“Hell no! Please, I don’t ever want—”
“Autoerotic asphyxiation. Pretty impressive for a man of your years. Don’t worry, I’ll erase your browser history.”
“I don’t know what a browser is, and I don’t care. Please stop being a dick, and promise me you won’t tell me anything about my future. If you do, I’m going to fret about it until it happens.”
“Okay, I promise,” Arnesto said.
“Thank you. So… why now? Why did your memories all come back at once?”
“My best guess is that it was some sort of feedback loop. The more electrical impulses phased in, the more my brain became a grounding station — a focal point — until it reached a critical mass. Then it was done. I was complete.”
“A complete tool,” Pete corrected. “Well, at least now we know why it all happened. But dang, I’m still sad about Sylvia.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m 99% sure the Celtics never invite me to a tryout.”
“Their loss.” They sat melancholy for a bit. Pete suddenly chimed in. “How do they do without you warming the bench?”
Arnesto realized what Pete was insinuating. “Let’s see. Next year will be the ‘89 playoffs. I’m not positive, but I think they lose. I’m pretty sure they get run over by the Pistons in the first round.” They were now both sitting up perfectly straight, smiling from ear to ear.
“Would you be willing to bet on that?”
Arnesto stretched his arms along the back of the hot tub. “How could I not?”
“Another popsicle, good sir?” Pete asked as he got out and headed inside the house.
“Indubitably, good sir!”
Pete returned not thirty seconds later with fresh popsicles. “So… how do we do it? Do we find a bookie?”
“No, they’re always bad news in the movies. What about Atlantic City?” Arnesto asked.
“There’s a casino in Connecticut that’s much closer.”
“We have no way in.”
“We have no way in in Atlantic City.”
“Don’t you have family in Jersey? What about your cousin… Barry?” Arnesto asked.
“Larry.”
“Didn’t he turn twenty-one a while back?”
“Yeah, he did. I don’t know if he’ll want to place a bet for us, though.”
Arnesto took another bite of his popsicle. “I’ve got it,” he said. “Well cut him in for a share of our profits. It’s hard to argue with free money. We’ll have to convince him why we think the Pistons will go all the way this year. Then we’ll keep betting on them every game, and we’re guaranteed to win more than we lose. We’ll have to lose some, though, to avoid arousing suspicions.”
“It’s not just about winning or losing; you need to factor in the vigorish.”
“Oh, I intend to bet vigorishly.”
Pete groaned. “Get serious. Why do we have to go to Atlantic City? Can’t we call him?”
“How would we get him the money to bet and how would he get us our winnings? Besides, my memory — it could be wrong. If I suddenly remember a different outcome, or a different game to bet on, whatever, we might need to contact him to cancel or increase a bet. Look — if those kids in Stand By Me can hike twenty hours to see a dead body, we can drive four hours to make a fortune. C’mon, it’ll be fun!”
“Alright, fine,” Pete said. “But I know you really want to see the attractions.”
“Don’t you?”
“Yeah, kinda.”
Junior year began and Arnesto, being a few months older than Pete, was the first to get his driver’s license. This worked out well, as Arnesto could drive them both to their new hospital kitchen job. With evening and weekend differentials, not to mention the extra shifts they picked up in preparation for their future sports betting, they would have rather decent bankrolls with which to later build their fortunes.
“I hope we don’t get Eugene today,” Pete said, referring to his least favorite boss. “Have you worked with him yet?”
“No, not yet,” Arnesto said, merging onto the highway. “You know, he starts off gruff with new people, but once you get to know him, he’s alright.”
“So you have worked with him, just not in this lifetime.” Pete looked at Arnesto, who shrugged. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this superpower of yours.” He turned toward the passenger side mirror then turned and looked out the back window. “Hey, this guy is right on your ass.”
“Jesus, where did he come from,” Arnesto said, looking in the rear view mirror. They were in the left lane going fifty-five in a forty-five-mile-per-hour zone with a pickup truck tailgating a few feet behind them.
Pete pointed to a vehicle several car-lengths ahead of them in the other lane. “Catch up to that car, don’t let him pass.”
“Ha ha, yeah,” Arnesto agreed, pushing down the accelerator. However, a few seconds later, Arnesto instead pulled into the right lane behind the car and slowed down almost to the speed limit. The pickup sped past, flipping them off.
“What’d you do that for? Why’d you let him pass?” Pete asked.
“Because,” Arnesto said, “he was going to try to kill us.”
Pete knew Arnesto wasn’t kidding. “Shit, what happened?”
“Nothing, thankfully. First he cut us off and slammed on the brakes trying to get us to hit him. Then he tried to engage us in a game of chicken, but we were able to avoid it by hanging too far behind him. We got lucky.”
“Huh. Well, if you know nothing happens, why not do it again? I mean, it could have been interesting.”
“Pete,” Arnesto said, turning to Pete and sounding more like a disappointed father than a cocky teenager, “I told you, that’s not how it works. There’s no way I could exactly reproduce what happened the last time. My timing would be at least a tiny bit off, perhaps causing us to ram him… or worse.”
“Alright, forgive me for being an actual teenager and not Nostradamus, like you.”
“Tell you what,” Arnesto said, getting back into the left lane and hitting the gas, “we’ll follow him from a safe distance and make sure he doesn’t kill somebody else in our absence. Maybe he’ll put on a show for you.”
The “show” wasn’t much, only some weaving in and out of traffic and more vulgarities.
They made it to work and had a wholly uninteresting shift. Pete was on soups and salads followed by washing dishes while Arnesto was stuck on “floors,” widely known as the least desirable of the kitchen jobs. The other ten or so jobs, while in no way glamorous, all required some element of teamwork and thus, social interaction. But not “floors,” where you not only spent the bulk of the shift mopping, you did so alone with almost no interaction other than Eugene pointing out spots you missed. Arnesto didn’t even realize Jacqueline was working in the cafeteria that night until he saw her sign out her timecard at the end of the shift.
Jacqueline was two years older, a college freshman, and a babe, the kind who has an instant chemistry with everyone she talks to. She was the kind that engages you in conversation so casually and naturally that men find themselves thinking about her and wondering why they can never meet someone like her.
“Hey, we’re having burgers tonight, let’s go,” Pete said with great insistence.
“Hold on, I’ll meet you at the car,” Arnesto said, running after Jacqueline.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to have sex with her real quick. Be right there!”