Cassius on Line 1

@copyright 2020/Mike Consol

Cassius is on the other end of the phone but he has nothing to say. Cassius never seems to have anything to say except for the first few minutes of the “conversation.” But I know he is there because I can hear him breathing. Cassius is a heavy breather and that seems to be a language unto itself. His mood can be discerned by the depth and tempo of the inhalations and exhalations. 

I’m usually flipping through the pages of a magazine or watching some trashy television show on mute while waiting for the next words to come out of Cassius’s mouth. Sometimes they fail to materialize, other than at the start of the call (“What are you doing?) and its conclusion (“I gotta go”). Good thing I’m a patient person. 

We’ve been dating for 17 months and my girlfriends don’t understand what I’m doing with him. They encourage me to move on. They point to Cassius’s silent ways, and that he doesn’t like to be touched, our almost nonexistent sex life, his aversion to travel, how poorly he dresses, as well as his tight-fisted ways with money. His idea of a “date” is mid-afternoon coffee and blueberry muffins at one of the local diners on Washington Avenue. 

That’s actually where we met, at the Washington Avenue diner that trades under the name Acropolis and is owned by a lovely Greek family. I still work there as a waitress. 

I tell my girlfriends that Cassius is … how do they say it? … on the “autistic spectrum,” I think is the term. Yeah, he is somewhat autistic but he’s brilliant, a math whiz with an outstanding memory for names, dates and numbers of all sorts. He makes his money by visiting the local Native American reservations and going to the casinos, where he plays blackjack and counts cards to win money. Counting cards is not allowed by the casinos. Cassius does it subtly and every time he senses they might be catching on, he gets up, cashes in his chips and walks out the door with a bulging pocket. He does this two days per week, Tuesdays and Fridays, and has a steady rotation of casinos he visits to ensure he doesn’t arouse too much suspicion or take too much money out of their coffers. 

Cassius tells me it’s good for the casino to have a winner at the table because it encourages other gamblers to keep trying as they lose money. I figure they must be thinking if an unusual guy like my Cassius can win at blackjack then, surely, they can do the same. 

Gambling at the casinos is how he makes his money, and that means he “works” just two days a week and for only three to five hours at a time, including drive time. He makes quite a bit of money doing this. Cassius has an individual retirement account and a few bank accounts that are pretty well stuffed with money. He’s a saver. 

Cassius isn’t as cheap as my friends make him out to be, or he wouldn’t be living at the Bethel Nursing Care facility near the Oakdale Shopping Mall, even though he’s only 47 years old. Cassius’s mother was a resident there for years and he visited her every day. Cassius was very close to his mother and paid strict attention to how she was being treated by the very friendly staff members. She was fed three meals a day, her room was cleaned, her clothes laundered, and her vital signs and general health consistently monitored. She was pampered. Cassius is not a guy to cook and clean, and he also likes being pampered. Who doesn’t? One day he asked the facility’s administrator if he could live in a place like Bethel. There were some rooms empty at the time, so she gave him an application. I didn’t even know a nursing facility would let a guy as young as Cassius into their ranks, but as it turns out, like any other business, nursing facilities need to fill beds to maximize revenue, and they will take any resident they can get, as long as the person is well behaved and has the financial wherewithal to pay the cost. 

Cassius was a prize, as far as the nursing home was concerned, because he was one of those rare residents paying out-of-pocket for his room, board and overall care. He even paid for his care a year in advance. On January 1 he would write a check for $75,000 to cover the forthcoming year. Yes, that’s $6,250 per month. How would you like a rent payment like that? But it’s worth it to Cassius because all his needs were met. He doesn’t need to lift a finger. The food isn’t great but its passable and served in the dining room right on time three times a day, and his living quarters and bathroom are always kept spotless. 

After seeing how well his mother was cared for — right up until her death — Cassius decided it would be the right place for him. He comes and goes as he pleases. He visits the casinos, we have muffins and coffee at Washington Avenue diners, and he comes to my place regularly, but not too often. There is the occasional trip to the movie theater, though Cassius insists on driving separately because he often gets nervous or inpatient and walks out of the theater mid-movie and goes home. 

“I gotta go,” he tells me and walks out. I nibble on my popcorn and finish the movie. 

It’s also true that intimacy with Cassius is rare. Sex usually needs to be scheduled because Cassius likes his routine, which is a symptom of the autism. On those rare occasions, I tell him to get in the shower to scrub down and put on a fresh set of clothes before coming by. He hesitates and hems and haws and then he complies. Cassius is stubborn but he will listen to some things. 

I tell my girlfriends that Cassius isn’t exciting or dashing but he has other qualities I’ve never had in a relationship. He’s dependable. You get that with an autistic guy because of the need for routine. Cassius’s daily and weekly schedules are consistently the same. I know his whereabouts and what he’s doing pretty much at all times. It’s the first time I haven’t had a jealously problem with a guy. Cassius’s eyes do not wander because he isn’t interested in other women. That would disrupt his routine, and nothing’s more important than Cassius’s routine. He gets discombobulated when anything spontaneous happens. 

When I first suspected autism was at play, I looked up the symptom and saw they included difficulty with social interactions, obsessive interests and repetitive behaviors. Also, difficulty with communication. I called Cassius right after to reading this, just to hear him breathing on the phone. 

I accompanied Cassius to the casino one Tuesday, and he played blackjack while I sat within eyeshot at the bar sipping a drink containing only half of the amount of vodka prescribed by the Bartender’s Manual. Then two men with badges accosted Cassius. They were in suits and stood on either side of him. I could see Cassius felt surrounded. He froze solid, fingering a few gambling chips. I approached just as they started to lead Cassius away. Cassius’s eyes were frantically searching for me. 

“These men say I cheated,” he immediately told me. 

One held a hand at me, indicating not to get too close. “I’m his wife,” I lied. Cassius’s eyes could not have gotten any wider. “Just what the shit is going on here?” 

“Not cheating, per se” one of the badged men said, “but we know he’s been counting cards, which violates house rules. He’s been under surveillance for months and will not be welcome here anymore.” 

Cassius couldn’t lie, so he didn’t even attempt to defend himself as they led him to the front doors. In the parking lot Cassius hyperventilated himself into a full-blow panic attack. 

You know how some couples who are into dominance and submission have a “safe” word during sex? Cassius and I have a safe word, too, but it’s one I use when he starts having a tizzy and needs to be calmed. It’s “Edwina,” which is his beloved mother’s name, deceased as of a few years ago. I already told you how attached Cassius was to his mom. Memories of Edwina had a soothing effect on his nervous system, so I would repeat her name like a mantra every few minutes and Cassius would begin to chill. 

 

 

 

 

Cassius’s Tuesday and Friday treks to the casinos were major components of his weekly schedule, which is why being told he wasn’t welcome anymore at the Trading Winds Hotel & Casino was so deeply upsetting to him. He urged me to accompany him to his Friday casino. He wanted the company. I said “Edwina” a few times on the drive. 

This time it was the Tioga Downs Casino Resort. It was a hot, humid summer day — even the air inside the car was dank. The cool gales coming from the air conditioner were quickly swallowed up. No sooner did Cassius walk in the front doors when he was again accosted by two men with badges. These were different men, but they had a photograph of Cassius. They showed it to him while saying he had been caught counting cards and wasn’t allowed on the premises again, or he would be arrested and taken to county jail. 

I took Cassius by the arm and held him steady on the walk to the car. “They blackballed me,” he said, and had to explain to me on the ride home that when one casino catches you cheating they share the information all other area casinos, cutting the offending person off from the entire national gambling establishment. 

Cassius was almost losing consciousness in the passenger seat as I drove his auto. Being blackballed had not only disrupted his routine and a major form of entertainment, it meant the end of his livelihood. What else could he do for a source of income? Cassius wasn’t employable in the traditional sense, because he had no professional skills. Job interviews would be like interrogations for a man of his mild paranoia. 

“Edwina,” I said. Her name was packed with significance and solace. 

The next day we had muffins and coffee on Washington Avenue and I urged him to drive to more distant casinos. There was a set of them in neighboring Pennsylvania, and we weren’t far from that state’s border, though the state line was outside of his maximum driving range. Cassius wouldn’t drive more than fifty miles in any direction, any farther than that and his nerves would jangle. He didn’t even like being a passenger in an auto going any farther than fifty miles, but I insisted he try while I chauffeured him and said the right thing along the way to Lackawanna County Pennsylvania and the Mohegan Sun Pocono Casino. As usual there were uniformed men at the door, and again came the gloomy pronouncement: “You’re not welcome here, and don’t come back.” 

Cassius’s blackballing was complete. 

Cassius, Edwina and I drove back to the nursing home, where a very bleak future was being contemplated. 

“How will I pay my bills?” Cassius asked. There was a cornered look on his face. 

For lack of an answer, I was silent on the matter. The experience had left a deep dent in the man. 

He said, “I wish Mom was still alive,” which is what he always said when having a bad day or dealing with a problem. 

“What could she do for you in a situation like this?” I said. 

Cassius gave me a lingering, malignant look, and then wordlessly looked away. He didn’t like being challenged, especially in matters pertaining to Edwina. 

Fortunately, Cassius had a lot of money in the bank. The nursing home was expensive, though, and it was a matter of less than a year when his accounts had run dry and nursing home administrators served him an eviction notice. 

Cassius moved into the guest room of my apartment, his vacuum-sealed life broken open. It was meant to be a temporary situation while he tried his hand at a new career: sports betting. Cassius didn’t own or know how to operate a computing device, nor did he want to, so he had found a couple of bookies who took bets by phone, but that required he talk to another person, which he preferred not to do. The beauty of blackjack for Cassius was that he took a seat at the casino and the rest was all hand signals. Then again, sports betting was numbers-intensive, which was Cassius’s expertise, and he had always spent more time watching sports than anything else. It was his narcotic pastime. He was now paying special attention to injury reports, so he could bet against teams hobbled pulled hamstrings or strained groins, as well as teams that had just come off a big victory over an important rival. They always played lousy the next game, Cassius noted, because of the inevitable emotional letdown. 

Sports betting didn’t have the consistency of counting cards at the blackjack table and got off to a topsy-turvy start. Too many variables, even for Cassius. He missed the blackjack tables; he missed the cigarette smoke and the elderly people in wheelchairs playing the slot machines. 

He started feeling depressed and sleeping more hours than healthy, and was even less interested in sex than usual. We found other ways to be close, such as syncopating our breathing. Cassius filled his days sitting in the Washington Avenue diner where I waitressed, eating a muffin, drinking a pot of coffee and staring at me while I moved about the place. It was one of his roundabouts of Washington Avenue diners. 

 

 

 

 

I needed a plan to get Cassius out of my apartment and back to his room at Bethel Nursing Care. Cassius didn’t like living with me anyway. He was a loner and needed lots of alone time, and didn’t appreciate having to take anyone else into account on matters such as when to rise, when to dim the lights, what TV shows were appropriate and at what volume.  

With a little research I discovered counting cards was not illegal under federal, state or local laws, provided the player wasn’t using any external card-counting device or other people to assist them, which Cassius never did. But casinos were free to ban players from their premises if suspected of any kind of foul play or undesirable behavior. Cassius had been identified and blackballed based on his visual appearance, which was always the same — a pair of jeans, t-shirt and a windbreaker with a sport team’s logo, usually the New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys. One most occasions he also wore a baseball cap rather than attend to grooming his hair, which made him especially easy to pick out of crowd. 

I sat with Cassius and explained my plan for changing his appearance. First, he agreed to never wear the baseball cap. Second, he would grow a beard that I would keep well-trimmed for him. Third, I would buzz his hair down to a quarter-inch length and dye it a few shades darker. Then came a trip to the haberdasher where I assisted in selecting a sharp, black business suit, collared shirt and complementary tie. The finishing touch was a pair lightly-tinted prescription glasses, giving him a Man of Mystery appearance, though that is not why I selected this accessory. The shaded eyewear was necessary to hide (or, at least obscure) Cassius’s eyes, which grew enormous and darted around in his skull anytime he was concerned about getting caught doing anything sneaky or questionable. 

We headed back to Tioga Downs Casino Resort in a rented Infinity Q50, rather than Cassius’s rusting Buick Skylark. Worcestershire sauce was on his breath. To complete the subterfuge, I had slipped on a tight red dress, heels and a head of hair that had been freshly styled at a Main Street salon. I told him to put his hands in his pants pockets to alter his gait ever so slightly and further obscure any chance of recognition as we strode toward the casino’s gaping front doors. I threaded an arm affectionately through Cassius’s arm and felt him stiffen as we walked through the doors and into the ding and air pollution of the gambling casino floor and straight to a blackjack table, where Cassius ordered club sodas to stay alert and unimpaired. I sipped vodka at the bar and kept on eye on Cassius’s playing. The chips began stacking up. Left to his card counting Cassius was an invincible player. 

That made me feel good because I had fronted the money required to disguise Cassius and purchase the gambling chips he needed to get started. I was already looking forward to his return to Bethel and the level of nursing care he had become accustomed to. 

Cassius cashed his chips and we departed after only ninety minutes of play, an agreed upon timeframe to keep things casual and below suspicion. Then we headed to the next closest casino and did another ninety minutes. His anxiety was electric when entering that casino as well. “Sublimate,” I whispered. He had an even hotter hand during this round of play. Cassius was on fire, raking in the winnings and feeling like the man of old.  

Within a few months, Cassius and his nearly zero possessions relocated back to Bethel and was back to being as faithful as an insect in his rituals and repetitions. 

He called me that night on his flip phone. He was happy just to listen to me prattle away with excitement over of the gambling partnership we had formed. 

“It’s just like a Robert De Niro movie,” I enthused. 

Cassius listened until I ran out of words. Then I listened to Cassius breath. 

@copyright 2020/Mike Consol