It was the only thing I could be sure of — a certainty in a life that had become lost in a mad rush to escape the past that held onto every breath. Before I gambled there was always hope, but after that first spin of the wheel I knew I was a loser and it gave me some strange comfort. I began to spend every moment I could at ‘Jerry’s’, it was dark and Lisa, the cutest blond bartender in South Baltimore, fed me Sierra Nevada drafts and shots of Jagermeister as long as I fed the Cherrypickers along the back wall of the bar. She had seen many gamblers come and go, but for some reason befriended me.

Jerry’s was a hole in the wall, dark and smelling of stale beer, dirty mop water and morality. There was a sad cast of characters from 6 in the morning until well after midnight. The jukebox played a schizophrenic mix of  70’s country, 80’s metal and 90’s dance.  The older folks liked the hits from their youth, the kids liked remembering the music from highschool. When you walked in there were two pool tables, then a large square bar that sat in the middle of the room. Behind the bar were tables to sit at and the poker machines.

I was always anxious when I went, either because I had money to gamble, was copping coke, or was fighting the nagging notion I should be at home.

Christian was the person who took me to Jerry’s the first time. He was a guy my wife introduced me to once when we wanted to get high and was always lurking. I had stopped gambling after Marybeth left me at the dive she worked in; it had been many years before that November night. It was his birthday and my wife wanted to hang out so off we went. It was an excuse, as if we needed one, to get wasted. After we were there about an hour, enough time to do a shot, drink a beer and snort a line of bad coke off the urinal, I placed my first dollar of thousands in the poker machine.

They’re illegal in Maryland, they even say “for entertainment purposes only”, but if you know the bartender they pay off. I won $50 that night for spending $10.  The next morning I was back, up early and playing again. By the time winter had turned to spring I was a regular, spending my days playing the poker machine, snorting crystal or coke, and getting drunk. I was there as often as possible.