Hillbilly Elegy

a week on small-stakes tables, earning
four hundred dollars a month. I had
planned to save that money, but instead I
gave it to Mamaw for her health
insurance. Mamaw, naturally, worried
that I had picked up a gambling habit and
was playing cards in some mountain
trailer with a bunch of card-sharking
hillbillies, but I assured her that it was
online and legitimate. “Well, you know I
don’t understand the fucking Internet.
Just don’t turn to booze and women.
That’s always what happens to dipshits
who get caught up in gambling.”
Mamaw and I both loved the movie
Terminator 2. We probably watched it
together five or six times. Mamaw saw