I tripped and hit the cement harder than I thought I would. As I lay on the ground, I thought about what had all happened and decided to just lay for a while. I felt the warm blood creep from the insides of my mouth, delicately decorating the surface onto which I had just fallen. The warm sensation began to emerge from both of my elbows and my right knee, confirming the surprising severity of the fall. The cigarette I had been smoking was a foot in front of me, slowly burning up with the afternoon sun. Part of me wanted to reach out and stop the waste of such a good cigarette. I didn’t reach out then; I would never reach out again.

What was I doing? The blood was flowing steadily now, from the many parts of my body that had been cut from the fall. I didn’t care though. I should have cared, I guess. I should have gotten right back up. Soon enough I saw the red liquid glide along the ground past my face, finding the pathways in the cement, creating small red rivers of my blood. Slowly but steadily, the rivers traveled beyond me, down the sidewalk, and into the busy street.

As I lay there on the ground, the conversation that had just occurred was all that I could hold on to. I needed to get up, I needed to. There was only her voice and my voice and everything that was wrong with all that had just happened.

“I’m sorry baby. It meant nothing. Eve was just a girl, she was a mistake…,” I said, and I meant it.

“Sorry doesn’t mean anything anymore,” she said, and she meant it.

“Baby…”

“No…”

“Baby, don’t do this right now…”

“So, what was it? She was hotter, I guess, or maybe you just never loved me enough. What was it?”

“It was me. And I’ve always loved—”

That was when she slapped me. Left cheek. The sting was significant, but by no means unexpected. I deserved it. So, I took it like a man.

Dan, being a man means doing the right thing. Anyone can be a male. Anyone can have a penis and use it. Being a man is facing challenges and coming out of those challenges on the right side. It’s the choices that you make that determine if you are a man or a male.

It was a speech my father had thrown at me more than once, and as the sting of the slap absorbed into my ragged face, the words sank in deeper than they ever had before.

“I’m sorry…I’m so fucking sorry…” There was nothing else I could have said.

“So am I. Now get the hell out of my home,” she said with a coldness that stung more than the slap. So, I turned around and walked out of the house that I had once shared with the woman I loved. It would be two long blocks down the road that I would fall harder than I had ever fallen before.

I lay on the sidewalk, and the blood had all but poured out of me. Finally, I got up and took the cell phone out of my pocket and found Eve’s number and called her. I hung up the phone after the first ring.

“What I am doing?” I said to myself. I threw my pack of cigarettes in the trash and deleted Eve’s number from my phonebook.

“What am I doing?”

I turned and began to walk down the street. The sun was out and the heat was pounding on my fresh wounds with unbridled anger. With every step came a surge of pain that only added insult to injury.

Then I came upon the restaurant where I had asked my girl to marry me: Luigi’s, a nice Italian place. I remembered not falling gracefully, but rather stumbling anxiously onto one knee and asking her if she would be my wife. Her face was an array of emotions, and her answer wasn’t a sure thing. Then she looked at me, face to face, and said yes, and her eyes lit up that entire room. As I turned my head into the restaurant, feeling like a new man, I saw those lime green eyes that had kept me faithful for so long, yet not long enough.

With a smile I peered into the window, where only a handful of people sat for lunch, most of the people in black suits, conducting business meetings. But there was one girl. Eve. There she sat, arms locked with another man. The man wore a suit that cost more than my car. His old man’s beard and old man’s face were complimented by an old man brand of cigarette. She laughed with him and played with his hair and caressed his arm and stole his cigarette and sucked it in, her eyelashes batting at his every glance. My heart stopped, goosebumps springing all over my body. I forgot about the wounds, I forgot about it all. She was with another man, another male. She was with another poor son of a bitch whose mistakes were the only thing he had. She was with me, only it was a richer, older, more important version of me. The lime green eyes disappeared from my mind, and what took their place was the strong, respectful pair of brown eyes my father would burrow into me after I had made a wrong choice.

I turned my head, briskly walked to the nearest gas station, and picked up a pack of cigarettes. I lit the first one, sucked it all in, and decided to walk to the nearest bar. “What am I doing?” I asked myself as I walked towards something stupid.

“What are you doing?” asked my father.

“I don’t know,” I said weakly.

“Stop it. You’re better than this,” he said with his brown eyes burning into the back of my head.

“I don’t know.”

fter spending an excessive amount of time in Las Vegas casinos, Donny began noticing all the psychological trickery that the casino owners put hundreds of man-hours and millions of dollars into developing. During his first month of being a professional gambler, he noticed how easy it was to get lost when trying to move from one area of the casino to the next. This was because, he realized, the patterns of the carpets and the positioning of slot machines made it appear that every direction you looked in was exactly the same at any given location. Then, on a hunch, he went traveling down the strip and discovered that all casinos lack windows and wall clocks. This allowed gamblers to spend excessive hours and dollars in the confines of the buildings, believing they’d only just gotten there. There were also subliminal signs posted everywhere like, “A Winner Every Time!” and “Money! Money! Money!” that people didn’t even read directly, but the words became imbedded in their heads like the penis hidden within covers of Disney movies. But Donny really read the signs. He became a part of the psychological trickery.

People didn’t notice him anymore. It had been at least a year since anyone had asked him for a picture or autograph. He liked it that way, now, though when they first came up to him years before, he had glowed brighter than that damn Vegas sun. He’d been in newspapers, interviewed on TV, and had appeared or starred in a dozen documentaries on casinos and betting odds. Donny was immune to luck because Donny always won.

Statistically, he was an anomaly. He was a quiet, humble man, and he’d never lost a single game of luck he’d ever played. At games of skill, where any kind of talent was needed, he was around average; he would be up a little while, but eventually the house made him its bitch just like the rest of them. To others, it was important because they didn’t know if they’d ever make it back. To him, he just went to the slots and waded through a hundred small wins until he hit the inevitable jackpot.

Who loves a man who always wins? Everyone.

Donny hadn’t spoken to his ex-wife since she’d remarried. He’d heard through the grapevine that she lived in Tennessee with a small business owner and they had two kids, a third on the way. He’d heard she was happy.

He looked at the gamblers and envied them. The excitement they must feel to know that they could hit it big or lose everything. The fun they must have gambling, even if they lose. The rush must feel like a shot of heroin right into their veins. Would it kill them or make them stronger? They didn’t know until they told themselves to stop and meant it forever.

What excites a man who can’t lose? A woman.

As he swam in the ocean of vices, passing the legal hookers and toting a winning streak that had lasted him 39 years, he wondered where he’d be if he had the guts to move. Donny loved the heat of the sun right above him, baking the earth dry. He could live in Arizona or New Mexico, maybe meet a pretty young native girl with caramel skin and hair so black it looked blue in the sun. She would make jewelry in a small shop that smelled like chilies and dust, and she would look up from her swiftly moving fingers when she heard the door grind against the dirt and smile when she saw it was he who was coming through the door…

He put another dollar into the slot machine every time he imagined this. It kept him attached to reality. His favorite machine was called “The Glass Cannon.” There were all sorts of explosive images like sticks of TNT and matches and barrels of gasoline. The glass cannons were clear and beautiful. Donny figured they would explode if they ever shot a real cannon ball. The damage would be horrendous. Shards of glass bursting in all directions for yards and yards as the ball flew to its target. It seemed to be the most unrealistic item in any slot machine, and yet it was the one he played whenever he felt he was drifting too far from reality.

This was his life. Donny was the only man in America who was forced to sign a contract with the city gambling bureau that made him promise he’d never play for more than 40 hours a week and would never stay at any one casino for more than two hours at a time. His job was going out whenever he felt like it and bringing home the money for rent and groceries and cable Internet. If he left, how would he be sure he’d succeed at anything else? He was tied to the machines more than the addicted gambler. He didn’t work the machines, he worked for them.

Where does a man who always wins live? Anywhere he wants.

Donny’s apartment was right off the strip, an expensive little two-bedroom that he’d bought with his fourth big win. He and his ex had planned to have a little family right there in Vegas, where he’d come home from his boring, but adequately paid job every night and she’d be a comfortable little home maker. Then, somewhere in the middle of the desert, she’d found God. She’d decided a life of vice was a sure sentence to Hell. The kids would grow up around desperate gamblers, hookers, strippers, and all-you-can-eat buffets. Greed, envy, lust, gluttony—four out of seven ain’t bad.

He could have left with her. As he ordered the third free drink of the evening, he realized he probably should have. Then he wouldn’t be miserable. Then he wouldn’t know his true power, and he could be a boring schmuck just like every happy guy he knew. But Vegas was his home, and he was afraid to leave. Being here made him feel safe. He trusted it more than he trusted his wife.

Donny was no more of a threat to the casinos than the average lucky guy. He never won millions, so they let him keep coming back. Sometimes he wished they’d make him go away. Sometimes he hoped he’d strike it big, not to be rich, but to be kicked out.

The only hand he held was the lever on the slot machine. And that hand would hold him right back.