by James Jones
Then, finally, they begin to pay and you can see the line moving very slowly up ahead of you, until you stand in the doorway of the dim messhall yourself while the man in front of you gets paid, until they call your last name and you answer with your first name, middle initial and serial number and step up to Dynamite and salute, standing stiffly while he looks you over and you show your fingernails and he, satisfied, pays you off, tossing you one of his pat jokes like, “Save enough back to go to town on” or “Dont drink all this up in one place.” Oh, he is a soldier, Dynamite, a soldier of the old school, Dynamite. And then holding this money (less laundry, less insurance, less allotment if any, less the $1 to the Company Fund) that it took you all month to earn and that they are giving you the rest of this day off to spend, you move down the long blanket covered table to The Warden who collects for PX checks and show checks you have drawn during the month and that you really did not mean to draw at all (promised yourself, last Payday, you would not draw, this month) but drew somehow anyway when they came out on the 10th and the 20th. Then out through the kitchen to the porch where the heavy capital of the financial wizards of twenty per cent men like Jim O’Hayer and Turp Thornhill and, to a lesser extent that is really only a hobby, Champ Wilson, takes its toll also from the dwindling pile.
Payday. It is truly an occasion, even the feud between you and the jockstraps is in eclipse when its Payday. In the long, low ceilinged shadiness of the squadroom with the sun very bright outside men are stripping off the suntans feverishly and pulling on the civilians and you know there will not be very many for chow this noon, practically none tonight except for losing gamblers.
Out of his $30.00, after the debts were paid, Prew had exactly $12.00 and two dimes. This, which would not even buy Lorene for one all night session, he blessed and genuflected over and took over to O’Hayer’s.
The sheds, across the street from the dayroom and jerry-built on the strip of worn near-bald earth between the street and the narrow gauge Post railroad, were already going full blast. The quarter-ton maintenance trucks had been moved to the regimental motor park, the big spools of phone wire were neatly stacked outside, the 37mm anti-tank guns (some the old short-barrelled steel-wheeled that were familiar, some the new long-barrelled rubber-tired looking strange and foreign like the pictures of the German arms in Life Magazine) had been rolled out and covered up with tarps, and the spielers hired for a buck an hour called unceasingly like circus barkers from before each shed to “Come inside, boys. Poker, blackjack, craps, chuckaluck, all inside. Test that luck, boys.”
In O’Hayer’s all five lima-bean-shaped blackjack tables were working full capacity. Under the green shaded lights green visored dealers called the cards in monotonous low voices against the hum. Both dice tables were crowded three deep with players, and the three poker tables that were dealing only stud today to take care of more players had no seats open.
Standing in the door he thought how by the middle of the month all this money would have sifted down into the hands of a few heavy winners who would be at this table where O’Hayer sat playing now, one of his hired help dealing. They would be winners from all over, from as far away as Hickam and Fort Kam and Shatter and Fort Ruger. They would make this the biggest game on the Inland Post, if not on the whole Rock. The thought made his belly flutter, how he might with luck be one of them. He had done it once before, but only once, at Myer. And the resolution to win just enough for town and quit grew dim and wavered and, but for his stiff determination bolstered by the picture of Lorene, would have fled entirely.
He worked methodically with small bets for two hours at a blackjack table (deliberately monotonously, deliberately uninspired) to run his twelve bucks up to the twenty which was the take-out at the poker tables. Then he moved over to the one where O’Hayer was to wait for an open seat, winch would never be long on Payday when most of the players were just small fry like himself with a table stake wanting to bite into the big boys’ capital. They were constantly going broke and dropping out. He waited without excitement, promising himself faithfully that if he won two hands he’d quit, because two wins in this game would give him plenty for tonight with enough left over for a good weekend (today was Thursday) or Saturday night and Sunday night (and maybe Sunday day, if she said okay, maybe at the beach with her) with Lorene. Just two wins. He had it all figured out.
The round green felt with a bite cut out for the dealer’s seat was strewn with piles of halfdollars and cartwheels and the red plastic two-bit chips for ante-ing. They caught and threw back sardonically the greenglass-shaded light, vividly red and silver against the soft light-absorbing felt. He could see The Warden and Stark among the players. Jim O’Hayer sat relaxed with a rakish, expensive green visor cocked over the coldly rigidly mathematical eyes, constantly rolling two cartwheels one over the other with a click that ate into the nerves.
It was Stark, his hat tipped low over his eyes, who finally pushed back his four legged mess stool and gave himself the coup de grace: “Seat open.”
“You aint quittin?” O’Hayer said softly.
“Not for long,” Stark said, looking at him reflectively. “Just till I borry some money.”
“See you then,” O’Hayer grinned. “Good luck with it.”
“Well now thank you, Jim,” Stark said.
Stark, some kibitzer whispered, had in the last hour dropped the whole $600 he had managed to build up since ten o’clock. Stark stared at him and he subsided, and Stark elbowed slowly out through the press, still looking reflective.
Prew slid onto the empty $600 seat wondering darkly if this was an omen and pushed his little ten and two fives over to the dealer as unobtrusively as possible. The money boys kept the takeout low on Payday, so you could get in, but they stared at your twenty bucks contemptuously, when you did. He got back a stack of 15 cartwheels, 6 halves, and 8 of the plastic chips and fingering them did not any longer mind the contempt because the old familiar alchemy, the best drug of them all against this life, spread over him as he flipped a red chip in there with the others. His heart was beating faster with louder, more emphatic thumps, echoing in his ears. The gambler’s flush was spreading across his face, making it feverish. The bottom of his belly dropped away from under him leaving him standing on the edge of which the world stopped moving.
Here, he thought, just here, and only here, held in these pieces of pasteboard being tossed facedown around the table, governed by whatever Laws or fickle Goddess moved them, here lay infinity and the secret of all life and death, what the scientists were seeking, here under your hand if you could only grasp it, penetrate the unreadability. You may shortly win $1000. You may more shortly be completely broke. And any man who could just only learn to understand the reason why would be shaking hands with God. They were playing table stakes and in front of the winners lay thick piles of greenbacks weighted down with silver. The sight of all this crisp green paper that was so important in this life swept him with a greediness to take these crinkly good smelling pieces of paper to himself, not for what they would buy but for their lovely selves. All this was contained in the slow, measured, inexorable dropping of the cards, like time beating slowly but irresistibly in the ears of an old man.
Around the table twice, twice ten cards, once down, once up. Somebody’s watch beat loudly. And the known familiar faces took on new characteristics and became strange. The bright light cast strange shadows down from the impassive brows and noses, making of each man an eyeless harelip. He did not know these men. That was not Warden there or O’Hayer there, only a pair of bodyless hands moving the top card under the holecard for a secret look, only an armless hand clicking a stack of halves down one on top the other, then lifting all and clicking them down again, and again, perpetually, with measured thoughtfulness. An unreasoning thrill passed down his spine, and all the unpleasantness his life had become in the last two months fell away from him, dead, forgotten.
The first hand was a big one. He had hoped for a small one, his
$20 would not go far in this game. But the cards were high, and the betting heavy. He had jacks backed up and by the third round he was all in, for the side pot his twenty shared, unable because this was table stakes to go into his pocket for more money if he had it which he did not. The pot he could win was shoved to one side and the betting went on in the center, and all he could do was sit and sweat it out. On the fourth card O’Hayer caught the ace to match his holecard that all of them knew he had because Jim O’Hayer never stayed for fun. He raised fifteen. Prew’s belly sagged and he looked at his jacks ruefully and was very glad he was all in for the pot. But on the last card he caught another jack, making a pair showing. He felt his heart skip a beat and cursed silently because he was all in for the pot.
There was nearly a hundred and fifty in his pot. O’Hayer won the other, the smaller pot. Warden looked at O’Hayer and then at him and snorted his disgust. Prew grinned, dragging in his pot, and reminded himself that if he won the next one he would quit and check out and Warden could really snort then.
He didnt need to win the next one. What he had from the first was plenty. But he had promised himself two hands, not one, so he stayed in. But he did not win the second hand, Warden won it, and he had dropped $40 which left him only about a hundred and now he felt he needed the second win before he dropped out so he stayed in. But he did not win the third hand either, or the fourth, nor did he win the fifth. He dropped clear down to less than $50, before he finally won another one.
Raking in the money he sighed off the tenseness that had grown in him in ratio to the shrinking of his capital; he had begun to believe he would never win another one. But now though he had a real backlog to work from. The second win put him up to over two hundred. Two hundred was plenty capital. And he began to play careful, weighing each bet. He played shirtfront poker, enjoying it immensely, completely lost in loving it, in matching his brain against the disembodied brains against him. It was true poker, hard monotonous unthrilling, and he truly loved it, and played steadily, losing only a little, dropping out often, winning a small one now and then, playing now against the time when he would win that really big one and check out.
He knew of course all the time that it could not go on indefinitely this way, $200 was no reserve to put up against the capital in this game, but then all he wanted was just one more big win like the first two, one that would be bigger because now he had more money, one he could quit on and check out for good. If he had won the first two like he promised he would have quit then but he hadnt won them he had only won one and now he wanted this last one the one to quit on, before he finally got caught.
But before the big win he was just waiting for to quit on came they caught him, they caught him good.
He had tens backed up, a good hand. On the fourth card he drew another. On the same card Warden paired kings showing. Warden checked to the tens. Prew was cautious, they were not trying to play dirty poker in this game but with this much on the table anything went. Warden might have trips and he was not being sucked in, he was not that green. When the bet had checked clear around to him he raised lightly, very lightly, just a touch, a feeler, a protection bet he could afford to abandon and lose. Three men dropped out right away. Only O’Hayer and Warden called, finally. O’Hayer obviously had an ace paired to his holecard and was willing to pay for the chance to catch the third. O’Hayer was a percentage man, twenty percentage man, O’Hayer. And Warden who thought quite a while before he called looked at his holecard twice and then he almost didnt call, so he had no trips.
On the last card O’Hayer missed his ace and dropped out, indifferently. O’Hayer could always afford to drop out indifferently. Warden with his kings still high checked it to Prew, and Prew felt a salve of relief grease over him for sure now Warden had no trips. Warden had two pair and hoped the kings would nose him out since O’Hayer had two bullets. Well, if he wanted to see them he could by god pay for seeing them, like everybody else, and Prew bet twenty-five, figuring to milk the last drop out of him, figuring he had this one cinched, figuring The Warden for his lousy pair to brace his kings. It was a legitimate bet; Warden had checked his kings twice when they were high. Warden raised him sixty dollars.
Looking at Warden’s malignant grin he knew then he was caught, really hooked, right through the bag. By three big kings. Outsmarted. Sucked in like a green kid. The first time somebody checked a cinch into him. His belly flopped over sickeningly with disbelief and he made as if to drop out, but he knew he had to call. There was too much of his money in this pot, which was a big one, to chance a bluff. And The Warden knew just how high to raise without raising too high to get a call.
The hand cost him two hundred even, he had about forty dollars left. He pushed the stool back, and got up then.
“Seat open.”
Warden’s eyebrows quivered, then hooked up pixishly.
“I hated to do that to you, kid. I really did. If I dint need the money so goddam bad I’d by god give it back.”
The table laughed all around.
“Ah, you keep it,” Prew said. “You won it, Top, its yours. Check me out,” he said to the dealer, thinking why dint you drop out you son of a bitch after that second win like you promised, thinking this is not an original lament.
“Whats wrong, kid?” Warden said. “You look positively unwell.”
“Just hungry. Missed noon chow.”
Warden winked at Stark who had only just come back. “Too late to catch chow now. You better stick around? Win some of this back? Forty, fifty bucks aint much take home pay.”
“Enough,” Prew said. “For what I need.” Why didnt he let it go? why did he have to rub it in? The son of a bitching bastard whoring bastard.
“Yeah, but you want a bottle too, dont you? Hell, we all friends here, just a friendly game for pastime. Aint that right, Jim?”
Prew could see his eyes clenching into rays of wrinkles as he looked at the gambler.
“Sure,” O’Hayer said indifferently. “Long as you got the money to be friendly. Deal the cards.”
Warden laughed softly, as if to himself. “You see?” he said to Prew. “No cutthroat. No hardtack. The take out’s only twenty.”
“Beats me,” Prew said. He started to add, “I’ve got a widowed mother,” but nobody would have heard it. The cards were already riffling off the deck.
As he moved back Stark goosed him warmly in the ribs and winked, and slipped into the seat.
“Heres fifty,” Stark said to the dealer.
Outside the air free of smoke and the moisture of exhaled breath smote Prew like cold water and he inhaled deeply, suddenly awake again, then let it out, trying to let out with it the weary tired unrest that was urging him to go back. He could not escape the belief that he had just lost $200 of his own hard-earned money to that bastard Warden. Come on, cut it out, he told himself, you didnt lose a cent, you’re twenty to the good, you got enough for tonight, lets me and you walk from this place.
The air had wakened him and he saw clearly that this was no personal feud, this was a poker game, and you cant break them all, eventually they’ll break you. He walked around the sheds and down to the sidewalk. Then he walked across the street. He even got so far his hand was on the doorknob of the dayroom door and the door half open. Before he finally decided to quit kidding himself and slammed the door angrily and turned around and went irritably back to O’Hayer’s.
“Well look who’s here,” Warden grinned. “I thought we’d be seeing you. Is there a seat open? Somebody get up and give this old gambler a seat.”
“Aw can it,” Prew said savagely and slipped into the seat of another loser who was checking out and grinning unhappily at The Warden with the look of a man who wants to do the right thing and be a good sport but finds it hard.
“Come on, come on,” Prew said. “Whats holding things up? Lets get this show on the road.”
“Man!” The Warden said. “You sound like you’re itchin for a great big lick.”
“I
am. Look out for yourself. I’m hot. First jack bets.”
But he was not hot and knew it, he was only savagely irritated, and there is a difference and it took him just fifteen minutes and three hands to lose the forty dollars, as he had known he would. Where before he had played happily, lost in loving it, savoring every second, now he played with dogged irritation, not giving a damn, angered by even the time it took to deal. You dont win at poker playing that way, and he stood up feeling a welcome sense of release that came with being broke and able to quit now.
“Now I can go home and go to bed. And sleep.”
“What!” The Warden said. “At three o’clock in the afternoon?”
“Sure,” Prew said. Was it only three o’clock? He had thought they’d played Tattoo already. “Why not?” he said.
The Warden snorted his disgust. “Punks wont never listen to me. I told you you should of quit when you was ahead. But would you listen? A lot you listen.”
“Forgot,” Prew said. “Forgot all about it. Hows for loanin me a hundred, and I’ll remember.” It got a laugh around the table.
“Sorry kid. You know I’m behind myself.”
“Hell. And I thought you was winnin.” It got another laugh, and he felt better, but he remembered it did not put money back in his pocket. He elbowed his way out.
“What you want to awys be pickin on the kid for, First?” he heard Stark say behind him.
“Pick on him?” Warden said indignantly. “Whatever give you that idea?”
“He dont need you to pick on him,” the K Co topkick, a bald fat man with drinker’s hollowed eyes, said. “From what I hear.”
“Thats right,” Stark said. “He doin all right by himself.”