Almost Even

A sign painter named Hollis came in last Tuesday with paint under his nails and asked if I would cash a check. It was the third time that month. I knew what the check was really for, because I wrote that same check in a dozen towns.

He said the truck needed a transmission. I let him say it. Then I asked what he had lost, not what he needed. He looked at the felt a long while. Four hundred dollars on his phone Friday night. Then six hundred more on Saturday, to get the four hundred back. After that, a number he would not say out loud.

"I was almost even," he told me.

They all say that. I said it in Gary, Indiana, in 1971, with a borrowed hundred folded in my shoe. Almost even is the most expensive place a man can stand, because from there the next bet always feels like the last one.

Here is what I told him. The first loss is a price you already paid. It is gone, like a coat left on a train. The second bet is not about the game in front of you. It is about Friday, and the game has never heard of Friday. It does not know you are owed anything. A chase is just a new bet with an old one riding on its back, and it gets heavier every time.

I did not cash the check. I made coffee instead and sat with him until his hands stopped shaking. Then I wrote the helpline number on a pool chalk wrapper and told him he could call tonight or Monday, but he should call. He used the phone in my back office.

He left the check on my counter, torn in half.

The money you lost is already gone. Do not send more after it.

Sal