red chip, blue chip, red fish, blue fish
mahjong roulette?
This is the story of my first time gambling, through color.
Before I was a Trojan, I was orange. I was an orange in upstate New York at Syracuse University where blue skies would only come out three to four times over a course of 5 months. The rest of the days were grey. It was just another night where the landscapes looked like the top half of an oreo: black skies and the ground covered in white.
The only source of color was coming from the TV where David Dobrik's vlogs were playing. It was the one where they bet 10 thousand dollars on black to double it. A trip that was less than 5 hours, delivered by a yellow Spirit airlines plane. My three other friends and I looked at each other inspired. It was a Friday night, but there were no green lights because it was during peak social distancing and half of everyone’s faces were blue from surgical masks. There was a place called Turning Stone where the grass was always green because of the PGA-level golf course. A 45-minute drive. Why not we said.
The anticipation and search for color began. We were playing roulette, black or red. Or maybe even green? No, let’s not do green friend 1 said. The sky is black right now friend 2 said. Friend 2 was no longer allowed to speak for the rest of the drive. Friend 3 and I continued to look at the landscape as we drove. Red signs everywhere. The lollipop in friend 3’s mouth was also red. So we all shook on red. We would all be putting 100$ into the pot and betting together.
We were in the casino for a total of 15 minutes. Ten of those minutes were figuring out where the roulette table was. The story ends at the purple palace: Taco Bell. Friend 2 was yelling at everyone saying we should have bet black. Friend 1 said that obviously we were going to do red because the only signs we saw on the drive were stop signs. If you look for red you are going to see red they said. Friend 1 was no longer allowed to speak for the rest of the night. The night ended drowning in neon blue: Baja Blast.
