"Could I exchange these for chips, please?" A man with a neat mustache swept up the fake coins. He flicked his wrist and thumb. Oliver's chips fell on the counter in front of him. Oliver counted. "Wasn't there supposed to be thirty-five?"
"Yeah, man. You short?" Oliver pushed the chips toward him. "Sorry, man. Mistake," he said, adding a five dollar chip to the pile without changing expression. Oliver put them in his pocket and walked toward the crap tables. That was a scam, he thought. Get away with that once an hour, your pay would go up—a couple of hundred a week.
He straightened as a feeling shot through him. It was like waking up. It was time. He approached the front craps table and stood with his arms hanging down and his weight evenly balanced. Fifteen feet away, a man shifted sideways so that he was directly in front of Oliver. He was expensively dressed, medium sized with wide shoulders and a dark angular face. He stared at Oliver. I see you, he was telling Oliver. You aren't like the rest of them. I'm watching. He was intense and deadly. Pit boss, Oliver realized. Well, fuck you. Oliver's spirit and body fused as though they had been sleeping in separate rooms. For the first time in years, he felt his whole strength. A slight smile crossed his face.
The pit boss was called away, and Oliver continued to watch the table. They're not getting my money. The resolve came out of nowhere, clear and absolute. A woman left the table. He took her place, bent over, and placed a $5 chip on the pass line. An older man in a baseball cap threw the dice low and hard. They bounced off the far end of the table and skittered back to the center. A two, snake eyes. Most of the players groaned. Oliver's chip was raked in. He bet again to pass. The next player threw a six. There was a flurry of bets. A four. Another flurry of bets. The player reached down with one hand and arranged the pair of dice so that threes showed on top. He was overweight, red faced with a closely trimmed white beard. He tossed the dice gently up into the air so that they stayed together until they hit the felt. They bounced to a four. "Yes!" Cheers and clapping. The players who had bet that a four would be rolled before a seven had won. No one had lost. The start of a good run. Burl Ives / Colonel Sanders arranged the dice again and threw a six—the point. Uproar. All were winners but those few who had bet "no pass." Oliver had his chips back.
He stepped away. He had won, and he had lost. He wandered over to a roulette table. Two Asian women, middle-aged sisters perhaps, or cousins, or lovers, sat side by side betting large sums on every spin of the wheel. Their hair was long and lustrous, elaborately wound and held by jade. Light disappeared into the blackness of their hair and re-emerged at different points as they tilted their heads toward each other and toward the whirling ball. They bet on lucky numbers, sometimes winning big, often losing all. They were indifferent to loss and satisfied when they won. Their faces were masks—beautiful and timeless.
Oliver bet $10 on red, a gesture after losing himself in admiration of the women. The steel ball whirred around the rim and bounced down into a red numbered slot. Everybody won. He picked up his winnings and nodded to the pair. They scarcely noticed.
Oliver was ten dollars ahead and hungry. He left the casino and found a coffee shop where he ate a turkey club sandwich and relaxed. So far, so good.
As he neared the crap tables again, a bar hostess with long legs in black mesh stockings asked if he wanted a drink. "Diet Pepsi, please." She came back a few minutes later with the drink. "Thanks." He put a dollar tip on her tray.
He moved to a place at the ten dollar craps table. The man next to him had a name tag on his short sleeved shirt that read, "R. Melnick M.D." He was pale and sweating lightly. His fingers drummed on a stack of black $100 chips, twenty at least. He placed four chips on the no pass line, won, and added to his stack. He left, irritated, as though the inevitable humiliation was just being postponed.
Oliver bet ten dollars and won. He left his chips on the pass line and won again. He put one chip back in his pocket and won again. He put two more chips in his other pocket and lost the rest on the next roll. Twenty dollars ahead. He kept his original stake in one pocket and his winnings in the other.