The overgrown part was just a huge lot, maybe the size of a football field, maybe larger, I mean it stretched forever. All the crappy trees that grow when nothing else is growing were there, busting up through the concrete as far as the eye could see. All the walls, wherever they were bare, were covered in graffiti. There were piles of blankets or sleeping bags where people maybe had tried to live. I wandered across the lot. It took me ten minutes to cross it; I kept getting distracted by how alone I was—and how wonderful it felt. Eventually I got into the complex of buildings. There was a kind of driveway with window frames thrown down every fifteen feet. At the end of it was a beautiful courtyard. The windows from the buildings looked down into it and I got completely creeped out, but I couldn’t run away. It was too far. Where would I run to? So, I found a place under a tree where the windows couldn’t see me, and I sat and ate my lunch.
I was embarrassed to mention this earlier, but since I have said everything else, I might as well say this, too. My aunt makes me a lunch that I have when I go places (like school), since we can’t afford to buy things. It is: a hard-boiled egg and a piece of bread and a carrot. The bread she makes herself and it is not good bread. Some people can make bread, some can’t. My aunt is awful at it. I have eaten so much of this bread in the last year, I can’t tell you. But, I am practically psychically compelled to eat it, because when I don’t I have this grievous identification with her in my mind as she leans over the oven with her bad back taking the bread out. So, I have to eat it.
The good thing about that lunch is—it is over in about fifteen seconds. That leaves me more time for other things. Most people—their lunch takes them five minutes at least, sometimes ten or twenty, so they are lagging behind me in efficiency.
I have the licorice, too—which makes the shitty lunch bearable. When I run out of licorice, it gets bad.
You may be wondering whether I was brave enough to go into the buildings. I was not brave enough to go in. I had the thought that I would be a coward if I didn’t go in. Then, I looked at one of the places where the door was broken down. That’s where I would go in, I thought to myself. Then, I thought, I am not going in there, no matter what. You can’t make me. Then, I tried to make myself do it, and it didn’t happen. So, I am that much of a coward, at least.
I went back to the lot, and found a nearer place where I could get out by climbing a wall on the inside. When I jumped down to the sidewalk, there were two guys playing dice in the shade right by me.
Shit, said one of them. What were you doing in there?
None of your business, I said, in a nice, play-along way, and he laughed.
I sat and talked to them for a while and watched them play cee-lo. I wanted to play too, but I didn’t have any money. It’s mostly luck, but it is slightly better to go first, so the trick is—you and your friends make sure the stranger has to go last. That way your money stays with your group. Eventually, then, you have all the stranger’s money.
CEE-LO
You throw three dice and it is only something if you get:
111,222,333,444,555,666
or
any two that are the same and one of something else, which counts as the something else, ie., 33,5 is a 5.
or
123 & 456.
The game is kind of rigged, and here’s why: 1,2,3 is an instant loss. You are removed from the game, but the game continues for everyone else. Meanwhile, 4,5,6 is an instant win. The game is over—bang. You get all the money.
So, the way to think of it—of whether it is fair—is to consider, what if the game was just with one die and you throw it—if you get a 1 a 2 or a 3 you win everything. Let’s imagine that is the game. Well, if that was the case, then you would definitely not want to be last in a group of people who are throwing the dice. Because then you would have a 50 percent chance of losing your money whenever someone else goes. And each of the five guys who are ahead of you are going to go before you. If you put in five dollars or ten dollars, which are common stakes, you could lose as much as 25 or 50 dollars, without ever getting to touch the dice! I grant you, in the actual game, that is uncommon, it would be 2 or 3 percent, I think, per roll of 456—but we are talking about the fairness—and over time, it ends up being pretty unfair.
So, you have to have enough money to suffer the loss that will happen before you get to go, just to make sure you have money to put in the pot for your turn, and then you’d better hope you have at least average good fortune when you do get to go first.
If it truly rotates and everyone gets to go first the same number of times, well, fine. But, people often get tricked out of going first because the dice game will move, people come and go. I have seen it happen. Also, people will often leave right after having gotten to go first, which is a creep move. If the players in the game keep coming and going—and there are a lot of fresh faces, and those people are getting to go first when they arrive for reasons you can’t fathom, well, watch out! Basically the same trick is that they will change the bet when your turn comes around—so the time when you go first is a short-bet, and the rest of the times, the bet is large. The way they do this con is they let you go first, and everyone throws a dollar down. Then when that turn is through, they up the bet to five or ten.
One other trick they will do is when it is about to be your turn someone will throw the dice so that one die gets lost. Then the game is off until another die is found, and at that point there is a new order, and you are at the back of the line again. What bullshit! And if you try to argue, you could even get beaten up—or worse, some of these guys are charismatic. They’ll just talk real sweet and make you seem like an asshole for trying to be some kind of stickler. But everyone knows what is actually going on.
There is a different version that is slightly more fair that involves the dice-throwing player being “the bank.” Then, the rest match his/her bet. People will play that version if they play for a lot of money. I have only seen it once.
And as I was saying at the beginning, even if things are fair—you can be in big trouble when it is you versus a group of people who are friends. This is because they exist as a sort of big bank that preserves itself. Whereas, when you run out of money, you have to stop playing. You stop playing because they have your money and you have no money. They never have to stop playing because it simply won’t happen (unless you are really lucky) that you win all of the money that they have in common.
Essentially, if you are going to weather bad runs of luck, you need to have enough money to never stop playing.
Enough about cee-lo. I’m sorry to talk so much about it—but I really like thinking about games. My aunt would definitely come up with some better rules if she were a dice player.
PAMPHLET
A few days before, at school, Stephan had given me a full copy of the arson pamphlet that he got when he went to somebody’s house. I imagine he must have gone and photocopied it himself, which is ridiculous. He had to be really stuck on me to photocopy a whole pamphlet for no reason. I didn’t even thank him. Sometimes when people get to be too nice, you end up not thanking them, because you are completely tired of saying thank you. Then they become more and more hangdog and you want to thank them even less.