifteen credits. Seventy-five. Another fifteen. She lost three in a row, then hit for six-hundred, winning everything she’d wasted on the last machine, plus some. The light behind the paytable flashed. Where did Steve go? She wanted him to see this. An old guy in a blazer was shaking his head at the five-reel, grunting every time Dorothy’s bell rang. Three triple-bars. Double bars with a cherry. She wiped her palm on her leg and quit the arm—the spin button was faster.

She’d had streaks before, hitting the Pick 3 four days in a row, placing with long shots at the track. She always made out with scratch-offs. Three triple-bars. The guy at the five-reel spun around, slapping his palm against his forehead. Every time she set a limit to quit, she hit again, the machine ringing out. She had an audience now, players who'd stopped to watch, waiting to take her place. Someone behind her touched her for luck. The machine was hot. She couldn’t lose. When she hit for 750—one diamond shy of the jackpot—the machine started paying out in coins. Dorothy’s hand shook. The credits on