I’m wiping a tear of laughter from my eye as I’m sitting in the corner booth of an Outback Steakhouse in Rosemont, Illinois. Across the table from me is our waitress, Delores, who has now taken a seat on Miller’s side of the booth. They are across from me and my wife like we are on some foreplay sanctioned conjugal visit. Miller and I are on the verge of being too drunk, but still functioning. My wife just joined the party and is sober. She drove us here. Dolores, as the new member of the table, is your run-of-the-mill diner waitress who is now occupying a somewhat imposter syndrome position as an Outback waitress dawning a pristine corporate outfit. She has pizzazz despite the wrinkle-free, black polo.
Our volley began when I responded to her after she asked how everything tasted, “You know, my father would kill me if he if ever found out I was in an Outback Steakhouse. Much less enjoying a Bloomin’ Onion.”
Delores perked up, “Do you want me to give him a call and share the news? I can tell him what he’s missing.”
“If you have his number, that would be a real treat for the table. He’s a manager for Longhorns Steakhouse. Unfortunately, I don’t have it,” I shot back with my wife’s horror in my peripherals and Miller’s entertained, but unsure grin completing the circle. I, myself am sadly unsure too but the energy is kinetic between me and Dolores. I think the legacy company is secretly jealous of what her and I have going on.
This comment was what had invited Delores to sit down with us. She took a longing glance at Miller before turning back to me and stated, “Well that’s his loss. He must not know good company and he certainly has no culinary tastes.”
“I’ll drink to that, and not because you’ve spiked my anxiety…” I say as I hold out my gin and tonic to cheers with Miller, the only other person drinking at the table. It’s like my ego and my id have split entirely. My outward joviality is the exact opposite of where my inward emotional strife lies. It has been this way all day, if not for months now.
It’s 6PM on a Sunday night. It should be the restaurant’s dinner rush, but for some reason there are only two other occupied tables in the subtly sparkly establishment. In my mind, I think there might be some secret local rumor around Rosemont that this Outback had a Hepatitis outbreak and that’s why it’s empty compared to the rest of the fortunate hour-long waitlist suburban sit-down casual dining chains on the block. We tried Chili’s and Texas Roadhouse before we found ourselves seated in the comfortably plush booth under Delores watch. Miller and I had to eat. We had been drinking since noon. Arduously working up an appetite between furious rounds of gin and sodas and a successful gambling foray at the Rivers casino. My euphoria from luck was internalized by the burning of the acid in my stomach that only comes when you are so distracted by the work at hand that you sacrifice sustenance to keep going.
Earlier that night, I learned Baccarat by diving into the deep end. I found myself split apart from Miller and our friend Stephanie who is not at this Outback with us. We left her to earn her money back at her request. I’m hoping she does but I’m doubtful she doesn’t. I should’ve suggested Baccarat to her when we parted ways. My wife so generously offered all of us a ride home for fear we’d dig ourselves further in the hole by paying for a ride back to the city from the suburbs. Instead of me, Miller, and Stephanie, my wife ended up scraping two of the three stunad faces milling about in the airport runway sized parking lot of the casino. When she was sure it was us, she unlocked the doors for us to get in without questioning Stephanie’s whereabouts. I had a wad of cash in my coat pocket from good old Baccarat to which I gleefully shouted to everyone once we were all buckled up, “Who’s hungry ‘cause I’m buying!”
The game, Baccarat that is, worked like a dilution of the prisoner’s dilemma more than the card strategy would suggest. Under the dazzling green and red lights of the designated room for the enchanting sport, I watched as an old Chinese man counted the cards on a sheet of colorful glossy paper the casino specifically provided him. I made my bets along with him to get some practice. It had been successful for a few hands even. I could understand that I was betting either for “the banker” to win the two or three cards that were drawn by the dealer or for “the player” to win by the other two or three cards the dealer drew. It was a fifty/fifty choice for even money. My canary in the coal mine friend with the paper of squiggles and crude arithmetic noticed me riding his bets though. This was when he withdrew from making any bets that I could mimic. My training wheels were forced to come off at this abrupt development. It was time for me to fly solo. So, I made my bets like the rest of the table: between swigs of liquor and muffled Cantonese Chinese. Although I don’t speak much Cantonese… or Mandarin for that matter. You wouldn’t believe it, but the table immediately faded my bets like they had hoped I would be monetarily destroyed. When I bet the banker, they’d bet the player. That was fine and all because I found myself winning more which meant they were losing. Zero sum type shit, you know? But then I started getting looks and hearing that dreaded, “Ugh, gweilo…” Which having been involved with a handful of Chinese girls in my day, I knew that they were annoyed at the white guy. The gambler to my right, a younger guy, leaned over to me and warned, “The last white guy that tried to step in our game is no longer welcome back.”
I nodded at him in an attempt to be momentarily serious but couldn’t help myself. The ego was released. I responded, “I’m sorry I brought this here…Hey everyone, how about we shake this bad energy off?” I held out my arms and wiggled my whole body around. “Come on everyone, let’s get these whispers up to a good volume. Let’s have some fun!” The rest of the sour mood folks around me didn’t like this. My id was beaten further into a hole, but you couldn’t notice. The middle-aged dealer who looked like she had been on the losing hand of a poker game enough times to now attempt to make it back by working for the house laughed at me.
She grinned at me with beautiful fake teeth, “I for one would appreciate some excitement.”
“That’s not the only excitement I’m capable of giving. Especially to a lady like you,” I told her deviously.
“I’m not sure if that’s a threat or a promise, but I like it.” She continued to beam her wilting face at me.
“Well, however you like it, I could keep it up all night.”
She blushed, I blushed, the other gamblers looked away in disgust. I was disgusted deep down, but my deep down wasn’t driving the car anymore. To me, I sounded like the 25-year-old iteration of myself. Not the sad, salt-and-pepper haired neurotic I am now. We both resumed our responsibilities. She dealt some more, and I made some limp-dicked bets. But I was no longer winning. And, with that, I read the room. I did not keep it up the rest of the night. I made off like the other white guy – with my chips, never to return to their table again. What’s another disappointment from an empty-hearted promise?
I found Miller and Stephanie next. Miller seemed to only have good luck when I wasn’t around. He was up at Blackjack when I showed up. After watching the crisp cards flip from deck to the bright, green velvet table a few times I begged him and Stephanie to move over to Roulette with me. The two obliged me. Stephanie made bets at the Roulette table like someone who didn’t understand odds. She bet more money than she could win on the inside numbers. I liked to play outsides despite my high stakes spirit that night. I was picking up nickels in front of a glinting, ornate steam roller that was the lavish table’s wheel. Miller did a mix of both which served him a bill of some unluckiness that came from his purse padded by Blackjack winnings. After enough of a marvelous display oof friendly disorganization, we all decided we were pretty beat from the day.
In the end, we settled at the bar in the center of the casino. It was scuffed and dark, but it was the heart of the machine. As we sat away from the bright lights of it all, we watched the last of an NFL game. I was halfheartedly making prop bets to keep myself tethered to my friends. I never really enjoy sports unless I have some kind of skin in the game. Hell, lately I haven’t really enjoyed much of anything. But I did enjoy my umpteenth drink for the night as we waited for my wife to pick us up. We consoled Stephanie as we assured her she would do better next time. To her though, this was just an intermission. The next time would be when we left. It was all starting to get sad as we realized we were drunk, we had work the next day, less days left to live, and expensive vices that were tough to put down: drinking and gambling. That’s why, when we left, I found my ego pushing the spectrum by keeping the energy elevated. That’s why two of the three of us are here now. At a deserted Outback that cost a pretty penny to build. That’s why I’m chumming it up with Dolores who makes a better diner waitress than a chain one. That’s why I’m going to tip her a good fifty percent. Because it’s Christmas and I need something happy. Because I am actually stressed about an unending job and melancholic about my depleted youth. Because who I am in this shiny moment has actually lost his luster long ago. Why shouldn’t I buy myself a moment of carelessness in good company?