You know how many people ask me to sit at a machine for them? I got a job to do. Come on. I don’t do that, the waitress says and walks away. Shannon sweats in her purple buffet uniform. She nearly panics as her colon edges forward. She grits her teeth, and her asshole burns, but she holds it in. She pulls the lever, and she lines up five hay bales across the middle, extra multiplier, fourteen bucks with a pull of a lever. Goddamn it, she says and yanks at the arm again. She counts the other players on the casino floor, maybe a half-dozen. This is the deadest part of the day, before seven, when the all-night partiers have gone in search of a greasy breakfast and the social-security-check crowd is still on their way in. Maybe, she thinks, maybe I can make it to the bathroom and let this thing go and get back before anyone even notices. Just the thought of a toilet stirs her gut, another searing attack on her sphincter. She is halfway out of her seat when she notices orange-hat watching her. She sits back down, yanks the arm and wins a few bucks. Her sweat moves from her armpits over the band of her bra and she twists her ankles against each other, tries not to breathe, tries not to move except to pull the lever. Her next pull is a loss, so is the one after that and the one after that and the one after that. She’s backsliding. She doubles her bet and loses again and again. The machine has gone cold, she thinks, but then she watches a row of saddles fall into place. She’s back up. She still needs to piss, too. The waitress comes back and hands her the gin and tonic. They are too embarrassed to speak. Shannon pulls at the machine’s arm. She watches the hay bales, the horseshoes, the saddles, the cherries, the goofy horse heads and the black BARs. She watches a winner. Shannon wonders if the waitress has ever slept with Barry. She imagines him walking back through the casino doors. She wonders if she can stay at this machine for a dozen more hours until his next shift starts and maybe he’ll see her then. She pulls the arm. She loses, pulls, loses, pulls, loses, pulls, pulls, pulls. She lets go. The shit finds its own way. It fills the space between her thighs, her skin and underwear. In the joy of it, she grants her bladder its leave and
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