Collider World | Peter's Log

2014 | Carlos Vera

A couple of years ago I had it all. 

A big car, fancy clothes, hot girls, revering friends and money. Big money.

In 2012 I won the poker championship in Santillo Casino in Vegas, which actually came as little surprise to me. I’d been a player since the age of 5 and a professional gambler since the age of 17, and my inborn talent has always seemed to be paired with an insane amount of luck.  Talent and luck - a several million dollars cocktail that soon turned me in one of the youngest poker champions in Spain and then Europe. Therefore winning the Las Vegas championship was only a matter of time, I guess. 

Luck and talent was definitely not something I was worried about. But with 7 million dollars in my pocket a lot could go wrong.

My name’s Carlos Vera. I grew up in Barcelona, borrowed son of all the con artists, magicians, human statues, dancers and buskers that populated the city streets. My mother worked very hard as a maid in a hotel in the city center, so she couldn’t always be around to take care of me. That’s why during the day she would let me stay with our neighbors, Raoul and Paloma, a couple of middle aged street artists with a pretty evident drinking problem, which didn’t make them exactly the most reliable people in the entire neighborhood. But they were the only ones who agreed to keep an eye on me during my mother’s absence, and I think that it was fair enough for her. It’s from them that I learned how to play cards, along with all the trades, including all kind of con games and scam. I even pickpocketed for a while, and I was starting to scrape together a pretty sum of money when my mother found out and gave me the most epic beating of my life. Which was followed by a rushed move to the other side of the city, to an area which was supposed to be “more convenient for kids” - as my mother said. I stared at her with hollow eyes, while she frantically tucked all my clothes and toys in shabby cardboard boxes, alternating curse words and pleas to different Saints to save me from those “devilishly gambling activities”. 

I didn’t say a word. Just stood and stare, thinking about my brand new deck of cards artfully hidden in the tummy of the battered teddy bear my mother just locked inside the last box. 

I reckon I owe a big amount of my talent to the precious teachings of Paloma and Raoul – who by the way ended their days in jail for exploitation of child labor and for inducing children to street crime.

But my luck… Well, my luck has a completely different origin.

One day, I must have been around 9 years old, I was walking down La Rambla when I noticed an artist I had never seen before. He stood out from the other street performers and buskers not only for his peculiar costume – which included a long dark cape, a wide brim hat and a white doll mask that covered his entire face, except for two little holes at the level of the eyes – but also for the aura of mystery and solemnity that emanated from him. Several other people stopped, seemingly catalyzed by that strange man, who actually did nothing special, just stood still, folded in his cape, his head slightly bent forward, breathing. Then he suddenly started speaking.

And he spoke about Luck. He said that, contrary to popular belief, Luck is not a supernatural force that occurs beyond one's control; it’s not even a blessing emanated by some whimsical god, or a fortuitous and perhaps improbable chain of events that happen as pure coincidence.

No – he said – Luck is a destiny, and it belongs by natural election to a few people only, who have been designated at the beginning of all time. Luck is not hasty; it knows when it’s time to reveal itself to each of those appointed people, and it knows when it’s time to go. Cause – he took a long breath - Luck has always a reason. 

I was hypnotized by that man’s speech. He spoke with an odd accent that I couldn’t identify, and his voice was deep and warm, somehow soothing.

Finally he raised his head. He examined the public's faces with his piercing eyes, as if he was searching for something. Or someone. Then he stopped on me. I gulped, as if I knew something was going to happen. He seemed unable to go on with any speech. He stared at me and I felt like he wanted to say something special, just to me. But he didn’t say anything. He just spread his arms open and a cloud of smoke suddenly wrapped him. When the smoke finally dissolved, he was gone.

All the spectators moved along, as if nothing had happened. I was about to do the same, when, on the ground, exactly on the spot where the man was standing, I spotted something. I got closer and saw it was a shimmering golden coin, partly scraped by time and usage. Nothing special. 

Nothing except for the fact that it had my initials carved on both faces.

I never saw the masked man again, and sometimes I still wandered if what he was saying was just a good load of bullshit. But from that day on whenever I had to make a difficult decision I’d flip my coin and make the call.  And all of a sudden things started to go quite right. 

I left home at age 17 to become a professional gambler and I kept using my lucky coin to make my way through life. I had the confidence of a God and the determination of a trickster. Nothing could go wrong. For years this was my system and it was a pretty infallible system.

As I said, poker was my first and biggest passion. Naturally, I had my ups and downs. Gambling wasn’t a line of work that provided a lot of stability but I wasn’t much of a fan of stability anyway. But as years passed by, things started to go better and better; incredible as it may sound, Luck actually seemed to have picked me, and the coin was its token. In a few years I managed to accumulate a not-so-shabby fortune. I had everything I ever wanted and even more. 

In the gambling circles I was known as Mr. Lucky. The other players respected and feared me. And with my coin in my pocket I felt like nothing could harm me.  Luck had elected me and I was determined to make the most of this election. 

But on New Year’s Eve 2013 my luck ran out.

That night at the Casino I felt utterly confident I would win a big amount of money. I ordered champagne and reached the roulette table. I looked proudly around and noticed that the crowd was going crazy, inciting me to bet. Someone from the crowed dared me to bet everything.

Why not? I thought, after all my lucky coin had never let me down. I swallowed my champagne and I flipped my coin. Then I bet all my fortune on red. The crowd cheered and I felt some female hands wrapping my neck. It was going to be a great night! The wheel suddenly catalyzed everyone’s attention. It was looking good, the roulette was slowly coming to a stop and it looked like red, definitely red. A smirk crossed my face. I was already celebrating when at the last moment the ball jumped. 

Into the black slot. 

I lost all my fortune. All in one bloody roulette game!

The next few months were tough. All my life, I had trusted in Luck, and then eventually it failed me. I persuaded myself that it was just a moment, that I’d soon get back on track, becoming again the winner I used to be. But apparently Luck had decided to move elsewhere.

I played again, and again, and again. But I always lost. Until the day I run completely out of money and ideas. For weeks I couldn’t touch a deck of cards or any game of chance, whatever it was. But I was never one to give up, and suddenly I remembered what Raoul used to say, that if you're smart enough you can produce money out of thin air - a motto I firmly decided to make my own. So even without my luck I decided I would manage to survive out of nothing using only my charm and my con skills. Where Luck failed, deception would thrive.

In a few months I became a pretty talented conman, a professional trickster able to make a living by swindling people out of their money. It doesn’t sound like the most noble of art, does it? But a man has to live out of something. And all I could do, all I had always done, was playing. I managed to carry on quite well and I was also starting to rake up some pretty sum of money.

Until the day I conned the wrong person.

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