Wagering
Matt Vandenberghe sits in his new Ute, coolness factor extreme with the matt black alloys to go with his redesigned business signage on the car’s doors. Parked outside a building site, chomping on the last of a Big Mac he reads a sign on the worksite’s temporary fencing. The sign is attached by cable ties and spells out in bold capitals “Vandenberghe Constructions.” Matt’s mobile number and building license number follow, and at the bottom, his new company mission statement. As Matt gazes at his sign, he pulls with his right thumb and forefinger at the thick leg hairs above his knee. It’s a nervous habit he has had since a teenager and when Matt is stressed it returns. In the last ten minutes Matt without noticing, has cleared a one-inch circle of thigh of hair. The hairs fall on the unopened company mail that has slipped off the ute’s dash on to the floor.
There has been a business slowdown in the last few months as fears around inflation and a falling share market circulate. In fact, Matt has only one project in the pipeline for the rest of the year and with the home repayments, the new Ute for himself, a car for Tamsyn and last year’s family holiday in California and Las Vegas still largely on the credit card, the cash flow situation is becoming uncomfortable. Matt has another habit that comes to the fore when he is stressed. It is 1.36pm on a Thursday afternoon and Matt has just lost over $500 on the pokies for the second time in six days.
The idea for the new sign and mission statement came from Matt’s daughter, Tamsyn. She had to explain to her father what a mission statement was, how it was important and where and when it needed to be stated. Once Matt understood the concept, he was initially excited about the idea. They spent a week of evenings after dinner trying unsuccessfully to nail the statement down, a statement that would explain the essence of Vandenberghe Constructions to its employees, suppliers and potential clients. But in the end, it was his wife Janet who, on a Saturday night after a bout of lovemaking with her husband said, “Why not have Erections Are What We Do?”
Max thought she was taking the piss and roared with laughter. Whether it was the post coital bliss clouding his judgement or the possibility that he was finding the whole process with Tamsyn just a little too intense and overlong Matt decided, “Why not?”
Tamsyn exploded when she was told how the new mission statement had been finalised. She screamed, “Are you shitting me?” before bursting into tears and yelling on her way to her room, “This was obviously not part of the process and why waste my time and your money with me studying business if you are just going to…” the rest of the sentence cut off by the slamming of her bedroom door.
Reading the sign and thinking about Janet and Tamsyn makes Matt feel hot all over. His face flushes red with shame and anger. Screwing up the burger wrapper he resolves to stop gambling and be smarter, work harder. He will buy flowers tonight and make love again to Janet. Then he will confess his gambling and seek Janet’s help. Even seek professional help if she insists.
Feeling calmer, Matt gets out of his Ute and looks with genuine awe at his car. The words Vandenberghe Constructions run down the side of the car in yellow bold type contrasting with the deep ebony paint.
Matt sees something else. There is a tiny scratch on the door panel, from someone hitting his car door with their own, no doubt done at the tavern an hour ago.
Matt drops the crumpled burger wrapper and clenches his fists. He sucks in air and expands with rage before remembering his words to Tamsyn the week before about the importance of controlling your temper. He opens and places his hands on the bonnet and breathes the anger out, while telling himself that at least it is just burger grease on his fingers and that won’t hurt the duco. He acknowledges that the scratch is a warning, a sign, possibly a final one to fix his gambling ways before it all goes bad. He feels contrite but he stands tall knowing he can and will be better. He goes back onto the site.
**
Two weeks later, it is Tamsyn’s 18th birthday party and Matt has more crop circles of cleared hair on his inner thighs and more losses on the pokies. A new machine with the name of Klondike Kate has bewitched him.
By 9pm, the birthday party is in full swing under clear skies with peak alcohol intake and maximum energy output fast approaching. Janet and Matt share a bottle of wine around the kitchen table. Matt had pre-ordered fifty large pizzas from Dominos that he will pick up at ten, so he is taking it easy. Janet is not. He watches her gulp wine while tapping the music’s beat against the stem. Tamsyn is out in the backyard flitting here and there with guests. She is embraced in hugs and screams every few minutes. Matt goes to the kitchen window that looks out over the backyard. Tamsyn said that her new boyfriend Ben was at the party and Matt thinks he has spotted him leaning against the back fence. He is presuming that it would be her boyfriend’s hand that Tamsyn comes and holds periodically before being led away again by one of her girlfriends or charging off screaming when someone new arrives. Matt hasn’t met him yet and other than being tall Matt can’t get a read of him in the semi darkness. He checks his watch; it is time for the speeches before it gets messy. Although that deadline has passed, Matt thinks, when seconds later someone is violently ill on the fence.
Matt has never enjoyed speaking in public but tonight he feels inspired. He remembers to say all the right things and none of the wrong. If he could bank the look that Janet gives him when he is finished he would never gamble again. He even remembers to pass on the message that the pizzas will be here in twenty minutes.
There are screams and the singing of Happy Birthday, then hugs and selfies follow before Tamsyn brings Ben over to where Matt and Janet are sitting in the lounge room. But even before she can finish any introduction there is a tremendous crashing noise from the side patio followed by the sound of breaking glass. Matt barely glances at Ben while shaking his hand and mumbling vague words of welcome before rushing off to see what has happened.
**
One week after the party, Matt is in front of his favourite poker machine, the latest model with the catchy name of Klondike Kate. He has not talked to Janet about his gambling. Between the birthday party and everything else he decided to move from the lovemaking straight to slumber. Matt initially put in fifty dollars and is now working his way through his accumulated winnings. He has been on the machine for about an hour and as well as an urge to urinate the first pangs of self-loathing are emerging.
A sign, he thinks, so Matt presses the button on the screen that enables him to collect his winnings in the form of a thermal printed ticket that can be redeemed for cash or used as credit on the pub’s poker machines later. He stands and starts to go to the toilet.
Halfway there, Matt unconsciously looks back at the poker machine. He sees an elderly woman, slight with blue rinse hair and a matching cardigan sit in front of Klondike Kate. He sees red and strides back. Although it feels slow to Matt things escalate quickly, by the time the bartender reaches them Matt is in a furious argument with the old woman. He puts his hand on the chair back, he is going to tip the old woman out of it and the lady erupts, throwing her arms back she knocks both his hand away and her own bag to the floor. He can see her lips moving but hears nothing till she yells in a voice that cuts like broken glass through the bells and sounds of the serried machines, “Fuck off, it’s my machine now!”
The bartender who is about the same height as Matt but slighter build inserts himself between the two of them. He keeps his hands high, palms out and says, “Ok, ok let’s stop yelling or both of you will have to leave the premises.” This brings quiet and in the pause while both draw breath the bartender turns to the lady and asks, “What is the problem?
The lady, easily pensioner age, slight of build and with the bent back of a long term pokie player says, “This man,” she stabs the air in front of Matt with her finger, “just left the machine, put no reserved sign on it and walked away. I love the Klondike Kate machine so I sat down to start playing and suddenly he is back at my shoulder hissing at me, telling me to get off, that it was his machine. I said you’ve finished, there is no reserve sign so go away and he just wouldn’t.”
The bar tender turns to Matt who is moving from foot to foot like an excited schoolboy. He has rammed his hands into the pockets of his shorts to control his anger.
“Is that true, mate?” the bartender asks. Matt realises the bartender is Ben at the same time as Ben’s mouth drops open in surprise when he recognises Matt.
Matt opens his mouth to speak and then stops. The anger leaves him like the air from a punctured tyre. “Ben, isn’t it? You’re going out with Tamsyn.” He pauses and thinks for a moment, comes to a conclusion that somehow makes him shrink while straightening him up at the same time.
“I don’t know what happened,” Matt wipes his face downwards with one hand as if to change what he is seeing, “When I saw her get on the stool I just changed my mind and wanted the machine back. The more she told me to go away the more pissed off I got. I guess it took you coming in and maybe her yelling to get through to me.”
Matt falls silent, looks past Ben and speaks directly to the old lady, “I’m really sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. I apologise, believe me it will not happen again.” And with that he walks off towards the toilets.
He doesn’t see Ben ask the lady, “Are you ok? Is there anything else we can do?”
There is a pause, a sly grin flits across her face.
“Yes,” she snaps. “I want a Gin and Tonic and a plate of fries, and I want you to throw him out. I don’t want him near me. If you don’t, I’ll call the police. He touched me you know, he grabbed me by the shoulder and tried to pull me off the chair. That is why I had to resort to such terrible language.”
She pauses. “And where were you anyway? You should have been on to the situation a lot quicker.” She looks at his feet.
“At least you could pick up my handbag and my betting slip, I didn’t even have a chance to put it in the machine before he was here abusing me.”
Ben picks up the bag and the slip and hands them to the lady. He doesn’t notice her face change when she looks at the ticket. He is too busy hurrying off to get her chips before making a very strong gin and tonic.
Matt stands at the urinal. He has to stop shaking before he can relieve himself. A final shiver runs through him and he zips up and goes to the washbasin. He looks in the mirror and sees a second-rate version of himself, a Matt who looks like him but doesn’t feel like him, not like the old him. After a few minutes Matt skulks out of the toilet to leave the pub but as he heads towards the door he looks towards the bar and catches Ben’s eye. Matt takes a deep breath and goes over. Ben is making a drink and he makes Matt wait until he puts the premix gun away.
“You want a drink, Mr Vandenberghe?” he asks in what Matt hears as a carefully controlled voice.
“No, no thanks,” Matt’s voice wavers.
“Please call me Matt. I just came over to apologise to you as well. My behaviour was crap. I don’t come here to attack old ladies.”
“Why are you here at all? Shouldn’t you be working?”
Matt realises he has no good answer.
“Look, Mr Vandenberghe, I work Monday and Thursday during the afternoons and I would really appreciate it if you don’t come in here then. Now I know what I am saying will get me fired if you go to the manager, but I don’t think you’ll do that.”
Ben points towards where the old lady is now playing the Klondike Kate machine and shovelling fries in her mouth. “That woman is going to milk what you did for free shit all afternoon and maybe beyond. So, I am going to have to explain all of that. I like Tamsyn and you seem a good guy so if you must piss your money away could you please do it somewhere else or some other time. And no, I’m not going to mention this to Tamsyn.”
Ben pauses.
“Now I got some tables to clear. Next time I see you, I hope it is at your house.”
Ben walks off leaving Matt speechless. He suddenly finds the smell from the kitchen’s deep fryer sickening in his nostrils.
Looking at no one Matt leaves and half runs to his new Ute sitting on its own, black paint shining in the afternoon sun. Matt is four blocks away and stopped at a red light before he puts his hand in his shorts pocket to retrieve the payout ticket with the $360 in credit. He will have to come back in a week or two to redeem it for the money, definitely the money he reinforces to himself, and not to put it back into a machine.
Matt was beginning to feel better but then he realises the payout ticket is not in any of his pockets.
He thinks about doing a U-turn but even with tears of frustration pricking his eyes, he knows he can’t go back there, he must not.
After all, he reasons to himself, he is only down the initial fifty dollars he fed into the machine. This is a sign. His absolute, final, last warning.
Unconsciously, he begins harvesting hair from the inside of his left thigh.
The End
