black,” I shouted, pointing to our pickup truck. “Hasn’t missed a beat this trip.”
An hour later, he returned with a hundred dollars.
“Go back and bet on red this time,” I told him.
He disappeared, only to return with a wider grin than before. With two hundred dollars to our name, we checked into a motel, showered, and went to a seedy casino off the strip where a twenty-dollar bribe bought me a seat beside my brother at a blackjack table. By dusk, we quadrupled our bounty. After dinner and a sweet night’s sleep, we departed for Wisconsin without telling my mother what happened. The Las Vegas stay played a large role in my decision to return years later to attend medical school there.
In the meantime, gambling lured me. During my senior year in high school, I formed a poker circle and bet on sports. Every time I rolled the dice or drew a card, I felt a rush of adrenalin. Nothing rivaled it—not music, hobbies, or girls. Winning was synonymous with success. My esteem soared, as did my cash holdings, which brought relief from the austerity my father foisted upon us after leaving the family for a younger woman, one who, as he put it, had a
real
heart. I never knew what he meant by that until my mother told me years later that
her
heart was failing from an auto-immune ailment. That explained the difficulty she had climbing stairs or walking distances.
My mother was aware of the gambling I did. While she disapproved of it, economic necessities in a single-parent household with a balance sheet tilting more toward debt than savings has a way of inducing tolerance. Even with gambling earnings, food ran short at times. At one point before I started gambling—I was fifteen at the time and bowlegged—a rumor spread that I had rickets from vitamin D deficiency. It wasn’t a nutritional deficiency that caused my legs to bow so much as the hours I spent on an ancient John Deere tractor, a vehicle with a metal seat so wide it strained the muscles in my thighs. One day, a social worker appeared at our door to check on me. After eyeing our sparse living quarters and inspecting the barren kitchen cabinets, she announced she was taking me to a foster home. My mother emerged from the shadows with a shotgun aimed at the social worker and warned the lady that if she laid a hand on me she’d pull the trigger. It was the last we heard of foster homes.
With the merchant marines no longer an immediate career option, I entered the University of Wisconsin in Madison where, to my surprise, I enjoyed studying. My years of roadside dissections led me to major in biology, and having learned of my mother’s auto-immune disease, I decided to apply to medical school.
On a trip home to visit her during my first year of medical school in Las Vegas, I found her breathing from an oxygen tank with a plastic tube around her head that looked like a drooping halo. She had little hope of getting a heart transplant because of her age and her failing bone marrow. Six months later, she died. I thought about dropping out of school to tend the farm but I knew she would have disapproved of the plan, particularly since my brother stepped in to run the land. Instead, I pledged to honor her by becoming a hematologist,
my
way of challenging the anemia that took her life.
The pledge couldn’t ward off depression, particularly during the third year of medical school as classmates dispersed to different hospitals to complete clinical rotations with seemingly endless hours. The diaspora curtailed the gathering I coveted most, Friday night poker games. I returned to an empty apartment at the start of each weekend, turning to the city’s gambling sites for solace. I played baccarat, keno, and slots, and while lady luck accompanied me for a while, mid-way through my first year of residency, a losing streak set in. During my residency and fellowship years, my entire salary went to pay off debts. I opened a line of credit but soon exhausted it, turning next to
An hour later, he returned with a hundred dollars.
“Go back and bet on red this time,” I told him.
He disappeared, only to return with a wider grin than before. With two hundred dollars to our name, we checked into a motel, showered, and went to a seedy casino off the strip where a twenty-dollar bribe bought me a seat beside my brother at a blackjack table. By dusk, we quadrupled our bounty. After dinner and a sweet night’s sleep, we departed for Wisconsin without telling my mother what happened. The Las Vegas stay played a large role in my decision to return years later to attend medical school there.
In the meantime, gambling lured me. During my senior year in high school, I formed a poker circle and bet on sports. Every time I rolled the dice or drew a card, I felt a rush of adrenalin. Nothing rivaled it—not music, hobbies, or girls. Winning was synonymous with success. My esteem soared, as did my cash holdings, which brought relief from the austerity my father foisted upon us after leaving the family for a younger woman, one who, as he put it, had a
real
heart. I never knew what he meant by that until my mother told me years later that
her
heart was failing from an auto-immune ailment. That explained the difficulty she had climbing stairs or walking distances.
My mother was aware of the gambling I did. While she disapproved of it, economic necessities in a single-parent household with a balance sheet tilting more toward debt than savings has a way of inducing tolerance. Even with gambling earnings, food ran short at times. At one point before I started gambling—I was fifteen at the time and bowlegged—a rumor spread that I had rickets from vitamin D deficiency. It wasn’t a nutritional deficiency that caused my legs to bow so much as the hours I spent on an ancient John Deere tractor, a vehicle with a metal seat so wide it strained the muscles in my thighs. One day, a social worker appeared at our door to check on me. After eyeing our sparse living quarters and inspecting the barren kitchen cabinets, she announced she was taking me to a foster home. My mother emerged from the shadows with a shotgun aimed at the social worker and warned the lady that if she laid a hand on me she’d pull the trigger. It was the last we heard of foster homes.
With the merchant marines no longer an immediate career option, I entered the University of Wisconsin in Madison where, to my surprise, I enjoyed studying. My years of roadside dissections led me to major in biology, and having learned of my mother’s auto-immune disease, I decided to apply to medical school.
On a trip home to visit her during my first year of medical school in Las Vegas, I found her breathing from an oxygen tank with a plastic tube around her head that looked like a drooping halo. She had little hope of getting a heart transplant because of her age and her failing bone marrow. Six months later, she died. I thought about dropping out of school to tend the farm but I knew she would have disapproved of the plan, particularly since my brother stepped in to run the land. Instead, I pledged to honor her by becoming a hematologist,
my
way of challenging the anemia that took her life.
The pledge couldn’t ward off depression, particularly during the third year of medical school as classmates dispersed to different hospitals to complete clinical rotations with seemingly endless hours. The diaspora curtailed the gathering I coveted most, Friday night poker games. I returned to an empty apartment at the start of each weekend, turning to the city’s gambling sites for solace. I played baccarat, keno, and slots, and while lady luck accompanied me for a while, mid-way through my first year of residency, a losing streak set in. During my residency and fellowship years, my entire salary went to pay off debts. I opened a line of credit but soon exhausted it, turning next to
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