Guest: Jamie Samms.
0 words.
Ceiling tiles reflected in the glass.
The cracked glass that should have been repaired ages ago.
Like so many other things in life, if you wait long enough, the "should have been done months ago" just goes away. It becomes irrelevant in the here and now and never gets done and soon enough, you can't even remember why it was so very important in the first place.
I'm talking about the iPad I'm writing this on, of course. Only a few months after I bought it, I took it out into the Canadian winter and snap. The glass cracked for no apparent reason other than I guess it didn't like the cold any more than I did. That day, it joined the ever growing list of things I need to deal with.
Things get crossed off. Never as many as get added onto the other end. Things shuffle down the que. Things disappear as though written in magical ink that becomes fainter and fainter over time until it’s invisible. Which doesn't mean it isn't there. Like the cracks on the iPad, I simply learn to look through them and keep going.
Everyone has this list.
Mine begins, everyday, with 0 words. No matter how many other mundane tasks I get done in a day, if that count remains at 0, I somehow manage to convince myself the day was a waste.
Words are my life blood. My sustenance. Obsession. Addiction. Yes. Words are my addiction. There will never be a 30day word free chip for me. Instead, I will have a stack of lists with invisible tasks, and a long snake of black-on-white words across the page.
Stories. Stories are my crack, the submission-go-round my Black Jack table.
If readers are my enablers, then I am their dealer, and the circle never ends.
Paying the Piper by Jaime Samms
Michael isn’t used to casino blackjack dealers telling him to cash in, but that’s what Daniel Aldaine does, recognizing the group of men waiting to collect what Michael owes them. He even fronts Michael the money he’s short to get the goons off his back. It’s the beginning of the best relationship Michael’s ever known, but a problem he doesn’t even recognize he has could end it all.
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Excerpt:
He works at the casino dealing blackjack. He’s a good dealer. The way his fingers dance over the cards, slide the chips around, it’s something else. I don’t really have a hand fetish or anything, but when you’re as far back as I was that night, and those hands are the ones dealing the cards that will determine the fate of your kneecaps, you tend to notice. And I did, believe me. I watched those hands closely as they dealt out my fate. And I won too. For the first time in I couldn’t remember how long, I won. Thing is, I would have kept going, lost it all in the end, but he stopped dealing. When I looked up, that’s when I discovered his eyes.
“You should cash in,” he told me quietly.
I laughed at him and tried not to pay attention to the eyes or the hands anymore, definitely ignored the accent because that would set me off, and I made a motion with my fingers over the table. “Just deal.”
He hesitated, and I had to look into those eyes again.
“Isn’t telling a customer to cash in just a little bit against your job description?”
He smiled, the most disarming of all disarming smiles, and jutted his chin out, past me to a knot of men at the far end of the room. “They’ve been watching you.”
I turned to look and had that dropping sensation in the pit of my stomach you read about in suspense novels. My hands went clammy, sweat popped out on my upper lip, and my whole body seemed to turn a little jelly-like around the edges.
“Just cash in, give them what you owe them, and call it a night.”
“That’s a good idea.”
He nodded and dealt the rest of the table back into the game. I gathered up my winnings and headed for the cashier. They met me there, collected all I had, which was just about what I owed, and ushered me out into the street, around back, probably to collect the rest out of my hide.
I might have lost my kneecaps, and my mobility, if Daniel hadn’t taken a smoke break at that moment. Right from the beginning, his timing has been impeccable. He approached me with a smile and a nod to the “gentlemen” with me and pulled out his wallet.
“Glad I ran into you, finally. Got paid, so, here.” He handed me a wad of bills while I tried not to look as confused as I felt. I didn’t know this guy from a hole in the ground, and he was handing me a fistful of money like we were old friends.
“That money I borrowed?" Daniel prompted. “Might as well give it to you now, right? Who knows when I’ll see you again?”
I didn’t even get to touch it. The man with the beefy hand reached past me and closed his hand over the money.
“Now you see, Michael?" he asked, "That is how you pay off a debt in a timely manner. Imagine the inconvenience to you if he had waited another month to pay up?”
I sneered at the man. Probably not a great idea, but since he had his money, he seemed in a more congenial mood than he had a minute ago. “I’m sure I wouldn’t have threatened his wellbeing if I had to wait a while longer.”
“Perhaps not.” The glare was back in his beady little eyes. “But he’s saved you a lot of pain and suffering. You should thank him.”
I grunted.
The man shrugged and patted my shoulder, which sent me stumbling into Daniel. “Much obliged, Michael. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
“Mutual,” I muttered and stood there awkwardly as they rambled off to their car, stuffed themselves in, and drove smoothly away.
Men like that can only be smooth when encased in tons of sleek black steel and shiny chrome. On their own two feet, they lumber and lurch like juggernauts, which is exactly what they are if you can’t pay your tab.
“I guess I owe you,” I said at last, because Daniel just stood there, puffing on his smoke and squinting into the bright lights of the strip.
“I guess so.”
“I don’t have anything to pay you back with.”
He stamped out his cigarette on the sidewalk, smoothed his hands over the front of his red vest, and tilted his head. I was surprised when he reached a hand over and used two fingers to lift my chin.
“Oh, I think we can come up with something.”
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