The Gambler

1

So,

what are you gonna do for me?

We're going to be straight

that I've had it.

What do you say to the fact that...

I'm gonna die?

I'm going to miss you.

F*** that.

I won't know about that.

I need to know

what you're worth

when I leave you nothing.

Who wants the world at their feet?

It's confusing, isn't it?

I'll do the best I can.

You can go knowing that, okay?

You're me now...

If you'll have it.

$10,000?

Player wins.

$20,000?

Player wins.

$40,000?

Player wins.

Again.

Again!

Double it. Make it $80,000.

Come on. Mister Lee can cover

a lot more than that, buddy.

You must be new. Double it!

$80,000.

I hope you paid your rent, homes.

I don't pay rent, homes.

What's up, man? You got a problem?

Issue of some kind?

Yeah, I don't like your f***ing hat.

You know, I think you kinda

wanted me to have an issue,

so I thought of that one.

I'll see you outside, my friend.

Oh, we all got to go

outside sometime, brother.

This place is just a dream.

You a gambler?

Not like you.

You want to f*** around

or you want to cut cards

for my last $500?

I'll put 10 grand against your $500.

I haven't got 10 grand.

That's an unequal bet.

It's a unequal general situation.

Well, f*** it. Get a deck.

That's funny, no?

I thought you wanted my business card.

Congratulations.

I know you.

I think you're the kind of guy

that likes to lose.

Life's a losing proposition, right?

You might as well get it over with.

- Need a stake?

- You like staking losers?

I know how you guys stake people.

Then you know everything.

Your luck is no good tonight.

Oh, that depends,

if you give me another $10,000 credit.

You came in with $10,000 in cash.

You didn't give it to me.

Well, I mean, this is

a gambling establishment.

Have I ever not paid you?

Eventually a debt gets too big to pay.

You owe me $240,000

and I want it in seven days.

He took it, man.

Stake me 50 grand.

At 20 points.

Give him 50 grand.

You make sure my man

over here has your digits and so forth.

I feel better about your hat.

This motherf***er.

There's 40. I'm going to

keep back 10, okay?

You know, you can take the whole 50

against my vig,

but this is a gambling establishment.

I came to play.

Just one blue $10,000 marker, please.

No, no.

Don't look at anyone.

You look at me. Just do it.

Another satisfied customer.

Let's play the two.

$20,000?

He doesn't want you to look at him.

Just keep dealing the cards.

$40,000.

I'm good.

Take it.

Player wins.

Don't look at him. There's no limit.

He wants to f*** or fight,

and I'm not interested in either.

So, please, just deal the cards.

- It's for your protection.

- For my protection?

F*** my protection.

You don't come here

for f***ing protection from yourself.

You come for the f***ing opposite.

And here I am.

So, please, deal the cards.

Thank you.

$80,000.

Player wins.

No more bets.

You got me feeling lucky.

I'm putting everything on black.

Red's been coming up all night.

You want me to pay you now?

Is that what you want me to do?

- No.

- Why not?

Maybe I enjoy watching the show.

What about ripping me off outside

if I win?

Not in that business, brother.

Everything on black.

No more bets.

Nineteen, red.

Float me some spending money.

That's at 20 points, too.

First public notice that was

ever made of Shakespeare

was from a Grub Street writer,

Robert Greene,

who called him an "upstart crow

"beautified with our feathers,"

in the book...

In the book,

under that title on the board.

Is the beautified feathers thing because

Greene knew that Shakespeare

was the Earl of Oxford?

Absolutely...

Not.

Not even close!

I...

The Earl of Oxford

published poetry, okay?

And it wasn't any good.

I mean, had Oxford been

able to get a play put on,

he'd have broken a leg to do it.

I mean, can you think

of any human being

that would, for any reason,

not put his name on Hamlet?

The Oxfordian thing.

The anti-Stratfordian thing.

What pisses people off

about Shakespeare...

What lies behind every controversy

about Shakespeare

is rage.

Rage over the nature

and unequal distribution of talent.

The rage that genius appears

where it appears

for no material reason at all.

Desiring a thing

cannot make you have it.

Now, the trouble with writing,

if I may bring it up here

in the English Department...

...is we all do a little of it

from time to time, writing.

And some of us start to think,

delusionally,

maybe with a little time,

a little peace, a little money in the bank,

and you get that room of your own,

you think, "Well, sh*t,

"I might be a writer, too."

I mean, we accept genius in sports

as something we cannot do.

But it's no more likely that

you could be a writer that

you could be what?

An Olympic pole-vaulter?

Because what you have to be

before you try to be a pole-vaulter...

Hello! Is a pole-vaulter, no?

- Yeah!

- You are one.

- A pole-vaulter?

- A novelist.

No, I am not. For me to be a novelist,

I would have to make a deal with myself,

that it was okay being

a mediocrity in a profession

that died commercially

in the last century.

All right, people do that.

I am not one of them.

If you take away nothing else

from my class,

from this experience, let it be this...

If you're not a genius,

don't bother, all right?

The world needs plenty of electricians,

and a lot of them are happy.

I'll be f***ed if I'll be a mid-list

novelist getting good reviews

from the people I give good reviews to.

Let's have a look at Dexter. Dexter!

An ordinary-looking young man

with a what?

Size 40 jacket, regular features,

and decent dentition,

is the second-ranked

collegiate tennis player

in the United States of America.

How did that come about, Dexter?

You come from a tennis family?

Well, I mean,

I started playing

five years ago in high school

'cause the tennis guys

have the best weed.

After you started tennis, how long was it

before you were better than everybody?

Before I was better than everybody,

or before I knew it?

What happened when you noticed

you were naturally

better than everybody?

I...

I got interested in the game.

That is an IQ break point,

brother. Right there!

Do you remember Machiavelli?

That would have been in September.

Man.

I can remember September.

All right.

Is it the game, brother, or the money?

Virtu or fama? Fame or virtue?

What are you after?

Don't go modest on me.

What do you want?

Both.

You got ambitious, yeah?

I realised, as I learned about the game,

that I was in reach of...

In reach of...

In reach of...

Highest level?

Highest level, yeah.

Highest level.

But it's still a gamble, isn't it?

Look, I'm a literature teacher.

I can't write well enough to bother,

or I just don't bother, whichever.

Whichever it is, there'll be

no apotheosis around here.

There'll be no "Vae, puto, deus fio!"

around here.

That's what Emperor Vespasian

said on his deathbed,

"Dear me, I think I'm becoming a god."

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