“So I had no need for money. But I was tempted, and I fell. Somebody told me about this big poker game they have in town every Saturday night.
“I know I shouldn’t have gone into a gambling den, but I told myself I was only curious about such things. And maybe that was actually true, at first. I couldn’t say what brought me there, because I honestly don’t really know.
“But what I do know is that I ended up studying that poker game. Not only the game, but the men who were playing. And I kept on doing that, week after week.
“If I had stopped there, if I had gotten bored, if I’d had my fill of the foul language some of them used, or the whiskey they swilled, there would be no story to tell.
“Only, it didn’t end there. One night, I brought my own money to that table, and sat down to play.”
Mrs. Slater sat there, waiting for me to finish my story. She worked at keeping a shocked look off her face, but she couldn’t do anything about her eyes.
“From the second I put my money down on that green felt table, I knew I was doing wrong,” I told her. “But my sin was much worse than gambling. You see, I had all the advantages over the others. I know how to compute odds in my head faster than this,” I said, snapping my fingers into a sharp
“This is what I mean: one man, every time he’s bluffing, he always takes a tiny sip of his whiskey while he’s waiting for other people to decide. Another one, he has a little tic in his right cheek that goes off every time he’s holding top cards.
“The plain truth is that there was no way I could lose. I wasn’t playing poker; I was using a poker game to take money from others. The only difference between what I did and sticking up a bank is that I didn’t use a gun.
“I have repented what I did. I know that’s not sufficient, and I accept the responsibility of that knowledge. But surely you understand that I can’t just give the money back. Not to those people—that would only cause more trouble. And I can’t keep the money, either.
“So I went over to see Pastor Knight—I don’t know if you’ve ever met him; his church is way over the other side of town. I was looking for guidance. To be honest, I thought he was going to tell me to give the money to the church.
“But the pastor told me he didn’t have an answer. He said such a question was too big for him—it was a question for the Lord Himself.
“I understood that to mean I would have to pray for guidance on my own. If my prayers were sincere, the Lord would answer. And I did pray on this. I prayed long and hard. Time passed—but the Lord finally answered. It was almost as if He was punishing me for my sins, making me prove I was truly penitent before He would show me how to truly atone.”
I drank some of her lemonade, as if it was a strength-giving elixir.
“The Lord told me that I must make an offering. Not to the church, but to a person who had both sacrificed greatly and suffered unjustly.
“And then it came to me, like a bolt of lightning in the night. A true vision, it was. I looked back on how you had sacrificed to make sure that I could raise my baby brother. I saw how you had suffered the loss of your husband.… God’s truth, there was nobody else I could see—the harder I prayed, the more you flooded my mind.”
“Now, Esau—”
“Please forgive me interrupting, Mrs. Slater. But Tory and me, we are each bound to ask you to grant our greatest wish. Each of us has a wish, and you are the only person on God’s earth who could grant either one.”
“Esau, you know if there’s anything I can do …”
“Two things,” I told her. “For me, I must hand this over to you, and I beg you to accept it.”
I had the money in one of those oversized yellow envelopes, the kind that are bigger and stronger than the regular ones. I reached it out to her. Reached out to her as I had so many years ago.
The way I put it, she couldn’t refuse. I knew that, just as I knew she wouldn’t open the envelope until I was gone.
She tucked it into her apron, signifying my part was done. Then she turned to Tory-boy.
Oh, sweet Jesus, he was just perfect. Better than perfect. I swear there was a glow all around him when he leaned forward and said:
“Mrs. Slater, ever since I was old enough to understand, I always called you ‘Mom’ in my heart. On this day, if you would allow me, I would like to say it out loud, just this one time. It would mean the world to me.”
Even though I expected tears, I wasn’t prepared for Mrs. Slater crying and smiling at the same time. She didn’t say anything, but I nodded at Tory-boy as if she had.
He reached over and took her hand. “Thank you, Mom,” he said. “Thank you for giving me life.”
We stayed with her for quite a while after that. I didn’t think she would ever stop crying, but she finally did. Then she had to hug Tory-boy and kiss him. Over and over.
I hadn’t prepared Tory-boy for all this, but he took in every drop of that mother’s love he’d been starving for his whole life.
It was the finest day any man was ever blessed with. I can’t say it any better than that.
ven if Mrs. Slater had wanted to check into my story—and I knew that was highly unlikely—there were any number of folks who’d tell her that winning $18,475 in one night wasn’t anywhere near unusual, not with the stakes those people played for.
She was a strong woman, there was no doubt on that score. When I first heard about her husband passing, I feared what we call “busted nerves.” I never heard of a man getting a case of it, but it’s not uncommon for a woman who’s lost her husband and has no children.
They don’t get thoughts of suicide, but you can tell they have no real interest in living, either. Like flat tires with punctures that can’t be repaired. Just sad and empty. Sometimes they have all kinds of physical pains, too, but the doctors never find anything wrong with them, so they write them up as depressed or whatever, and they end up on Disability.
I don’t know what this place would be without those kind of paychecks. Probably like that little mining town built all around Grant’s Tomb.
The next time we went, Tory-boy took her a gift as natural as you please. Miss Webb had shown him how to make a bouquet from wildflowers, and he’d done a beautiful job.
Miss Webb even looked up the records, so we knew when Mrs. Slater’s birthday was.
When Miss Webb told me the date, I wasn’t surprised. But when she told me it was Tory-boy who had asked her to find it for him, my hopes for my baby brother took off like a bottle rocket.
Tory-boy handed over the bouquet the next time we visited. “For you, Mom,” is all he had to say.
After that, he said it a lot.
ver since we’d given up selling my drugs, I’d kept Tory-boy a good distance away from crime. I never tried to cut myself in on anyone’s operation. I never wanted to run anything. I didn’t even want to have anyone working for me.
No crime I ever did was on a contingency basis. I didn’t want a percentage share; I wanted to do a job of work and get paid for it. Nothing more, and surely nothing less.
he way it is here, it’s not just the poverty, or crooked politicians, or anything else you might want to blame. It’s … environmental, I believe. An invisible cold gray acid rain that never stops falling.
Around here, even dying can be hard. Horribly hard. Only death itself comes easy.
By easy, I mean frequent. Death happens so often around here that people regard it pretty much the same as that never-ending rain.
When life itself is hard, you have to be hard to live. Even a bitch will cull one of her own pups if she doesn’t think he’s going to be tough enough—she knows she’s only got but so much milk, and there’s none to waste.
