Editor’s note: Matthew Dexter lives and writes in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. He survives on smoked marlin quesadillas, cold cervezas, and warm sunshine.
Tallest Man in the World
By Matthew Dexter
I’m a gambling addict, or better should I introduce myself: “Hello, my name is Allawannas crewmylifeasmuchas possible?”
No it’s not one of those Arab names. I’m not a Russian gangster. Neither am I loquacious or wealthy, but those damn slot machines talk to me, and I don’t even play them. My homey is the teller window: where I tell the Mexican señoritas I want to waste more goddamn money, more pesos.
“Buenas tardes,” I go. They look at me like a rodent, as if I was some twisted ant on the linoleum floor or one of their drunken Mexican uncles they never talk about.
“Hola,” one of them might say. Then they go back to their smiles, telekinesis, smirks between them: ignorant poor Gringo with gambling addiction and fledgling wrinkles on his face.
These lines are worse than cocaine for them. I am the cartel of Los Cabos.
“Quiero numero doscientos tres…mil pesos por favor,” I go.
They hit their machines like rats addicted to speed, so fast, I get hungry sometimes looking into their milky pupils, their breasts, fresh faces; the faces of those who have never seen a day in the American struggle; the faces of young women and teens who look so clean and pure I would stay outside on my hands and knees from dawn to dusk plucking frozen vegetables from the miserable obstinate planet till my hands were callused. Just thinking about them makes me wish I was illiterate and happy, free of education, addiction, disease.
“Gracias,” I go.
“Check please,” they sometimes say. I look to make sure my numbers are correct and everything is fine. It usually is. If you wait more than a couple minutes then stray away from the computer, vociferous machine will eat your ticket and your bet will be swallowed by that voracious monster in Tijuana.
In the back, behind three theatre-style rows of comfy, humongous, black leather chairs are the Mexicans who make ridiculous long-shot ten-dollar parlays, hollering Spanish obscenities from the bottom of their lungs during and after almost every play.
They are far from formally educated in American football, not thoroughly conversant with all the rules of the game (but neither am I and they might perform better if we took a cumulative oral exam). I must also add that there are Mexicans and Americans and Canadians in every direction–and many are much more knowledgeable and fascinating than this group of about a half dozen–yet these clowns are always there, and so am I. Sometimes they win a few hundred dollars, but usually they lose.
My majestic Mexican wife Xochitl and I would watch the games, and like others, we would do our best to ignore their claps and obscenities. (Often our ears would ring if we were sitting directly behind them.) But then during the NFC divisional battle between the Packers and Atlanta, an elderly American tourist in a wheelchair was wheeled around into the casino.
“Is this okay for you, or is too loud?” his son asked. The wife looked around. The man sat stoic behind dark glasses; camouflaged into the madness of gamblers, drunks, atavistic expatriates, and local degenerates.
“If we went all the way around we could have that right front corner,” the wife goes.
I notice them return a few minutes later. They maneuver through the maze of rats, the aroma of stale cheese in my nostrils. Then they park themselves in the front row. The man is twenty inches taller than everybody else. His head is like a goal post. He sits in his wheelchair between his wife and son. Goddamn giant. Everything is fine. I smile. The game continues.
One of the play-by-play announcers for the NHL game is shouting so loud on the bottom inside corner flat-screen that it drowns out our playoff game. After asking the waiter a few times to change the channel or lower the volume, an exuberant woman may walk around from behind the betting machines with a handful of television remotes.
She bounces them against her hips as if they were tennis balls. She’ll try them all, serve some static, mess up a few games for a couple seconds, and then disappear to let the racket deafen our cursed ears further, resonating like rat droppings in our eardrums. The remote lady pivots back behind the counter where the princesses sit during their shifts; her body is thick; high heels tapping against hardwood floor like a majestic Cinderella dashing off to the ball. She’ll be back in twenty minutes.
Give the Gringos sufficient time for another dozen complaints. Some switch chairs to strategically position themselves away from the damned hockey game, closer to the overhead speakers for the Falcons game on the big screen.
The Mexicans and locals know what we’re doing.
I already know the outcome: lost the early game and I’m screwed–turned a sure thing into an ambitious two-way parlay and even though Green Bay will win, picked the under. Then one of the gypsies from the back row comes forward, bitches about the man’s head. Then the moron inches closer to the poor handicapped ear.
I curse in Spanish, contorting necks, throbbing veins. Turn to my wife and complain about his belligerent ignorance and arrogance an atavistic temptation to break my beer bottle across his demented misshaped skull.
I curse at the man: “Pinche pendejo culero baboso güey!” They laugh. I curse my luck, curse Jesus.
“Dios mío,” I say. A few minutes later, in perfect unison, they expectorate a strange bellow. I mimic the noise to pinpoint precision.
“Loco,” they say. “Loco…” I don’t look them in the eyes. I don’t return. I leave fast.
My hunger for more poison accelerates. I am that capitalistic rat running like a hirsute fiend, feverishly spinning the interminable plastic wheel for another hit, faster and faster it spins.
Dizzy, I have no sack. No magic beans. No frijoles, no dinero, nada, pues nada.
The season is over.
So am I.
