Five nights a week, Adam Jennings kisses his sons good night, parks his Dodge Stratus in a lot off Route 95 and boards the 7:05 bus to Foxwoods.
From 8 p.m. to 4 a.m., he deals cards in the glittering casino for games with names like Caribbean Stud, Let it Ride, and Catch a Wave. He draws cards on his left and doles out red, yellow and white chips on the right as shouts ring out across the lush red parlor. A win.
He places a miniature plastic dog, its sides smooth with wear, on the felt-top table: It's time to place a bet. Like clockwork, the half-dozen gamblers surrounding his table respond.
Three-card poker is his favorite game. "It's one of them games where you could lose for 45 minutes and in one hand win it all back."
Jennings, 36, takes a 20-minute break each hour so he doesn't get too tired on his feet. He has a choice of free hamburgers, hotdogs and pizza slices for his mid-shift meal. Between his $5-an-hour pay and tips, he makes about $160 a night.
"I don't say I'm going to work," he says. "I say I'm going to play."
Tonight he's dealing Acey Deucey. Players win when the third card drawn falls between the other two. His hand is steady, his manner cool as he coaxes gamblers to hike their wagers with lines like "how do you expect them to keep their lights on?" Their eyes fix on his hands as they place their bets.
As he works, Jennings imagines he is glimpsing at his tribe's future. He, like his uncle Mark Dove, a pit manager at Foxwoods, intends to use his gaming skills at a Narragansett Indian casino one day.
Through a dozen years working for the Mashantucket Pequots, nailing shingles to their roofs, monitoring their children playing at day care, and now dealing cards at their casino, Jennings has studied their successes and pitfalls, contemplating how he would apply those lessons in Rhode Island.
"I would much rather be working for my own tribe," Jennings says.
He estimates that half the people around his table in Pit 24 are Rhode Islanders.
JENNINGS WAS RETURNING from the Air Force as the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation opened Foxwoods in 1992.
He had enlisted to see the world, but landed in South Dakota, where he repaired B-1 bombers during the Gulf War. There he married a Sioux woman and had two sons. After seven years, he'd had enough of South Dakota's harsh winters; he decided to return to Rhode Island, the ocean, his tribe.
He and his family headed cross-country -- away from the desperate poverty of the Sioux and the Badlands.
"I decided to try to make a go of it in the real world," he says. He looked for employment in "Indian country," and took a construction job with the Pequots.
At the time, it seemed a Narragansett casino was just around the bend.
Congress had passed a law creating a framework for Indian gaming. A split within the tribe, which had killed an earlier plan for a bingo hall, was on the mend. Now, the Narragansetts announced plans for a Las Vegas-style casino on their land in Charlestown.
But they were met by a series of legal and political challenges from state leaders, capped in 1996 when Sen. John Chafee dealt the tribe its most stinging blow. Chafee sponsored a budget amendment, approved by Congress, requiring the tribe to seek state and voter approval for any high-stakes gambling plans on its 1,800 acres.
Tribal members picketed an event at which Chafee was scheduled to speak, calling the amendment a move to destroy their sovereignty. Adam Jennings and his two young sons were among the protesters.
"I want my children to always remember this night," he said. "I want them to always remember the struggle this tribe must go through for any kind of development or to achieve any kind of hope for the future."
MEANWHILE, JENNINGS was watching the Pequots build a veritable empire just over the state line in Ledyard.
Since he began working there, he has seen them build police and fire stations, a community center shaped like a bird, and a $200-million Native American museum that features an interactive Indian village. Striking stone walls, built by Narragansett masons, crisscross the reservation.
Foxwoods looms above the treetops, with gaming tables extending for acres. The casino brings in $60 million in slot revenue alone each month.
The tribe employs 13,000 people -- more than 16 times the number of tribal members. Almost 3,000 of the workers are Rhode Islanders.
The approximately 800 Pequots receive payments as high as $10,000 a month. Tribal members live in tree-studded subdivisions in houses that rival Fairfield County homes. Hulking RVs, Hummers, and Cadillac Escalades sit parked in the driveways. Swimming pools dot backyards.
The Pequots' holdings extend to Rhode Island, where they own a golf course in Richmond. So does their giving: the tribe contributed $500,000 in 2001 toward construction of the Ryan Center at the University of Rhode Island, and recently donated $250,000 in hatchery equipment to Roger Williams University.
They also provided $30,000 for the playground at the Narragansetts' Four Winds Community Center.
The Pequots are literally cousins to the Narragansetts, with many sharing ancestry. As a child, Kenneth Reels, former Pequot chairman, fished in South County ponds with his cousin Matthew Thomas, now Narragansett chief sachem. Once a Narragansett, Reels later switched his membership to the Mashantucket Pequots, their historic enemies.
Pequots can often be found at Narragansett graduations and celebrations; their Lexuses and Mercedes line South County driveways.
JENNINGS, NOW separated from his wife, lives with his sons, Jovan, 14, and Wesley, 12, and his mother, Paulla Dove Jennings, in a duplex near Arcadia Village. His grandmother, Eleanor Dove, occupies the other unit. The door between the two often hangs ajar.
A sofa, recliner and television crowd Jennings' living room. The boys do math problems at a table wedged against the wall in the kitchen and climb a narrow stairway to their bedroom.
After being laid off in 2000, Jennings worked briefly for the Narragansetts. He took a position with the tribe's historic preservation office, and spent long hours sifting through shards of pottery and inspecting test pits at construction sites. He uncovered post holes from Narragansett wigwams and his ancestors' remains facing the southwest.
The job was "a spiritual awakening," he says, but the pay was unreliable; it came from grants awarded at a project's close.
"I'm a single dad, with two kids. I need steady pay," he says.
The income from traditional Narragansett trades such as stone masonry and carpentry also seemed unreliable. Jennings enrolled in dealing school, and soon returned to the Mashantucket Pequot reservation.
"I thought I might as well get an idea how it works," he says.
Jennings wants his own tribe to enjoy economic independence, as the Pequots do. He sees the possibilities every day.
"Look at what's happening over there and look at the Narragansett tribe," he says.
IN AN IDEAL world, tribal members say, the Narragansetts would own land stretching to the shoreline and check books out of a tribal library. The poor and elderly would have their pick of houses and seek medical care at a tribal hospital.
Instead, Narragansett leaders operate out of a former lounge. The tribe's police force occupies a trailer nearby. More than 40 percent of the tribe is unemployed; the majority of those with jobs work outside the tribe.
The tribe gets about $6.5 million in federal money a year to provide services to Narragansetts living in Washington County. It needs about $20 million to truly care for its people, including those living in the Providence region, Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas says. The assistance the tribe offers lasts only as long as the federal money holds out, and competition for funding is on the rise.
It is the desire to break the tribe's dependence on taxpayer dollars that drives the Narragansetts' casino efforts, Jennings says.
"Everybody talks casino, casino, casino. It's really economic development," he says. "We want to take care of ourselves."
FOR JENNINGS, economic development means education for his boys.
"Right here, he'll be the one who benefits the most," Jennings said as Jovan walked through the door one late spring afternoon.
Jovan and his dad look alike, both with dark brown skin and short-cropped curly hair. Jovan has a ready smile and friendly way; he's inclined to say "I love you, Dad" as he passes his father's chair. Wesley is more reserved, with longer, straight hair, but he is just as eager for a game, any game, as his brother.
Wesley attends Nuweetooun School just up the road near Arcadia Village. Nuweetooun, opened by his cousin in September, emphasizes native culture and history. The learning there is experiential and hands-on, geared toward Indian children who sometimes have difficulty in public schools.
Jovan, who will be a freshman at Chariho High School next month, experienced occasional problems in middle school -- trouble his father relates to his heritage.
"Kids are going to tease. Kids are going to pick on each other -- that I understand," said Jennings, whose classmates called him "Chief" and "Redskin."
"I just wish he didn't have to go through that."
A tribal school would strengthen his sons' sense of identity, he says.
"They know the rest of the world might let them down," Jennings says. "We struggle together."
JENNINGS' BEST TIMES growing up were with his family at East Coast powwows. A photograph hanging on the living room wall shows him doing the hoop dance, with rings circling waist, arms and neck during the 1970s.
Jennings says his dancing days have ended, but his sons are learning steps from their cousins. They follow tips like "tell a story with your dance" and "end with the last drum beat with both feet on the ground" and "honor the Creator through dance with prayer."
Wesley and Jovan spent a recent Sunday afternoon with about 20 tribal members at a Narragansett social. The group, which spanned all ages, did the duck dance. "Hunters" trapped "ducks" between their arms as they circled in opposite directions. And then there was the turkey dance. Dancers dipped their heads low pretending to peck for corn. The men thrust their chests out as a preening male turkey would and circled around the ladies when the drum beat changed.
Everyone at the social divided into two teams to play "hub bub." Four dried lima beans marked with a red line on one side were placed in a wooden bowl. Competitors hit the bowl against the ground three times fast to see how many beans flipped to expose the line. The player with the most red lines showing won. Wesley and Jovan hovered close to the bowl, watching every move and cheering encouragement.
Games of chance, some Narragansetts say, is an Indian tradition.
JENNINGS RETURNS at dawn each morning as the birds awaken in the trees surrounding his home.
He trolls the Internet and cable news channels as his sons get ready for school. He reads local papers online, and Indian Web sites, scouring for news, particularly about Indians. One thing is clear, he says: gaming brings tribes money and with wealth comes power.
"If you're making money, you get a little respect," he says.
Despite his tribe's struggles, Jennings doesn't ask "why not me?" -- even as he works amidst the Pequots' phenomenal wealth.
"I've just always taken what the Great Spirit has given me," he says.
He guesses that his life would remain pretty much the same in grudgingly contemplating life without a Narragansett casino.
It's his sons' future that sets him wondering. Will they have to seek their livelihood far from home?
"A casino," he says, "would secure their future as Narragansett Indians."
