Showdown in Spicetown, showered by the rain.
Somebody else, somewhere, must have called up the burgercops, because now the beefy sirens were singing harmony to the night, mashing it up with their big scarlet ‘W’ sign, flashing like a neon menu.
And all the glittering blurbflies were swarming, buzzing the fighting mob with messages: ‘Breathe Our Air! Play Dominoes! Eat Whoomphy MegaBurgers! Suck Chocolate! Pseudosoup! Bank accounts! The latest sex star! The latest song by Frank Scenario! The latest burger-image from the cops! The dance of Cookie Luck! The Virtues of For Ever! Downfall of Hope! Tinsel Time! Burgerball and Domidome!’ Can you guess who won?
Play to win
Daisy Love heard the commotion from her room above the curry house, tried her best to ignore the usual Friday-night trouble and the sirens and the screams and the pitches of the blurbflies, and then spent the rest of the night working on her latest chaotic equations. The chances of this, and the chances of that; the chances of living and loving.
And when the telephone rang, well, she was torn awake from numberland. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked.
‘It’s me,’ answered the phone. ‘Your father.’
‘Who?’
‘Jimmy Love, you remember? So nice to hear your voice.’
‘Who is this, please, some kind of joker?’
‘Guess so.’
Daisy banged down the phone, back to work. Really, she should’ve been asleep by now. On Saturdays she worked in a bookshop, and it wouldn’t do to turn up docile. But her father had called to her from far away. Shit! he’d actually called her! Had he really called her? After so many years.
And after she’d told everybody that her father was dead.
This was the only reason she had gained the sponsorship from Max Hackle, because both her mother and father were dead. Orphan money pay-off.
Her mother really was dead, but her father wasn’t. Not yet. He was just ignored, lied about. Too many memories, too many dreams, unappreciated.
Her father had been a great mathematician, if only an amateur, the muse kept hidden. In reality, Jimmy Love was a plumber, but every night he would come home dirty, to work on his numbers alone. Never letting the Daisy in.
Horrible thought, but Daisy was drawn backwards, towards the memories. Back to when she was a young kid, aged seven and a half, playing the dominoes with her father. Her mother already dead.
A child who would hardly speak, her father forced to take up her education. Utilizing the old-style dominoes, a cheap and black plastic set of numbers.
PLAY THE RULES (HISTORY)
7a. There are twenty-eight pieces in a standard domino set, ranging from the double-blank to the double-six, containing all permutations of the numbers between, paired across a centre line. In total, 168 dots in play.
7b. In the old game, each player chose five dominoes to begin. The player with the highest double played first. Each player played in turn to match an exposed number, until they could play no more. They would then knock on the table and choose from the draw-pile, which was the pile of dominoes still waiting. They would draw until they found a playable piece. The winner was the first player to get rid of all his pieces.
7c. Some believe that the ancient Egyptians played a similar game of numbers, carved on human bone. Others believe it a medieval invention, an offshoot of the memento mori fashion accessory, fragments of a portable skull. The game, as described in rule 7b, came to light in the eighteenth century, in Italy. The dominoes were carved from ivory, from which comes the vulgar name.
7d. The Company may take its imagery and devices from the historical game. The new rules, however, shall be of its own devising, and are herein contained.
7e. The proper name of the game comes from the Latin: God the father, Christ the son: Dominus. Anno Domini, the year of our Lord. So the game has always had a religious attitude. Or else it refers to the Italian word for master: domino. Which word was shouted aloud by the winner: domino! Meaning, ‘I have won! I am the master!’
7f. No such outburst by present-day winners shall be permitted, except during the first ten minutes after the result.
Play to win
Backwards, in time. ‘Domino! I’ve won! Daisy, I’m the master!’ Her father takes a winning swig from his whisky, and Daisy throws her remaining bones onto the living-room floor in a sudden tantrum.
The numbers, the beautiful numbers, a rain of losing dots.
‘Daisy, my love,’ her father says, ‘you are such a bad loser.’
‘Nah, nah, nah!’ cries Daisy.
‘You’ve got to learn how to play to win, my child. Just because you’ve only got half of a brain, that doesn’t mean you—’
‘Nah, nah!’