The Casino Billionaire

 “Dammit Shawna, I told you not to go back there again!” Knowing that yelling at her would do no good seeing the state that she is in at this moment. All I can do is hold her close and try to gently rub the blood from her face with this warm washcloth.     Shawna and I have been best friends and then became roommates after high school for the past fifteen years. She has been there for me through the roughest times of my life and me, her. She has been struggling with this gambling addiction for quite some time now and I just do not know what to do to help her. We have tried going cold turkey, meetings, gamblers anonymous and anything else I could think of. Nothing worked. She would sneak out and blow our rent money or any other money we were saving for bills and blow it. We went for three months without electricity because she kept stealing the money, I thought I had hidden well to pay off the late bill. She infuriates me, cannot give up on her though. She would never give up on me.    For some reason, she keeps going back to that same casino knowing full well she is going to lose and they will be happy to oblige her begging for a line of credit, surely with evil grins as she walks out to lose that money also. Those assholes are more than happy to take the payment out on her body, raping and beating it until they feel she has paid them back in full. The place is rigged I swear. No one I’ve spoken to has ever come out a winner from that place. I cannot be here to watch her 24/7. It so frustrates me that she goes back for more. It pisses me off that the owner allows those bullies to do these disgusting things to people for the fun of it. Guess that is how he became the richest man in the city. It is strange no has ever seen him. Well, tomorrow he will be seeing me whether he likes it or not. Enough is enough.    “Jen, help me, please, help me.” Shawna’s voice a whisper. Her lips are so swollen, her eyes so bruised they are barely open, clothes ripped to shreds. Tears well up in my eyes as I lay her beaten body on the couch to go grab a bag of something frozen from the kitchen to put on her face. This has got to stop. She has a problem and letting them do this to her just makes her addiction worse.    “How much Shawna? How much money was it this time? Did you spend our rent money?” Letting out a low grunt as I tossed the bag of frozen vegetables to her remembering that jar of rainy-day money that we have been stashing away for a much-needed trip this summer. There were at least a couple thousand dollars in that jar so far.    Reaching deep into the closet for the jar finding its way to easy to lift it. All I could do is start screaming. “I WORK IN THAT s**t HOLE SIX DAYS A WEEK FOR CRAP MONEY! COME HOME SMELLING LIKE ASS, HAIR FULL OF GREASE, NAILS AWAYS DIRTY, MY SKIN NEVER FEELS CLEAN FOR YOU TO TAKE THE ONE THING THAT MAKES ME EVEN GET UP AND GO THERE EVERY DAY! THAT TRIP! THAT TRIP WAS MY DREAM! NOW IT IS GONE!”    Shawna starts to whimper and then cry out harder from the pain of trying to breathe in. Running over to her, I take her into my arms and begin rocking her silently apologizing. The neighbor ponds on the wall. Guess we are being too loud for him, “f**k OFF CHARLIE!”, I yell with a wave of anger in my voice that would make a little kid run off screaming. The pounding abruptly stopped. I continued to rock Shawna cooing in her ear doing my best to calm her so her breathing would level out and she would stop crying out in pain. They did a number on her this time. “How many were there this time?”    “Four.” Her body went limp. She passed out from the pain. Worry that they had broken her ribs or worse rushes over me. She is panting not able to take in any deep breaths.    After making her as comfortable as possible. I went into the kitchen and made myself something to eat. Still infuriated, my poor sandwich looked like it had been through a war. Leaning against the counter watching Shawna sleep, noticing more bruises begin to emerge on her skin. You can now clearly see the handprint of a large man on her neck, her arm, and her cheek. A shiver runs down my spine while anger rushes back up. Throwing my plate in the sink, I go to shower the nasty workday from my body and go hit the sack. Tomorrow is going to be one to remember.