By the time he got back, it was all gone.
“I bet on the black,” Luke said. “Fifty-fifty shot and I lost. Do you have any cash?”
“No.”
“I wonder if I could get a line of credit—”
“Luke, don’t be crazy.”
“But that was the point of coming here, to be crazy. Do you know the single best moment in gambling, Gerry?”
“Winning, of course.”
“No, it’s the moment before. Before the ball lands, before the card is shown, before the dice settle, one of those rare moments when you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Think about all the books we read, the movies we love—how often are you truly surprised by a story? Or your life? We always sort of know where we’re going, what’s going to happen. But not in a casino.”
Gerry opened his mouth to object, but he could not think of a story that truly contradicted Luke’s point. Only last week, they had gone to see this new movie, Halloween, which was full of surprises, but—was it? It was clear which girl would live, that the children would not be harmed.
“Sounds unsettling to me,” he said. “Like staring into the abyss.”
“Oh, no, it’s the greatest feeling in the world. I would live in that moment every waking second if I could. It’s like Rocky Horror Picture Show. ‘I see you quiver with antici—’” He held the pause even longer than Tim Curry. “‘—pation.’”
“Okay, do you know what I’m going to say next?”
“Something sensible, no doubt.”
Somehow, Gerry got Luke to take a walk on the boardwalk, where the fresh air was a shock to their lungs after the casino. Despite the autumnal chill, they took off their shoes and walked on the beach.
“If I can’t gamble, I need to find someone to fuck,” Luke said. “Don’t worry, it won’t be you. Not tonight, at least.”
“Let’s just drive back, Luke.”
“I’ll meet you at the car in an hour.”
“Luke, that’s crazy—”
“What?” Mock outrage. “You don’t think I can get laid in an hour? Gerry, I could probably be done in fifteen minutes.”
In the end, it took him ninety. He showed up at the car, brandishing a twenty. “He thought I was trade and who am I to disabuse someone of that notion? I would have paid him, not that I had any money. I like older men. They’re experienced.”
Gerry drove, although Luke had promised Tara that no one else would touch the wheel of her precious Tercel. It was evening now, but still not late. They would be back on campus before midnight. They could order pizza, drink beer.
Gerry had no words, no context for his friend’s behavior. Luke, exhausted by whatever he had been doing, fell asleep in the car and Gerry kept stealing glances at his profile, so smooth and perfect and pretty. What was it like to be that pretty? What was it like to be a homosexual? Would anyone choose to be one? Gerry had been with only three women, but the first time he entered one, he couldn’t believe how amazing it was, how literature, which he held in such high esteem, had failed to inform him fully of the wonders of sex. According to Luke, it was the moment before winning—so therefore the moment before ejaculation, or maybe contact—that thrilled him. That made no sense to Gerry. When he came inside a woman, it was about as happy as he had ever been. And he knew, because of his father, that he had to guard himself against becoming obsessive about this particular joy, that he must never hurt another person in his pursuit of that pleasure.
Was Luke happy? He could not ask the question without immediately jumping to the Auden line: The question was absurd. Of course Luke wasn’t happy. The things he had done in Atlantic City—that was not what a happy person did. That kind of compulsive behavior was the opposite of happy.
“I don’t know, Gerry,” Luke said, his eyes still closed. “Are you happy? Is anyone happy?”
Gerry had not spoken aloud. He was pretty sure he had not spoken aloud. Was Luke sitting there wondering at Gerry’s behavior, judging his choices?
“I certainly think happiness is possible,” he said.
“Even for people like us? I don’t know. If we were happy, we wouldn’t want to be writers, right?”
“There have been happy writers. Good ones. It’s possible. I have to believe it’s possible.”
“Which is it, Gerry? Is it possible or do you have to believe it’s possible?”