Forget to Remember

hates football. That’s one reason Adam goes to the bar to watch football. Besides, she has to stay home with their kids.”
    Yeah, and what if she got wind of Adam being out on the town in a threesome that included a mysterious babe while she was home with the kids? Carol understood how that might go over like a lead balloon. Still, she liked being with Rigo. She would be with him, not Adam.
    “Sure, I’ll go. Why not?”
    ***
    Carol leaned closer to Adam to hear what he was shouting over the noise. The crowd was raucous. Half a dozen big-screen TVs were scattered throughout the large bar, located in one of the beach cities—she wasn’t sure which one—and the patrons were cheering on almost every play.
    She had just about decided she didn’t care for football all that much, which confirmed the feeling she’d had at the high school game they’d attended. She was more interested in watching the antics of the patrons. Adam tried speaking again, putting his mouth almost against Carol’s ear.
    “I’m glad you’ve returned. You’re good for Rigo. Ever since he broke up with his girlfriend he’s been in the dumps. That and his job situation.”
    This was the first she’d heard about a girlfriend. “When did they break up?”
    “It was over a month ago. They’d been going together for a couple of years.”
    If Adam was so happy she was there for Rigo, why was he pressing his leg against hers? At least she was wearing jeans. She spotted Rigo returning from the restroom and used that as an excuse to turn away from Adam. Rigo sat down on the other side of her. They were crowded together at the large table, and it was difficult to maintain any separation, but she would rather play kneesy with Rigo than Adam.
    Pennants representing various athletic teams hung on the walls and from the ceiling. Carol didn’t see any football pennants representing a Los Angeles team. She asked Rigo about this; he told her Los Angeles hadn’t had a professional football team since the Rams went to St. Louis. If that was the case, why was everybody here so excited about football?
    Carol was being careful about the amount of beer she drank. It came in pitchers, and it was easy to sip it constantly. As soon as her glass ran low, Adam refilled it. From her experience in drinking wine with Paul, she knew she wasn’t a big drinker. She’d been careful drinking with him, but even so she had developed a buzz after several glasses. Rigo was limiting his intake, but Adam was steadily putting it away. She was glad Rigo was driving.
    At halftime, somebody on the other side of the table pulled out a deck of cards and arranged some of them in a pattern on the tabletop. He and the person next to him alternately took cards away. When there were no cards left, money changed hands. Carol had decided from her backgammon experience she liked to play games. She asked Rigo what was happening.
    He leaned close to her. “The cards are laid out in rows. On your turn you remove one or more cards from a single row. The person who removes the last card wins.”
    “That doesn’t sound too difficult.”
    “The only times I’ve tried it I’ve lost money.”
    “There must be a logical approach to the game.”
    “I was told by someone you convert the number of cards in each row to binary, then arrange the binary numbers as if you’re going to add them. Binary is just ones and zeroes. You count the binary ones in each column. After you make your move, there should be an even number of binary ones—or none—in each column. I can’t do all that in my head.”
    Carol thought about it. Yes, she did understand binary. Ones and zeroes, just like how a computer thought. The game sounded familiar. She grabbed some empty glasses and arranged them in a simple pattern: 3-3. The binary equivalent of 3 was 11. If you arranged 11 and 11 vertically in order to add them, each column contained two 1s—an even number. Therefore, 3-3 must be a winning combination. She tried removing various numbers of glasses and soon proved to herself that it was.
    She focused her attention on the game across the table and found she could calculate winning combinations rapidly in her head. The men playing were making mistakes. She could beat them. She turned to Rigo and spoke in his ear.
    “I’ve played this game before. I can beat those guys.”
    Rigo looked at her, surprised, and then thought about it. He grinned. “I bet you can.” He pulled a five dollar bill out of his