I Am The Arkansas Angel

I am the Arkansas Angel.

'I am the smile that shines at midnight, I am the hand that moves the
dice, I am the lucky punch and the wish come true, I am the Arkansas
Angel.'

The Arkansas Angel drifts quietly through tinsel town to the Chamber of
Kings. Ten shadows in ten different colours obediently follow on the
ground in his wake. BigDipper, StarChaser, SparkleKing, SugarMountain,
PocketRocket, DoubleDare, TableTwister, BigBang, Mr WooWoo and
KingSwing - these are his new friends in colourful Vegas town. The neon
lights outside each club twinkle their glitzy messages to the desert
sky. High above them the stars pale in the night like melting
ice.

He bounds up the marble steps to the Chamber of Kings in a stride. He
never misses his step; the coin falls heads down every time, he holds a
horsewhip to Lady Luck's behind. The valet takes his coat and he passes
through the club to a fanfare of gold and silver glittering coins from
the one armed bandits applauding at the door. He strides past the
roulette wheels, card games and poker tables. Inside a room, to the
back, wait his 'friends'. He enters and the smoke falls away from his
face as though suddenly everyone is blind and he alone can see. He
takes his place at the baize, a velvet hand strokes green electric
grass. He smiles. It's midnight. He has a Rhinestone smile. Let the
game begin.

Marcy Chase knew a little about this man- some travelling guy who
seemed to rip up gaming club bank cheques and spit them out his ass
like confetti. Soon it would be all over for him but first 'let's have
a little fun'. She stared out of the window and wondered what this
small patch of land had looked like before the advent of man. She tried
to picture the cacti and tumbleweed rolling through the twenty-four
hour sunshine of this neon glow. She tried to imagine the dark. It
didn't happen, her mind fell down a slippery hole and never resurfaced.
She thought about all the things she would do to this gambler if he
shut down her club. She remembered watching her father thrusting pills
and glasses of liquor down his throat after a traveller cleaned him
out. She pictured the look on his face as he handed over the keys to
his club and as she remembered all this she began to hear the
travelling gambler's screams. Finally, she relived the moment when she
saw her papa's first stony tear and her heart became as hard as the
cold diamond on her finger. Let the game begin.

'When I click my fingers I can switch on the sky, I am the Arkansas
Angel.'

A series of clicks rang like gunshots around the room. The chips were
stacked like the tombstones of past gamblers waiting to be planted in
the baize. Two beads around the neck of the bunny girl croupier struck
together as she stood up. The man with eyes that couldn't cry, who
stood on the door, flicked a popper on the shoulder holster beneath his
jacket. The travelling gambler spread his fingers out before him, each
knuckle clicked and then each joint in turn around his body seemed to
click, like knuckle-bones moving under the skin, until this chain of
falling dominoes reached his teeth and even they clicked in their pink
sockets in his gums. Finally, the beads clicked again as the croupier
leant forwards to slide the chips effortlessly across the baize. She
smiled like she always did at a man she knew would lose. For some
reason her lip developed a twitch. Her white teeth bit deep into those
perfect, fat collagen lips. She held her smile and nothing looked
amiss.

It was impossible to win because the table was fixed. Two workmen,
flown in from that long-established centre of cellar gambling dens in
the Yan-Quai district of Peking, had spent the whole of yesterday
installing magnets, hidden weights and remote leads beneath the
pro-sized maple wood wheel. SunTzu had tried to ask the pretty croupier
if she'd like to show him the town but she simply tossed her hair like
golden rain and walked away. He shrugged and decided to spend his brief
stay in the Golden Moon strip club, and watch paid Texan girls swing
their hips instead.

Marcy stared through a fence of mascara lashes at the pixel of blood on
her white satin handkerchief. She dabbed it against her nose again and
dropped it into the bin outside the ladies powder room. If she had a
dime for every time she candy-flossed her brain she'd be a rich lady.
She was a rich lady already. She lived in a house built on a mountain
of fruit-machine dimes and shattered dreams. She took a long, thin
breath, and tucked the discreet, heart-shaped remote control into a
pocket at her side. The lift arrived and she stepped into infinity
between its mirrored walls.

'I ride bare-back into the Chamber of Kings, knowing my horse cannot
fall, I am the Arkansas Angel'.

A soda-stream of adrenaline rushed up Marcy's spine. She looked for a
hint of perspiration on the game shark's face but lost her way in the
desert. Her fingers stroked the black plastic heart. Number five. He
placed every chip on one number. Everything. A mountain of molten
plastic glistened on the baize. She began to lose touch with where her
real heart was, in her chest or in her hand? The traveller was staring
straight at her. He winked. Well, she thought he winked but the smoke
was playing childish tricks with her eyes. She touched her nose and the
croupier flicked the switch for the air-con. The traveller smiled
knowingly. In the 1940's code crackers saved ships and sailors from
torpedoes today they sink gambling dens. Marcy didn't notice, she'd
drifted back to an event on the road out of town last week. She'd run
down a young lamb on the road and watched it the red blood glistening
on its woollen coat as it hobbled into a bush for safety. At the time
she'd thought if it lives she'd eat it when it to market, if it died
the vultures would eat it - same difference - the lamb would end up in
someone's stomach.

This was how Marcy felt now - the outcome for the gambler would be the
same whatever. Her eyes drifted to the man on the door and she thought
about the gun in his pocket. She wondered if everyone really did have
their name on a bullet? She wondered if there was one waiting for her
in a gun some where. This would all be over soon. She would carry it
through for her father's sake, for her sake. She could have simply
barred this man from her club, but what's the use of trying to hide
from ghosts when they can walk through walls? Watching so many lives
falling under the roulette table had dulled the flame of excitement in
her heart. Where was that five-year old cowgirl with eyes like unlit
coals who stayed up all night to watch her first poker game? Right now,
she felt good, she felt like she was standing on a wave. She could feel
the world beating in her hand. She looked at the man concentrating in
front of her and her paradise turned grey. What was his name?

'My breath is money, my heart is money, my soul is money, honey I am
the Arkansas Angel'.

The stuttering blur, whirling around the wheel, slowly changed to the
shape of a ball. It rattled to a halt and the croupier nodded. Five.
She had let him win the first bet; they'd agreed it all beforehand. The
stranger collected his chips and emptied his purse on a new glowing
stack of plastic too. This was it. He smiled as he bet on five a second
time. Marcy had checked this man out; she knew where he bought his
clothes, she knew his favourite song - the one he played most at home,
she'd heard it so many times in the background of recorded tapes that
she even knew the words, some stupid song about an Arkansas Angel.
Heck, she knew everything, her pupils dilated a fraction of a percent,
as she thought about the photographs the private eye had sent of the
traveller; three of them naked - she'd stuck them on the powder room
wall. But more importantly than this, she knew about his money, she
knew exactly how much he had in the bank. Now to her astonishment all
that money was on number five. The wheel spun again. Sweat attacked the
hot surface of her heart and she knew it would all be over soon.

The Arkansas Angel had never lost a game of luck. His parents had known
he was different from the other children, almost from the day he was
born. As a child he somehow crawled out through the door to their home.
For whatever reason it was, he seemed unfazed by his new surroundings
and the midday sun, and kept crawling without turning back. Instead, he
headed two blocks away to a busy freeway. There, in the middle of the
road, he'd played chicken all morning with the cars and trucks. When,
finally, a brave neighbour tried to rescue him the poor man lost a leg
on the black, sticky tarmac. It was when the papers first branded him
the Arkansas Angel.

Below the huge, turning wheel a series of magnets clicked as tiny
electrical pulses sped through hidden wires. The sound seemed loud to
the Arkansas Angel but he said nothing - he knew he couldn't lose
because he'd never lost before. Five, four, three, two, one, the ball
leap-frogged suddenly from its place of rest. Marcy felt a bead of
sweat creep slowly down her back towards the crack between her buttocks
and vowed to sack the croupier for looking so cool, when she, Marcy,
was sweating like a pig. This hadn't been as satisfying as she'd hoped.
Nothing was satisfying anymore, not even sex or seeing the takings in
the bank. She grimaced; still she would watch this man shrivel before
her eyes like a salted slug.

'I am the Arkansas Angel, I never give up hope.'

The Arkansas Angel seemed to have no need for his next breath. The only
movement betraying the fact that he was still alive, even, was the
movement of his index finger tapping lightly on the baize. His finger
came down again with a sound that seemed so loud to him but no one else
could hear. Deep beneath the ground two small pebbles rolled together
and met with a distinct click in answer. He tapped his finger again and
two gigantic underground boulders rocked together with a noise like
thunder. Marcy stared at him, waiting for him to crack like all the
others who lost their life's savings under her roof. When he tapped his
finger a third time seismologists across the states heard a series of
clicks on their machines they used to read the Richter Scale.
Everywhere needles awoke and leapt like spiders across charts, spraying
paper across the floor. As seismologists frantically reloaded their
machines, the Los Angeles fault opened and shut like a slamming
door.

The catch on the pistol in the man on the door's pocket clicked open
and he shot his foot off as he tried to keep his balance. The floor
shook again and Marcy blinked, opened her eyes and felt her heart stop
as she saw the ball spinning in the number five slot. Her world shook
one more time. A rip ten-metres wide appeared in the ceiling as one
side of the building decided to go one way and the other couldn't quite
make up its mind. Marcy stared upwards into the sudden light that
looked like a stairway into the sky. She suddenly wondered if this was
how that lamb had felt caught in her headlamps? The result was always
going to be the same. She was always going to lose this game. Sound
began to fall away from her. She dropped her plastic heart onto the
floor. A long finger of the doorman's blood slowly encircled it. Marcy
felt her balance and perspective changing, she began to float towards
the roulette table She suddenly fainted and fell down. As her vision
dropped into the night she saw a pair of boots stroll by, a man with
wings followed by ten shadows wandered out of sight. The Arkansas Angel
walked quietly back into the night.

'I am the Arkansas Angel, the moon is my day, the sun is my night, the
sun always shines all day and night.'