My Encounter with Morris Ch. 01

I got a job at a casino as a blackjack dealer, because after years of dealing drugs, dealing cards just seemed to make sense. A few months earlier I had been busted at a friend's house when the police raided him for growing pot in the basement. I didn't even know he was growing it. Shows what a great friend he was. The police busted me too because I had a crack pipe and a couple ounces in my jacket pocket.

I'd been smoking pot since I was fifteen but I didn't see that I had a problem with it. I had graduated high school with decent grades. I had worked at a video store for over a year when I got arrested. I had dealt with some of the harder stuff too, but it was only recently that I had stepped up my participation in heroin and cocaine. Using lead to dealing, and eventually things had to fall apart. As with my usage, I had started out dealing pot, but then graduated to coke and heroin. Sometimes ecstasy, but not much. You could get that anywhere.

That combined with my excessive drinking, and I figured I was heading to jail for a long time. The lawyer I was saddled with assured me that he could get me a good deal. My record was clean prior to this. Due to my ability to fast talk my way out of a few traffic tickets, and the fact that I had never been caught with drugs before, this was basically my first offense. I could plead no contest and get sent to a rehabilitation clinic for a couple months. They'd dry me out, and get me clean from the drugs and I would be just as good as new, the lawyer told me. And that's what happened. The judge told me that as long as I finished my two months there with no problems, the records would be wiped clean.

I had been there for a couple days when a guy walked over to the table that I was sitting at, and sat in the chair beside me without saying a word. I looked at him, and he looked back at me but no words were spoken.

I looked away to the television, but they were watching an episode of American Gladiators and I wasn't really able to give the show the attention it deserved because I was wondering about this guy. Finally I sighed, and turned around, facing him.

"Can I help you?"

"You have to help yourself first. No one can help you but you."

I stared at him for a few moments wondering if I had landed in some old Kung Fu episode, when he started grinning.

"Just kidding man. My name's Scott, and I'll be your " he looked around and shrugged, "guide, I suppose. I'm the one you come to if you have problems. I'm the one you come to if you start to feel withdrawals, etc, etc, etc."

I stared at him, my smile gone. "Is this some kind of game? I mean, is this some thing where you get my confidence, and then try to get me to admit to doing something in the past that you can get me locked up for?"

Scott chuckled. "We're not cops. I'm here to help you, not bust you. You've already been busted. Why not let us help you?"

And that's how I met Scott. Over the next two months it was pretty rough. I wanted drugs to calm me down, but of course, I didn't have them. Scott worked me through that, and at the end of the two months I was allowed to leave.

After my court mandated rehab was through, I packed some things in my yellow Datsun and drove to Las Vegas in hopes of finding work. Perhaps if I put enough distance between myself and my past, I reasoned, my past would stay my past.

Scott was against it from the beginning. He said that rather than running all the way across the country, I should stay put.

"You have a support group here", he told me. "You have people who love you, and care whether you live or die. You think going through two months of a rehab clinic and you're free from the pull of drugs and alcohol? Wake up man, you have no idea what you're doing."

I knew there was some sense in what he was telling me, but I had to get away. I didn't need to be reminded of my failings. I needed a fresh start.

As I made my way across the country, I admit I had the urge to looking for something to drink on several occasions, but I was able to keep it just what it was: an urge. How long I could keep it as such, I didn't know.

Once in Vegas, things went pretty well. I quickly found work while living with a friend of mine, Bryan, who I'd known in high school. His girlfriend worked at some strip club beside the casino, and one of the pit bosses come in there all the time and flirted with her. So she put a word in for me and just like that, I was in.

Things went smoothly for a couple months, nothing out of the ordinary happening. Then that cat came in. I'll admit that it wasn't everyday that a cat came into the casino. In fact in my entire working career I had never seen a cat come into the place I worked at.

The cat came to my table leapt up to sit on the stool, threw down a couple hundred dollars worth of chips and that's how we met. I guess that's how all relationships start if you think about it. You throw your chips on the table, and see what happens. By throwing down that much at the outset, he let me know he was no small time kitty.

He saw me staring at him, not moving. He asked me if I was okay. Did I need a drink or something? I shook my head and blinked a few times. The cat was talking to me. I asked him his name but he seemed reluctant to tell me. He suggested I call him Morris. Cute.

As the game began, Morris began telling me about his life, as if I was a bartender, and he had a tab. He asked me if I knew that cats had nine lives. I commented that I might have heard that somewhere. Morris added that whenever cats died, they would jump to another time in history to another family.

Whenever Morris would die he would jump to another cat's body in history. He would bounce from life to life living with Presidents, rock stars, writers, and simple common folk, until he would meet some bizarre death, and jump somewhere else. He compared it to an up and coming comedian bouncing from one crappy TV pilot to another.

I commented that he had seemingly had a full life. Morris placed his paws on his cards as I was about to flip him another. He stared at me and shook his head slowly. He explained that he had not had a full life, unless you only counted the places he'd gone and people he'd seen. He'd battled a drug addiction that had killed four of his lives. He had been in recovery for three months when he was hit by a car, and landed in a home with Sam Kinison.

"Needless to say," Morris said dryly, as he rubbed the shiny studded collar that encircled his neck, "that wasn't the most ideal of places for a recovering addict."

He went out with Sam every night, drinking and drugging until a cocaine-induced heart attack sent him on his way to another owner. Finally he got with an addicts group, and got clean. Clean from the alcohol and clean from the drugs. But there was still one painful thing in his life, or rather one thing missing. He had never found that one true love that he could bring a dead mouse home to.

I've met some fine kitty in my day, Morris said, pulling his paws back and allowing me to throw the card down. 23. Morris sighed and leaned back as I reached out to liberate him of some of his chips. He counted out some from his winnings and signaled for more cards. He went on to explain how he'd felt a deep vacancy in his soul for the longest time. As he spoke, I wondered why he was telling me this. Was he just some lonely cat out to tell someone -- anyone -- his hard luck story?

He told me that he had now finally begun to settle in with his new family, and for the first time in his life he felt good. There was something in his mind telling him that this could be the time when he could meet someone to live with. He was down to his last life. The margin for error was zero.

I felt sorry for Morris. I saw myself in him. Here I was, a recovering addict working in the most drugged up alcoholic business in the world.

As the night wore on, Morris won big, and then slowly lost it all back. He was a considerate gambler. He knew the rules. You win big, let the casino give you a ton of free comps, and then you slowly lose it back, so as to make it even. Not enough gamblers understand this rule. It makes the casinos welcome you back, and more apt to comp you some good stuff in the future. Too many young punks just want to win big and leave. No one respects that.

Morris finally yawned and looked at his watch. It was small, miniature version, something you'd expect to get for fifty cents out of one of those machines outside Wal-Mart. He looked down at his pile of chips. There were two one hundred dollar chips.

Morris looked at me, cocked his head to the side and said, "Looks like I broke even, huh?"

"Kind of looks that way." I said. Morris winked at me and hopped down from the stool.

He stood there as if he wanted to shake my hand or something, but knew that rules prohibited anything that would make anyone suspicious of chips changing hands.

"Another time, Morris?" I asked.

"Another time, my friend." he said softly. "Another time." He then turned, and jumped down from the stool and made his way out of the casino. I watched him leave, and wondered if I would meet anyone else that I could relate to as much.