I met death at a card game.
It was at the casino, where we all go to lose, where we lay down the cards and give up, give in - to chance and to the law of entropy.
I was expecting to meet the devil. If I had wanted to meet death I would have started playing chess, but I don’t have the depth of mind to play that game. Can’t see the moves, winning is the end result of ability and foresight. I have neither, so I don’t play.
It is a suitable game for death. There is always the vanquished in a game of chess and the winner only gets the satisfaction of seeing his pieces still operational on the board, of knowing that to stay alive they had to fuck someone over. There is no other force that intervenes in a game of chess. Like a human life, it is encased in the invisible barricade of free will. Loss and defeat are the result of moving in the wrong direction, a result of choice.
Being an apostate of the Catholic faith I had always wanted to meet the devil, like I had wanted to meet the Pope at the age of 11. These have always been the two most earthly officials of God’s corporation – the devil and the Pope. I have caught glimpses of both. The Pope visited Sydney when I was young and I saw the wave of his hand through a throng of heads and prayers. I caught site of the Devil walking into an adult bookshop in Darlinghurst. My fear of eternal damnation stopped me from following him in – never underestimate the power of pornography to damn the naïve.
This is how I found myself at the casino.
Pornography, drugs, violence, gambling, insurance and investment banking – the devil had a hand in all of it. He would move from one to the other, shoring up his position. He built his empire on a foundation of pride and wit. His churches had always outperformed the institutions for celestial worship. It has always been easier to stoop and breath in the smell of the earth and its aromatic rot than it is to raise your head and read the cryptic messages that occupy the spaces in between stars. The temples to all his industries have always been 24 hour enterprises with a clientele that never slept. His empire had more neon than all the hallways of heaven combined.
I knew that I would meet him where our world and his interests intersected. I suspected that if I became a customer of his he would sooner or later honour his customer relations responsibility. In the modern market place, its all customer relations.
So I walked into the casino expecting to meet the devil at a card game. That’s what all the stories have told us. He wanders through the wreckage of war and famine, gambling and fornicating his way through a playground of his making. Life as a casino, the actual casino being a purer version, a distillation of the loss and futility. Losing at the casino is a child’s game, learning to cope with the losses of life. The house always wins and sooner or later you’re going to have to walk out the front door or security’s going to throw you through it.
The Devil wasn’t there. He wasn’t in any of the tuxedos or the sharp boned faces, honed down to the marrow by the easy come, easy go mentality. Rivers always wear down rocks to the soul. He wasn’t behind the table, dealing out hands, giving and taking away as God does, the way he likes to think he does. He didn’t whisper in my ear and make an offer I couldn’t refuse – riches and women and clean soles on my shoes.
Death tapped me on the shoulder instead.
He whispered something in my ear. The devil couldn’t make the appointment. He could never make the appointment. He was permanently indisposed.
What about my sighting at Darlinghurst?
I was mistaken, like I was mistaken about seeing the Pope.
All I had seen was a man walking into a store and a man waving his hand. I just chose to give them names.
Death told me I had been a fool to imagine life as a coin. In his casino it was the one game of chance he didn’t cater for. That’s what dice are for, the multiplicity of the number six. Roulette and its 36 numbers, a zero presiding over all. Slots with 256 ways of winning.
256
36
6
How many ways can you lose? How many ways can you die?
I should have known better. Gods and devils don’t believe in chance. They write their books with ends in mind.
He didn’t offer me a game of chess.
I can’t clearly remember what death looked like, but he smelled the way the twilight air does when electricity has ripped its way through it and ozone floats in the air - like a promise, like a foreboding.
He offered me two choices. I could either walk out on my own two feet, or he could call security and have me forcibly escorted.
I sat down to my hand and said…Hit me!
