jennings rampage

The inevitable Mother’s Day entry

I’m not sure how I feel about Mother’s Day, you know, on account of my mom being dead now and everything. Seems a little strange not being concerned with brunch and carnations and cards from Hallmark’s “Shoebox” series and all that, and just sitting in my apartment watching baseball on television. But here I am.

I suppose I do seem like a seriously disorganized person — hair disheveled, workspace awash in superfluous printouts, shirttail flapping about — so it’s only natural that the women I work with would want to remind me about Mother’s Day. But I’ve known it was coming for quite awhile now, and I’ve also known that the reminders were coming too.

Right after my mom died and I moved to Virginia, I felt like I was walking around and meeting people with “Hi, my name is Scott, and my mom just died.” People ask what brings me to the area — well, my mom just died, and I had to move in with my brother. People ask why I’m working a shit job for a major undisclosed electronics manufacturer — well, my mom just died, and I had to take the first job I could find to start getting back on my feet. People ask why I’m so moody and distant — well, my mom just died. And then they’d say “oh, I’m sorry,” and I’d say “thanks,” and we’d stand there awkwardly for a couple of seconds, and we’d go back to talking about how much this area sucks or how terrible that job was.

But it’s been more than six months now (holy shit, it’s been six months), everything around me is ten times better than it was before, I talk about my mom in the past tense without thinking about it, and I’ve grown used to evading the topic of how exactly I ended up in Norfolk. (Vague talk about “sweet merciful fate” is usually enough to suffice.) But it’s hard to evade “so, what are you going to do for Mother’s Day?” I’ve nothing to offer but, “actually, we lost my mom last October.” And then they’d say “oh, I’m sorry,” and I’d say, “thanks… it’s a little weird.”

This is a little weird. I’ve done Thanksgiving without mom, I’ve done Christmas without mom, I’ve done St. Patrick’s Day without mom, but this is a little weird. Probably the design of the holiday itself has something to do with it, but I can’t be sure. I don’t have anyone to talk about this with right now, since Jeff’s been drunk everytime he’s e-mailed for the past week (apparently winning a war has its associated perquisites) and I flaked out on teaching this week so I could sit here and have no one to talk to. So I think I’ll tell you all a story, just so you can look at how awesome my mom was.

When I was in college, I was a big fan of casino gambling, purely for the mathematical challenge. (I taught myself to count cards when I was a junior.) My mom lived in Cape Canaveral, Florida, about five minutes away from two casino cruise ships, the ones that sail into international waters, turn on the slots and deal cards for a few hours, then sail back. I clearly loved to go home to visit.

Now, every good card counter knows he needs cover, something to draw the pit’s attention away from you. Ideally, your cover will be so chatty, ostenatious, and gregarious that no one could help but be drawn to them. If the blackjack dealer is too caught up talking to one of the players and the pit boss is just standing there smiling and laughing, a well-trained card counter could quietly make a killing right under their noses. Sounds like a job for mom.

I taught my mom the basics of the game, and had her fashion a homemade “cheat sheet” with blackjack’s basic strategy (which is legal at the tables but immediately labels you as a rube and an ingenue; real players can recite basic strategy for any given situation and any number of decks on demand). I gave her $100 and kept $100 for myself, and we sat at the $5 minimum table, which is exactly like it is in Swingers. Mom had a hard time moving around, especially on a moving ship, so we made a big production of getting her to the table. I played the good son who was kind enough to take his dear old mother out for an evening, and spoke softly, half-embarassed for my loud and flashy old mom, and periodically asked her to be quiet so that the others could play their cards in peace. The rest of the table, of course, loved my mom immediately, and before long, our table was the center of attention. Perfect.

With my mom holding court at the blackjack table, I was free to concentrate as much as I needed at counting cards. Mom played $5 every hand exactly according to her basic strategy chart, while I counted and pressed my bets as hard as I pleased. When I wanted mom to deviate from basic strategy, I’d place my hand on her back, say something like “mom, do you want to stop embarassing me?” and she’d lean in and I’d tell her what to do. Meanwhile, I was pulling out some really outrageous plays like doubling on hard twelve, doubling on soft twenty, and I think I may have even split tens once. Trust me, that last one is OUTRAGEOUS.

After about an hour of this, she and I would be a few hundred dollars richer, and all of a sudden, my dear old mother’s artificial hip would start acting up. So I’d color up the chips, drop them in my pocket, help mom out of her chair and up to the deck of the ship, and we’d drink rum and Coke and enjoy the rest of the cruise and laugh at each other. We must have pulled that routine at least a dozen times, and no one ever said a word to either of us. (That’s because we were playing for such low stakes, but let me pretend to be a bad-ass here, all right?)

I love you, mom. Wish you were here.