14 comments/ 23525 views/ 4 favorites Touch of a Button By: magmaman OK, so I am stupid. It was easy to see why I am stupid, I was sitting on a chair in an Indian casino pushing buttons on a 3 coin slot machine. $15.00 each little push of the button, real clever. Unless a person is so flush with capital that losing makes no difference at all, let me tell you, that is stupid. I can't say I was exactly flush with capital. What I was, was mad. My name is Roy Hill. That is what it used to be, anyway, I will get to why it isn't now. I was financially better off just a few months before but the wife, now ex-wife, got the lion's share of some 16 long years of working all day plus overtime to keep her in trinkets. Sometimes fucking Saturdays, too. No point in even mentioning her name for this story, just ex-wife works just fine because even saying her name causes me to have to take a pill. Oh, what the hell, it's Jennifer, and that's JENN..I..FER, not "Jen" as she would remind anyone who dared shorten that. She even griped at me for calling her that. One thing I might mention here is that Jennifer looks a lot like the gal that was married to that Tom Cruise guy in the movies, you know the one. The one that had all of those closeup shots of her bare behind? Yep, same kind of slim figure, nice little titties, the kind any man just loves. She knows that, too. That alone was enough to make my IQ drop 40 points. The day JEN (teehee) told me she was moving on was still fresh in my mind. Her reason (she claimed) was that we had "grown apart." Then she mentioned that she was only 30, and I was coming up on fifty. That wasn't correct, I was only 47 but I guess the truth is I did look 57. And she was 33 years old, which I happen to know very well. Probably something to do with working 16 hour days to keep her in fucking trinkets. Jennifer? I was thinking she was just going into the middle aged crazies, a few weeks to get that out of her system and she would come crawling back. By the time I found out about the bank accounts it was too late. The brand new Mercedes was in her name, the 1976 Toyota was in my name. Why? She asked me to do that, saying something about how it would make her feel good knowing it was all hers right after giving me a blow job that would cross any man's eyes. I did tell you I was stupid, right? The apartment I moved to was fairly nice though. Why did I have to move? I still don't know, lawyers were talking and saying this and that and I was so upset I didn't stand up and yell. She was also awarded a nice monthly check since she had never worked a day in her life. It was nearly two weeks later when I saw Jen and MY lawyer eating lunch at the fancy place down on main street. I sat down the street in my truck and watched as they came out, then turned and walked down the street to a hotel. My lawyer sent me a bill but I didn't have any money and I was so pissed off I quit my job and told him to sue me. I also told him I had a bunch of photos of him fucking my wife so he could just consider the god damn bill paid. I didn't have any pictures but he didn't know that, I also never got another bill. I thought of taking my pistol and popping both of them, then just stick the fucking thing in my own mouth. I was in love with Jennifer and I hated her guts at the same time. It was a full two months later, lonely and bored I went over to try and talk to her. The truth was I loved her so damn much that I had put up with all of her shit for years, knowing deep inside it had never been like I wanted things to be but I did that anyway. Some guy about 25 years old answered the door wearing a bathrobe that I know damn good and well was one of mine. "Hi, pops! Something I can help you with?" He said, grinning at me. I did get my robe back, a piece of it anyway. He looked funny on the lawn with nothing on but the other half of the bathrobe. I saw his dick, too, just before I kicked it. It wasn't even as big as mine. Jen did come out and talk to the Cops for awhile, then she just looked over at me standing there in handcuffs, and went back inside. They let me go after three days for that one. A funny thing happened. I no longer loved and hated the fucking bitch, now I just plain hated her. I mean....I REALLY fucking hated her! Our last taxes got filed jointly and I honest to God don't think she even thought about that. Hell, it was barely January when she gave me the news. I had put our joint bank account number down as where to send the $936.00 refund, but now it was my bank account number. I had taken her name off of it, even though the $11.00 that was still in the account was half hers according to the courts. There had been almost 18 grand in there and when I brought that up at the meeting with the lawyers, they showed me the records where it had been pulled out over the previous six months. Then we talked about the IRA account, it was only $12,000.00 but it had been closed. Something about online access and a password? Another surprise to stupid old me. Sure as hell she would be wanting her share of the tax refund money, I made up my mind the cunt was not getting another single damned penny from me no matter what! Now I was in an Indian casino doing my level best to lose all of that $936.00 and doing a damn fine job of it too. Anything to keep the good old ex-wife from getting her hands on any of it. Hell, if she knew what I was thinking she probably would just let me be, it was still in my head to shoot her. The waitress kept bringing me drinks right along, that surprised me since the last time I was in the place they didn't serve drinks. With the economy in the toilet I guess they figured if they got us drunk we would spend more. That probably works, too. The waitress wasn't one of those cute things like down in Nevada, she was around 40 or so and slightly chubby and I was flirting with her, she was flirting right back. I had managed to get deep enough into the bag that I had almost forgotten how much I hated women. OK. It had been ages since I had gotten laid and the gal was being real friendly so I was thinking along those lines. I had just gotten my drink, turned to hand her a couple of bucks for a tip and maybe another glimpse down the front of her blouse when she looked up at the machine I was playing. "OH....MY....GOD!!" She said, her eyes going huge. I looked over at the slot machine, not entirely understanding why the thing was making a dinging sound, then saw that there sat all three tens! "WOW! Twenty five grand!!" I jumped up and was waving my arms, good lord almighty! Impossible, $25,000.00???? "No, honey. That's the progressive." She said. I looked again. Up above was a screen with numbers, I hadn't even noticed that. Those things were on half the machines in the place. $14,362,935.00, the sign read, and it was flashing. I looked at the tiny little fourth reel, the one that came up smack dab between the numbers nearly 100% of the time? The one that once in awhile stopped on a re spin if you hit a cherry and paid you $60 whole dollars? It had stopped on the 100. I fainted deader than a post. +++ Some fat guy was leaned over me washing my face with a damp towel. "Are you OK, sir?" He asked. I sat up, not sure what had happened. There was one hell of a lot of people gathered around, for a moment I thought I had had a heart attack or something. I looked at the machine I had been playing, it still had those three golden 10 icons and the little "100" on the last reel. Mayhem. Complete and total mayhem, the best I can say about that is it seemed like a dream, then it didn't, then it did again. Paperwork, lots of it. Taxes to pay, decisions to make. "You get to choose, we can pay it out in annual checks over 20 years, or we can pay half of it, minus taxes of course." A woman with thick glasses and white hair told me. "Gimmee the half!" I said instantly, Jen's face popping into my head. Once that bitch got wind of this she would be on me like stink on shit! For a few seconds there I was a genius, hell, I could put that Einstein guy to shame. So it was a third or so to Federal, 9% to the State of Oregon. They cut the check right there on the spot. Everybody wants their cut, of course, so I ended up with about half of half of it. They handed me two little packets of hundred dollar bills, $5000.00 in each. The rest was a check, they laughed when I told them I wanted it all in cash. Something about they didn't have that much in the entire place. The waitress's name was Brenda, I never did get her last name but I went looking for her. I asked her to dinner since she was my good luck charm and she acted all tickled at that. Then she showed her appreciation that night at my apartment. Yep, a shade on the chubby side but she sure did have a lot of energy. Plus I had never stuck my dick up anybody's butt before, to Jen that was a NO NO. Brenda not only liked it but in the shower she tried to get me to do it again. I would have, too, but I could feel that I was about to develop some blisters. Another funny thing, Jennifer didn't enter my thoughts all night. She did the next morning as I watched Brenda get dressed. Brenda was tugging on her bra over what were actually a pair of very nice melons, damned if I didn't get another hard on going and she ended up undressed again. I was like I was cheating on Jen, and she had it coming. "Are you going to give me a call?" Brenda asked as she finally really was leaving. "Sure!" I lied. +++ I went to see an accountant, hoping he had some idea of what to do. He obviously did, he sent me a bill for $3000.00 for hitting a button on one of those tax programs, hell, my entire total deductions was me. Probably I could have written off the accountant but I didn't pay him either. The next day I drove 200 miles to eastern Oregon, opened an account, stuck the whole thing in there except for the cash in my pocket. Those folks were sure nice and friendly. Then I drove all over hell, writing and depositing checks in every bank and credit union I could find. I had to get myself a little notebook to keep track of it all. I spent almost a week in a ratty motel no one would ever dream of finding me in, then I started cashing checks, stuffing the cash into a duffel bag in my trunk. I left just one dollar in every one of the accounts, thinking that sure as hell Jennifer would get a judgment against me. That would be great fun, attaching all of them. +++ I remembered this spot I used to go to with my Dad during the Fall. We were always after the big Buck, most of the time we got a nice one but we never did get the really big one. The camp spot was still there, the little trail led up the hill and then back down through the brush to a spot high above a small stream. I had found it when I was 13, got my first forked horn right there. The Toyota made it up there with a struggle, no way would any car ever make it. I dug a hole a solid three feet deep, buried the duffel bag I had placed inside a waterproof carry bag, covered it up. It was kind of heavy. With 50 grand in my pockets, I got back in my truck and drove away. In a rather bustling city named Bend, I ran a private party ad and sold the Toyota, getting half what it was worth. Then I got a bus ticket to Medford, a distance to the South. There I found a nice little house to rent, the landlord was happy to take cash. "No drugs, no wild parties." He told me. I just nodded, I had plans to be quiet as a mouse for awhile. I found an old 1962 Chevy pickup for sale for $500.00, bought that. I didn't bother to transfer the title. I didn't bother with insurance, either. Let's face it, the only thing I owned in the world was a hole in the ground that nobody knew about. It took me nearly two weeks to find the right guy, but find him I did. The Oregon liquor control card photo looked just like me, I got a fishing license also in my new name of Jeremiah McCluskey, don't ask me why, that is what my guy came up with. Hell, he even handed me a Social Security card in that name. A valid one, the guy was good at what he did. He never asked a single question about why I wanted to change my name, just took the two thousand dollars and grinned at me. At 48 years old, I went down and took my driver's license test, telling the clerk I was from New York and never had a car before because of the bus and subways, he even bought my fake accent. I managed to pass the written test, just barely. Hey, who ever thinks about what shape a fucking road sign is anyway, it's written right on them what to do. Then on the way home in the old Chevy, damned if I didn't get a ticket for missing a damned sign that said "No right turn on red." Another one for no proof of insurance, I told the cop I had just gotten my license and that was where I was headed. That scared the piss out of me but the Cop just wrote it out, I mailed in a money order to pay the fines. I went and bought an insurance policy, the minimum one and damned if the courts didn't refund that part of the fine when I sent them a copy of it. Nobody in government ever checks on anything, it seems. No problem at all, I began to relax. A month later, I was driving downtown to get something to eat and I saw a bright red Corvette sitting on a dealers lot. It was sprinkling at the time and there was no way in hell anyone could miss that car. I pulled a U turn and went back to look. The machine had just 9000 miles on it, and it was perfect. I put a couple grand down on it in cash, told the salesman I would be back in 3 days. "Cash OK?" I asked. He didn't blink an eye, just grinned and nodded. It seems that in that area, larger purchases in cash were actually rather normal. I had already learned quite a few words in Spanish. The old Chevy made the trip with no problems. Once again the area was deserted, I was back right on time. But I was worried about the ground being disturbed so I had taken some tent stakes, scraped and leveled the spot and drove the stakes in. Anyone stumbling onto it would just see someone's old camp. I even built a small fire, sat there as it burned out. Back at the dealer, I handed over the cash and the salesman grinned. He had waved me into their back room and shut and locked the door. I drove out of there in that Corvette, it was perfect. I also got myself some new threads, had the remains of my hair styled, grew a mustache. It grew in almost stone white, I have no idea why but some of that comb in crap fixed that nicely. Jeremiah McCluskey was soon a well known figure around town, something of a playboy. 48 years old be damned, combine a bright red Corvette with hundred dollar bills and a man can pick up 21 year old females with no problem at all. I did exactly that, two. The new place I rented had a hot tub, a pool, a nice yard and some guy named Jose that came by three times per week to trim the bushes and mow. I did so much dancing and...well..."other activities" that I lost my small pot belly. My California King bed had room for three with no problem at all and more than once it was four with me of course being the only male. Once every few months or so I would get into the old Chevy truck which I had kept, and take a little drive up into the mountains. The duffel bag was getting lighter and lighter, I was pulling out over $100,000 each time. I really was pissing away one hell of a lot of money, but then young pussy costs money when you are a old fart like me. One trip back I stopped at a little cafe, I had become something of a regular there. I liked the place because they not only had good food but the old woman running the joint made a Banana Cream pie that would nearly make me cry, it was so good. I finished eating, tipped her a nice $10 bill like I always did. "See you next trip, Jerry." The old woman said as I went outside. No Chevy! I looked around, confused, thinking for a second I had parked it in a different spot. Shit! Just fuck! God Damn it! Some son of a bitch stole the old piece of crap, why in the hell would they do that? No way was it worth more than maybe $300.00. Mad, I went back inside and called the cops. Just two days later the phone rang, they had found the truck. The battery was gone, both front fenders and the hood too and all the headlight and tail light rings. Other than that, it was all there. "Come on by and pick it up." The cop told me pleasantly. It was just over 100 miles, I took a taxi. There sat the old green Chevy in their storage lot. Hell, the place was wide open, I guess Cops don't figure on anyone stealing stuff from Cops. The steel box behind the cab was still on it. I had the key in my pocket, so I opened it, knowing what I was going to find since the end of it was bent upwards. Sure enough, the little case I used was gone. I sighed, nothing to be done for it. "Please step inside, sir." A Cop asked me. I went in, a different Cop in a suit told me to sit down. I sat. "Mr. McCluskey, I would like you to explain this." He said, reaching down and setting my case on the desk. "That is mine, I won some money in a casino." I told him. "I see. You carry it around like this? You don't perhaps.."invest" any locally, do you?" "No. I just use it for day to day expenses." I told him. "We ran the fingerprints, they come back to be a man named Roy Hill." He smiled at me. "That is the name I used to use, I changed it to get away from my ex wife." There was no point in lying to them. Then I just told him the entire story. He laughed hysterically at that. "Well, what's really funny is the kids that stole your truck just wanted some parts to fix up their own, they didn't even look in the box, they just hot wired it and drove it into some bushes to strip it. One of our officers spotted it before they could finish the job." "We do know who did that, easy to figure out since their brown Chevy has two green front fenders and hood on it!" "They were so busy yanking off the parts they never looked in the back, I can hardly wait to tell them about this." He laughed again. I just looked at him. "Well, Mr. Hill. Or should I say Mr. McCluskey? You can go, there is no law against changing your name." "Thank you." I picked up the bag, started for the door. "No, thank you!" He grinned at me. I left the old Chevy right there, no point in paying a tow truck to drag it home. I could just buy something else. Back home I counted the packets, two of them, $5000.00 in each one was missing. I got that part, and knew there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it. The surprise was the Cop didn't just steal all of it, there wouldn't have been a damned thing I could do about it but accuse. I think he figured rightly that I wouldn't say a word about it, and he was correct. What I didn't think about was the police report. Police reports generate news stories, and I never read the newspapers. If I had, I would have been long gone. A few days later I saw the white van parked across the street, two men in it. They didn't even look up, the next day I saw it again parked farther down the street. The next day after that a man knocked on my door and handed me some papers. "You have been served!" He told me and walked away. It seemed that Jennifer was demanding added spousal support, and she wanted half of my winnings. I dropped the papers in the trash can, went out and got into the Corvette. I had just $180,000.00 in the bag in the back. Maybe someone tried to follow me, good luck with that. I hit some speeds that it would take an airplane to keep up with. At a village near the little spot, I rented a four wheel drive SUV and went up the trail. Touch of a Button I dug up the rest of the cash, not bothering to even fill the hole back up this time. I could see the marks where someone had even camped there recently, they spent the night sleeping on top of my stash without a clue. There was no sign of anyone around when I climbed back into the Corvette, I checked carefully. All the way to Vegas I kept checking the rear view mirror. Sure as hell the bitch would have me followed, but I didn't see anything suspicious. I know, I should have sold the Corvette but damn it, I liked it. One nice thing is a man gets noticed real quick by casino management when he sits down and starts playing $100 slot machines. A very pretty young woman came by and handed me a little card, telling me all about "comps". The last thing in the world I wanted was a record of what I was doing though. I had checked in as George Johnson, paying for the room ahead of time in cash, just one night. I suspect the casino is very used to people using fake names, after all, what happens in Las Vegas stays there, right? The young woman upgraded me to a much fancier room, free of charge she told me. Meals were on them, also. Hell, I was trying to get rid of a pile of cash and here they were giving me stuff? What the hell, I might as well enjoy my last fling, I was going to get rid of the rest of my cash one way or another. I really was that pissed off at Jennifer. But I was having this little problem, after nearly four solid hours I was about $40,000 ahead of the damned place. I kept hitting the stupid single bars with the 5 times pay icon which paid me $5000.00, it got to the point where the lady that was doing the running back and forth to pay me was just hovering. I lost track of how many of those slips I signed, I had given them my new Social Security number which meant records but by then I didn't care. Fuck them, fuck them all. I had plans, I would just go see my guy and become someone else again. Drinks were coming as fast as I could drink them until I could tell they knew I was getting plastered because they became mostly ice and soda pop with the bottle waved over the top. Finally my arm got so tired I went upstairs to sleep, how the cocktail waitress ended up in elevator with me I have no clue. I also have no clue if she was good or bad or if we even did anything that night but we sure as hell did the next morning. Some guy showed up around 9 in the morning with a tray and enough food to feed the 7th army. After a shower, downstairs I went to get the job done. I managed to get rid of about $150,000 playing roulette when I dropped a thousand dollar chip on the zero and naturally it came up. So did the red, three times in a row when I let it ride. Frustrated, I threw some dice. How in the hell does a guy throw 7's so many times he starts to draw a crowd? The casino even walked over and took the dice right out of my hand, gave me another set. I threw a seven again. I switched to blackjack, the table had a $2000.00 limit, I lost the first hand, got an ace of hearts and a king of spades on the 2nd hand. Then I hit eighteen on the 3rd hand and drew the deuce for god's sakes to the dealer's nineteen. He just looked at me and shook his head. Next he dealt me a pair of aces, I doubled down and he dropped a 10 on one and a queen on the other. Fuck that, I went looking for a thousand dollar slot machine but there wasn't any. So I played the damn $100 machine for awhile, ending up another $15,000 ahead. I got up and saw three young women obviously together playing a row of dollar machines, so I walked up and put a $100 bill in each one of their machines. One of them scowled at me, the other two smiled and giggled. I just walked away, leaving them with confused looks on their faces. Somewhere in there I became invulnerable, I could not lose. I was on a roll, my plan of dumping all the cash and being broke just to get even with Jennifer was not working at all. Yea, I know. But in my mind the bitch was going to get me again and so help me I knew I could not stand that. I had loved her in a way I was sure I would never know again, the pain was so deep inside me that no amount of money, sex, booze would ever fix it. I even thought of just getting into my Corvette and holding my foot to the floor until it was over, and had I been drunk enough at that point I might have done exactly that. Yes, I know. Stupid. There was a period in there where I understood completely how a man can just kill his wife and then commit suicide. I was sitting at the bar, miserable. Someone sat down beside me. "Hello, Roy." A voice said. I looked over, it was Brenda. Don't ask me why, I don't know why, but seeing her made me suddenly feel better. "What are you doing here?" I asked her. "I work here now, I might ask you the same thing?" She laughed. "Trying to lose all of my money, and not doing a very good job of it." She laughed at that, then for some reason I began to talk. "You mean you are still hung up on that woman?" She asked after I had finished. "I guess so. I want to hurt her and I want to....you know...all at the same time." "You deserve lots better than that, no way in hell would I ever do anything wrong to a man like you." She said. I looked at her, she looked right back. "I am in room 1641." I told her. "I know." She grinned. We would have done it right there in the elevator except the doors opened and an old couple stood there. "Well, I never!" The sour faced old woman said, the man just grinned. Brenda had gotten her left tit back inside her blouse barely in time. We ran for my room, holding hands. Someone can explain to me how making love to a slightly chubby, incredibly eager woman beats the hell out of messing around with several barely out of their teens girls, but it sure as hell does. After several hours she sat up on the bed, the covers cradled around her waist, her mildly sagging breasts bare. "I have to go to work, I am on the bar at six." She announced. "Don't go, I will pay you 10 times that to stay right here." I told her. "No. I don't want your money, I have to go to work. I can be back right here after two in the morning if you want me to." "Yes, I want you to." I told her. "OK then." She went into the shower, came out minutes later. She leaned down and kissed me and left. A full week went by just like that. We ate together, made love together, slept together. I never touched one of the machines or even gambled at all. I was like a drowning man, she was like a life jacket. Oddly, my thoughts of Jen were fading, I did think about her but it was not like it was before, a mixture of hate and want. Brenda had gone downstairs for a team meeting one morning, I was sitting there watching the news on TV when there was a knock. I was surprised when I opened it to find Jennifer standing there. She swept by me into the room. "What do you want?" I asked her. "I came to apologize, say how sorry I am. I didn't treat you right, you always were good to me." "Jen, I don't really want to talk to you." I told her. "It's Jennifer!" She retorted automatically like she had so many times before. "What do you really want,... JEN?" I asked her. "I was thinking. Instead of us fighting about..everything, why don't we just get together and try again?" She smiled sweetly, taking a step towards me. "I don't think that is a very good idea." I told her, taking a step backwards. "It's better than you sitting here wasting our money on...THIS." She waved her arms around the room. "It's not OUR money, it's MY money and I will waste if it I want to." "You haven't even paid one dime of the support, nothing! You know I have that judgment so you have to." "I'm not going to either, you took the house, the Mercedes, all of the bank accounts, everything. And you want me to pay you, too?" "I told you, I am willing to share, you can have all of that back...and me, too." She actually batted her eyes. Just then the door opened and Brenda walked in. She came to a stop, looked Jennifer and then at me. "I'm sorry, Roy. Do you want me to come back later?" She asked. "No, I want you here right now." I held out one arm, she stepped over and I put my arm around her waist. "What in the hell is this?" Jennifer asked. "My lady friend." "You prefer this...this fat thing to me?" Jen asked bitterly. "Honey, how would you like to lose some of your skinny hide?" Brenda told her. "Who in the hell do you think you are?" Jennifer let out a yell, reaching for Brenda's hair. Brenda shifted sideways slightly, then threw the prettiest left jab I ever saw in my life. Jen went backwards against the bed, recovered and charged, only to be met with another left jab and a right hook. She ended up on her hands and knees. There was no fight left in her, she got up and circled warily until she got to the door. "You will be hearing from me!" She yelled over her shoulder. "Where did you learn that?" I asked Brenda, managing to keep from laughing. "Three brothers." She grinned. +++ Brenda sat there quietly while the case was heard, the team of attorneys I showed up with knew their job very well. Very well, they made me pay them in advance. It only took them a half hour of outlining everything that happened up to and including the divorce. Had any of that been presented earlier things would have been different back then. The Judge was a no nonsense type, and he got the picture clearly. Brenda and I walked out free, all I owed was the back spousal support but that was it, future support was discontinued. Yea, she still kept the house, the Mercedes, what the fuck can a man do about things like that? Jen didn't even look at me as she got into a taxi. I wish she had, I was giving her the finger at the time. "Fifty thousand dollars?" Brenda asked, shaking her head. "Yea." "Do you plan on paying it?" She grinned. "Not really." I laughed. "Want to just go? I will if you will." She grinned at me. I knew exactly what she meant. "No ties, huh?" I asked her. "Just to you." She answered. "There are two seats in my Corvette." I told her. "Let's go!" She grinned. We went upstairs, I grabbed the case. Yep, Jen had that judgment. The judge had ordered Roy Hill to pay it. Whoever that is. "How much do you have in there?" Brenda asked me. "I don't know for sure, enough. I hear Louisiana has some nice casinos." I told her. "Yep, river boats, I hear those are neat. Works for me!" She tipped her head back and roared. I started the engine, pulled out onto the highway, then up onto the freeway, headed east. There was almost no traffic. "Do you know how to get there?" I asked her, slipping the transmission into sixth gear, then easing up a bit. "No, but we can ask directions. Just go!" We hadn't even made it a mile before Brenda had my pants undone. "Catch me if you can, Jen." I thought with a grin and put my foot down.