Wanted
Authors: Heidi Ayarbe
WANTED
HEIDI AYARBE
THIS IS FOR
GRANDMA GRACE AND
Grandma Tjon, who began a legacy of strong women; Mom, a pint-sized force of strength; Carrie, my best friend and sister; and Andrea, my forever friend . . . because I’ve always wanted to be like you. And my girls, Sydney, Kyra, and Amelia—wishing you the courage to be who you are.
Contents
THE CRUISERS APPEAR LIKE
a mirage. But a crummy one, since mirages, on general principles, are supposed to be good and happy and filled with tropical fruits, muscular guys in turbans, and stuff like that. The cars rip along a shimmering strip of tarry highway between two billboards:
THERE’S PLENTY OF ROOM FOR GOD’S CREATURES NEXT TO THE MASHED POTATOESAND NEVADA: LEADING THE COUNTRY IN BEING JUST EAST OF CALIFORNIA. THAT AND BROTHELS (FLIP A BITCH . . . 5 MILES BACK)
. I’m not gonna go all
Great Gatsby
about the billboards because they’re not a symbol of anything at all.
Nothing is.
The cruisers come to a screeching halt in the parking lot, tires kicking up loose rocks from the half-melted asphalt, modern-day Keystone Kops with wailing sirens and clumsy, fishtail stops. When the burnout smoke settles, the cops pile out of the cars, guns drawn, crouching behind the opened doors of the cars.
I pull back the corner of a flyer advertising hand-knit Snuggies to get a better view. Four cops. The lanky one has midnight skin and talks into a radio. The next car over, two cops roll on the scorching asphalt to find better cover. Albino shades her eyes and maintains her position behind the car door. They’ve got to be using phrases like “clear the area,” “set up a perimeter,” “Starsky and Hutch will take the back while Ponch and Jon hold the front.”
Well, everything but that last phrase, anyway.
Josh is wearing his golden Burger King crown. They still give them out. If you request them. It’s not like something that’s just there for the taking. You have to ask.
The crown sits lopsided on his head. He kneels next to me, cupping my face in his hands.
Sweat drips down my temple. I’m so cold. But my hair sticks to my forehead and the back of my neck. I’m not what Josh would consider mirage worthy.
I never have been. Not for him.
Sweat trickles to my chin, then spatters when it hits the dingy linoleum.
I motion behind the counter. Josh shakes his head.
Hemingway once wrote a six-word memoir:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn
.
I think about mine, summing up a life in six words, and draw a blank, wishing the store owner would’ve done the same.
It’s pretty amazing how calm I am, considering that odds are I’ll be dead in time for the evening news.
A CROWD HAS GATHERED.
Sanctuary
. That’s all I text, then push send, and they come. Crystal dewdrops hang on yellowed blades of grass. The group huddles at the bleachers, clapping their arms, puffs of breaths dangling in the air.
Across the field another group gathers—dark-blue flannel shirts buttoned to the top, creased khakis. La Cordillera. I shade my eyes and squint, but they all look like blue smudges on fingerprint cards from over here.
I dig through my backpack, looking for my glasses. They’re splotchy and crooked.
No one from la Cordillera is coming this way. I’ll take their bets later at Mocho’s place. Though I’d like to think of Sanctuary as a demilitarized zone, a place where we can all get together under a common interest. Some groups never mix, though—not even here.
I pause. I
could
go to over to them, join their circle, take their bets. But that wouldn’t work. People come to
me
. Even la Cordillera.
Most of my business is done by phone, but big days, big games, it’s always nice to convene—make it a little more personal. And get the cash. Right there.
As soon as I walk up, the crowd hushes. I scan the faces and see the quintessential human flaw—hope.
Sometimes I think I could probably save myself a lot of stress if I got a part-time job selling high cholesterol at the Pizza Factory instead of selling hope. Because with hope comes despair.
Welcome to life. Yep. It sucks.
Then I spend lots of time on the phone consoling the losers—kind of like a pseudoeconomic psychologist convincing them a little bit of hell paves the way to big rewards later on.
I could go back to wearing Walmart discount-rack clothes. It’s not like it really matters what I wear around here, because I’ll still just be me. Sometimes it’s like I live in my own DMZ with problematic T-zone pimples and oily hair. No boobs. The “big-boned” girl with a weird name.
I look at their faces. Flushed cheeks, chapped lips, furrowed brows. Their eyes lock on me—expectation? Flashes of anxiety. Shades of doubt erase as expressions of self-assurance take over. It’s like watching some kind of Incredible Hulk transformation when I arrive.
Here, in Sanctuary, I’m everything. Hope incarnate—a priest, minister, preacher.
Their bookie.
Powerful.
Cashing in on hope is way more lucrative than adolescent pizza addictions.
Plus, at the end of the day, gambling isn’t a whole lot different from high school. It’s all about knowing the rules, the stakes, and when to quit. There’s a fine line between taking a calculated risk and a suicidal one. Whenever I take bets at Sanctuary, I’m not sure whether I’m on the smart side or suicidal side. I know, though, that whatever it is, I’m alive.
I’m good at what I do. The money flows. On a bad week, I clear a hundred dollars or so—enough to dress better than any kid at this school; my clients’ girlfriends hate me for it. I look at the girls, clutching their boyfriends’ arms. Sanctuary’s extras—generic, varsity jacket–wearing girlfriends in Payless, knockoff Coach or Uggs—almost but not quite the real deal.
I look down at my shoes. Old Gringo zipper boots. The real deal—three hundred bucks real.
I give their boyfriends something they can’t. These guys are hungry to bet—to
feel
something outside this Carson City bubble. Before me, they never knew what it was like to live. Now they feel the surge of emotion watching their team win. Or lose. And a
need
to capture that feeling again.
And again.
And again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, these are Super Bowl wild-card playoffs. Ready for business?” I ask. I look at the time. “Class starts in thirty minutes. Who’s on the lookout?”
A couple of light bettors—baseball, basketball, fill-in-the-blank-sport bench warmers—go to the baseball backstop and hang out. The rest of us take out tattered copies of Dostoyevsky’s
The Gambler
. My bet book is cradled between the pages that hold one of my favorite quotes:
I deduced from the scene one conclusion which seemed to me reliable—namely, that in the flow of fortuitous chances there is, if not a system, at all events a sort of order. This, of course, is a very strange thing.
A system.
An order.
I look at the expectant faces of my clients, who will throw their money away on chance, on whims, instead of studying the system. Few take the time to understand the way it works, the wonder of the world of betting, like they’ve all settled into some kind of daze of conformity, following the trends, the favorites. The world of betting is much more than money-lining the favorite. I shrug.
“I’ve got a special today for those wanting to cash in on something that could be real sweet: Arizona has pretty much surprised us all. If you’re betting on them and have the lead after the third, then lose, you get your money back.
“And, of course, as always, anything goes. You dig your grave, you lie in it. I don’t have time for hand holding.”
Leonard, my guy in Reno—kind of a bookie mentor, actually—taught me some basics when I began, the first being:
Read back is final
. I read back the wagers. Client reconfirms. Done deal. No do-overs. It takes time to build a list of clients—reliable ones. Now nobody gets in Sanctuary without a face-to-face recommendation from one of my regulars. And I reserve the right to refuse.
Money changes hands, bets are read back and placed. Someone on lookout whistles. On cue I start to read from that quote. We each read a quarter of a page, some mumbling over the interminable sentences. Dean Randolph comes over and sits on the bleachers with us, staring across at la Cordillera. “What are you reading?” he asks, not really listening.