Chapter 5: Counting cards

Actually, that’s not entirely true.

You see, you can’t just hand the dealer money. For some reason, that’s not allowed. I think it’s something to do with a bribery thing. You put the money on the table, they scoop it up with this wooden contraption, and they push it down a little hole. They never touch it at all.

Then you start losing.

I started with twenty-one. Black Jack. Not because it’s my game or any macho guy crap like that. Just because I can count. Not cards. Up to twenty-one. It’s a simple game. You just try to get twenty-one without going over. Simple. Any idiot can do it.

Of course, I do feel more like an idiot when I start losing.

So I put down one hundred dollars. It was a low stakes table, so I got a whopping ten chips back for my money. So I put down the first chip, didn’t want to bet too high, and I was dealt nine. Or nineteen, depending on how you count.

The dealer only had three showing. All I had to do was beat the dealer, and I’d be fine. So I figured I’d stay. Might as well, right? I was the last one before the dealer. I had the rest of the table either beaten or tied, not that it mattered, and I was feeling pretty good about myself.

So the dealer flips over his other card. It’s a jack. Then he hits with an eight.

Twenty-one. See? I can count.

Things kind of went down hill from there. My ten chips lasted me almost an hour. At one point, I was up thirty dollars from my original stake. But that only lasted for three hands. All of which I lost.

So I kept walking. I eventually made it back to the Tropicana and went up to my room. My feet hurt, my legs hurt, and I was only a little bit tired. So I ordered some wine from room service. They’re big on getting people drunk in Vegas. If I ever enter AA, Vegas is the place I am going to do it. The way I figure it, if you can be sober in Vegas, you can be sober anywhere. Except Ohio.

Once I have my wine, I fill up the tub. It might be big enough for two, if one didn’t mind having a huge faucet stabbing into their back. I know a few people who wouldn’t. But this isn’t about them.

It’s about me. Me, with my wine, and my book, sitting in a nice hot tub of water, reading and drinking. Alone. Okay, so there is one downside.

The neat thing about drinking while in the tub is that when the water’s hot, you get drunk faster. I don’t know why this is. But I do know that it meant I didn’t drink nearly as much wine as I normally would, but I got just as tipsy. I don’t go for the full out drunk. Kind of pointless. But tipsy makes me feel good, and helped me enjoy the book even more.

Not that it wasn’t a good book. It was. It was actually really good. I might have to talk to the guy who wrote it. I think he’s going to be at the convention.

*

September 9, 2006

Dear Kylie,

I’m not sure you remember me, but we went to college together. My name is Brian Lynke. We weren’t the best of friends, nor do I think we ever really spent any time together, but we did once have a creative writing class. I remember that even then you were fighting to keep humor in even the darkest of stories. I always admired that about you. I always thought it was amazing that you could be funny, or at the very least irreverent, no matter the topic.

If you recall, there was once a day when we were discussing limericks, and it was claimed that no one could possibly write a depressing limerick. The fact that you managed (and very quickly, if memory serves) to write one about the Black Death still makes me laugh. Somehow, by writing something that was without humor, you managed to be even more funny. An amazing talent.

And, since leaving college, I see that not much has changed. While I am not an avid comic reader, and hence have not taken the time to read the stories you wrote for various graphic novel lines, I have made it a point to read all six of your novels, I have recording of both radio plays (Incest and Oranges is my personal favorite), and I read your column in the Morning Call regularly.

I will admit, I started reading what you wrote partially out of the ‘I know her!’ syndrome. Having known you from college, seeing your name in print was an exciting thing, a way to live vicariously. It was a way to assuage my own fears, and inspire me to reach my own goals. It made me think that perhaps some day I would see my own name in print in more than just a newspaper. This is why I first picked up your work. But since then, I have continued to read your writing purely out of a desire to read high quality work. You are very funny, Kylie. You always have been. I don’t know how I managed to forget the number of times class had to stop because you were making everyone laugh so much. I do wonder how we managed to get anything done..

I wonder other things as well.

When did you break up with your boyfriend? Judging by your storylines, I would say that calling it a bad breakup would be an understatement. It seems that something horrible, something rather traumatic, happened to you, and just after college. It seems to have helped you professionally, but it makes me wonder what it is. I will understand if you don’t want to talk about it.

Is that why you haven’t been in any relationships since college? If memory serves, you were a stunningly attractive young woman (and, looking at your picture on the book jacket, you still seem to be), and with a personality, mind, and sense of humor like yours, I’m certain you would find it no difficulty whatsoever to attract any number of men (or women, if your preference has changed).

You were dating a football player in college, were you not? No, wait. He was a soccer player. Hard to tell the difference sometimes. I always wondered why you were dating him. Had you written anything depressing for class, I might have been worried. Then again, some of the more surreal essays you shared with us had a tinge of fear, panic, and pain to them, so perhaps there was something there.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into this.

I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. Please respond to me if you can. I understand if you are too busy, though.

Sincerely,

Brian Lynke