“Two years I’d managed to fly under the radar, and just like that, I’m back in the system. But I’m not going to let it spin me sideways. I’m going to focus on all the things I have to be grateful for — like the fact that Larry’s waiting for me out front just like he promised he would, and that he passes me a big old cup of coffee as soon as I slide into his truck, and that he tracked down Domingo and collected the money D. owed me and used it to bail my sorry ass out, all on the back of a single frantic phone call. Unbelievable. You can count friends like that on one hand — hell, one finger. “Larry, my motherucking man,” I say. “Let me buy you breakfast.””

Popped free after 48 hours behind bars, this guy has got a date and he’s the biggest optimist in the world. You can’t help but like him – he seems sure in his shoes even when life keeps handing him a crappy deal. He’s got the girl and her kid at the racetrack and that’s where his dirty secret breaks loose. This story seduces you into the mind of a gambling addict, and before you know it you’re riding the highs, sweating the lows and betting on nothing until it’s nothing again. At the track his “friend”appears — “Paul pops up behind me while I’m ordering food. “Get me a dog too,” he says, shoving a moist dollar bill into my hand…The guy hasn’t showered in days. His teeth are yellow, and he looks like he dressed out of a dumpster. He follows me to the condiment counter and moves in close as I’m pumping mustard.” It’s the little details like these that tip you deeper into what seems to be a more sordid past than the narrator first reveals. He was put in jail for some speeding tickets he never paid, but you learn its a lot worse for him than that. Despite his shortcomings, you’re rooting for him in the end – because as he says: “I thought she’d be happy to see me and her money, that the thrill of winning would do for her what it does for me: wipe away all the trouble it took to get there.”