10:Eliza

Eliza the Blackjack Player

Ah, Eliza. If we were little kids they'd have nursery rhymes about her, unfortunately we're too "adult" for those. They'd go somethin like

A catchy tune that would get stuck in many an old person's head and keep them away from her, yet that poem does not exist and she is the luckiest person because of it.

I met Eliza. Passing through Vegas, the luck capital of the world.
Met her on the table. Beaming with her pile of luck, playing it well.
Eliza has legs. Those looong legs with a nice tan on them from exposure to the gleams of many men's eyes. Those things are the lights that the moths keep on bumping into, and eventually die off. Yet despite sweet candies of words, her heart only warms to one thing. Cards.
Blackjack was her game. Not too fond of poker, not too fond of BS, Go-Fish, Crazy 8s, Phone booth, none of that small stuff. It was blackjack. Such a simple small game, dealt 1 card per leg, 1 showing, 1 hidden under her black silky dress.

No man, nor woman, has ever walked away richer than they came. Theoretically it is possible; the first couple games she teases you. She lets you believe you could win the next hand.

I sat down at her table. How was I going to win. Several others were playing away their fortunes, but probably just paying for the leg show. Eliza doesn't care, she figures the round about equation, money = power = sex = life = money. She enjoys herself, which is really all that matters, no? Curious if I could tease her.

I watch the table for a while, refusing to join in, and finally do. Decide on just 1 play, seeing where it goes, taking a lick of the luck lollypop, seeing if it tastes good.

The casino gets a kick out of it. They let her put her table in the center of table land, but with the small charge of 70% of her profits. She doesn't care. Still enough money to give her animal fur. Of course she doesn't buy her own dinners, she lets the men do that. But she does buy a gun, just so she makes sure after dinner she never meets them again (one way or another).

I take off my hat, my wild untamed hair exposed. She kind of laughs at it and I ask for a hand. She deals me in, like her usual, gleaming in her eyes like always. the Ace is hidden, the 6 is showing. 17. Or 7. Hit. She passes me a 4 of diamonds. 21. Or, 11... I'll be an idiot, cause I strive for disaster in live (what else could be interesting?). Hit. Ah! She passed me my card, my favorite card in the entire deck! The King of Hearts! Ah what a bastard he is. 21 again. 20 showing. She, by this time, is slightly confuzed. From her perspective, I have gotten a 6, then a 4, making 10 showing, then a 10 again, making 20, and the only way I couldn't have bust is if I had an ace, thus making her know of my ridiculous hit.

Took whatever money I won, and left the table. Usually, usually usually, her customers would stick around. After such a hand too, you'd expect your luck to be just building up. But no. It's like she said to me later, "Luck is like money. You spend it, and it slowly goes away, you pay it, and I earn it. I'm not playing for money, I play for luck."

Behind me, as I leave the table, I hear a small "That bastard..." followed by some long legs standing up and some confused stares.
Some tender arms cross my shoulder and Eliza's nice voice lets out a
"Honey, where ya going? You have luck on your side tonight, don't let it go to waste!"
"Babe," I said, cause babe is fun to call people and it sounded correct at the moment, "luck doesn't choose sides."
I would have been the first man to walk away with more money. And she could see my pockets filled with much more luck than that small sample I put on the table. She had to do something, and you could hear it in her footsteps. This something ended up a couple steps later when she bent down (she was quite a lot taller than I, considering the legs) and whispered into my ear the name of a bar and a time early in the birth of morning.

The piano dribbled out a sweet lonely and watered down lullaby. It was all a background to the star of the bar, Miss Eliza. As I approached she took notice and shooed away the flirters to make room for business. I was her business, and she was determined to keep her winning record. I found out later that this had happened a small few times, and that I wasn't actually the first to walk away with more money, but they quickly lost it after this inevitable meeting.
"Lets play another game Honey. I know one a lot more exciting than Blackjack." she lied. Blackjack is her number one passion.
"I already know the game and I'm quite a player." Replying cryptically, guessing at what she was getting at. Cat and Mouse. Like an old episode of Tom and Jerry played out on a metaphorical level in a dead bar in the outskirts of Vegas.
She got me a drink and we played the rest of the morning. No not a sex thing, but a funny little get to know each other while trying to make the other fall in love or something similar. That bitch had one hell of a callused heart. Mine was far too soft, but quick and intelligent for tricks. Cynically deceiving each other and such, morning soon grew into a blooming colorful adult and some later was dying. Our drinks had been emptied many times, and by that time I had picked up her plan. If she couldn't get me in bed tangled in those legs, which I didn't especially need, she had an interesting collusion with the bar and his bouncer... A quick and simple refusal to pay for the drinks and she would promptly leave to let me pay willingly or unwillingly.

It was about time. The crowd was about to get thicker and her move was going to come any time soon. I waited... but... she paid. I was shocked.

"I like you kid." The legs said as they touched firmly to the floor and walked themselves out of the bar.

Somehow in my games of Cat and Mouse I had done something... I'm not sure exactly what it was. Maybe she had caused something in her own mind to give up. Maybe... many things could have happened. I heard that for three days she wasn't at the Blackjack tables, but she came back without anything changed. When asked where she was, she smiled and hit the person.