Towaoc, Colorado disappeared then reappeared, faded in and out of focus and finally stabilized.
He scraped a thin layer of frost off the inside of the window and looked out at the Ute Mountain Casino RV park. He was still half asleep, still shivering.
Off across the parking lot neon flickered.
He tugged the bathrobe belt tighter and squinted to see if lights had come on in any of the other RVs.
So far he was the only one up. He moved back from the window to catch the weak breath of warm air from the heater.
It hadn’t been a bad night, up six hundred bucks. He thought the blackjack dealer might have made a few mistakes but you never knew. He had two soft seventeens which was unusual and won on both of them.
Not a bad night at all and now he had enough money to finally leave Towaoc, Colorado.
Strange how his judgments playing blackjack were so steady and everywhere else in his life they were so flawed. It seemed as if something unavoidable clouded every decision. Maybe playing blackjack wasn’t escapism but his reality. Could be the rest of life was something he didn’t belong to and didn’t belong to him.
Maybe that was why everything he touched seemed to blow up or backfire.
The RV was warming up. He dressed, stuffed his hands deep into his coat pockets and pushed through parking lot gusts over to the coffee shop.
He hoped the hostess would be there so he could tell her he was leaving. It always felt good to tell somebody he was moving on. If he managed to sound enthusiastic and if he was wished good luck, all the better.
This made some of the resentment he otherwise couldn’t shake off go away. That outrage he didn’t want anyone to see, it would stop short of boiling and simmer.
Clearly his government had betrayed him. Beyond a doubt, what happened in Kandahar could never be repaired.
