One daughter, distraught about the fact that her mother was sick, on the verge of death, and unknowledgable about the working of the finances and her responsibilities towards her own children at home, also bereft, had her questions answered. Temporarily (at least), I allayed her fears, including the guilt that always accompanies the fact that she could no longer handle it all herself; and she arose and started to leave my office. I accompanied her to the door. Suddenly, she stopped, turned, and hugged me. She blurted, "You are so good!" I hugged her back, and I said "They pay me to be good. Before I got this cushy job, I had to be good for nothing..." She laughed.
It was about time for her. And, it established for me a job description that I honored for another thirteen years. My faith-based employers' name was on the bottom line of every paycheck. It was a good job. There was a mission: to reach out and uplift all to a greater knowledge of and service to God. Not deeply religious myself, I nevertheless recognized a vision when I encountered it.
My company was forward-thinking. Annually, they brought in all of the managers from their far-flung outposts and treated them to educational seminars, introduced them to the newest management du jour techniques, and at the end, served up a recreational event. Sometimes, this was a boat trip up the river, other times a visit to a historical place. But there was this one time in particular that I remember, when they staged a carnival type soiree, that I just have to share.
They hired a troupe of actors, dressed them up as Speakeasy employees: beautiful girls as card dealers and hunky good-looking men carrying machine guns (I think they were props), and gave us all a bundle of pretend chips and turned us loose in the fracas. We had to knock on a door, and say (through the peephole) "Ron sent us." (Ron, the Vice President of Operations, the very man who hired me over the young college graduate for my job; bless you, Ron.) I didn't know what to do when I got the invitation. I didn't know anything about gambling other than driving the car in city traffic. So I called my son, Charley, and asked him which game I should play that would give me the best advantage. Which game could I play in which I would have a chance of not losing the playwad the first rattle out of the box? (At one time, Charley harbored notions of becoming a Vegas dealer.)
"What games are they playing, mother?" Charley asked.
"Well, it says poker, roulette, blackjack..."
He stopped me. "Play blackjack. The odds are better for the player."
So blackjack it was. I got inside the room. It really looked, well, real. I was not the first one in, and the air was filled with smoke, the sound of poker chips being clinked, the whir of the roulette wheel table, the excited noises of the gamblers and the dealers: "Place your bets." I found my way to the blackjack table. I placed all of my chips down in front of me. There was lots of room; hardly anyone else was playing. The dealer looked at me and I looked at her. I asked, "Now, how do you play this game?" They weren't the only actors there at the time.
So they told me, and I placed a minimal bet. During the course of the evening, I won a few and I lost a few. Then the gambling gods decided to smile upon me. The "gangster thugs" began to give me their attention; wasn't there just one of them there when we started? I counted about four and one or two had drifted around to my side of the table... and I am sure, well suspicious, that they were able to get a glimpse of my... what did they call it? Hole card, that was it.
I noticed, too, that we were at the end of the time line, and that my boss (my Hero Ron) had strolled over to the blackjack table, too. Oh oh. Arithmetic, don't fail me now.
Final round. I pushed a sizeable stack of chips out onto the table. Why not? We're going to go out big here, or not at all. I was dealt two jacks. Jack of hearts up, jack of spades down.
I looked puzzled. I called for a definition of rules. Interest perked up. "I'm not certain," I began, "but isn't there a rule about, if you get two of the same value you could, er, split your bet and wager on both cards? What's that called? Help me out here..."
But of course, the dealer replied, you may do that, knowing that I was leaving "20" up for grabs. I glanced at Ron. He winked at me.
I took a deep breath. I pushed all of the chips I had left on the table, dividing them more or less into two piles. I moved the jack of hearts showing to the right. I revealed the jack of spades that had been hiding to the left. "Let's do it!" I said.
The guards moved closer; I could feel and hear their breathing on my neck.
The jack of hearts got an ace of spades, down.
The jack of spades got an ace of hearts, down, by god.
...
The dealer said, "I'll pay 21."
I revealed my hidden aces.
I said, "Good. Pay me. Twice."
...
We could use the chips we ended with to bid on auctions of prizes. I got a camera. And I sure had a good time. My relationship with Ron seemed to improve. And I realized that being good for nothing all those years had some residual benefits.
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