Month: June 2021

It was getting late, and the tourist crowd had departed from the casino — leaving only hand-core gamblers. Usually about this time, I stick with whatever table I find myself at — after an evening of wandering around. Today, it was roulette.

Now roulette is a game which at first seems impossible to beat. Some gambling games are like that, but most seem to require some important decision — such as whether or not to hit in blackjack. With roulette, it appears that wherever one bets — or even if one bets at all — that you will break even at best. It turns out that on American roulette — with two zeros — the bank clears about five and a half dollars on every hundred bet, while European casinos only take three and a half on every hundred because of one less zero.

I’ve always believed in ESP, and I don’t know if that’s entirely it, but some nights — it seems a gambler can’t lose. Tonight was one of those nights, and I was that gambler.

I had some in with two-hundred dollars (a week’s paycheck) and already, I had more than four-hundred fifty dollars profit in addition to my original two-hundred. (This would make up for some weeks when I lost), By gambler’s ethics, I ought to have quit right there — but I felt lucky, and I’ve always been partial to roulette.

I was so confident that I made a bet of 50 dollars on red before my usual preliminary gaging of the tendencies of the wheel that night. It came up 24 black. That’s pretty much the way it went until it had lost down to my original two hundred — and then some. Again, if were playing the game, the way it was supposed be, I should have stopped. But I didn’t.

I put the last of my money — one hundred and seventy five dollars — on 9 red. It wasn’t until he was starting up the wheel that I realized what I had done. 

I was looking to snatch it off, but got one of those feelings that I would be extremely upset if it did come up. So I left it there, and sweated it out. The ball went round and round until it met the wheel, reversed direction, and went around again.

I know what  you’re thinking. That 9 red did come up, and he walked away a rich man. Well you’re wrong. It came up 7 red, and I lost it all — and ended up here on Skid Row with all the other losers in some walk of life or another. I’ve never won a bet since then, and I don’t think I ever will.

Want to bet?

I think I wrote this in college. Some weirdly autobiographical details, like the main character’s summer job (was what I did). Also, there’s a unfinished poem version of this same story here. Click through to see my theory on how they relate.

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His name was George and he was a poet. That is — he liked to think of himself as one. He had always liked poetry, but had only in recent years discovered his talent for writing it. During his sophomore year at college, he had once devoted several weeks to intense writing, both poetry and fiction. He would type from the moment he awoke, until the moment he went to bed — with only occasional breaks for necessities.

He quit finally, when he came to the conclusion that neglecting his studies was not helping his grades. He looked so comical sitting cross-legged on his bed with his typewriter (his desk was too messy to be of use), that his friends had laughingly called him “the Second Cummings” (after the poet E. E. Cummings). He now thought of himself as ‘Second’.

He had written off-and-on that year, and the year after for fun and profit, though there was entirely too much of the former and not nearly enough of the latter. With the desire in mind to remedy the situation, he had decided to get away from it all during the summer between his junior and senior years. He took whatever money he had left from the previous summer (he had worked filling drums of hydrogen peroxide in a chemical warehouse), borrowed a friend’s car, and headed out west toward Wyoming — trying to find the one idea for a novel that would put him in the big time.

This is the story of what happened next.

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He walked through the forest and the odor of pine. Around him, the long, straight trunks ended in caps of pine branches high overhead. The ground was flat, though slightly rising — a sharp contrast to the rough, mountainous country he had encountered previously.

The trees were widely spaced, allowing shafts of sunlight to slant in through the cool air. On the ground was a carpet of pine needles and occasional pine cones. High overhead, a raven could be heard, and in the distance, the hoot of an owl.

His clothes were dirty and ripped; his eyes were glassy, his breath came in clouds. His light brown hair hung down, unkempt; this boyish face sprouted several days’ growth of beard.

As he walked, his dragging feet dug uneven furrows in the pine needles. He slipped and began to slide as the ground fell away and sloped steeply down toward a gurgling stream visible through the trees. He scraped his arm on the way down, and came to rest by the side of the stream — his left leg submerged up to the knee.

He awoke some time later, shivering. His eyes focused on the stars twinkling above him. Where am I? he wondered — searching about him in the darkness. He rose to his hands and knees, teeth clenched at the soreness of his body. He coughed several times as he crawled stiffly from the stream. With his head hanging down, he stopped, panting, and tried to think back to how he got here. He remembered vaguely many days of aimless wandering through the pine forest, but before that — nothing.

Who am I?

Cautiosly, he searched his memory. Nothing there but pines and pine cones, occasional copses of gray-white aspen, elk, and days of walking through the cold with nothing to eat.

He had no wallet and no provisions. Rather than retracing his steps, he decided that his best course of action was to travel downstream looking for shelter for the night — and eventually, someone to help him.

He braced himself against a tree and stood up, pausing for his head to clear. He walked slowly downstream searching for a likely spot to spend the night.

He staggered down the street of the small village, his mind delirious with fatigue and hunger. He had travelled for days since the discovery of his amnesia. The ground had generally been dropping, and the air had become thicker and warmer. Finally, he had come across this village nestled in a heavily wooded valley. He had stumbled down into the village, and was now wandering down the main street. There was no one about.

He walked a bit further and collapsed beside the church. Somewhere, a clock struck two.

Second, his mind thought after the clock had rung the second time. His lips moved wordlessly. Second… coming? Of course, the Second Coming: I was sent to separate the bad from the good.

I’ll start tomorrow, he decided as he drifted off to sleep.

That night, he dreamed of angels.

---

Not sure whether the main character died at the end — one interpretation of the phrase ‘dream of angels’ is someone dying.

“Boy! … Boy!” 

“The lad’s taken ill, sir,” the maid informed Mister Dorken, the master of the house.

“Taken ill? I’ll show him what ill is,” he grumbled, and started up the dark, rickety stairs.

“Oh, please be kind, sir!” the maid called after him.

The miser cursed as he made his way to the decrepit room that he rented — in return for the services of the orphaned boy as hand-servant. He pushed open the lockless door, and peered into the darkness of the dingy bedroom. 

А dark form was on the pallet in the corner. The miser retreated into the hall and took an already-lit lamp down from the wall. He raised the wick to increase the flame and once again entered the room. In the flickering glow of the lamp, he could see the boy tossing and mumbling on his pallet.

“If you’re play-acting, boy, I’ll…” but a closer look revealed the boy’s flushed face glistening with sweat.

The miser cursed for several seconds and, almost in answer to the miser, the boy said in clear voice: “And the winner is Bucknob!” The miser raised an eyebrow to this because Bucknob was the name of an acquaintance’s dog entered in tomorrow’s fights.

“What are you talking about, boy? If you’re faking I’ll…” But the rest of the boy’s utterances were incomprehensible mumblings. The miser heard a noise, and turned to the door to see the maid peering in. She cringed, and pulled back when he looked at her. He headed out, and the maid retreated from his path. “See to him,” he ordered as he started down the stairs.

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“Ha!” the miser cried as he entered the door the next evening.

“You’re in good good spirits, sir” the maid said tentatively — ready to retract her statement should the miser not approve.

Instead he replied, “Yes, I won at the fights this night.”

“Congratulations,” the maid said as she took his hat and coat.

“How’s the boy?” he asked.

“Better, sir. He seemed to be sleeping more peacefully the last time I looked in. Would you like me to check again, sir?”

“No, I’ll do it myself.” The miser climbed the stairs and entered the boy’s room. A lamp was already lit in one corner revealing the sleeping boy in another. The boy still looked ill, but the mumbling had stopped.

After a few minutes of waiting followed by several curses, the miser realized that he would probably hear nothing from the boy until he next took ill — and maybe not even then. The miser would visit the druggist tomorrow, he decided.

---

Due to the drugs that the miser administered every morning, the boy remained in a deep fever for several weeks. He had the boy moved to his own private chambers, and had dismissed the maid. 

The boy’s predictions were not restricted to dog fights, so the miser made money much quicker than he had expected. He congratulated himself on his good fortune in having one such controlled case of prophesy close at hand.

Though the miser was feeding the boy as best he could, after a month and a half, the boy looked so thin and weak that he might pass away from this world.

One day, while debating on whether to awaken the boy and allow him to recuperate on his own — on the chance that another induced fever might give the same results, or to leave the boy be and get what he could out him before he die, the boy gave a shockingly different prophesy. As usual, it was a quote that the miser would hear again in the next 24 hours — “‘I have come back.’”

“What!?” the miser grew angry because only one one prophecy was given each evening, and this evening was wasted on this nonsense. “Why you little…” He rushed toward the boy and it seemed that almost as he touched him, the boy lay dead with a broken neck.

But what did the statement mean? Would the maid come back again? If so, he had better do something about the boy’s body. The miser took the body out to the yard and, by the darkness of the new moon, buried it under a large oak tree. Не then retired to his chambers musing about his misfortune.

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The miser was found three days thereafter, his undernourished body nearly disconnected from his head — his face presenting a horrible look of fright. No one could understand how he had become this way, for he had been seen but days before — nor could they explain the gaping hole under the large, now-fallen oak.

At some point, it should be understood that the silly stories with surprise endings are the ones I wrote when I was young.

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Science Officer Harris made his report directly to Lieutenant Morgan: “I have that recheck you wanted, sir. Everything is exactly as I said at first,” and then more officially —  “On behalf of the science department, I request that you give permission to reroute this expedition.”

But the lieutenant had already made his decision based on the previous report. “Do whatever you think is right, Officer Harris, and I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Yes, sir!”

If this decision turns out for the better, the lieutenant thought, I’ll get a promotion. And if it doesn’t, I’ll have saved time waiting for an answer. So either way, I’m set.

The original mission had been to investigate the possibility of life on planet Peregrin — named after the founder and commander of this expedition, Walter G. Peregrin. But now it seemed, after much careful testing and observation, that the next planet toward this sun had an infinitely better chance of having life — and thus a much better chance of intelligent life. The reason Peregrin was chosen was because a scout ship, nearly three years ago, had examined the planet — but had not detected this new planet because they had been on opposite sides of the sun at that time.

This new planet had conditions so close to their home planet it was unbelievable, but so as not to startle the natives (if there were any) they would not land — but would teleport two specimens up to the ship to bring back home. So the ship began its preparations…

The science department created a device which could measure learning capability. They reasoned that a specimen with great learning capability would have picked up a great deal of useful knowledge throughout its lifetime.

The day had come. Two specimens were picked up — and the expedition headed home.

Several months later, the expedition arrived back at their home planet — disillusioned. Their specimens had refused to cooperate, and had only given them trouble. Plus, the specimens had died shortly after their arrival on board the ship. This raised serious doubts, akin to fears, these people had had for many years — whether or not they themselves were the only truly intelligent race in the universe. Nevertheless on the expeditioners home planet, Partesiss, that day of contact would be remembered as the first (and possibly last) attempt to contact an intelligent race. But several months voyage away, on Earth, the day would be remembered as the day two infants disappeared from St. Joseph’s Hospital maternity ward.