“Bernice,” she whispered on the telephone later that day when she got the chance, “Bernice, well, heh-heh-hehhhh-hhh …”
The first piece of clothing Henry took off was his tie. His jacket went next. Then his vest. He was still losing. The dice were running against him. So he took off his shoes. “Goddamn, man, I gotta throw some-thing tonight, baby! These dice is like women, whores! Nasty!” Henry was playing with money that belonged to Agatha. Nervousness was working itself all through his body; and it was going to his mind. He felt he would lose Agatha’s sixty dollars.
After an hour of playing, Henry was still losing. There was terror in his hands, and in his mind, and in his body. He saw himself losing all his money; and he saw himself losing Agatha; and he saw himself having to beg in his characteristically childlike manner for taxicab fare from Freeness. Freeness always pretended that he was more embarrassed about this than Henry was about his indigence.
It was getting late. The dice came back to him after he lost ten dollars — five to a man they called Stumpy, and five to Freeness. His hands started to sweat. He had fifteen dollars left. He was praying to throw a “main”; he was praying to throw two or three “nicks”; he was praying for luck. The dice felt like hot cubes of sugar in his hand.
Freeness looked up from the pillow on which he was sitting and snapped, “Rass-hole bet, man! Bet, man! I not here for my health!”
And jolted by this command, Henry took the dice once more, rattlingly together in his hand, placed a two-dollar bill on the carpet, and said, “Two dollars.” It was spoken as if it was an apology. Boysie, all this time, concerned about his own luck and winnings, noticed for the first time the tension and the fear in his friend’s eyes and in his movements. And he felt sorry for him. Their eyes met, and they transmitted (Henry’s more than Boysie’s) terror. Boysie noticed it there, and he lowered his head. It was his turn to place a bet against Henry; and he purposely bet five dollars that Henry wouldn’t throw the “eight main” so that if Henry won, he would at least get back some of his money.
But an “eight man,” according to Freeness, who was an expert in these things, “was the rass-hole easiest main to throw. Jesus Christ, a dead man could throw a eight! Look, you have six-two, five-three, double-four, good Jesus Christ, man, a little child could throw a eight main!” Henry knew this too. But today, he was not sure. He held the dice a long time; throwing all the time, but each time the dice landed on the carpet it was not an “eight.” Four times he threw a “nine.” Freeness, coaxing him (for Freeness really liked him in a strange way), said, “One too much, Henry. Nine minus one is eight, man! Christ, you can’t count?”
And then Henry felt some courage in his hand. He rattled the dice, closed his eyes, said a silent prayer, and threw. When he opened his eyes, Boysie was taking up the fourteen dollars — seven of which belonged to Henry. And the dice passed him. Freeness avoided his appealing eyes. In this short revolution, more than twenty-four hours of life, more than one day and one night of terror, passed through his consciousness. Passage of time and dice made him talk to himself, grumbling and mumbling about his luck.
“You’s a rass-hole old man, or what?” Freeness shouted. “You talking to yourself, a young rass-hole man like you? Boy, are you getting stupid?”
And Stumpy erupted from his characteristic gentleness and silence and said, “Getting, sah?”
Henry was involved in arguing with himself for the benefit of convincing himself of his own logic: “Money don’t mean no big deal to me …”
He had the dice again. His first throw showed a “four.” A “four” is, to most crap players, the most difficult “main” to make. “But if it’s on the fucking dice, as it is,” Freeness said, “you can throw a kiss-me-arse four-main! You can throw anything They’re on the dice, man.”
But Henry, already convinced within himself that money didn’t mean a great deal to him, bet his last ten dollars that he could throw the “four.” He did not believe within himself that he could throw it. But he was frantic. He wanted his bad luck to break. Or he wanted to break himself.
Freeness’s eyes opened wide, as if they had opened by themselves, and they spotted the ten dollars on the floor. “Boy, are you crazy? Ten dollars is a lot o’ money, you idiot! Ten dollars? On a four? Man, you have rocks in your rass-hole head, or what?” And he started laughing at Henry. He himself never bet ten dollars on a “four.” “Ten dollars is a lot o’ bread, you arse! If you had ten dollars this afternoon and you was in Barbados, you don’t know you could be the rass-hole governor o’ that place? You could own Barbados with ten dollars!”
But Henry kept on mumbling … “money ain’ no big thing to me, man” … and the first throw he made he showed “seven” — and therefore crapped-out!
“That fucking white woman who marrieding you, she got rocks in her fucking head! Not you! Only a foolish woman would want you, man! Freeness said, a bit unkindly; but after all, judging from Henry’s behaviour, more than a
