“Hi, honey, I’m back,” a heavy-set elderly woman said to the dollar slot machine. She opened her faded, white, canvas tote bag and took out two rolls of coins.

“You’re going to help me again this year, isn’t that right?”  The young man sitting next to her listened as she spoke loudly to the machine.

“Here goes nothin!”  She put three $1 coins in the machine and pulled the lever.  Two bars and one diamond.  No coins came out.

“That’s all right.  We’re just warming up.”  She pulled the lever again and again.  Ten coins came out of the machine.

“I knew I could count on you!”  She continued to feed the machine three coins at a time.  Twenty coins came out.

“Yes!  I have a feeling about you tonight!”  The woman wiped her forehead with a tissue and took out another roll of coins.

 “Help me, my friend.  No one will help me…not my children, not the government.  You’re the only one I can count on.”  She fed the machine coin after coin.

The young man sitting next to her looked agitated.  He collected the few coins that remained in the tray and left.  The moment he left the chair, a middle-aged woman, with bleached hair and blue eye shadow, took his place.

“I feel lucky tonight!”  The middle-aged woman yelled.  She took out six rolls of $1 coins from her over-sized purse and placed them in the tray under the slot machine.

******

“You’re only testing me, I know that,” the elderly woman said to the machine.  “I’ll keep at it; I won’t leave you.  You’re the only machine I play.”  Again, she fed the machine.

After an hour, the elderly woman was out of change.  She pressed the change button and an attendant cashed her $50 bill for coins.  She fed the machine again and again.

******

The elderly woman had ten coins left so she played only one coin at a time.  She shook her head at the results.

“What’s going on?  I need you to help me!  Please!”  She yelled.  Two people behind her turned to see what she was yelling about.

******

The middle-aged woman pressed the change button and took out a $100 bill.  She lit a cigarette and waited for the change attendant.  She wore a gold studded sweater with black and gold studded pants to match.

“I’m gonna win, I can feel it,” the middle-aged woman said.

The elderly woman sat in the chair by her favorite machine even though she had no coins left.

“Hey lady, are you playing this machine?”  An unkempt young man, with a blemished complexion, asked.

She said nothing.

“Hey, this is my lucky machine!  If you’re not playing then you have to get up!”  He commanded. 

The elderly woman remained silent.

The unkempt man waved to a manager and explained the situation.

“Ma’am, are you playing this machine?”  The manager asked.

No response.

“Ma’am, if you’re not playing the machine, then you have to leave the seat and give someone else a chance to play.”

Silence.

“Ma’am, if you will not leave politely, then I will have you removed from the seat.”

The manager spoke into his two-way radio.  Quickly after his call to security, two tall, muscular male security guards picked the elderly woman off of the seat.  They carried her out the side exit and put her and the canvas tote bag on the curb of the street.

She sat there for a while, not making a sound.  She bit her bottom lip and a tear streamed down her weathered face.

This story exclusively appeared in Imbalance, An Experimental Collection of Micro Stories and Poetry, in 1998. The book was published under the author's maiden name, Christine McGuigan.  She has granted Useless-Knowledge permission to post the story, which does not appear anywhere else on the World Wide Web.