Free Onward Toward What We're Going Toward by Ryan Bartelmay

that someone, God maybe, was standing in the wings with a cane about to pull them off stage.
    Peoria wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be for Green, either. He put on a proud face for Mary, but he was already having some serious second thoughts. The sun certainly didn’t always shine like he had imagined it would. In the six days they had been in Peoria, it had rained for five. He hated the rain, but as far as he could tell, the people of Peoria were fine with it, saying things like, “The plants are getting a good drink,” or, “It sure is going to green up around here.” But the worst part, the absolute
worst part about Peoria, was that Green was having a hard time getting his gambling enterprise going. Sure, it had sounded good to tell Mary he was a bookie, but in reality, he had no idea how to collect a bet or “advertise” that he was collecting them. He’d bought an accounting ledger, which he kept under the front seat in the minivan, but other than that, he hadn’t a clue. Still, he kept at it. He knew that Mary wasn’t going to put up with the house situation for too long, as she was the type of woman who wanted things—a tablecloth covering the table and more than just soap and shampoo in the shower. In fact, she was probably more of a bath person than a shower person.
    He started with the farm towns surrounding Peoria. Each day, he would walk into their Main Street bars and order a drink, waiting, hoping, for something to happen. He tried to look like a bookie, the way he stood, with a look on his face that was meant to say, I ’ll take that bet . The guys at the bar would gaze at him with sidelong glances, and, eventually, after they were comfortable, start talking to him, asking him questions, buying him drinks. A peculiar thing: these Midwesterners poured their bottles of Bud into small glasses. Green didn’t understand this practice. How was he going to get these people to trust him with their money if they didn’t even trust their bottles of beer? He had thought this was going to be easy, that he’d just have to walk into a bar, tell people he was from Las Vegas, and that would be that. Yes, they were impressed that he was from Vegas. They smiled and nodded their heads when he told them, giving him the look-over as they took in his suit. Then they would ask him if he worked for Caterpillar and had just gotten transferred to Peoria?
    One day, Green went into a bar called Mike’s Tap, on the south side of Pekin. It was eleven in the morning, and the place smelled like a locker room after it had been hosed down. The joint was empty except for the bartender drinking a mug of coffee and watching a morning talk show, and a guy sitting at a table reading the sports section of the Peoria Journal Star and drinking
a bottle of Bud out of a small glass. The guy looked like someone who drove a grain truck and spent his weekends hunting deer.
    Green sat down across from him. “What’s with the small glasses?” he asked. “I gotta know. Everyone around here does it. I don’t get it.”
    The guy looked over the top of his newspaper. “Do I know you?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œShould I know you?”
    â€œI see you’re reading the sports page.”
    â€œWho told you about me?”
    â€œNo one. Why? Should someone have?”
    â€œDo I know you?”
    â€œLike I said, I don’t think so.”
    â€œDid Mike send you over to talk to me?” The guy nodded toward the bartender.
    Green looked over his shoulder. “Yeah. Mike did.” He wanted to see where this was going.
    â€œSo, you wanna book a bet?”
    â€œWait a second. You’re a bookie? I’m a bookie, too.”
    â€œYou’re a bookie?” the guy asked.
    â€œIn the flesh.”
    â€œYou’re not from around here, are you? You look tan.”
    â€œVegas.”
    â€œSo, you’re a bookie from Las