til debt do us part by michelle larks - excerpt
TRANSCRIPT
‘Til Debt Do Us Part
by Michelle Larks
Harrah’s Casino, located in Joliet,
Illinois, is also known as "the boat" by the
local population. After Chicago, Joliet is
the second largest city in Illinois and is
located about forty miles south of the
Windy City. Joliet is nicknamed the City of
Champions, and gamblers pay homage to
the moniker daily as they try to excel and
beat the gambling odds.
The floating venue was jam-packed,
as it always tends to be on Friday evenings as people try to become the
next millionaire. The weather outdoors was unseasonably warm. The
temperatures tend to be fickle in Chicago, and residents hoped spring
weather was waiting just around the corner.
It was the first Friday of March 2001. It was payday for many of the
casino customers, so the pickings were sweet for the wealthy owners.
Men and women of all ethnic backgrounds were mostly dressed
casually in jeans and colorful tops. They stood or sat, waiting for their turn
to dance with Lady Luck.
Good fortune comes in the guise of the roulette, blackjack, and crap
tables; as well as the coveted piece-de-resistance…the slot machine.
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The atmosphere crackled with excitement as bells sounded or red
and blue bulbs flashed…announcing winners.
A firm tug on the handle of a slot machine could change a person’s
financial status magically, or as usually was the case, create new ones.
With bated breath, the patrons awaited the outcome of the flip of a
card, roll of the dice, or display on the slot machine. Hoping and praying the
gambling gods would shine upon them.
Waitresses flitted in and out of crowds, carrying black trays filled with
cups of soft drinks and alcoholic beverages. The clientele gratefully gulped
down the cold liquids as they continued their quest for financial freedom.
Exclamations of joy and relief shone on the winners’ faces when they
hit the jackpot. Those not as fortunate sat tensely with worried expressions
on their wrinkled brows as they chewed their fingernails to the quick with
anxiety, wondering how they were going to pay their bills since they used
that money to gamble.
A ring of perspiration stained the armpits of Nichole ‘Nikki’
Singleton’s mandarin orange silk blouse. She had removed the matching
brown tweed jacket of her pantsuit hours ago. It was slung half off the back
of her seat.
Nikki’s round dark brown eyes glinted with anticipation. She
unconsciously stroked her chin as she mentally calculated the odds of her
winning the roll of the dice. Nikki looked down at her stack of chips on the
craps table; coming up was the all-important make or break bet.
She clutched the dice tightly in her shaking, damp left hand. Her
honey brown face was drawn with tension. And Nikki's perfectly coifed,
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bone straight, shoulder length, relaxed, dark hair stood spiked on end from
her continually running her hands through it.
Before the tiny white and black cubes left her hand, Nikki looked
upward and said a quick prayer. “Lord, please let the dice fall in my favor.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief, and her shoulders slumped forward
dejectedly after seeing how the dice landed. She hadn’t been able to catch
a break the entire evening.
The croupier raked Nikki’s former chips to his side of the table. He
shook his head at her apologetically as she picked up her purse and jacket
and stepped away from the table. Her stomach cramped spasmodically
from the sizeable amount of money she’d just lost.
An older white woman, clad in faded stonewashed blue jeans and an
old faded Northwestern sweatshirt with big, brassy blond hair and dark
shades, shot Nikki a sympathetic look. She shrugged her shoulders as she
slipped into Nikki’s vacated place.
Nikki and her best friend, Maya Nelson, had arrived three hours ago,
around seven o’clock that evening. As soon as they entered the vessel,
Maya made a beeline to the ladies’ room while Nikki sped to the cashier
cage and plunked down a cashier’s check for fifteen hundred dollars. She
wanted the amount credited to her Harrah’s gambling card.
Nikki had counted on winning big that evening, emphatically sure
that Lady Luck would hover over her. Instead, as the evening progressed,
the capricious woman deserted her unmercifully.
As Nikki stood in silent shock, a few steps away from the table, she
massaged her temples, pondering the latest dent in her finances.
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Meanwhile Maya punched the spin button on the slot machine that she had
been playing on for most of the evening. Like Nikki’s, Maya’s stash had
dwindled, but not as drastically. She looked across the room and noted the
panicky expression on Nikki’s face; frozen in place like a doe caught in
headlights.
Cutting her eyes at the machine morosely one more time, Maya
decided to call it a night. She strolled across the room to see how badly her
friend was faring. A woman darted into Maya’s warmed seat and pulled her
Harrah’s card out of her purse.
“How’s it going, girl?” Maya sighed audibly, pushing a thin micro
braid away from her face. “You look like you lost your best friend. And we
know that’s not the case because I’m right here. So what’s up?”
“This just isn’t my night,” Nikki said. Her voice trembled with
frustration. Like a raging brush fire, her mind was consumed with getting
her hands on more cash.
“You know the first rule of winning is quitting while you’re ahead,”
Maya said, scolding her friend. She yawned and covered her mouth. Her
fingernails were painted a cocoa brown shade, which nearly matched her
even skin tone. She was dressed in a black rayon pantsuit and a frilly white
chiffon blouse that flattered her full sized figure. Minus a few strategically
placed strands, her micro braids were pulled off her forehead into a thick
ponytail. “It’s getting late, Nik. And since I have to work in the morning, I’m
gonna head home now. How much longer do you plan on staying here?”
“I need to at least try to win back some of the money I lost; so
probably another hour,” Nikki replied. She tried not to look too eagerly at
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the ATM machines located near the cashier’s cage. She wished Maya would
just leave so she could handle her business.
“Okay, I’m out. Call me when you get home to let me know you made
it safely.” Maya looked at Nikki with concern. “Remember…gambling is just
a recreational activity just like a ballgame. It’s just something to do to pass
the time. Don’t make the mistake of taking this stuff too seriously.”
“I know.” Nikki sighed as she patted down a lock of her unruly hair. “I
don’t plan on staying here much longer either. Unlike you, I have a long ride
home.”
The friends lived in different parts of the city. Nikki resided on the far
north side of Chicago, and Maya lived closer to Joliet in a southern suburb.
When they traveled to the boat, they usually didn't ride together. The two
young women bade each other farewell.
As Maya stood before the double exit doors, her full cheeks morphed
from a smile into a frown. She pulled the black leather strap of her shoulder
bag onto her shoulder as she watched her friend walk over to what her six-
year-old son, TJ, called the money machine.
Nikki’s manicured pearl tipped fingers shook as she entered her pin
number on the keypad and pressed enter. A slip of paper listing her account
balance, spewed from the tiny slot. The paper informed her that she had
already reached her maximum withdrawal limit for the day.
As Nikki held the paper away from her face, her eyes nearly bulged
out of their sockets. The account balance of the household account she
shared with her husband, Jeff, was dangerously low. And Nikki had
overdrawn her own personal checking account about a week ago.
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Miniscule watery pinpricks of fear stung Nikki’s eyeballs. Her heart
began palpitating rapidly as she realized the balloon payment for the home
equality credit line that she and Jeff had borrowed from the bank for
remodeling the apartment building they owned, was due in a couple of
weeks.
Wiping her eyes and squaring her shoulders, a million reasons
justifying her actions seeped through Nikki's mind. She cocked her head to
the side and mathematically calculated how she could continue to play and
win since her luck had been so rotten. She told herself not to panic and to
write the casino another check for five hundred dollars. Realistically, doing
so should be okay since payday was Tuesday, and her account was
sheltered by overdraft protection. The action could possibly extend her
credit. After all she was a VIP customer. At least that's what Harrah’s told
her in the letters that came to her house monthly with free comps.
An hour later, following futile stints on the roulette table and slot
machine, Nikki still hadn’t managed to recoup her losses. She groaned as
she half-heartedly pulled the handle of the slot machine one last time. Nikki
glanced at her wristwatch and shuttered. It was already eleven o’clock. She
only had an hour to get home before Jeff did.
The night had been a total bust for Nikki. She’d lost the entire fifteen
hundred dollars, plus the five hundred dollar check she’d written to the
casino and her fifty dollars seed money that had been folded up inside the
depths of her wallet.
As she put on her jacket and headed for the exit, Nikki suddenly
remembered the monthly bank statement would probably be delivered
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tomorrow. She broke out in a cold sweat, and her breathing became
shallow as her thoughts darted to the possibility of Jeff opening the mail
before she did. There was no doubt in her mind that her husband's anger
would blow the roof off the house if he discovered her extracurricular
activities. Nikki had been positive that she was going to win tonight and be
able to deposit the monies in their joint checking account that was
precariously low at that moment.
She burned rubber as she departed the parking lot and drove
perilously close to eighty miles per hour on Interstate 55. Upon reaching
the outskirts of the downtown area, she exited onto Interstate 94 and
made it home with fifteen minutes to spare. She hurriedly backed her
custom tinted baby blue colored Chrysler 300 inside the garage at the rear
of the three-flat apartment building.
Jeffrey and Nichole Singleton resided on the north side of Chicago in
Wicker Park. And the distance was not a hop, skip, or jump from Joliet.
As soon as Nikki shut and locked the front door, she unbuttoned her
blouse, unzipped her pants, and hopped down the hallway into the
bathroom. She quickly shucked off her clothing and dropped them into an
untidy pile next to the clothes hamper. Then she slipped into a red and
black teddy hanging on the peg of the bathroom door. When she finished,
Nikki heard the lock turn on the back door, and she dove into the bed like
an Olympic swimmer diving into a pool.
She shifted her body to her left side, away from the door, hoping her
rapidly thudding heart would slow down. Nikki burrowed her body under
the brown and beige striped comforter.
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As Jeff walked into the darkened bedroom, he turned on and
dimmed the overhead light. He glanced at the bed, and then walked into
the blue and white striped wallpapered bathroom. He scooped Nikki’s
clothing from the floor and dropped them into the white rattan clothes
hamper. Then he opened the shower stall door and turned on the faucets.
A deluge of warm water from the showerhead soaked his five foot eleven
inch, lanky, dark teak brown frame.
After he finished showering, Jeff draped a towel around his
midsection and returned to the bedroom. He sat on the side of the bed,
and with another towel, dried his close-cropped hair. His eyes were small
and beady, and he had long lashes and thick eyebrows. A thin moustache
covered his thick upper lip. His left cheek bared the remnants of a fading
scar that he received during a brawl at school in eighth grade. Jeff was
employed as the second shift supervisor in the Information Technology
Department for the City of Chicago.
He glanced over at Nikki again, surprised she was already in bed.
Usually after he arrived home from work on Fridays, they would go out to
one of the local cafés for a bite to eat.
Jeff leaned over and kissed his wife’s shoulder. Nikki shrugged her
shoulders, feigning sleep. She opened one eye, then the other. Nikki looked
up and returned her husband’s smile.
“Hey, honey. You’re home already? I guess I lost track of time.” She
sat up in the bed and stretched her arms over her head. “How was your
day? I didn’t hear from you all evening.”
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“I was busy,” Jeff admitted. He picked up the bottle of lotion from his
nightstand and smeared the white liquid over his body. “We had a major
system outage tonight and couldn’t get a hold of the primary or backup on-
call programmers. So that made for a tense night. Finally, I ended up calling
one of the team leaders.” He waved his hand impatiently. “Needless to say,
Mr. McDonald wasn’t happy about his weekend being disturbed.”
Nikki smoothed her hair back. “Give me the lotion so I can do your
back.” Jeff handed her the bottle and she poured drops of the pear-scented
lotion into her hand, then massaged the thick liquid onto Jeff’s shoulders
and upper back. “That’s terrible. I don’t understand how you can work in
the IT field. I couldn’t do it. The job would be too stressful for me.”
“It’s not too bad most of the time.” Jeff nodded his head. “Ahh, that
feels good.” When Nikki finished, he slithered into the bed and pulled her
into his arms. His breath felt velvety soft on Nikki’s neck. “I thought we’d
try the new sushi bar that opened down the street when I came home
tonight. What’s wrong? Why are you in bed so early? Don’t you feel well?”
he asked.
“I had premenstrual cramps earlier,” Nikki lied. She shifted her body
in the bed to get comfortable. “After I came home from work, I took some
painkillers and laid down for a while. I feel much better now.”
Jeff turned on the television, and they lay entwined in each other’s
arms, watching the news.
“How was your day?” Jeff asked during a commercial break. He
stroked the top of Nikki’s head, which rested on his shoulder.
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“It wasn’t too bad. Victor assigned me a new project today, even
though my plate is already full.” Her dainty nose wrinkled in exasperation.
“I have the dubious honor of creating print ads for a new retail, startup dot-
com company. The concept is for the client to have an enterprise like a
virtual shopping mall.” She regaled him with tales about her day,
deliberately omitting her clandestine trip to Joliet.
Jeffrey Singleton was an intelligent, methodical man with his eyes on
the prize. His firm desire was that he and Nikki attain financial freedom and
be able to retire from their jobs before the age of fifty.
When Nikki and Jeff announced their engagement six years ago, they
solicited advice from several friends employed in the finance field. They
eventually selected Jeff’s college buddy, Ronald Sheldon, along with Nikki’s
friend, Lindsay Mason, to develop a financial plan for them.
After further discussion, Nikki and Jeff mutually decided Ron was best
suited to oversee their financial investments. Jeff handled the household
finances the first two years of their four-year marriage. Then last year, Nikki
decided that she wanted a shot at the task. Their finances had been on a
downward slope for the past seven months. And to make matters worse,
Jeff was left in the dark regarding his wife’s costly new hobby that would
wreak havoc over their lives.
© Copyright 2009 Michelle Larks. Urban Christian
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