Chapter 14 Arthur Become Independently Wealthy #2
Then again, the lottery revenue did go to support Maryland’s schools. At least, in theory. So, he supposed, without vulnerable suckers like himself, he’d be out of a job.
“Um, Wren?” he exclaimed suddenly. One of his numbers was a match.
“What, what is it? Did we win?”
He looked back and forth, his number, 17, and the winning number at the top, also 17. He didn’t trust his eyes, was probably just a little overexcited. It couldn’t be right. But no, sure enough, his card was a winner.
“We won!” he shouted.
“We won!” Wren echoed.
“We won!” they said in unison.
“We won five hundred bucks!”
Wren’s face fell a bit. “Oh,” she said. “That’s it?”
“Wren.” Arthur grabbed her shoulders, held her like he was giving her an urgent, dying message. “This is huge.”
Now he was getting legitimately excited.
“I guess, yeah,” she mumbled.
“Five hundred dollars is a lot of money.”
“But it doesn’t make you wealthy,” she pointed out.
“It’s barely a run to the grocery store.
” Not the way she did it, mindlessly swiping random items off the shelves and into the cart if they were shiny and interesting, like a bored cat.
It was plenty if you shopped the sales. But that was beside the point right now.
“No. But we can save this. If we put it away in our investment account and stay patient, in thirty years this five hundred dollars could be worth…” There was a twinkle of adrenaline in Wren’s eyes as she imagined the end results of Arthur’s quick mental math. “Nine thousand dollars!”
“OH MY GOD!” she yelled. Arthur could immediately sense the dripping sarcasm as she slipped into an overexcited Valley girl accent. “Nine thousand dollars! And we only have to wait thirty years? Why didn’t you say so?! Oh my freaking God!”
“OK, I get it. You’re not psyched.”
“No, I’m not psyched! Nine thousand dollars will barely buy us cat food in thirty years.”
“I don’t understand. Are we getting a cat?” Multiple cats?
“No, we’ll be living off it ourselves at this rate. Come on! Where’s your ambition, Arthur? Where’s your sense of adventure? Why are you settling?”
He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to not see this as a huge win. Wren hadn’t grown up with a lot of money, he knew that, so he couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t be over the moon about anything that could help them give their baby some of the things that she never had.
“Being with you when I’m eighty. That’s the adventure, that’s what I want more than anything,” he said quietly. “I know it’s not always sexy and exciting, but we have to put in the work now to get there.”
“I know,” she said. “But even if we do everything right, nothing is guaranteed, is it? I don’t know where I’ll be, or if I’ll be, in thirty years. What I know is I’m here with you right now, and I want to make this life worth living.”
It sounded romantic and incredible when she said it.
Heartbreaking, too, remembering that her parents had been ripped away from her far too young.
She didn’t grow up with a good picture of two people who had worked hard to build their future together and lived to see it through.
Her uncle did his best, but he was a sad and distant man.
Everyone else rotated in and out of her life, much too focused on their own problems to be anything resembling a role model.
“OK, so what…” he said. “What do we do with our winnings?”
“We turn it into more.”
“More lotto tickets? I don’t think so. We got lucky once. I’ll be physically sick if we blow this trying to capture lightning in a bottle again.”
“Come on.” She nudged him. “Think bigger.”
He did. And there was only one place he knew where you could quickly turn money into more money, or, far more likely, lose it all in an instant.
It was sunset by the time they reached their destination: a hulking beige building illuminated by golden lighting. The sky behind it was pink and purple, Ravens purple, Wren pointed out, and the name on the side of the structure read simply: Horseshoe.
Yes, they had arrived at Baltimore’s one and only casino.
A glitzing money grab near M&T Bank Stadium that was supposed to revitalize the entire neighborhood, creating a vibrant arts and entertainment district, not to mention pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the public school system.
Arthur had not seen evidence of any of this actually happening, but he did see an abandoned structure in the near distance covered in graffiti, and an intoxicated woman hurling her guts up just a few feet shy of a trash can.
Wren breathed in as they stood outside the door. “Smell that, Arthur? It’s crab cakes, it’s championship football, it’s art and history and culture. It’s the city.”
“Is that what you smell?” He gave the air a whiff. Urine, polluted seawater, and more urine is what he got. But never mind that. “Shall we?”
They pushed through the glass doors and the noise was immediately overwhelming.
Digital trills and chimes, pumping music, chattering people, the occasional “jackpot” noise of endless coins falling into a metal bin.
It was an assault on the senses. It was Chuck E.
Cheese on performance-enhancing drugs, or maybe just actual drugs, if Chuck E.
Cheese could ruin your life in an instant.
Arthur grabbed Wren’s hand and they began walking the floor, taking in the sights.
“I read somewhere that the best odds are actually at the blackjack table,” Wren said. “Do you know how to play blackjack?”
“Kind of. Not well enough to win big.”
“Let me see your phone,” she said. “I got too excited and left mine at home.” She had been a little more forgetful lately, playfully throwing the phrase pregnancy brain around a lot more frequently.
Just the other day, she’d left the oven on for hours.
And open. He handed his phone over and she tapped in his password, which she knew, and began typing furiously.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Just googling ‘how to count cards’ real quick.”
He snatched it back from her. “Don’t even joke about that!” His eyes flitted to the ceiling. Black, spherical cameras everywhere. They were being watched and listened to. He didn’t want to end up getting pummeled in a back alley by some casino goon.
In truth, Arthur couldn’t believe he had been reduced to this.
If playing the lottery was for suckers, who was this place for?
For the life of him he couldn’t figure out how losing hundreds or thousands of dollars in a single evening could qualify as entertainment.
And for what? Did the people sitting at the slot machines like zombies really think they had a chance to hit it big?
Honestly, though, they were probably people who had tried it the other way and found it was a road to nowhere.
Working hard, being a good person. Where did that ever get anyone?
Maybe the new American dream was just to hope you got extremely lucky.
All he really wanted to do was to take the crisp five hundred dollars the cashier had pulled out of the Royal Farms cash box immediately to the bank.
But he could see the electric look in Wren’s eyes, the adrenaline coursing through her, and he remembered the purpose of the bucket list. For him, it was about being the man and father his family needed him to be.
They needed somewhere to live, somewhere for the baby to grow up, and thus far he had been unable to provide that for them.
The apartment was completely unsuitable in the long term, and to date he had not come up with a better solution than gambling, which was really saying something.
This—all of this—was an incredible long shot, but maybe it was still a shot worth taking.
Still, he didn’t want to drag this out.
“No, I’m not going to sit here all night.” The thought of watching his pile of chips go up a little, then down, then up, then down, getting just a little bit smaller over time, would surely send him into a panic attack. His chest stung with heartburn just thinking about it.
“One big bet. The whole five hundred. I’d rather take my chances that way.”
Wren looped her arm through his and gave it a squeeze. “Now you’re talking. Lead the way.”
After a bit of internet research, they found themselves on the outskirts of the high-limit roulette table.
They watched a few rounds. Gamblers leaned over the green felt table with shiny wooden edges and placed chips on various numbers or other tiles marked on the felt.
The dealer spun the wheel, a small metal ball whirling in the opposite direction.
People chanted and cheered, held their breath.
After the ball landed, a few sighed, pounded fists on the table, or clapped excitedly.
It all happened so fast, was so chaotic—Arthur wasn’t sure he’d have the nerve to step up to the table.
That is, until Wren shoved him up there as the next game was beginning.
They’d studied the odds and knew that the biggest bet was to place all their money on a single number, 1 through 36.
On the rare chance their number hit, the payout would be 35 to 1.
In other words, seventeen thousand five hundred dollars.
Now, that would be life-changing money, not in thirty years, but right now.
It could open up the next bracket of homes to them, neighborhoods Arthur hadn’t even considered before.
Or go a long way toward finishing the one that had everything he loved but an interior.
There were other bets they considered, too.
There was red or black, which would pay even money, and was far more conservative.
Same with odds or evens. They could also bet various combinations of two or three or even six numbers, with ever-decreasing odds.
But no. They were here to go big, and then go home, in that order.