"And it's legal?", asked Marty.
I waggled my hand in an iffy fashion. "Eh, yes and no. I'm not doing anything illegal. However, it shifts the odds away from the house, and the house doesn't like it. If they catch on, they can throw me out and ban me for life."
"What's with the money? Are you giving that to us?", asked Ricky.
"Sure, why not. Like I said, it pays for the trip. Fuck it."
We kept talking through another round of beer, and later that evening, in the basement at Kegs, I borrowed a pack of cards and showed them how it worked. The local brothers had all heard about it before. They knew what was involved, and every year somebody would try and find it was harder than they expected, and lose their shirt. They were amazed I had actually pulled it off, and wanted me to teach them. I demurred. No way did I want to become a professional gambler.
I went over to Circus Circus the next day and repeated my winnings, picking up another four grand. That ended my lust for gambling. I knew I could do it, but I just don't have the drive.
We drove from Vegas over to the Grand Canyon (that's one motherfucking hole in the ground!) and then drove down to Phoenix (Arizona State.) We spent a couple of days there and then moved on to El Paso (UTEP) and then on to Austin (University of Texas.) Big damn state, hotter than blazes, dry as dust. Nice people, though, and they sure know their barbecue.
The place we all really wanted to visit we got to in July, and that was the Big Easy, New Orleans. We would stay at the chapter house at Tulane for a few days before heading on east to Florida. Those guys were simply insane! There were only three guys staying there, but they took it upon themselves to introduce us to the depths of moral turpitude and degradation. We spent a very long night on Bourbon Street with them, eating and drinking, and then they took us out into a swamp the next night chasing down snakes! Poisonous snakes! I was so scared I damn near crapped my pants! Even garter snakes give me the willies, and these jokers caught some rattlers (only rattlers, they threw the other poisonous snakes back! I kept waiting for one of the little bastards to get pissed at us and come back for us!) I think I turned green when it was held up for my inspection and the sucker hissed at me. Bubba Ray just laughed and cut off the head with a machete. The next day we had rattlesnake steaks. Tastes just like chicken, only chickens don't bite you with venomous fangs. Remind me not to do that again!
From New Orleans we drove east. The road trip was starting to get old, and I told the guys we needed to get back by the first week of August. My reservations at the Hilton in Ocean City were for the second and third weeks of August. They agreed with me. We would hit Jacksonville for a few days, see what there was to see, and head home up I-95.
Well, that was the plan. It didn't quite work out that way, though. We found the college easily enough, along with the chapter house. The problem was that nobody was home! The place was locked up tighter than Marilyn's you-know-what!
"Nobody's home?", I asked.
Ricky kept knocking on the door. "I can't believe it. I've never heard of a house where everybody leaves."
Marty commented, "I'm not even sure the locks on our house even work! There's always somebody around."
"Ricky, I don't think anybody's here.", I told him.
"Shit! Now what?"
I shrugged and looked at Marty. "I have no idea. I am too beat to do anything. Let's find something to eat and head east. I hear there's an ocean somewhere in that direction."
We got back in the Buick and headed east towards the supposed Atlantic Ocean. We eventually found it in a place called Jacksonville Beach, so named because it was next to Jacksonville and had a beach. Go figure! We parked down at the beach and found a pizza place that was open. We ordered a large pepperoni pizza and a pitcher of beer. Then, when we had finished the pizza, we had another pitcher of beer. At that point we ordered a third pitcher, worked our way through it, and then decided to walk around on the beach. It was starting to get dark by then, but we didn't care. I had the Kodak and we took a few pictures of each other, and then I took off my shoes and waded knee deep into the surf.
Eventually we got tired of fucking around and started to wonder where we had parked the car. It was at that point we made a mistake, by sitting down to take a rest. Marty stretched out in the sand. It was a nice night, warm and breezy. I lay back, too, and so did Ricky. The car would wait for us.
I woke up around midnight, when I heard Ricky protesting a few feet away. Then a bright light hit my eyes and I reflexively brought my hands up to protect them. "Wha ... what's going on?", I muttered.
Just then I felt something hit my foot. "Come on boys, time to wake up.", said a voice I couldn't place. The light left my eyes and then I heard Marty grumbling and stirring. There was another nudge to my feet and I sat upright.
"What's going on?", I mumbled. I started to rub my eyes, and then looked around. There were two cops standing there on the sand at our feet. One of them had a Maglite on us and was nudging our feet, while the other was multitasking - chewing gum, shining his own Maglite at us, and flipping an old style billy club by the leather strap.
"Wakey, wakey, boys. No sleeping on the beach. It's time to go downtown.", said the cop nudging us awake.
"Downtown?", mumbled Ricky.
"It's off to see the wizard, boys. Come on, get up."
"Hey, we're awake. Just let us go to our car and we'll get out of here.", said Marty.
The second cop laughed at that. "No, no, no! We are going downtown. Do you want to do it the easy way or the hard way?"
"What's the difference?", asked Ricky, scratching his head and rubbing the sand out of his hair.
"Do it the easy way and you pay the fine in the morning and go home. Do it the hard way and we cuff you and book you and throw you in jail for a couple of days first.", was the reply.
I looked at my friends. "We're going to vote for the easy way.", I said for all of us.
"Most do. Come on, get your asses up and off the sand." I got my feet nudged again.
We grumbled some, but climbed to our feet. I put my shoes on, but then kicked them back off, since they were full of sand. I dumped them out and trudged barefoot across the beach to the roadside before slipping them back on. We were loaded into the back of a paddy wagon sort of truck, where a half dozen other criminal snoozers were already loaded, and headed on down the road. We made two more stops and picked up another three sleepers, and then we headed off to the Jacksonville Beach police station.
The easy way was definitely the smart move. A couple of the guys who were already on the truck had been cuffed, and were cussing up a storm. They got separated from the rest of us and taken away into the back of the station. The rest of us just got frisked for weapons (they took my Buck knife and camera) and tossed in a chicken wire cage off to the side of the main squad room. There were a few guys already sitting there.
To what extent Ricky and Marty had ever been in a police station was questionable. Certainly Marty was nervous. I think he expected that he was about to become the prison bitch for Jacksonville Beach. I pushed the pair of them over to a bench at the side of the cage, as much to get out of the doorway as any other reason. "Go sit down, guys. It's going to be a long night."