Everything's Eventual

   "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 maid's country, where the cheap cloth coats from Ames and Wal-Mart hung in a row like dreams that have grown seedy and been discarded, 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 slagheap, a pile of alien metal, remained. It was like an indelible stain that you know will 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 feel funny 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 at all, zero, empty, adiós. 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 shit! Oh shit-a-booger, you hit the jackpot, Paulie! You hit the damned jackpot!"

Luckey, Darlene thought. So luckey, oh luckey me.