The Spotted Ball, a True Story by Larry Cohen c 2025
Chapter 9
“Nobody keeps their winnings”
On the way to dinner one Saturday evening at “The Chin Chin” , a local, nearby Chinese Restaurant, a classmate and friend of mine asked me to show him the Casino at the Embajador. He was an affable guy, a good student from Queens, NY who never left his heavy accent far behind. I told him that the hotel was in the opposite direction of the restaurant and that we had better eat first. Agreeing with me, we had dinner and then ventured back to the hotel. (My friend impressed the Taiwanese owners of the restaurant with his ability to use chopsticks, something I could never master)
I warned my friend of two things: the thick cigarette smoke and the usual inability of keeping one’s winnings. He showed his disdain for my warnings by dismissing both with a flourish of his right hand. This alone should have been a warning to me.
When we entered the hotel, I thought it was unusually quiet for a weekend. There were very few guests in the large, antiquated lobby, but the casino was already humming. My friend brought a fistfull of local currency. This should have been another warming.
Braving the wall of smoke, we toured the casino floor to view the various gaming tables. He said he knew how to play “21”, the game of Black Jack, so he took a seat and began. I only watched. Within a few minutes he was considerably ahead when I tapped him lightly on the shoulder saying it was time to leave. I might as well have tapped the shoulder of a total stranger. I knew it was “game over”. He drank the Kool-aid. I told him I was going back to my place and left him there. Alone. Alas, my readers already know the outcome, of course. He lost his winnings plus his original “fistful” of money. Gone. As noted in an earlier chapter, “Nobody keeps his winnings” As in Sophocles’ ancient Greek tragedy. like Oedipus, my friend became just another “Nobody”
A few days later my friend stopped by again around dinner time to ask if I wanted to go to the “Chin Chin” once more. On the way to the restaurant he told me the story of his casino outing. It was the usual refrain: Way ahead, dead even, and then, down (and out). While I was a little uneasy about his casino experience, feeling as though I had led a lamb to the wolf, it was predictable. And, after all, he asked me, I didn’t ask him.