Chapter 9

[Tuesday, June 24th, 1986]

Sam sat there staring at either me or the ticket for a good 5 minutes.

Eventually, he shook his head and said, “John, my temper can get a little out of hand sometimes. Normally, someone trying to give me a handout would piss me right off, but you’ve managed to kinda blow my mind here. I don’t know if I can make you understand, but I’ll try to explain.”

“You see, I need to live my life by certain rules. I won’t lie. I won’t steal. I will earn my keep. That’s it, just those 3 rules. Because I won’t take what I don’t earn, I can’t take charity, and I won’t take your crazy gift.”

I said, “Okay, I can understand and respect everything you just said. Can you explain how the dog track idea fits into your rules?”

He said, “I don’t have a problem with taking a risk and maybe winning something gambling. That wouldn’t break my rules, not to my mind. Hell, it felt more like I was working for you than anything else, and that’s the spirit I took it in when I agreed. But this, there is just no way I can see ever accepting something like this. I didn’t earn it, I didn’t even take a risk for it. You took the risk, and you did it before I even met you. This is yours, not mine.”

I needed time to think, so I jumped back into the tunnel again.

As I looked at the frozen scene before me, Sam was looking pretty resolved. I asked myself why I cared so much. I could easily roll this all back and just never talk to him in the first place. That was my original plan if he double-crossed me or turned out to be trouble. I could just call it a waste of time, something that I have in great quantities apparently, and move on. But now I was “invested” in the idea of improving his life for some reason.

I guess I’ve always had a soft spot for veterans, or anyone really, suffering from PTSD. I’d known a few others in my time, each affected differently, and I had seen what it could do to people. It probably boils down to that.

The way our nation treated vets in general, and the Vietnam era especially, has always struck me as embarrassing. We, as a nation, had let him and so many like him fall through the cracks. My time in the service was completely different, even with my stint in the Gulf war, it wasn’t even close to comparable. When I saw the results of what he must have gone through, what he was still going through in his mind because he had served. Well, it just really got to me.

He was probably all alone in the world, or pretty close to it. Otherwise, he most likely wouldn’t have been sleeping on a damn park bench. I doubt I would if I had another choice. He wasn’t bitching and moaning about his situation. He just dealt with the shitty hand he had been given the best he could, without crying about it as near as I could tell.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter why I want to help him so much. The fact is that I did. I ran many options through my mind until I felt comfortable that I had a way that should work. Hell, I was willing to try a whole bunch of options here if the first didn’t do the trick. When I was ready I jumped back to my body.

I took a deep breath and said, “Alright, if we can’t find a way to make this work with your rules, then we just can’t do it. I’ll accept that. Hell, I’ve been thinking and I have already come up with a way we can make the original plan work pretty easily if you are still interested.”

He said, “How’s that?”

“Well, first we have to accept a simple truth. We’re both a couple of idiots.” I replied. “There is no law that says you have to stand in that line and deal with that shit. You just have to be the one responsible for placing the bet. You have an admittedly unusual, but completely legitimate issue with crowded and enclosed places. If we just ask, I bet we can find a manager to help us find a workable solution. They do want a shot at our money after all.”

Sam said, “Well, you seem to be forgetting that nobody wants to work with a homeless bum.”

I replied, “So stop looking like a homeless bum. A shave, a haircut, a nicer shirt and you’d look just like everybody else. Hell, you’ll probably look better than half of the crowd we saw in there.”

Sam replied, “I can’t afford that. Have you forgotten what I just told you?”

“Sam, you are looking at this all wrong. Allow me to explain.” I said, “Let’s imagine we start a business selling widgets. We make 10 widgets out of trash we find for free and sell them for $10 each. We split the work, so we split the profits. That’s $100 total, and we each made $50. Sound right so far?”

Sam said, “Sure, I follow what you’re saying. I’m not an idiot John.”

I replied, “Wow, you weren’t kidding about that temper. Sam, I’m just using a simple example here, not calling you simple. Gimme a break, you’ll see where I’m going real soon. Now, does the concept I was just talking about break any of your rules? Could we do that and have you be okay with it?”

He replied, “Yes, that would be fine by me.”

I said, “Okay, let’s upgrade the idea a little. What about if we made our widgets out of sheets of paper and some twigs. Let’s say it takes 100 pieces of paper, some sticks we find, and some glue to make each widget. We can sell them for $100 apiece and make 10 pieces from a single ream of 1000 sheets of paper.”

“That’s a $1000 total, minus the cost of the ream of paper and the bottle of glue. The sticks were free and those other items cost us $20 total, so we have a total profit of $980 that we split evenly. $490 each. Is that still okay with your rules?”

Sam said, “Sure. That still sounds fair to me.”

I said, “The bottle of glue and the ream of paper are just the cost of doing business right?”

Sam said, “Right.”

“Well Sam, the shave, the haircut, and the shirt can just be the cost of doing business too. We take it off the top and split the profits. It’s the same thing. It’s just simple accounting.” I said, “The problem is we didn’t do this right from the beginning, we never set up our business.”

I asked him, “Sam, are you interested in being my partner in a business where we will use a little bit of seed money, plus your ability to make bets, plus my ability to make good picks, to make us both a lot more money?” and I stuck my hand out to shake.

Sam asked, “What about this lottery ticket?”

I said, “Forget about that for now, here give it back and I’ll put it away. I have an idea for that too. Maybe you can help me with it, maybe you can’t. We can figure that out another time. What I need to know right now is, are you going to be my partner or not?” and I stuck my hand out again.

Sam said, “I think you might be crazier than I am, but yeah you’ve got a partner” and shook my hand.

I said, “Great. Okay partner, consider this: I was serious earlier when I told you that a $10 bet could have paid out $1500 or so for that race. I know I said we should be low key, and overall I stand by that, but we might want to consider doing just that.”

“Starting with a lucky win might be the best way to get off the ground.” I told him, “Winning a bunch of them would be stupid, but a win like that on occasion won’t raise too many eyebrows. Especially if you keep making more of the same kind of bets and lose a good chunk of money along the way trying to repeat the big win.”

“Now, that is fine for getting us some real seed money, but we also have to discuss some initial expenses. Namely getting you slightly more presentable. The haircut might be something we can postpone if we approach it right. Do you have a slightly more presentable shirt in your backpack?”

Sam said, “Nothing like a dress shirt, but I have one that will probably work. It could use a washing, but it isn’t stained.”

“Perfect” I replied, “Come on, let’s get that done.” I got out of the car and opened the trunk.

Sam got out of the car too and said, “Wait, what are we doing?”

I said, “Sounds like we’re doing some laundry, and maybe a shower if you feel up to coming in for it. Sam, this is my home. You are my partner and I hope you’ll be my friend too. You are welcome here. If you don’t feel comfortable inside, I can get a hose for the side of the house.”

“Hell, there’s a river about 150 yards over that way if you’d rather go that route. We drove right over it on that small bridge just before the turn. I’ve got a razor you can borrow if you need one, shampoo, soap, some hair styling products, a towel. Sam, this is just common everyday hospitality. I would happily extend it to any guest in my home. You are already more than that.”

I gestured to my watch and said, “We can make this happen in no time, with no real cost just like I described, or we could go to a barber and then go shopping if you prefer. I can put some money into the bankroll that you can use to get ready. It is simply a business expense that I fully expect to recover after we make a profit.”

“Any businessman will tell you the same thing I just did. I’m happy to go that route if you want, it’s your call. We can argue about what makes a reasonable expense, but you can’t really argue successfully that it isn’t a legitimate concept.”

Sam said, “I need to think about this.” I said, “Okay, do you want to get the laundry going while you think?” Sam considered it and agreed it was a good idea to do. I told him to hold on while I grabbed my laundry basket.

I had opened the back door then pointed down the stairs right in front of me and asked with a grin, “Unless you want to come down into the basement with me to load your stuff into the machine yourself?”

Sam looked in and said, “Let’s see, do I want to go into a dark unfamiliar underground space with you ... I’ll pass thanks. Asshole”. I smiled at him and went to get the basket. Yeah, we were gonna get along just fine.

I got Sam’s laundry going with a bunch of other clothes from the rest of the household too. I figured there was no sense running an almost empty machine, so I ended up doing my own laundry after all. Happy now?

Once I got the first load of whites going, I went back up and offered Sam a drink. We sat outside drinking lemonade in a comfortable silence for about half an hour. I went back down and got the wet clothes drying and then I started another load.

When I got back outside Sam told me he was going to use the river after all. I said, “That’s cool, can I offer you those bathing items to borrow and maybe a towel?” He said, “Thanks, I’d appreciate that.” We loaded the things into his bag and he headed off to do his thing.

When the whites were done drying I got the darks moved into the dryer and started them going, then took the whites up to fold on the kitchen table. I was working on one of my undershirts when Sam got back. I invited him in, as the kitchen/dining room is pretty well lit with three pretty large windows in it, plus the windows in the storm door if we kept the solid door open.