Author's Note: Let's shoot crap. – Big Jules, Guys and Dolls
Disclaimer: If I owned any of this, I wouldn't hardly be writing fanfiction about it.
If life were as simple as craps, the world would be a better place.
Roll the dice.
Is it a seven? An eleven? Great! You win.
A two, three, or twelve? Crap! You lose.
If you roll a four, five, six, eight, nine, or ten, then that's your 'point' and you have to wait and see: roll again, but your former friend seven is now your enemy, because if you roll a seven before rolling your point, you lose. Nothing else matters.
If you do make your point, you win.
Just like in an argument.
Simple, right?
And the only equipment you need is a pair of dice.
And a dollar.
But who was he kidding?
Life is crap.
Mickey had learned craps at his father's knee. Literally.
He and his father had spent many evenings kneeling in a corner shooting craps.
Once in a while they had played for money, but more often just for fun, or for stakes ranging from matches to poker chips to pebbles, because it wasn't the money that mattered, but the game. The thrill of winning and of losing.
It was their special activity, something Ma had had no interest in, a time for the Trotter men to be on their own, to talk about the things fathers and sons talk about, to impress each other with their special twists and throws, to laugh, to enjoy just being together.
It had felt so good, to play with the other hands, to be a man among men, and a man who could do what the others could not, to win—to have finally found a way to get into Braddock, to escape from Southfork for a little while.
Until Ray came in.
A jet of anger sprang like a fountain from his heart, up his stiff neck, to splash its acid all over Mickey's brain at the memory of the suspicion on his cousin's face while inspecting the dice.
Was that what Ray thought of him?
In the dozens of crumbling Westerns on Dad's bookcase back home in Emporia, if you accused someone of cheating, like as not you'd find yourself in a gunfight! And Mickey could see their point.
He'd never been so insulted in his life!
If Ray thought he was low enough to use loaded dice, why even ask him to come here?
If Mickey had known this was how it would turn out, he'd have stayed where he was.
Clarence found his bunkmate in the tack room. "I hate to be a tattletale," he began tentatively.
Hank looked up from the bridle he was mending. "I ain't management. Tellin' me don't mean squat."
Relieved not to be considered a tattler, Clarence went ahead and told. "I seen Mickey over by ole Carbine's paddock again. Anybody tell him he ain't to be over there?"
Hank shrugged. He hadn't. "Did you?"
Clarence shook his head, exhaling regretfully. "Was kinda afraid to. You know what a mouth that boy's got on him. Just axed him was he figurin' to ride that horse?"
"What did he say?"
"Said, 'Not a chance!' Said he warn't lookin' to git his neck broke."
"Sounds like he's got good sense."
"You're the only one who thinks so, Hank." Clarence still looked worried. "And mebbe he's just tellin' me what he thinks I wanna hear. You know how the young ones are when it comes to them wild horses. And what else would he be doin' there?"
A good point. "I'll check it out," Hank promised.
Mickey was still leaning again the paddock fence when Hank arrived, staring intently at the horse cavorting at the extreme opposite end of the enclosure.
Hank opened his mouth to say that both horse and paddock were off limits when the younger man asked, "What's he so afraid of?"
Startled, the older blurted, "You."
"Me?" The late afternoon sunlight struck a swirling kaleidoscope of blues, greens, and browns from the young man's wide hazel eyes. "Why on earth should he be afraid of me?"
"Well," Hank suggested, "you might be fixing to jump over this here fence, bound over there, and gobble him up."
Mickey laughed. "Come on, he must weigh ten times what I do, if not more."
Hank raised a hand and pointed his index and middle figures inward towards his eyes, to demonstrate that they faced forwards. "But you're a predator." He tapped his temples as a reminder that a horse has one eye on each side. "He's prey. It's instinct."
Mickey was shaking his head, but it wasn't a negative shake. "So what do I do?"
Hank scratched a corner of his mouth with a well-bitten fingernail. "Could give him a treat. A carrot, say, or a lump a sugar."
Mickey sniggered, spreading his hands wide to show their emptiness. "I got nothin' to give him." A flourish of the slender arms emphasized even more the already obvious lack of any foodstuffs of any description concealed about his person.
Hank nodded. "I know where we can get somethin'," he offered.
The quiet elegance of the restaurant's bar was a little intimidating, so Mickey stopped just inside the door. "Excuse me."
The bartender looked over inquiringly.
"Is it alright for me to be in here dressed like this?"
The barkeep's dark eyes ran over the open neck and black raglan sleeves of Mickey's Henley shirt down the jeans to the sneakers, then shrugged. "We don't get much trade this early," he admitted. "What'll you have?"
Mickey walked over and settled himself tentatively on one of the tall stools. "A beer, please."
"Lone Star's on tap; that do you?"
"Fine." He smiled wryly. Lone Star. Of course.
He wished he'd been able to change clothes, but Jack and the others had insisted that they would not wait: they'd been delayed long enough looking for Mickey. If he was coming with them, he must come at once. He should be grateful they hadn't just left without him.
He was grateful, but he'd had to jump in the truck with them direct from Carbine's paddock, and he felt self-conscious. He'd stuck out like a sore thumb in the honky-tonk the other hands favored; he wanted to be a little less noticeably different for a while.
"Hey, Jerry," a woman's voice broke into his reverie. "How's trade this evening?"
"As you see." The barkeep inclined his head towards Mickey.
She grinned. "It must be Handsome Man Night."
Looking up from his barstool at the fluffy brown hair, sunny smile, and full figure, Mickey felt a fountain of joy begin to bubble up inside him, and suddenly he could hear the Hank Williams Jr. song Texas Women playing in his head. He smiled at her invitingly. "Handsome Men and Lovely Ladies," he corrected. "Perhaps you'd like a drink, lovely lady?"
One of the green eyes winked at him, then turned to the barkeep. "I'll have the handsome man," she ordered, laughing. "I mean, I'll have what he's having."
Mickey cocked his head, and his long black lashes swept down to cover one of his own eyes momentarily. "I think both can be arranged."
On average, you could expect nine refusals for every ten passes you made, but that one acceptance easily made up for the preceding rejections. And here was the girl making a pass at him. Maybe Texas was lucky to him, after all.
Her name was Jeanie.
"Is this your first time?"
"My first time in the back of a pickup truck?" he teased. She shifted on the sateen covers, and adjusted her hold on her laughing bedmate. "It's my first time in the back of a pickup truck with a cap on it," he allowed.
He did not have a good frame of reference for the little mobile bedroom she'd created.
It was like making love in a cocoon, perhaps. Or maybe in a jewelry box.
She'd laid a mattress somehow so it covered the entire truck bed, and pillows and big puffy comforters surrounded them with soft warmth, which was a real necessity, since the night had turned cool, and the back of the truck was unheated. The tinted windows of the cap kept out most of the light, but they were both experienced enough to find their way by feel.
For the first time since he'd entered the state, Mickey actually felt welcome.
Much later, as they lay tangled together amid the covers, just breathing softly, hearts beating hard and slow from spent passion, the problems that had driven them together seemed as remote the moon.
Jeanie raised her head a little from where she'd cuddled it against his shoulder. She had to strain to see him in the dim light. "How do you feel?" she whispered.
"Good," he whispered back. She didn't have to search for him, he was right there, his lips had found hers again, not demanding, just there, and sweet, responding to her touch, the way a ripe peach falls into your hand when you touch it.
Their hunger was long sated, but it was nice, the way he kissed her. "Sweetie," she said. "You're a darlin', but I'm afraid I'm gonna turn into a pumpkin soon."
He chuckled. "It can't possibly be midnight."
"No, but it can be ten-thir—"
"What?!" Mercifully, he was small enough that bolting upright didn't cause him to hit his head on the truck cap. "Jeanie, please tell me it's before ten."
Her watch featured glow-in-the-dark hands. "I'd surely like to, darlin', but it's ten-thirty."
I am totally screwed. Mickey laughed. Pun intended. He felt too good physically to care how much trouble he was in. He leaned over to kiss her again. "Then I'm already a pumpkin."
The barn was filled with shadows, but through the open doorway, Mickey could see the big Southfork Ranch house still lit up like a Christmas tree ornament, beautiful as the fabled 'city on a hill.' Now that was a house.
He reminded himself what he was doing, and looked around in the dim light, and was pleased to find what he had come for. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
The dice lay abandoned on a bench along the barn's central corridor. Snake eyes showed. The last shooter had lost, it appeared. Mickey picked up the bones, shook them, and threw. They hit the wall, and fell back to the bench. A four and a one. Five.
He picked them up again, closing his fist around them, then bringing it up to his mouth to blow into the hole made by his thumb and index finger. Come on, five! He opened his fingers in a burst of movement, expelling the dice outward towards the wall again, listening to them rattle, and thinking of Jeanie's callused fingers trailing along his skin.
She'd worn a wedding ring. He hadn't noticed it in the bar, but he'd felt it on her hand.
He wondered where her husband was. If he was living. If they were still together.
He should feel bad, he supposed, but he didn't. Must be why sex is so popular.
He'd thrown a two and three. A fitting ending to the night.
"Where in hell have you been?"
Ray.
Mickey tensed. "I told you I was going to into Braddock."
"The boys said you were nowhere to be found when it was time to go."
"I got back here, didn't I?"
"Do you know what time it is?"
It would have been later if Jeanie hadn't taken pity on him driven him back.
"Answer me!"
"Did I miss curfew?"
"Mickey—" Ray stopped, exasperated. "It's no use talking to you."
"Guess not." Mickey agreed. He leaned down to the bench and reached for the dice.
His movement drew his cousin's attention. "You lost."
Mickey didn't respond to that, just slipped the dice into his pocket. An awkward silence overtook them. To break it, Mickey said, "I'm surprised you didn't grind them under your boot heel."
Ray was grim. "It doesn't mean I ever wanna see them again, Mickey. Understand? Certainly not during working hours."
"Okay."
His agreement was a surprise. "I thought you'd be giving me an argument."
"Oh, I'm more sensible than you might imagine." Despite his words, both look and tone were pure impudence.
"I hope so."
Mickey was looking across at the brightly lit house. "What's it like?" he asked, wistfully.
Ray considered the big house thoughtfully. "It's like a house."
"Yeah," Mickey agreed softly. He looked around them at the rafters of the big service building around them. His eyebrow cocked challengingly. "And stray dogs like me belong in the barn."