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Standing on water street in downtown and looking out over the wet asphalt catching the blinking lights of the aged marquees, the bigger fancier buildings looming small in the distance, a set of salt and pepper shakers on god’s desert table. The feeling of superiority this vantage gives you, the pride of the outskirts, the boasting appeal of the marginalia. You think of your little baby niece back at home as you pump another twenty into the machine and say to yourself, only half joking, that this one is for her. The casinos in this further flung part of town are quieter, almost unsettlingly so, and though the carpet masks the sound of your footfalls a bit you can still feel that you yourself are a presence in the room, the single slot player in the corner gingerly touches the brim of his trucker hat as you pass by on your way to the cashier. You notice on your way out that in the foyer there is a placard announcing the fact that a man named Brice who appears to be in his 80s has won $14,000, but in the photo he does not seem happy about it, he seems like he has been inconvenienced by having his picture taken. The bigger fancier casinos feel like impenetrable monoliths, it does not matter if you lose 100 dollars there, or even 1,000, and in fact it doesn’t matter if you win, either. The lights and the sounds will keep on churning all day every day no matter what, and in this way they are similar to churches - humble, you are a grain of sand on the shore, a spider dangled above a flame, one sucker in a sea of chumps. But in the more run down spots with the penny slots you are allowed the delusion that you are significant and you think you might win some real money. The way the decades of second hand smoke patina build up on the walls and carpets, how it follows you home in your clothes, in your pores, in your hair. How you keep smelling smoke after a night of gambling even after washing your clothes, and it’s not until a thorough shower in soft water do the butts leave you. How the rosemary bushes that line the sidewalks in the suburbs bloom in december with delicate light purple flowers, how perfectly topiary shaped each pop of foliage is, how there are countless retired neighbors with countless dogs in ridiculous outfits that squeeze out little harmless shits in the gravel beneath. How there are way more luxury houses up in the freshly graded hills now, on a jog up the path you see their tennis courts and swimming pools and you see that there are backhoes operating on christmas eve. How the air is thinner and reedier than you are used to (not necessarily cleaner?), how wide the nearly unused sidewalks. How the sunrises and sunsets are richer in color than you expect, every time, and how this time in particular the orange and purple smog aura in the west (los angeles, you assume) knocks the wind out of you. The sunset is Personally Resonant, you think, and you silently and desperately hope that someone will acknowledge this (but you say nothing and do not mention it and in fact think that bringing it up somehow will be in “bad taste?” You will have these thoughts but they will feel like someone else’s). How against your better knowledge you are thrilled as you have ever allowed yourself to be when a big win comes down from the slot machines, how your synapses buzz and pop for hours afterwards, how comforting and big the winning receipt slip feels in the inner pocket of your denim jacket. How you feel less bold than you have over holidays before, and less wantonly indulgent, so you decline to play Chinese poker with your brother like you did last year, and you worry about whether or not your boldness will return. The wild caveman mania of a buffet. How, improbably, despite every firework display of opulence from carving station to unending frozen yogurt, you manage to fear that you have not got enough. You drink a fourth bloody mary in an hour out to breakfast with your family, maniacally dousing the tomato juice with tabasco and loading it up with horse radish, panic, never enough, never enough, just beneath the enjoyment of it. You eat fried spam over eggs and have five or more cups of coffee. How every time after you come home, no matter how long the trip, you have misremembered the dimensions of your neighborhood and your home, how the J train stands so much taller and makes so much more noise than you remember, it is always a surprise, how your home seems wider and more full of objects and obstacles, how the sound of your footsteps in your own room are louder than you recall. Even one night sleeping somewhere else and the place feels unfamiliar, your memory of where you live is like a sidewalk chalk drawing after a rain, still pastel and recognizable but the details are hard to make out.

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from My Big Break - volume 1, released July 16, 2020

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Ben Seretan Climax, New York

**ECSTATIC JOY**

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