John Fitzgerald GB 06 Return of (13 page)

“But my wheel of fortune will be different,” Tom said. “Somebody will win a prize every time and the prize will be wortrkmore than it costs to play.”

Mamma wiped her hands on her apron and placed her hands on her hips. “Something tells me I should say no,” she said, “although I will never use the spinning wheel.”

“Sometimes I just don’t understand grownups,” Tom said shaking his head. “I saw you and Papa playing the wheel ot fortune and other games at the carnival and having fun even knowing the games were crooked. Now I want to make an honest wheel of fortune that has a winner every time so the kids can have some fun and you don’t want to help me.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t have the spinning wheel,” Mamma said. “And I guess there is no harm in you and your friends playing carnival. You can have the spinning wheel. Just make certain somebody wins a prize every time and there isn’t any backsliding attached to it.”

Tom and I got the spinning wheel from the attic and carried it to the barn with Frankie following us. Tom got some tools from the tool shed and took the spinning wheel apart. He told Frankie and me to throw everything but the wheel in the trash barrel.

While Frankie and I carried the extra parts to our trash

118

barrel Tom went up to his loft. He had a cigar box with several thread spools in it when he came down the rope ladder. Mamma always gave us the wooden spools after using the thread on them. A fellow could make a lot of things with a wooden spool, like a peashooter. Tom picked out a spool. He put a sixteen-penny nail through the hole. Then he hammered the nail into a wall joist in back of the box he’d used for a table during his magic act.

“The spool should hold the wheel far enough away from the two-by-four so it will spin,” he said.

I watched him pick up the wheel and put the hub over the nail. He gave the wheel a spin and it went around and around.

“Now I need one of Papa’s old celluloid collars,” he said. “J.D., go ask Mamma if she’s got one old and frayed enough to throw away.”

Mamma said she was glad I’d reminded her because she had been meaning to buy some new celluloid collars for Papa. She picked out a worn one from the collar box and gave it to me.

Tom had the wheel lying on the box table when I returned. He was using a ruler and a pencil to make ten dots around the wooden rim of the wheel. When he finished he drove ten small nails into the rim where he’d made the dots. He put the wheel on the sixteen-penny nail.

Then he went to the coal and wood shed and picked out a stick about two inches wide and six inches long. Back in the barn he cut a strip of celluloid from the collar. He tacked one end of it to one end of the stick. This left about two inches of the celluloid below the stick. Tom placed the stick against the side of the wall joist above the wheel. The celluloid stuck out too far. He measured it with his eye and then

119

cut off a piece of the stick. It fit perfectly then so he nailed the stick to the side of the wall joist. The piece of celluloid hung about a quarter of an inch below the nails on the wheel. Tom gave the wheel a spin. The celluloid made a clicking sound as it hit the nails while the wheel was spinning around and around.

“That is enough for today,” Tom said. “It is time to start doing the chores.”

The next day after school Tom used a board a foot wide and about six feet long to make a shelf on the barn wall be-side the wheel.

“What is that for?” I asked.

“Yeah, what?” Frankie said.

“To display the prizes you can win playing the wheel of fortune,” Tom said.

He went up to his loft and rame back down with a calendar.

“Go to the house,” he said to me, “and get a pair of scissors and some glue.”

When I returned he took one month from the calendar and cut out the numbers one through ten. He glued them to the shelf about six inches apart. Then he cut out numbers one through ten from another month in the calendar. These he glued in the spaces between the nails on the wheel.

“All I need now,” he said, “are some prizes and I’ll be in business.”

“When are you going to open for business?” I asked.

“Saturday morning at ten o’clock,” Tom said. “But wait until Friday. Then you tell all the kids at the common school they are invited to play the wheel of fortune in our barn

120

Saturday morning. And make sure you tell them if they want to play to bring some money with them. I’ll tell the fellows at the Academy.”

Friday at noon Tom stopped at the bank on our way home for lunch. He exchanged three dollars for nickels.

“I’ll need them to make change,” he told Frankie and me. “It is going to cost a nickel to play the wheel of fortune.”

When school let out that afternoon we went home and had cookies and milk. Then we went up to the bedroom to change into our play clothes. Tom got his bank from the clothes closet and took some money from it.

“I’m going to the Z.C.M.I. store to buy the prizes for the wheel of fortune,” he said.

“Can I come?” I asked.

“No,” Tom said. “I want you to do something. There are a lot of kids who graduated from the sixth grade who aren’t going to the Academy. You know them. Take your bike and ride around and let them know about the wheel of

fortune.”

“It seems as if I’m doing a lot of work around here for nothing,” I said. “What do I get out of all of this?”

“How about five cents?” Tom asked. “And that includes keeping the kids out of the barn tomorrow morning until I’m ready.”

“Make it a dime,” I said.

“All right,” he said handing me a dime.

I was kicking myself as I rode around letting kids know about the wheel of fortune. Tom had given me the dime so quickly I knew I could have got a quarter just by asking. It

121

was time to start doing the chores when I returned. Tom and Frankie were waiting on the back porch steps.

“It sure took you a long time,” Tom said as he stood up. “There are a heck of a lot of kids,” I said, “whose parents believe a sixth grade education is all they need. Can I see the prizes?”

“You can see them tomorrow,” Tom said.

The next morning we finished our chores in a hurry and just in time. The wheel of fortune wasn’t supposed to start until ten o’clock, but kids started coming into the corral at nine thirty. Tom went inside the barn after telling me not to let anybody in until he called out to me. The fellows kept asking me what the wheel of fortune was, but Tom had told me not to tell them.

“You’li see for yourselves in a few minutes,” I answered. It seemed like more than half an hour before Tom called for me to open the barn doors. There were about twenty-five kids waiting by then. Tom was standing behind the box table by the wheel of fortune. He gave the wheel a spin.

“Behold the wheel of fortune,” he said. “You will notice there is a number between each space on the wheel. Now, let me show you what prizes you can win if the wheel stops on the lucky number you hold.”

He walked over to the shelf where the prizes were displayed. “There are ten numbers on the wheel of fortune,” he said, “and ten numbers on the shelf. Behind each number on the shelf is the prize that number wins. For example, number one wins a genuine Spalding baseball worth thirty-five cents. Number three wins a harmonica worthy twenty-five cents. Number five wins a baseball mitt worth forty cents. Number seven wins a two-bladed pearl-handled pocket knife

122

•&• •-.

worth thirty-five cents. Number nine wins a bone-handled jackknife worth a quarter. And because there can be no los-ing numbers on a wheel of fortune, each of the other numbers wins two boxes of Cracker Jack worth ten cents with the usual prize in each box.”

Tom walked in back of the box table and picked up some playing cards which he spread out like a fan.

“Now, this is how the game is played,” he said. “I hold in my hand ten cards in the heart suit numbered from ace to ten. The ace counts as one. I shuffle the cards like this.” He shuffled the cards. “Then I lay them face down on the box table like this.” He placed the cards down one by one. “This way nobody knows what number he has until I spin the wheel of fortune. He might hold a number that can win a forty-cent prize. And again it might be a number that will only win a tencent prize. This makes it fair and square for

everybody.”

Parley thrust his head forward to ^ook at the cards. “How much does it cost to play?” he asked.

“A mere five cents,” Tom said, “to win a prize worth two times, five times, seven times, or even eight times that much-You place your nickel on top of one of the cards. As soon as I’ve collected the money, I will spin the wheel of fortune. Then you can look at your cards. All right, fellows, step right up and try your luck on the wheel of fortune.”

So many kids started pushing and shoving each other to

play Tom had to stop it.

“Take it easy,” he said. “Line up and take your turn

playing the wheel of fortune.”

Danny, Parley, Seth, and the bigger kids got to play first. They each put a nickel on a card. Tom collected the money and put it in a cigar box. Then he spun the wheel of fortune-

123

“You can look at your cards now,” he said. “And around and around she goes and where she stops nobody knows. Who will be the lucky winner? Only the wheel of fortune knows. It is slowing down now^ slower and slower, and now it has stopped. The wheel of fortune says that number nine is the lucky winner.”

Danny held up his card. “That’s me!” he shouted.

“The prize for number nine is the bone-handled jackknife,” Tom said. “Now, you fellows understand that I only carry one of each prize so you can see what you win. So instead of giving Danny the knife, I’m going to give him twenty-five cents in cash so he can buy a knife just like it at the Z.C.M.I. store.”

I had been wondering what Tom would do after somebody won a prize. I didn’t have to wonder any longer. And I knew he hadn’t gotten all those nickels at the bank just to make change. Did Danny leave the barn and go buy a jackknife? Heck no. Tom knew that by giving, cash instead of prizes most of the fellows would use the money to keep on playing instead of going to buy a prize like what they had won-After paying Danny, Tom picked up the ten cards and shuffled them. He placed the cards face down on the box table.

“Let the next ten players step up and try their luck on the wheel of fortune,” he said.

I got to play that time. I didn’t win. My friend Howard Kay won two boxes of Cracker Jack. Tom gave him two nickels instead of the prize—

The kids kept on taking turns playing until lunch time. They won prizes with every spin of the wheel. But the only one who went down to the Z.C.M-I. store and bought a pearl-

125

handled two-bladed knife with his prize money was Jimmie Peterson. The rest gambled the money right back. I lost the dime Tom had paid me plus fifteen cents on top of it and didn’t win anything.

At noon Tom announced the wheel of fortune would close for lunch but would open again at one o’clock. He took the cigar box with him when we left the barn. He kept shaking it. as if the sound of clinking coins was music to his ears.

“You are making a fortune,” I said as we walked toward the house with Frankie.

“Why not?” he asked grinning. “Every time I spin the wheel of fortune I have to make from ten cents to forty cents. And with five of the ten prizes just two boxes of Cracker Jack, it is forty cents half the time.”

“This is the best swindle your great brain ever thought up,” I said.

“If you think it is a swindle,” Tom said, “you must be dumb as a billy goat.”

For my money it was an out and out swindle. I couldn’t see anything dumb about that-

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Why did you play the wheel of fortune if you think it is a swindle?” Tom asked.

He had me there. And it was a good thing his mind was on the money in the cigar box or he would have blackmailed me into doing his share of the chores for saying it was a swindle.

Piggy banks sure took a beating during the noon hour. There were more kids playing the wheel of fortune that afternoon than there had been during the morning. Tom kept paying in cash instead of prizes, and the fellows all used

126

the money to play some more-But with Tom keeping from ten cents to forty cents of the money bet each time, it wasn’t too long before practically everybody was broke. By three thirty there were only five fellows left with any money-

“Sorry,” Tom said, “but you can’t play the wheel of fortune unless there are ten players.”

It must have been Parley Benson’s lucky day. He had won almost three dollars. Pete Kyle was also ahead of the game. Basil Kokovinis, Hal Evans, and Danny Forester still had some money left. Parley looked at Tom.

“There are five of us wanting to play,” he said. “What if each of us pay a dime and take two cards?”

That was fine with Tom. But it only took a few spins of the wheel of fortune until Danny was broke. Parley was crazy for doing it. but to keep the game going he played four cards. A few more spins of the wheel and Hal was broke. Parley tried to get Basil and Pete to each play three cards but they refused. The game ended with Parley ahead a couple of dollars and Pete had won seventy cents, but everybody else had

lost money.

I watched Tom count the money after the fellows left the barn. He was grinning when he finished.

“Except for Parley and Pete, I paid those fellows back good for making fun of my great brain,” he said grinning. “I took them for fourteen dollars and thirty cents.”

All that money made me feel a little envious. “You weren’t running a wheel of fortune,” I said. “You were running a gambling casino. And when Papa finds out you were giving cash instead of prizes he will make you give the money

back.”

Tom didn’t look worried at all. “And just how is Papa

going to find out?” he asked.

127