“No more bets,” says the croupier before spinning the 21 mm ivory ball around the roulette wheel.
The man with the $50,000 bet on black watches on greedily as his bleached-white teeth pounce on his nubby fingernails. The ball yawns and eventually kneels into a pocket.
The roulette dealer calls it: “14, Red, Even.”
Friday becomes the most infamous day of the week of Devin’s life. In less than 60 seconds, his life savings was taken away without so much as a complimentary cocktail.
The 26-year-old gambler was out of money and ideas. He drove two hours from his hometown in New York City to Atlantic City just to double his money. Yes, Devin was a gambling addict, but his intention that day was noble.
His grandmother needed an aortic valve replacement, which costs a little over $100,000 without medical insurance. The grandson’s hope was to pay for his Nana’s life-saving procedure since she hardly had two quarters to rub together. But if you ask Nana, she’d tell you she made her peace with God, excited about dancing in heaven’s courtyard in her new incorruptible, spiritual body.
Devin drives straight to see her but waits in the car before exiting. His reflection in the rearview mirror disgusts him.
“I trusted you! You couldn’t even make that tiny piece of plastic take its rightful place in the black?” He rains hammer fists onto an unsuspecting steering wheel. “You’re no all-powerful deity! You may be Almighty God in the supernatural, but here, where it matters, you can’t heal a diseased valve or move a few grams of plastic. So what good are you?” To say that Devin has a complicated relationship with religion is an understatement. It was his dear grandmother who introduced him to the God whom he secretly prays to—to quietly fade away and leave him alone.
He dries his eyes and looks back at the rearview mirror. “You’re all I’ve got.”
Devin barely picks up his feet and his head as he walks into the hospice building, saving his energy for what he’s about to say to his dying grandmother.
His eyes expect to see her in bed. But instead, he sees a card and wrapped rectangular present where her body once lay. Shocked to know she was gone, he was not. But he was hoping to have been there to fix her pillow one last time, feed her her favorite dessert—tapioca pudding—and wipe the corners of her mouth with his handkerchief as he apologizes for not being able to save her.
Devin opens the card and recognizes Nana’s distinct art and handwriting, especially how she fashions a king’s crown over the first letter of his name in cursive: “There’s so much I can say, my Sweet Boy. But I’ll wait to tell you myself when I see you again. For now, I hope you like the Bible I got you. If you read it, it will take away all your problems.”
Angry at God, he never opens it.
Inside the Bible is a check in his name for $100,000. On the “memo” line, it reads: To start your bike shop.
Only three colors remain—black, white, and shades of gray.