No, he's not. He's sensitive, that's all. And his resistance is low. She fished in her uniform pocket. Paul? Want this?
He looked back at her, saw the quarter, and smiled a little.
What are you going to do with it, Paul? Patsy asked him as he took it. Take Deirdre McCausland out on a date? She snickered.
I'll thing of subthing, Paul said.
Leave him alone, Darlene said. Don't bug him for a little while. Could you do that?
Yeah - but what do I get? Patsy asked her. I walked him over here safe - I always walk him safe -so what do I get?
Braces, Darlene thought, if I can ever afford them. And she was suddenly overwhelmed by unhappiness, by a sense of life as some vast cold junk pile - deluminum slag, perhaps - that was always looming over you,always waiting to fall, cutting you to screaming ribbons even before it crushed the life out of you. Luck was a joke. Even good luck was just bad luck with its hair combed.
Mom? Mommy? Patsy sounded suddenly concerned. I don't want anything. I was just kidding around, you know.
I've got a Sassy for you, Darlene said. I found it in one of my rooms and put it in my locker.
This month's? Patsy sounded suspicious.
Actually this month's. Come on.
They were halfway across the room when they heard the drop of the coin and the unmistakable ratchet of the handle and whir of the drums as Paul pulled the handle of the slot machine beside the desk, then let it go.
Oh, you dumb hoser! You're in trouble now, Patsy cried. She did not sound exactly unhappy about it. How many times has Mom told you not to throw your money away on stuff like that? Slots're for the tourists!
But Darlene didn't even turn around. She stood looking at the door that led back to the maids' country, where the cheap cloth coats from Ames and Wal-Mart hung in a row like dreams that have grown seedy and beendiscarded, where the time clock ticked, where the air always smelled of Melissa's perfume and Jane's Ben-Gay. She stood listening to the drums whir, she stood waiting for the rattle of coins into the tray, and by the time they began to fall she was already thinking about how she could ask Melissa to watch the kids while she went down to the casino. It wouldn't take long.
Luckey me, she thought, and closed her eyes. In the darkness behind her lids, the sound of the falling coins seemed very loud. It sounded like metal slag falling on top of a coffin.
It was all going to happen just the way she had imagined - she was somehow sure that it was - and yet that image of life as a huge slag heap, a pile of alien metal, remained. It was like an indelible stain that you knowwill never come out of some favorite piece of clothing.
Yet Patsy needed braces, Paul needed to see a doctor about his constantly running nose and constantly watering eyes, he needed a Sega system the way Patsy needed some colorful underwear that would make her feelfunny and sexy, and she needed what? What did she need? Deke back?
Sure. Deke back, she thought, almost laughing. I need him back like I need puberty back, or labor pains. I need well (nothing)
Yes, that was right. Nothing, zero, empty, adios. Black days, empty nights, and laughing all the way.
I don't need anything, because I'm luckey, she thought, her eyes still closed. Tears, squeezing out from beneath her closed lids, while behind her Patsy was screaming at the top of her lungs.
Oh, my God! Oh, you booger, you hit the jackpot. Paulie! You hit the damn jackpot!
Luckey, Darlene thought. So luckey. Oh, luckey me.
Fiction's King
