GG Francois

Beth Francois inherited her pierement from the uncle who ran it before her: two and a half tons of mechanical street organ, named Dikke Bertha, and hers to crank through the Amsterdam squares every dry Saturday since. She restores the punched music books herself, at a kitchen table permanently dusted with paper confetti. Backgammon is the organ-men's waiting game, played in the depot among the sleeping machines. She plays on feeling and nothing else. The cube goes over because the moment sounds right, a good roll lands like a tune coming out clean, and a bad one like the organ going flat mid-bar. She joined the club for the sponsored chips, which she carries to the cash tables and loses, cheerfully, at no cost to herself. She has been quite open about this being the arrangement she was hoping for. The sponsorship refills monthly and she is through it inside a week, every month, and she has never once asked whether the two numbers are supposed to match.