Addict Recommends: (Film) Mississippi Grind (2015)

         Although there are no genres of film I enjoy as much as movies about gambling and addiction, the ones about road trips come pretty damn close. (Some of my favorites include Lolita, Easy Rider and The Blues Brothers.) So you can imagine my glee when I came across Mississippi Grind, a movie which combined the elements of gambling, drinking, womanizing and the epic American road trip in one compelling package. 

         The story centers on two characters: Gerry and Curtis. Gerry is a down on his luck real estate broker, played perfectly by the King of the down and outers Ben Mendelsohn. (Whose work in season one of “Bloodline” sets the standard for portrayals of the dirt-bag functioning addict.) Gerry runs into Curtis – played by Ryan Reynolds in a role with real depth – in a casino in Iowa one night. Gerry is almost immediately drawn to Curtis, and the two end up getting drunk at a local bar. The next day, they win a bundle at the dog track, only to lose it back quickly. While getting drunk yet again, Curtis explains to Gerry that “Machu Picchu” time is fast approaching. This is his slang for time to hit the road and get lost. The two become so inebriated that they are thrown out of the bar while trying to play pool for a thousand dollars a game. Outside, Gerry is stabbed by a mugger who incorrectly believes he possesses a wad of cash. 

          After being threatened by his female bookie Sam, to whom he owes a tidy sum, Gerry realizes that Curtis is right and it really is time to hit the bricks. They plan a road trip south through the cities and towns of the Mississippi. They will gamble their way ultimately to New Orleans, where a high stakes poker game awaits. Curtis stakes his newfound friend, who pads his bankroll by stealing the office petty cash. In a scene which is both touching and heart breaking, Gerry fills his cat's bowl to the brim with cheap dry food. It is one of those scenes that makes us wonder when in the world he will come back. It also reminds us of the age old truism in fiction, that Chekhov’s gun must always be eventually fired. The cat, as is good and proper, also returns in this narrative. 

          Their journey takes them to St. Louis, Memphis, Little Rock, Tunica and of course the Big Easy. Along the way they encounter hookers, gamblers, tough guys and losers. They frequent back room card games, bet horses at the racetrack and live out of seedy hotel rooms. Money is won and lost. Expectations are disappointed, fulfilled and exceeded in a full and glorious display of the capacity of human nature. What more could you ask for?       

          Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck – a rare film making duo – were inspired to make this movie by their experiences on riverboat casinos in Iowa. But their command of the language of the gambling narrative is masterful and complete. They even have a scene where they feature, in an interesting if taciturn role, writer/director James Toback, who wrote the original screenplay for the greatest gambling movie of all time: The Gambler (1974), featuring James Caan, Paul Sorvino and Lauren Hutton. (See my recommendation for this legendary film in these archives.)

          The directors avoid employing the now tired, moralizing, cliché ending. Instead, we are granted closure both unexpected and (perhaps) unrealistic, but which somehow works perfectly. Ultimately however, the film proves in conclusion what we already knew at the beginning: that gambling isn’t strictly about winning or losing, plusses and minuses. It is about the highs and lows of the experience. It is about the knowledge that there is never “enough.” And more than anything, this movie stands for the proposition that at the very end of it all, to the chagrin of addicts of everywhere, the best we can ever hope for is to break even. 

Condo Conversion, Chapter 4

         I hadn’t been laid in ten months.  And as is the case when you haven’t been laid in a really long time, I got to thinking about the last girl I had been with, Allison McRooney.  I was walking around Rohnert Park, trying to get a sense of my surroundings.  It was very flat, with wide boulevards that could accommodate far more cars than were in fact using them.  Having moved from crowded San Francisco, I liked that.  There is a surplus of space in Rohnert Park. 

          But the dominant impression is that it is flat.  Flat like we were taught people believed the world to be before Columbus, even though they didn’t.  Flat like a football field.  I walked over to the Safeway, then back around to the Raleys, then over to the Albertsons: three supermarkets and dozens of retailers and restaurants in one gigantic superplex.  Residents of this archetype of urban sprawl called it “downtown.”

          An angry old man rolled by in his electric wheelchair muttering something to himself.  On the back of the chair, on a flexible pole about three feet high, there was a little orange flag waving in the wind.  I recognized him from the day before: he was one of my new neighbors.  A moment later, a young handicapped woman rolled by in her electric wheelchair going the opposite direction.  Two young skateboarders cruised by me, hopping their boards nimbly over the curb.  A pattern was emerging.  Rohnert Park was a place built for rolling through.  This explained the endless number of shopping carts that littered every corner of the town.  Maybe I should get a little chair for myself, I reflected.  It might help me fit in.

           The thought of Allison’s gigantic breasts continued to haunt my mind as I aimlessly trolled the aisles of Longs Drugs.  And her ass; God it was huge.  When she was on all fours it was like looking at two Virginia hams sitting side by side: a glorious vision, it used to make me hungry with lust, all that magnificent, surprisingly taut, perfectly proportioned flesh.  

            She used methamphetamines.  She must have been the biggest girl in the world who used as much meth as she did.  Who knows how much bigger she would have been if she didn’t?  But her habit was one of maintenance and not absolute excess.  She was able to hold down a good job as an investment banker and appear to the rest of the world as if she were relatively normal.  She took two big hits in the morning before heading off to work, would rush home for a half-hour lunch of two more, and would be home at about eight o’clock after a few drinks with her coworkers and smoke a few more hits before getting three hours sleep.  On weekends she would catch up on her slumber, staying in bed until long after noon.  It was amazing, really, how she balanced her entire life around that little glass pipe.  

            I was mainly into coke at the time, but would indulge with her now and again to try to attain some spiritual connection.  People on speed can only relate to other people on speed, and I wanted desperately for her to relate to me.  There were times that she told me she loved me.  Once she even wrote a poem for me, proclaiming her love as infinite.  But I knew that it could never be true, even when I didn’t.  She needed an asshole to push her around, let her know she wasn’t worth shit, and I was basically a nice guy who wanted to tell her she was precious.  It was doomed from the start.  Still, it stung like a motherfucker when she left.  I have only been in love twice in my life.  She was one of them.  

Condo Conversion, Chapter 3

3

The day after I settled into my new place, I was invited to dinner by another old friend, James.  I have known him since I was about ten years old.  Most of my best friends go back that far. 

            James had married Jenny, his high school sweetheart.  There weren’t many couples from way back then that had made it this far; I was happy to see them happy.  They made a handsome couple.  James was an all-American looking guy, six feet tall, symmetrical features and a full head of dark brown hair.  Jenny was only a little shorter than him, long curly brown hair, porcelain skin and a slender, lithe figure.  Although she had given birth to their first child, Chloe, only half a year earlier, she had immediately regained her figure.  James was lucky. 

            It used to make me uncomfortable, being the unattached guy going over to dinner at the married couple’s house, especially without a date.  Sometimes I felt like I was missing out, and that secretly they pitied me.  But I had recently gotten over my insecurities.  I was happy with who I was becoming for the second time in my life, the first being my wild adolescence. 

            Jenny held Chloe in her arms and then handed her to James while she stirred the pasta sauce.  I love pasta.  Then he carried her around for a while rocking her back and forth in his arms.  I played with her a little, too: lightly pinching her soft rosy cheeks.  She smiled at me.  Most babies like me, and animals, too. 

            James put her down for a moment and she scurried around the house on all fours.  We were drinking beer, following her around, making sure she wasn’t getting into too much trouble. 

            “You’ve got a cute kid,” I observed.

            “She’s a handful,” he responded.  There was an uncomfortable silence.  I could tell he was deep in thought.  “I gotta ask you something, Pete.”

            “Go ahead.”

            “I want your honest opinion.  Don’t pull any punches.”

            “All right.”

            “I feel like I’ve become boring, one dimensional.  I love Chloe, more than I can tell you.  But ever since she was born, it’s as if a part of me shut down.  All I talk about is the kid now.  Remember those long talks we used to have when we were young, drinking until all hours of the night?”

            “Those were good talks.”

            “They sure were.  We solved the world’s problems back then.  I never have conversations like that anymore.  It’s just eat, shit, work, feed the baby, clean up the baby’s shit.  I feel like time is speeding up, as if I’m hurtling toward nonexistence.”

            I understood where he was coming from.  Often I’ve observed the very phenomenon he was describing manifest itself in the lives of other comrades.  What is it about having a child that robs some men of their creativity and vitality?  Was it always this way?  Or is it a more recent development in contemporary life, the result of increased demands?  Not all fathers turned out like this.  But many of them did. 

            “That’s nonsense,” I told him. “Your existence is more relevant now than it has ever been.  You have the privilege of being responsible for another life.  What could be more important than that?”

            “You’re right,” he responded, pleased.  “Thanks.”  He patted me on the back and took a long drink off his beer.

            And I wasn’t placating him.  I had meant what I said.  It’s strange how two competing ideas can be equally true in the same instance.  One of life’s tradeoffs.

            Dinner was great: green salad with vinaigrette, walnuts and bleu cheese, penne in a thick meat sauce and good red table wine.  We were all sitting around the living room finishing off the second bottle, my elastic stomach bulging with fullness.  Chloe began crying from her crib in the bedroom and both parents excused themselves for a moment.

            “Take your time,” I said, semi-comatose.

            There were a number of magazines resting on the coffee table.  I picked one up; it was the spring circular for “Terracotta Shed, Bed + Bath.”  I began flipping through it.  Inside, there was the bathroom collection: the “classic console,” “accessories,” “monogrammed towels,” and “fixtures and sconces.”  It looked like nice stuff, very expensive.  “Obtain the bathroom of your dreams,” the magazine exhorted.  In the back was a price guide to all the products, complete with serial numbers to help the buyer place orders.  This guide was several pages long.  Here and there an item was circled: the “double console,” the “linen closet” the “mini vanity” and the “full length mirror.”  Also completed was an order for towels, monogrammed of course.  There was a neat little section where the buyer wrote out the appropriate letters and then chose from a variety of fonts.  It was Jenny’s handwriting.

            I soon left.  The baby was screaming.  It was good timing for all.  I promised to return soon.  Nice people.

            I went home to my tiny new apartment and looked around: tattered reading chair, 1980’s era love seat and cheap overstuffed bookshelves.  A true bachelor’s home, it declared “NO WOMAN HERE!”  I went to the bathroom to take a leak.  Afterwards I washed my hands and splashed my face, ruddy from wine, with cold water.  I tried to imagine the items from the bathroom collection in my inadequate space.  Nope, it just wouldn’t work.  I was glad.  I liked my apartment the way it was.  Inadequate: it reflected the way I felt about myself and about the world I lived in.  I threw a porno entitled “Dirty Sluts Young and Tight” in the old-school VCR and turned up the volume.  Good thing those seniors don’t hear too well. 

My Kind of Seminar

           This makes me think I’ve been missing out on something all these years.

Condo Conversion, Chapter 2

2

            I had just moved out of the city.  San Francisco is truly beautiful, but after ten years I just couldn’t take it anymore. 

            I was essentially unemployed had been living with my parents for three weeks.  Imagine that: thirty-two years old and living with my parents.  I was looking for a permanent residence.  My Mom took me to a few she found in the local paper.  Cute places, nice bungalows in Sonoma County with neat little yards in the front.  She didn’t know what I wanted.  She wanted me to get married.  I wanted to get laid. 

            I wasn’t going to pay those prices.  Twelve hundred dollars a month for a one bedroom: that was ridiculous.  I’d be back in some job I hated in no time.  But that’s the idea, her hidden, subconscious agenda.  If I committed to an expensive place I’d have to get a real job.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a mamma’s boy at heart.  I love her dearly and would gladly sacrifice my life for hers if given the choice.  But she sees things a certain way.  She tells me to “get a life.” 

            “I have a life,” I respond.  “Anybody who is alive has a life.”

            “You call that a life?”

            “Yes.”

            “That’s not a life.”

            “What is?”

            “A good job, a home, a wife and a family.”

            The thought of it made me nauseous.  Not necessarily the idea of having a family, mind you; but the idea of having the kind of family she would envision for me.  She is a very traditional woman.  I am not a traditional guy. 

            But I had to go somewhere.  I couldn’t live at my parents home for much longer.  There’s nothing wrong with living with your parents.  I don’t quarrel with the notion.  The Europeans and South Americans have been doing it for generations.  But I like to live a certain way and my Mom likes to see me living a certain way.  So our purposes collide.  And like I said, I’m a mammas boy.  I don’t want to make her sad, which my constant presence in her life and the reminders it brings sometimes does.  My Dad cares, but is too pragmatic and wise to get in the middle of things.  Good for him.

            I play poker at one of the local clubs about twice a week.  Usually, I coordinate my visits with Mike Williston and The Admiral.  Mike is my oldest and one of my closest friends.  He’s also thirty-two, tall, strong, unmarried, and has lived with his parents in Marin County since he got out of college.  The Admiral is a seventy-five year old millionaire who made his money with a famous chain of seafood restaurants “Admiral Jim’s Seafood Bonanza;” hence the nickname.  Later on, toward the end of the eighties, he got out of the restaurant business and bought up a bunch of apartment complexes.  It was very good timing.  I spend a lot of time with The Admiral and Mike.

            On this particular day, I was up about two hundred bucks and in a good mood.  Mike, the best player of the three of us, was about even and The Admiral was pushing the whole table around as he has the capacity to do from time to time.   He was up about a thousand.  We were playing no limit Texas Hold-Em, two hundred dollar buy-in.  It’s a good game.  There are a lot of losers at the table, guys for whom the money only goes one way. 

            Mike was not catching cards and was getting bored with folding every hand.  When this happens, he tends to get a little goofy to entertain himself. 

            “You know, Peter lives with his parents,” he said to the lone female sitting across the table, a pretty, petite Asian in her early thirties.

            “I do not,” I responded.  “I’m just staying with them for a while.  You live with your parents.”

            “Dude, don’t be embarrassed by it.  Take it from me, you have to embrace your living situation if you’re gonna make it last.  It’s no big deal.”

            “I never said it was a big deal.  But I don’t live with them.  I’ve been there three weeks and was looking for places online today.”

            “I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Castellano are thrilled to have their baby boy back.”

            “You know that isn’t true.”

            “When I was younger,” The Admiral chimed in, “I used to be surrounded by beautiful women.  Now I’m surrounded by strange young men.”  He loved to talk about his sexual conquests of the old days. 

            Mike changed topics and began regaling the table with an awkward but hilarious personal story of a recent trip of his to the strip clubs.  We played for about another hour, during which I lost everything I was up while Mike went on a three hundred dollar winning streak.  The Admiral was getting tired: he had been playing for ten hours.  It was pretty amazing, really, a guy his age pulling those hours at the table.  We got up as a group and left.

            We walked out to the parking lot together.  The Admiral only lived a few minutes from Mike’s house, so they usually drove in to play together.  He pulled me aside.

            “You’re looking for a place to live?”

            “Yeah.”  I was glad he asked, hoping maybe he had something cheap for me.

            “I’ll tell you what, I’ve got a great apartment available in Rohnert Park, and I’ll rent it to you for only five hundred dollars a month.”

            “Is it a one bedroom?  I can’t live in studios anymore.  Too little space.”

            “Yes, it’s a nice, small one bedroom.  Perfect for you.  There’s only one catch.  It’s in a fifty-five and older community.  But once it’s been vacant for thirty days, which it has, anybody can move in there.”

            It only took me a moment to think about it.  “I’ll take it: sight unseen.”  Beggars can’t be choosers.  What the hell did I care how old the neighbors would be?  At least they would be quiet and unthreatening. 

            “Oh, there’s another catch.  I guess that makes two catches.  The complex might be sold in a few months.  Then you’d have to move out.  But if that happens, I’ve got another complex I can move you into right away.”

            There could have been ten caveats, a five hundred dollar a month apartment in Sonoma County was a good arrangement by anybody’s standards.  I didn’t feel like looking for a job and needed to score a bargain.  The Admiral had just presented exactly the opportunity I was looking for.  “It’s a deal,” I told him.  “When can I move in?”

He was thrilled.  He picked up the phone and called his management team.  “I just rented out number 127, have it ready for a move-in sometime tomorrow,” he said, then hanging up.  “See that Mike, I won a thousand and closed a transaction.  I’ve still got it.”  He was thrilled.  It didn’t matter how much money The Admiral had; he simply loved making deals.  It reminded him that he was still on top.

Opportunity Lost

          On Wednesday, July 1, near Marathon, Florida 29 bricks of cocaine with a total weight of 35 kilograms and worth approximately 1 million dollars, simply washed up on the shore. This is not the first time something like this has happened in the world. The town of Bluefields, Nicaragua was enriched beyond all imagination by repeated discoveries of such packages, castoffs from Columbian speedboats fleeing law enforcement. Well informed fisherman of the remote town set aside their cumbersome nets and began fishing for what they called "white lobsters."

          What would you do with all that blow? I can only imagine the myriad possibilities and the opportunities that such a find would present. Certainly, death by heart attack is a possible scenario at the end of such a rainbow. But I'd like to think that a small fortune would also possibly come my way, if I handled things just right. 

          But obviously whomever discovered this once in a lifetime windfall has little in common with me. Because they called the police, who brought in the U.S. Border Control. 

          Sigh. I mean, really? Some people have no imagination. 

A Quote From Stonewall Jackson

"I am more afraid of King Alcohol than of all the bullets of the enemy."