“Nothing,” he said in a quiet monotone.
“I can tell something’s wrong. You just won’t tell me. I can see it in your brains.”
“Nothing,” said Sam. “I’m just … have nothing to say.”
“You’re acting different,” said Hester. “You’re being like … pausing.”
It was April and Hester’s windows were open. They were on the fifth floor. Cars and voices could be heard from Twenty-Third Street. “I’m just sad or something,” said Sam. “I feel normal. I’m just quiet.”
“I feel kind of sad,” said Hester. “I wish you would tell me your feelings sometimes.”
“I don’t have … anything to complain about,” said Sam. “I’m just, I don’t know, I don’t want to talk anymore, I’ll just start saying bad things.” Sam covered his face with a blanket and rolled over on the bed. He stared at the blanket against his face. He lay without moving.
“You should say them,” said Hester.
“I don’t have anything to say. I’m not complaining.”
“I’m not complaining either,” said Hester. “I just wish we could be closer. I thought we could but I guess I was wrong.” After a few minutes they began to say bad things about each other. Sam questioned Hester existentially while lying nearly facedown covered completely by the blanket. It was quiet and then Hester got off the bed.
“I’m going to sleep,” she said. “So I can wake up tomorrow and live my ‘goalless’ life.” Sam left the bedroom and saw Hester standing at her window looking outside. Sam left the apartment. In the staircase he text messaged Hester that he liked her, didn’t have anything bad to say about her or her life, and didn’t agree at all with anything he had said.
About a month later Robert and Sam were walking on St. Mark’s Place around 10 p.m. Sam saw someone moving sideways like a crab on the street. Sam stopped walking and stared at the person. “Robert, wait,” he said. “That person was in jail with me. He ate a lot of sandwiches really fast and someone kicked him. He didn’t seem insane before.”
Robert looked at Sam with an excited facial expression.
“He’s wearing the exact same clothes, I think,” said Sam.
The young Asian was about one hundred feet away.
“How is he walking so fast,” said Sam in an expressive voice.
The young Asian stood on the corner of St. Mark’s and Second Avenue repeatedly saying “Do you want to eat?” with unfocused eyes. The young Asian crossed the street and kicked over a metal trashcan.
“Do you think he really just wanted to eat?” said Robert.
“I don’t know, that’s funny,” said Sam. “He ate a lot in jail.”
Robert and Sam crossed the street and didn’t see the young Asian then saw him in the distance on a dark street. “He seems so fucked,” said Sam. “He’s moved around for like four blocks and no one seems to see him or something.” Robert said the young Asian was probably a vampire. Sam said the young Asian talked to a public attorney in jail and sounded normal and said he lived with his girlfriend in the East Village. They followed the young Asian for about fifteen minutes. The young Asian was walking in different directions. Robert and Sam turned around sometimes. The young Asian noticed he was being followed. “I didn’t rape my sister, two guys raped my sister, ask anyone, ask one of my friends,” he said quietly to Sam.
A few weeks later around 1 a.m. Robert and Sam were on a bus to Atlantic City. Robert was reading a Bret Easton Ellis novel and Sam was reading printouts of the Wikipedia pages for Texas hold ’em and blackjack. Sam said he was going to eat a giant steak with A1 sauce if he won $2,000 or lost all but $20.
Around 5 a.m. at the Tropicana Sam was at a blackjack table and Robert was at a Texas hold ’em table. Sam text messaged Robert: “Up 400. Feel like impossible to lose. Want to leave soon?”
Robert text messaged: “Up 17. Coming in 20 minutes.”
Around 6 a.m. on a down escalator Sam took a cell phone photo of $800 in hundreds and twenties and sent it to tips@gawker.com. Robert and Sam walked around looking for a buffet that was open. They took a cab to the other side of Atlantic City. They walked into the Borgata. About twenty minutes later Sam text messaged Robert: “Lost 600, steak soon. Excited.”
Robert text messaged: “Lost 40, coming now.”
“Hey,” he said to Sam at the blackjack table.
“I’m just going to lose the rest really fast,” said Sam grinning. “I’ll save twenty dollars for steak.” Three people Sam’s age who didn’t know each other were also at the blackjack table. After a few minutes Sam had $20 left. He and Robert walked around the casino smiling.
“I feel really good,” said Sam. “How do you feel?”
“I feel really good also,” said Robert.
“Should we go to the buffet,” said Sam.
“I don’t know,” said Robert. “Do you want to?”
“I’m not sure. If we feel good we shouldn’t eat at the buffet, right?”
Robert laughed. “Yeah, we probably shouldn’t eat at the buffet. I mean, I don’t care, if you want to go I’ll go.” They got on a $2 trolley back to the Tropicana. It was around 9 a.m. and sunny. “What about that pizza place,” said Sam pointing at a sign outside the trolley.
“I don’t know, do you want to?” said Robert.
“No, not really. I’m not hungry, I think.”
At the Tropicana they stood waiting for the bus to New York City.
“The Bodega is so far from the other casinos,” said Sam.
“What do you mean,” said Robert. “What bodega?”
“That place,” said Sam. “With the sexy waitresses.”
“The Borgata,” said Robert.
“It should be called the Bodega,” said Sam grinning. “That’s funny, why would they name it something that sounds like ‘bodega,’ bodegas are like the shittiest stores that exist.”
“Do you think you’ll want to come back again?” said Robert.
“I don’t know. I feel like I can’t win. I would just lose all my money. But I feel happy here, I think.”
“Do you want an avocado?” said Robert on the bus.
“No thank you,” said Sam and closed his eyes.
At Penn Station Robert got on a train uptown to pet-sit. Sam went to his apartment and slept. The next night they were back in Atlantic City. They walked on the boardwalk by the beach around 4 a.m. “Everyone here seems, like, fucked, but in a good way,” said Sam. “I feel at home here.”
They walked into a deli and looked at shriveled potatoes.
“We should have a party here,” said Robert on the street.
“We should just move here,” said Sam.
“I feel like if I lived here I would just wake up every day and eat pizza, and play poker for two hours, and go home and watch TV, and drink beer,” said Robert.
They walked past a strip bar and a house with a “For Rent” sign.
“I just want to be crying in someone’s arms,” said Robert.
A few months later Sam was sitting on his mattress with his MacBook drinking iced coffee and listening to music. It was around 3 p.m. and the room was very sunny. Sam had woken early that day and left his apartment and completed work in the library and came back to his apartment. “I want to do Pilates alone in my room to a DVD on my laptop every night,” he said to Robert on Gmail chat. “I’m buying a Pilates mat once I’m unemployed. I’m creating a plan to be really good. So far I’m doing Pilates.”
“That’s great,” said Robert.
“Are you serious,” said Sam.
“Sort of,” said Robert. “I mean, if I thought there was anything ‘important’ or something it would be being good.” Robert said Sheila called twice earlier from the mental hospital and that he gave her Sam’s phone number and told her to call Sam.
“Thanks,” said Sam. “How is she.”