Read Online The Turner House by Angela Flournoy - Free Book Online
Authors: Angela Flournoy
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ones at the $5 minimum table, spread it around.
As she piled limp green beans onto her plate, she thought she saw half a dozen people she recognized. The woman near the pop fountain with the red sequin hat was definitely someone Lelah had seen before; she always wore that hat, and she kept rolls of quarters for the slots in her fanny pack. Lelah made a conscious effort to keep her eyes on the food, lest she run into someone from her GA meetings. The defeated did not like to acknowledge one another mid-backslide.
It would follow that Lelah returned to the table where the woman won the chip for her, but every open seat there made it so you could see the craps table behind it. On a Friday night the craps crowd was too lively, and Lelah couldnât risk being distracted. She chose a five-dollar-minimum roulette table near the bar where an older black man named Jim was dealing. Lelah couldnât recall anything spectacular happening to her at Jimâs table before, but she didnât have any negative recollections either, so she gave him a try. It was considered bad form to take up a seat when you had so little money to play, but Lelah was determined to make this money grow. She planned to act like she had more cash until it became a reality.
She put ten outside on black, two on 27, and three in the corner between 7, 8, 10, and 11. Jim spun the ball and it landed on 8. That meant sheâd get ten from her outside bet and twenty-four from the corner. This brought her to $54, a much more reasonable amount to work with. She took off her jacket.
Lelah never kept a strict count of her money after every play. The exact amount wasnât as important to her while in the thick of the game as much as the feel of her stack of chips. Could she cover them with her entire palm, or did she have tall enough stacks that her hand sat on top of them, and the colorsâthe orange ones she preferred, persimmon, in factâstill peeked from between her fingers? Yes, this was the thing to measure by. Let the dollar amount be a pleasant surprise after several rounds. She kept playing inside and out, sometimes black, sometimes red, a few corners, a few splits, but always straight up on 27.
Her tablemates came and went. She registered their movementsânew faces and body shapesâbut not the particulars anymore. The camaraderie seduced her in the beginning, it was a way to warm up to the task at hand, but after a while if she didnât go broke sheâd slip into a space of just her and her hands and the chips that she tried to keep under them. A stillness like sleep, but better than sleep because it didnât bring dreams. She was just a mind and a pair of hands calculating, pushing chips out, pulling some back in and running her thumb along the length of stacks to feel how much sheâd gained or lost. She never once tried to explain this feeling in her GA meetings. She couldnât even share with them the simplest reasons of why she played. They were always talking about feeling alive, or feeling numb. How the little white ball made them feel a jolt in their heart, or maybe how the moment of pulling on an old-fashioned slot handle for the first time in a night was better than an orgasm. Lelah did not feel alive when she played roulette. That wasnât the point, sheâd wanted to say. It wasnât to feel alive, but it also wasnât to feel numb. It was about knowing what to do intuitively, and thinking about one thing only, the possibility of winning, the possibility of walking away the victor, finally.
âYou want to change some of those for twenties?â the dealer asked.
Heâs talking to me, Lelah realized, and she looked down for the first time in at least ten plays. Her hand rested on a cluster of persimmon stacks about six inches tall. Three hundred dollars, give or take, she could feel it. Jim, the dealer, stared at her.
âSure,â she said. âHow about one hundred in twenties,
As she piled limp green beans onto her plate, she thought she saw half a dozen people she recognized. The woman near the pop fountain with the red sequin hat was definitely someone Lelah had seen before; she always wore that hat, and she kept rolls of quarters for the slots in her fanny pack. Lelah made a conscious effort to keep her eyes on the food, lest she run into someone from her GA meetings. The defeated did not like to acknowledge one another mid-backslide.
It would follow that Lelah returned to the table where the woman won the chip for her, but every open seat there made it so you could see the craps table behind it. On a Friday night the craps crowd was too lively, and Lelah couldnât risk being distracted. She chose a five-dollar-minimum roulette table near the bar where an older black man named Jim was dealing. Lelah couldnât recall anything spectacular happening to her at Jimâs table before, but she didnât have any negative recollections either, so she gave him a try. It was considered bad form to take up a seat when you had so little money to play, but Lelah was determined to make this money grow. She planned to act like she had more cash until it became a reality.
She put ten outside on black, two on 27, and three in the corner between 7, 8, 10, and 11. Jim spun the ball and it landed on 8. That meant sheâd get ten from her outside bet and twenty-four from the corner. This brought her to $54, a much more reasonable amount to work with. She took off her jacket.
Lelah never kept a strict count of her money after every play. The exact amount wasnât as important to her while in the thick of the game as much as the feel of her stack of chips. Could she cover them with her entire palm, or did she have tall enough stacks that her hand sat on top of them, and the colorsâthe orange ones she preferred, persimmon, in factâstill peeked from between her fingers? Yes, this was the thing to measure by. Let the dollar amount be a pleasant surprise after several rounds. She kept playing inside and out, sometimes black, sometimes red, a few corners, a few splits, but always straight up on 27.
Her tablemates came and went. She registered their movementsânew faces and body shapesâbut not the particulars anymore. The camaraderie seduced her in the beginning, it was a way to warm up to the task at hand, but after a while if she didnât go broke sheâd slip into a space of just her and her hands and the chips that she tried to keep under them. A stillness like sleep, but better than sleep because it didnât bring dreams. She was just a mind and a pair of hands calculating, pushing chips out, pulling some back in and running her thumb along the length of stacks to feel how much sheâd gained or lost. She never once tried to explain this feeling in her GA meetings. She couldnât even share with them the simplest reasons of why she played. They were always talking about feeling alive, or feeling numb. How the little white ball made them feel a jolt in their heart, or maybe how the moment of pulling on an old-fashioned slot handle for the first time in a night was better than an orgasm. Lelah did not feel alive when she played roulette. That wasnât the point, sheâd wanted to say. It wasnât to feel alive, but it also wasnât to feel numb. It was about knowing what to do intuitively, and thinking about one thing only, the possibility of winning, the possibility of walking away the victor, finally.
âYou want to change some of those for twenties?â the dealer asked.
Heâs talking to me, Lelah realized, and she looked down for the first time in at least ten plays. Her hand rested on a cluster of persimmon stacks about six inches tall. Three hundred dollars, give or take, she could feel it. Jim, the dealer, stared at her.
âSure,â she said. âHow about one hundred in twenties,
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