Jackpot

Sometimes it’s 11 p.m. and the boy you’re smitten with emerges from the office, where he’s been studying, and says, “Want to go for a drive?” because he’s got to run some fancy magic juice through his gas tank so he can pass his emissions test in the morning. And that is how you will find yourself going east, east, east, and telling him to drive you past your very first Memphis apartment, which gives you an excuse to talk about your life many lives ago when things were so vastly different from the way they are now. And that is how you will find yourself going even further east and getting a tour of his first apartment complex, whose story doesn’t have an ideal ending, but which rough drafts do? And that is how you will find yourself wandering aimlessly through the aisles of the fanciest Kroger you’ve ever seen and consenting to the purchase of discounted black-forest cheesecake that you will later declare gross. And that is how you will find yourself on the interstate, heading South toward Graceland, and then Mississippi, and then Tunica, where you will be utterly confused and overwhelmed and amazed at the amount of ancient people in wheelchairs pushing blinking buttons in a smoke-stale, very loud, brightly carpeted room at 2 in the morning. And that is how you will squander $30 playing games you don’t understand but win back $20 at video Blackjack, your remaining $10 nestled safely in the belly of a game called — fittingly — “Miss Kitty.” And that, as you are walking sleepily through the parking lot back to the car, whose gas gauge has managed to nearly stay put despite all the traveling, is when you will hold that boy’s hand and hope that he is having as much fun on the adventure as you are.