Time Electric

          West of town, yellow tinged storm clouds, swirled above the high desert mountains.  Lightening traced blinding scars over the jagged peaks.  The sweet smell of coming rain hung in the clean air.

            Tom Adkins pushed his way through the stiffening breeze.  He felt good as he glanced at the arriving electric show.  I’ll be in the club before it hits.   Vaguely he heard the busy buzz of the casino signs as he hurried under their neon illusion.

            Bert Riggs, five hours into his boring pit-boss day, cataloged Tom as he entered through the Center Street doors.  No action he thought, he’s not a player.  Bert caught just a hint of the approaching storm as the doors swung closed.  He put the odd color of the sky down to something wrong with the entrance lights.

            Charlie Tubbs, a refugee goalie from the NHL wars where he played for 15 years, looked up from rinsing glasses as Tom slid on to one of the many empty barstools.   His eyes smiled from his realigned face when he saw it was Tom.

            “What’ll you have?”

            “JD over,” said Tom.  “How’s it going Charlie?’

            “Slow. Real slow.”

            Tom put two quarters on his red drink toke, when Charlie served his drink.

            “Well its almost shift change time, isn’t it?  Beside its getting ready to rain.”

            “Yeah, I saw the wind whipping the bum’s clothes as they walked by the door.  They’ve been trying to come in and security has been throwing them out all morning.  I figured it was getting nasty.”

            “Place is deserted,” said Tom as he sipped his JD and looked at the empty craps table reflected in the bar-back mirror.

            “Well I have another two hours and I am out of here.  I hope the end of my shift picks up like it usually does when the Sacramento buses start showing up.”

            As Charlie moved down the bar, continuing his chores, Tom let his drink sweat into the green and black logoed bar napkin.  He stared at his image in the mirror.    His slightly askew nose hung over his 5’ 10” muscular body.  His head was framed by unruly brown hair.  He looked much the same as he had when he had left Vegas with his tail between his legs.  He had been away from the big time for over a year.

            He had arrived in Vegas over 18 months before, believing he was the best poker player south Georgia had ever spawned.  Six months later he was busted.

When he boarded the bus to Reno, his silver money clip held one lonely hundred-dollar bill.  There was no way he could go home to Georgia, broke.

            His decision to try Reno, the minor league of poker as the wise guys in Vegas referred to it, was his last out.  Since his arrival in Reno, his poker play had become an exercise in patience.  It was not a natural trait.  He was

learning it the hard way.  In the past, a bad beat would cloud his judgment and ruin his game.   He would try too hard too make up for the loss to quickly.  He was learning, but it was very slow gaining another stake so he could try Vegas again.  His money clip now held $780 that was his stake after a year of taxi driving and low stakes poker.  His patience was being sorely tried and he fought the urge to make a move. 

            Tom knew the poker percentages like the back roads of Georgia.  His quick Irish temper, an ambiguous gift from his forebears, was his undoing in Vegas.  The Reno purgatory had taught him well.  He wanted another chance at Vegas.  He needed to prove himself almost as bad as he needed to breathe.   He had come to the realization that he had beat himself in Vegas and not the players he had played against.  He only needed another stake.  This thought kept running through his mind like a song that gets stuck in the play mode.  I only need a stake.

* * * *     * * * *

            A covey of pigeons, which had been loaded on a tour bus in the Sacramento valley, then driven to the casino, came clucking through the doors.

The planned plucking of these silver haired players was about to begin.  They filled the bar, drinking their free tipless drinks and then wandered off.  Some came to roost at the craps table in the mirror.

            Tom watched as the craps table began to give up some small wins to the delight of the bus people.  Each shooter seemed to make a few passes before the ugly dimpled seven would show and end their turn.  With the speed of a glacier, the table began to heat up.  Tom was aware of the trend.  He ordered another drink and joined the swelling crowd at the craps table.

            Charlie could only watch as the table disgorged more and more chips to the players.  The run of numbers, absent the dreaded seven, was relentless. When it did show, it came on a come-out roll.  It did not break the shooters run of numbers. As the table continued to heat up it became a magnet, drawing players to it from all parts of the casino.  The mob surrounding the table became one non-ending mass of excited and squealing players.  Breathing was shallow and fast; the drinks were forgotten under the table.  The table became a dice player’s heaven on earth.

            Tom was tentative with his meager stake, at first, but as the table warmed becoming white hot, his bet size increased and so did his stack of chips. His confidence grew, as his chips became different colors denoting a change from five-dollar chips to twenty to $100 black chips.  As the denomination of his chips changed so did the surrounding crowd.  In less than 25 minutes it had grown to at least 2 to 3 deep, with screaming and excited players.

            Bert Riggs was well aware that he had a run-a-way craps table on his hands.  Many in the crowd knew it too.  Tom and others pushed the rush for all

its worth.  The trays around the table were filled with multicolored chips, framing the green felt magnet the table had become.

Charlie watched helplessly, stuck behind the bar, as the table gave up more and more chips.

            Players, who knew how to bet at a craps table, took triple odds on the numbers.   The players trays bulged with chips. So did Toms.  The rush was on and they pushed it fearlessly.

            Like a run on the bank, the hot dice table captured the players in the casino and they flocked to or near the table.  So it was at Tom’s table.

            Diedra the Dip, as the locals called her, struggled her way to the dice table.  Her squash like appearance, barely hidden by her garish red dress, was made even more unpleasant by her stringy bleached hair.

            “Oh my God,” said Charlie under his breath.  “Hope she stays away from the table.”

            It took her 20 minutes to worm and push her way through the layers of frantic people massed around the table.  Bert Riggs, the besieged pit-bass, saw her when she was still a layer away. He could not see what she had clutched in her gnarled hand, but he knew it would be a silver dollar, as that was all she ever bet.

            Tom studied his multicolored chips in the tray before him.  He had ten stacks of black chips and seven stacks of green-white $25 chips. 

            I almost have enough he thought.

            The shooter next to him finally threw a seven ending his run of numbers.

It was his turn to be the shooter.  Destiny was in his hand.

            Out of the corner of his eye he saw the notorious Diedra had gained a place at the table.  She was infamous for late bets and slow play.  He did not see the silver dollar in her hand, but he did have a flash.  He knew with certainty that his first roll would be an eleven or a twelve.

            “Two hundred on E-T,” said Tom in a firm voice as he tossed two black chips to the stick man.

            The stick man placed the two chips on the line between the eleven and the twelve.   With a measured sweep of his L-shaped stick, he slid the two red dice over the green felt to the waiting Tom.  Tom picked up the dice with the same easy motion and let them fly toward the other end of the table. They bounced off the diamond-patterned wall at the end of the table and softly came to rest.  ELEVEN.

            “Leave a thousand on E-T and give me the change.”

            The stick man got the nod from Bert and did as requested.  He placed the grand on the same line between the eleven and the twelve.  After all of the other bets were settled he swept the dice to Tom in the same practiced motion.  As Tom reached for the two dice, Diedra the Dip began to fidget and move her talon like hand toward a field bet.  Her silver dollar was clearly visible to all.  Tom picked up the two dice and with fluid ease let them fly.  Effortlessly the two red squares rotated in the universe above the green felt covered table.

Diedra’s chip clinched hand matched the arc of one of the dice.  With NASA precision her hand and the dice met in flight as Diedra dropped her silver dollar.

“No bet,” yelled Bert.

“Watch out.  Get your hand out of the way,” screamed one of the players.

            Tom’s disbelief of Diedra’s action turned to hope as the one dice came up six.  The other red dice bounced from the end of the table and came spinning back toward Tom.  As it slowed down in its path, it nicked the no-bet silver dollar.  For what seemed to be forever, it continued to spin like a small top and then came to a stop, balanced for a second and fell flat.

Six indented white dots showed face up.  The total was twelve.

Tom looked twice to make sure and then said in a quiet voice, “Cash me out. 

Bert winced inside as he realized that Tom was going to leave with well over $40.000.

Tom threw five black chips to the stick man.  “For the boys.  I am heading south.  I have a poker game to go to”

* * * *    * * * *

            Tom walked out of the casino.  A rainbow oil streak floated on a rain puddle in the street.  The stake was in his pocket and Vegas was calling.