Points and Ashes

The beer was warm. It always is. You buy a six-pack from the corner store on Euclid Avenue, you bring it home to the basement apartment, and by the time you crack the first one it's already warm. The refrigerator in the kitchen upstairs is broken, and the guy who lives above you says he's going to fix it every time he sees you in the hallway but he never does.

My name is Ray Kowalski. I'm forty-five years old. I used to work at the Ford plant on Detroit Avenue for twenty-two years. I punched a clock, punched a buddy in the arm, punched out at the end of the shift. Then the plant closed in 2010, and my twenty-two years became twenty-two punches in the air, and nobody was there to catch them.

Since then I've done warehouse work. I've done delivery driving. I've done night security at a storage facility where the only thing anyone stole was someone else's sense of purpose. None of it stuck. I'm forty-five and I am, for the purposes of everyday life, nothing.

My daughter Michelle lives with me. She's seventeen. She came here two years ago after her boyfriend got out of jail for the third time. She works at a McDonald's off routes 6 and 432, and she smokes behind the dumpster during her breaks. She thinks I'm a disappointment. She's not wrong.

The phone buzzed on the small table beside the TV. I was watching a baseball game I didn't care about. The text was from Benny. It said: Need to talk. Tomorrow. 7pm. Don't make me come get you.

Benny Marcenko. I owed him money. Eight thousand dollars, including interest. I'd borrowed it three years ago to fix the transmission on my truck so I could keep my delivery job. The job lasted four months. The truck lasted four weeks after that.

I met Benny at a Denny's off Interstate 77. The parking lot was full of pickup trucks and the inside smelled like bacon grease and floor cleaner. Benny sat in a booth by the window. He looked tired. He looked guilty. Beside him sat his brother Tony. Tony wouldn't look at me.

Benny laid it out. He owed twelve thousand dollars to a guy in Chicago. If he didn't pay by the end of the month, the Chicago guy would break Tony's legs. Benny's solution was a game. A dice-and-chips game in the basement of an abandoned factory. Ten rounds. Six players. Chips worth fifty dollars each. Lose all your chips and Benny breaks your legs.

"I didn't want it to be like this," Benny said. He meant it. He had been my coworker for eleven years. We used to share a lunch table and talk about baseball and complain about the foreman. Now he was sitting across from me offering to break my legs.

"How many rounds?" I asked.

"Ten."

"What happens if I lose?"

Benny looked at the table. "I'll break your legs. I'm sorry, Ray. I didn't want it to be like this."

I thought about Michelle. I thought about her trying to get her GED in the evenings while I sat in the basement watching TV. I thought about her saying, two weeks ago, that I was never going to be anything. I said: "Alright."

The basement was in a factory on the east side of Cleveland. The factory had been closed since 2008. The basement smelled like oil and old sweat and something that might have been mildew. There were no windows. No phone signal. A steel door that Benny locked from the outside.

Six players: Benny, Tony, a guy named Dale who stole copper wire for extra cash, a woman named Patricia who I suspected cheated at poker, and a kid named Ricky who looked no older than twenty.

Benny explained the rules. Each player got fifteen chips. Each round, roll three dice, enter a room. The room deducts chips. No chips left, no legs left.

I rolled my first dice. A four, a six, a three. Room seven. The deduction was three chips. Twelve left.

Patricia cheated. I saw her. She signaled to Ricky, whispered something while her hand covered his dice. Ricky entered Room 2. Deduction: five chips. He had four. He was already in the hole.

Round Three: Dale lost four chips in Room 11. Round Four: Ricky lost three in Room 9 and now had zero. Benny made him stand up. Ricky started crying.

Round Five: Patricia lost five in Room 8. She had six. She stood up, looked at Benny, and said: "You said you'd be quick." Benny picked up a crowbar from the corner. Patricia stopped talking.

Round Eight. Three players left: me, Patricia, and Tony. I had four chips. Patricia had six. Tony had three.

Patricia entered Room 12. It was an eight-room. She lost everything. Benny dragged her to the corner. She screamed. I closed my eyes.

Tony entered Room 9. Deduction: three. He had zero. Benny looked at me. I nodded. Benny picked up the crowbar. Tony didn't say anything. He just closed his eyes.

That left me. And Patricia. And Ricky, who had zero but Benny had let him stay. Said watching him suffer was part of the entertainment.

Round Nine. Patricia entered Room 5. Deduction: two. Four left. She looked at me. I looked at her. Neither of us said anything.

She lost Room 6. Deduction: three. One left. She entered Room 3. Deduction: two. She was done. Benny came over. She looked at me one last time. Then the crowbar came out.

Ricky was the only other player with chips. One chip. He stood in front of Room 4 and stared at the dice in his hand. He rolled. Room 4. Deduction: two. He had one. He was done.

I was the last one standing. But I had three chips left, and the final round would test them all.

Round Ten. I rolled a four. Room 4. I walked in without hesitation. There was nothing to hesitate about.

The deduction was three chips.

I stood in the doorway and felt the cold concrete through the soles of my shoes. Benny was behind me. I could hear him breathing.

"Let me call my daughter first," I said.

Benny nodded. He handed me his phone. I dialed the number I knew by heart.

She picked up on the third ring. "Yeah?"

"Hey, kiddo."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to hear your voice."

"You sound drunk."

"I am drunk. But not too drunk."

"Dad..."

"Listen to me. I know I haven't been... I know I haven't been nothing. But you are something. You hear me? You're gonna be something. Don't let anyone tell you you're nothing. Not me. Not your boyfriend. Not anybody."

Silence. Then: "Dad, what did you do?"

"Doesn't matter. I love you, kid."

The call ended. Benny took the phone. He picked up the crowbar.

I bit down on a towel. I did not scream.

When it was over, I was lying on the concrete floor. The only sound was the drip of a leaking pipe upstairs. Somewhere above, a car drove by on the wet street.

Life went on.

© 2026 - Authored by Z R ZHANG ( EL9507135 -- パスポート番号[ちゅうごく] 중국 여권 번호 Номер паспорта หมายเลขหนังสือเดินทาง Passnummer رقم جواز السفر CHN Passport) The aforementioned Author hereby grants to OXFORD INDUSTRIAL HOLDING GROUP (ASIA PACIFIC) CO., LIMITED （BRN74685111） all economic property rights, including but not limited to the rights of: reproduction, distribution, rental, exhibition, performance, communication to the public via information network, adaptation, compilation, commercial operation, authorization for third-party use, and rights enforcement. Such grant is exclusive and irrevocable. The term of such rights shall be 49 years from the date of publication. To contact author, please email to datatorent@yeah.net

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