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WINNING IS FOR THE LOSER
by
J. Richard Jacobs

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9 August 1967

Two men sat on makeshift chairs in the shade of a canvas-covered lean-to. Empty beer cans littered the ground around them.

“Okay, how much are you willing to put up, dumb ass?” Abe Spitzer, the older of the two said.

“Five bills, plus a fifth of the best Irish you can find, my man,” Charles Reilly replied, a confident smile spreading across his freckle-spattered face. “Think you can handle that, dude?”

“I’ll tell you what, Chuckey ; make it an even thousand and you’re on,” Abe countered, hoping that upping the ante would make the kid back down from this absurd nonsense.

This is not the kind of wager people out here make, Abe thought. It is…sick, that’s what it is.

Charley trapped him into this twisted, obscene conversation in the first place by putting him on the spot and, if it hadn’t been for Abe’s inability to back down from any challenge, no matter how crazy it was, he would have broken the thing off before it ever got that far—that serious…that crazy.

“I don’t know, man. Pretty stiff, don’t you think?” Charley said.

Maybe it’s going to work, Abe thought. Maybe the -faced little jerk is getting ready to back away and quits to this whole psycho-ward thing.

“Hey, Chuckey, you’re the one who started this psychotic crap, remember? It wouldn’t hurt my feelings a bit if you decided to get sane and forget this…this BS, you know?”

Abe bit down on his lower lip and watched for any positive sign that the youngster was going to come to his senses. It was drinking too much warm beer in this humid heat that had unscrewed the kid’s head and maybe, now that some time had gone by and it was beginning to cool off, well, as much as it ever cooled off out there in the summer, he was sobering up. Maybe coming back from whatever weird world he’d tripped off to earlier when he started sounding nuts.

What Abe saw in that scrubbed raw, no-need-to-shave face angered him. Charley looked resolute. He appeared determined to go on with it. The damned fool was actually going to make the transition to complete craziness.

“All right, sucker, it’s a deal. A thousand bucks and a bottle of the best Irish whiskey can buy—due and payable at the winner’s circle,” Charley said, grinning like he’d already won the race that wouldn’t start until the following month.

“We got to have a way to make it official to whoever’s in charge when the time comes,” Charley said. “I got it. You write me a note in your own hand that describes the deal—down to the last detail with no mistakes, and I’ll do the same. Then we’ll get someone responsible and respectable to witness them. How ‘bout that?”

“Sounds good to me, Chuckey , but where are we going to find anyone responsible around here?”

“Aw, man, I forgot about that. How ‘bout we settle for someone respectable. Nah, that won’t work around here either. Okay. Okay. We just look for someone willing to sign and don’t sweat the character bit.” He laughed the laugh of the terminally insane. “After that, we exchange notes, is that all right with you?”

How can the kid be so damned sure of himself, Abe thought.

Abe leaned back, tilted his cap down to brow level and gave Charley the hardest look he could manage, then began to laugh. It wasn’t a laugh of humor. Oh, no, it was the nervous laughter of someone who has decided to pass through the gates of hell for the sheer joy of seeing what was on the other side.

“You’re a stark…raving…lunatic, Charley, and I am most likely something worse for agreeing to this craziness. But—if this is what you really want to do—you’re on. Whoever gets to the finish line first, wins all. But you remember this, you little puke, it isn’t fair to try. If you win, you win. Bet?”

“Yeah, it’s a bet, dude.”

They shook on it, wrote their notes in great detail so there could be no misunderstanding at the winner’s circle, then spent the next five days looking for anyone who would be willing to witness them. Everyone they approached walked away shaking their heads and mumbling to themselves. On the sixth day, only two weeks before their scheduled time to go to work and the race would be on, they found a guy who was far enough into his suds to do the deed. Even so, after signing off the two notes, he too walked away, shaking his head and muttering heavy-duty profanities that declared the both of them ready for the rubber room.

Two weeks later, they went their separate ways to take care of the business at hand. When Abe last saw him, Charley, loaded down with his gear, was walking away singing Daydream Believer by the Monkees, the most popular song of the year, in a voice better designed for other things—like growling.

Abe was still holding out hope that Charley would give up on the idea and disappear from his life. It wasn’t because he didn’t like Charley—quite the opposite. It was because he enjoyed the kid’s company that he wanted him to forget this crap. It didn’t happen. Every couple of weeks, Charley managed to get word to Abe that things were going about as well as could be expected. Once in a while, he would put in a rotten, snotty little quip about how close he had come to winning on one day or another and all Abe could do was wince and swear a lot. Abe, living up to his end of the bargain, wrangled various ways to get word to Charley about the situation where he was but, so far, he hadn’t come anywhere near winning.

Finally, after about five months, the first week of February it was, there was no word from Charley and the response to his own communication to Charley came back with a terse note from one of his colleagues saying that Charley had moved on to some other, undisclosed location. Two weeks later, the same thing happened and Abe could only make one of two assumptions. Either Charley had come around to the realization that the whole thing was insane, or that he had actually won the bet. He sincerely hoped it was not the latter. What he really wanted to see happen was for them to come to a draw so they could pool their two grand and fine Irish booze into one hell of a night.

10 March

Leaning heavily on the cane in his right hand, Abe tugged nervously at his new, dark blue suit and straightened his hat. The outfit didn’t seem to fit him the way it should, even though he went to the best tailor in town and had it fitted especially for this occasion. He looked down at his shoes and could see his own face staring back at him; at least that was right. When he was sure everything was okay, he set out for the winner’s circle. The winner’s circle…good God, Abe thought.

It was a bright and beautiful Sunday morning, though there was an unseasonable chill in the air and the wind was blowing in nasty little gusts that caused him to shudder, but not as much as the thought of what he was about to do made him quake. Aside from the bet itself, this was the ridiculous and insane part of the whole affair. He was going to have to present Charley with his winnings in front of all the people Charley had drawn to the winner’s circle and, knowing how popular Charley was in this town, there was, more than likely, one hell of a croud waiting for this ceremony. But a bet was a bet and Abe Spitzer had never reneged on any wager. If nothing else, he was an honorable man.

He topped a low hill and below him, he could see the winner’s circle. My God, he thought, there are more than two hundred damned people down there. Gathering his courage and giving one last tug at his jacket, he marched slowly down the hill to the outer ring of Charley’s guests and began excusing his way through the group. Most of them moved out of his way without argument, some grumbled a little and a few actually pushed back until they recognized him as one of Charley’s friends.

After a couple of minutes of pushing and shoving, he made it to the man in charge of the proceedings and handed him the crumpled, sweat stained note Charley had written eight months before. The man took it, read it carefully several times, brought his gaze up to lock on Abe’s eyes with a sort of half-smile, obviously forced into place, that gave him the appearance of profound sadness than anything else. Something like the Mona Lisa would have looked with tears in her eyes. He took a step back and nodded silent approval to Abe.

Abe withdrew ten new, crisp, one hundred-dollar bills from his pocket and rolled them into a tight, paper log, snapped a rubber band around them, then removed a fifth of the finest Irish whiskey from beneath his jacket. Dunglass it was. Damned expensive too. He straightened up and walked smartly to where Charley was waiting.

“Well, Charley, you won fair and square, damn you.” People in the audience gasped at that remark, but Abe…Abe didn’t care.

Abe snapped a smart salute to Lance Corporal Charles Reilly, laid the roll of bills and the bottle gently on top of the flag-draped coffin, then executed a sharp about-face, and marched away.

"Semper fi, dumb ass."