Ronnie. She was the only one to get the coyote out of my basement. She was my therapist for 10 years, then I outgrew her. She got me working (so I could pay) and she got me to stop drinking. I wasn't gambling at the time. In return, she was supposed to love me for my beatific honesty. She didn't.

But I never really bloomed until I quit gambling by enrolling in Gambler's Anonymous. So much for me: "Vaseball," my friend John Calloway wrote,"is sort of like baseball but instead of hitting a baseball with a bat, you hit an old vase." I was vaseball.