The Imminent Man V

The nervous twenty-one year old shook his head, his leg fidgeting under the table, jostling his whole body. He was the only one left. The rest of the players had given up at this table. This new-blood was taking too long and making the wrong moves. Some think Blackjack is a team game. One where everyone has to be on point to beat the dealer. They are wrong of course.

It's a game where you should only look out for yourself. Survival of the fittest. You get the face cards or you don’t. Who gives a fuck if your nieghbor is winning a lot. You won’t be seeing a dime of that money. It’s not gonna find a way into your pocket unless you follow them to the parking lot and knife them in the kidneys. 

That idea of shared profits allowed Tim to take a short moment to reminisce about communism and how interesting the days were in Russia. For an exasperating second he was there. Putting in those endless hours of work against the bourgeois and the nazis. Collecting big times for a big generation. There should be an uprising like that again, he thought. But he doubted it. Maybe they had finally figured out how to subdue the populace across the world. All you had to do was keep a good balance of stupid and comfortable while keeping them mad at the wrong people. 

“I stay.” The kid said. Pulling the collar down from his cheap suit. Tim saw how sweat was already soaking through the polyester blend. 

“No, you don’t.” He replied, giving him an exasperated look. 

“What, why not?” The young man asked, looking down at the cards.

“You have a ten and three. Thirteen. That’s a weak hand. Especially when I’m showing.” He pointed to his hand. Below him he had one card face up the other face down. 

“You only see the one, but it tells enough.” He responded

“A king?” He asked confused

Tim nodded. “That’s a strong hand. It’s good odds it beats yours. The face down card is probably a ten. Always assume it is. Hell but even if it’s a 7 or up I won. Do you get what I'm saying?” 

No he didn’t. He had explained all before and two hundred dollars ago but you can only lead a horse to water, the saying goes. However, if the horse is retarded it might be more useful to you if you put a slug in its brain and make a stew and a handbag out of it. Like those fine fellows in Russia did last time he visited. Man, what a people.

“Alright. I hit!” He made the motion and the card was dealt. A six. 

“There you go,” Tim said and smiled. 

He flipped over his own card and under the face up ten was an eight. 

“Winner! See? It pays to have big balls.” He said as he rolled the chips across his fingers and placed them next to the kids' bet. He doubled up. 

“Big ol balls,” the man exclaimed and shakily took his winnings as he breathed a sigh of relief.

“That’s right. Big ol balls,” Tim said smiling. He remembered that sometimes it pays to take a hand. To let yourself be guided.

The shadow of Big Grumps fell over him and he smelled his knock off cologne rising up from behind him. Terry was his name. A portly man and a damn fine pit boss on account of him never smiling. He felt a twinge of sadness as he looked over his rosy face. He would be returning for Terry in three years time. A heartattack in the toilets. Leaving behind two small children to mourn their papa until they join him in the dirt. 

But also, Terry got drunk as a skunk a few years back and touched his nephew, so fuck him. 

“Hiya Terry.” He squeaked out. Playing the role of a mousey man that one wouldn’t look twice at.

“Hey there. I’m moving you to Roulette.” He said. 

“What? I don’t do roulette.”

Terry leaned in. “A client requested. He only got a grand. Maybe he gives it back if you are there.”

“Requested?” He replied confused.

Terry nodded. 

He thought for a moment. No one knew him here. He was forgotten the second people walked away from his table. Hell, he wasn’t even on the schedule of this business until he shows up. Then everyone recalls good ol’ Tim. Small wimpy Tim. Definitely wouldn’t skim anything off the top. Just good enough at math to count out some chips but not smart enough to do something more daring. The only person that even knew what he was going-as these days would be…

No.

No way HE could be here? How had he followed him? Did that bastard in the badlands point him where to go? Did he know where business was taking him? Well of course he did. Tim was somewhere in-between impressed and pissed off and he had to see what was in store. He couldn’t help but feel like they were twisted together in all of this. More-so than he originally planned. 

He cleared his hands with a razzle dazzle. Bowed to his young friend and followed the waddling Terry to the roulette section. 

~

Before him alone and without his seeing-eye dog was the man. They were tied together indeed. But he laughed at the irony of that. He thought he was a stumbling silly fool. But even a blind Prophet gets a doomsday right once in a while. He knew he had killed the man's wife. Well, more like claimed. But he had a hard time recalling exactly how and why. And besides, it was months, years away by now? He really should be getting over it. 

Astounded, Tim crept up to him, eyes narrowed. Trying to play it off that he had expected this.

He was a tanned man with Mexican heritage somewhere hidden in there. Black hair running back from the hairline almost as fast as Olympic sprinters. He had on a regular black tee that didn’t hide his sweat stains as well as he thought. And were those cut-offs? He was a magnificent opponent in many different worlds. Why did he have to look like a schlub? He wished he could yank his throat out. But the necklace around it... It was familiar. 

Tim rolled his eyes thinking of Lyra. That cunt. Always interfering in official business. Next time he would make sure his underling yanks it off his rotund neck. He couldn’t keep trying to get someone else to kill this man, he would have to do it himself, he deserved that much. That meant no charm, no protection, it meant fighting his feelings and getting this job done, putting it in his rearview…He had just the woman to do it. 

“So this is where the story goes now?” Tim said smiling.

“I guess so.” He stared up at him and shrugged. Not a shiver in his spine Tim could tell. That rightly annoyed him. “I’m surprised you're surprised. I thought you knew everything.” the man said.

Tim thought for a moment. He did know everything. Well everything important that is. But the details of it all sometimes got lost. “Well when you are as old as me. You forget a lot of things that come back around. Like online shopping during a bender.” He snickered. 

“Well. Here's what you ordered. Here I am.” The man raised his arms, palms out. Here indeed. The man continued, “I found a book. About me. About us. It was eerie. It said I was going here next. So I guess I am shackled to my destiny.”

“A book?” Tim stated frankly. 

The Prophet looked at him curiously. “Come on. You have your hands in a lot of pots. You know about the book.”

Tim shook his head. And he didn’t. Or at least he didn’t know it yet. He would look into it. It was a curious thought. Maybe it was time to tell his side of things. Many books were written about him of course. Most books actually, when it comes down to it. But not BY him. Not his story. If one would be written it wouldn’t include this man in front of him. Although he was unique, so were many people he had crossed and chased and done battle with. Joan of Arc, Saladin, The great writer trio of Mark, Ernest, and Biggie Smalls.

“I’m confused by you.” The Prophet said. He did so boldly and Tim could see the gold rings around his head grow brighter. So bright it was hard to look at him. And the sound of the midnight creatures trying to pour through his shadow were loud and harrowing. The space around him was thin and it let in many worrisome things. Did he know this effect he had? Is that why he was bothering him? Would he annoy Tim, sniffing after him, accosting him in his work and places of business for eternity? Like a scorned lover. 

No. They would have their scuffle and be done with it. Time would be sure of it. It would be amongst the cliffside he knew. He could see it. Remember it. Faintly. Had he enjoyed this man that much? Why? It was just business.

“Confused!” Tim laughed. “Aren’t all folks? Just listen to them talk, it's obvious they’ve confused their mouth for an asshole.” He cackled at that. But the man was unamused. Was he a man? What had he done to this person? Why had he become like this? Did he know about the vortex around him, light and dark twisting like a snake around him. Withering and shuttering dimensions as he walked by. The power behind it all was astounding. 

He had not budged. Not an inch. Instead he spoke. “Do you even know why you do the things that you do? Are you just a dog chasing cars? Do you get some mandate from God above or directions? Or do you go and kill on a whim?” He asked.

“So we aren’t gonna gamble huh?” Tim asked, raising his eyebrows. 

“I asked you a question. A couple of them.” 

Tim snapped. “That’s kind of a gamble. You are betting you get the information you want to hear. Or you're betting you’ll understand the answer. Or it’s answered at all!”

He shook his head. “Not everything is a game.”

“I disagree.” He was excited to explain something to this fellow. Because he was so, so wrong. “It’s all a game. All of it. All about where you put your chips. That's why I love it here. In places like this. I come here on my days off. To blow off steam.” He motioned around him, listening to the clink of electronic slot machines. The cursing and cheering across the crowded floor. “It lets people show you what really matters to them. Not money. They wouldn't piss it away if they cared about it. But control. That’s all money is. When you have lots of it you have more control. They trade in some for a little of the other.”

He raised a scrawny hand and elaborated. “If you’re gonna get fired from that job but you have money… FUCK you! I quit. You want to have a house with three bathrooms, drop some stacks and build it. You want to summer on a boat in Croatia. Cha ching.” He made the slot machine motion. “You hate your neighbors' guts? Give the city council some cash to fine them into oblivion for breaking HOA rules. Or hire a hitman. You wanna die with dignity? Cold. Hard. Cash. Someone wants to live forever…Oh,” His smile appeared. He wiggled his finger and tutted. “No. Nothing you can do about that.”

“Now here it allows people to put whatever they have on the table. Experience that excitement. Experience that control. They don’t risk things on the outside. They don’t play with their future. They don’t start that company that could take off. They don’t ask that girl out at the farmers market. But here…”

The man was shaking his head. “Shut up. Shut up.” He said. 

Tim frowned and tried to continue. “Life is a gamble. Life is a bet. Existence is all a game of chance. Don’t you see? They don’t see. But you aren’t them. They know it secretly. As you do. They are fascinated by it. Deep down they know that’s why they come here to have control to make a bet that they can grasp. So they can be satisfied. So they….”

“Shut up!” He banged his fist on the table. People looked for a brief second before turning to more important matters. “Please. Shut up.” He said holding his head like he was in agony. The rings around him grew so bright and furious. He whipped his head back towards Tim and said through gritted teeth. “You love your little games. You wanna lie to me. You wanna hide behind your stupid fucking mystique. You are just proving more and more what you really are. A dog chasing cars. A rabid small otherworldly beasty.” He pointed at him and when he did so cracks appeared on the floor. Shadows whipped passed from them and raised up into the ceiling like bats out of hell. They could actually be bats out of hell, Tim worried. Shit, he’d have to catch them later. “You may think you have meaning but you don’t. Especially for the people you kill. You don’t.”

Those words rattled him. Made him stand up straight. “No meaning you’d understand!” He snapped at him. How dare he. This man had no idea the ilk around him. Drowning him. Working him to death. 

“I hit a nerve I see. You get a little angry there Tim? Interesting. I guess I've seen it first hand then. You can look like us. You act like us. I imagine it makes you feel like us too.” He leaned in. “What makes you so different. What are you really? If not more human than humans?”

Tims smirked through his clenched jaw. He felt the vein on the side of his head protruding and pounding. The man just wanted to know more about him so he could find out how to drive a stake through his heart. He was a conniving one. But it was all fruitless. Tim could not even really explain it to him. Because the fact was he could not even really explain it to himself. He was an actor. He was a tool. He was someone who did things based on feelings, sure. But those feelings came from, well, somewhere else. He could not explain it. Nor what he was working towards. What they all were working towards. This was a team effort and it would still be a team effort billions of years later. 

God, people were so short sighted.

But the human could not know that. Could he?

“Do you want me to show you?” Tim asked quietly. Strangely feeling nervous for the first time in a millennia. 

The man looked curiously at him. The light around him deadening slightly. The chaos quelled. Before he could answer Tim had reached into a nearby ashtray and scooped up a handful of cigarette ash. He preferred pure tobacco ash but the mix of menthol smokes and chemicals would do. He lifted it up to his face and with one hard puff of his lungs blew the ash into the man's face. 

He coughed and seized. Next there was a ripping and tearing sound as his fury raised up. Tim lunged at him across the table. His skin singed as he grappled with the man. Pain did not bother him. His only thought was to take him to the end of things. And with a comical popping sound (the sound of reality filling in a space that had been emptied, like how water rushes into a bucket thrown into the ocean. It sounds like plop.) they were sucked though and gone from the casino floor. All that was left behind was one of the man's sandals.