Teddy leaned the bike against a tree and took her hand. “Trust me, okay?”
From inside the dark foyer, she could see a large room that might have been the living room when this place was a real house. Two pool tables were set up, crowded with groups of men playing teams. There was a bar, but it wasn’t crowded. Maybe one or two women in the whole place. Teddy led her over to the bar and asked her what she wanted. Willa stole a look at the bartender, who had the shifty indifference of a rat, and before she could answer, Teddy ordered her a beer. He drank whiskey and they stood there for a minute, drinking, and she watched his beautiful face. He had found someone across the room to look at. A man was sitting alone at a small table. He had on a lumberjack’s coat and a blue skullcap. Even in the dim light she could make out a burn along the side of his face. The man turned slightly, as though he sensed their gaze, then he drank down his drink and walked out. “What happened to his face?” Teddy asked the bartender.
“Burned his mother’s house down.”
“How come he’s not in jail?”
The bartender shook his head. “The jury felt sorry for him. He’s a freaking retard.”
Teddy asked the bartender if he knew where Rudy was and the bartender nodded toward a back room. Willa followed Teddy through a narrow, galley-style kitchen, the counters of which were cluttered with dirty plates smeared with cake frosting and stained teacups, into a dining room that had a single round table laid with a white cloth. Four men were sitting around the table playing cards. She recognized the one called Rudy because he worked for her father. He was the stable manager at their barn.
Rudy appraised Teddy, his eyes glittering. Under the leather jacket, Teddy had on his school clothes, a blue oxford shirt and chinos, and Willa could see this information registering in Rudy’s brain. Then he looked at her, taking his time about it, which was something he’d never dare to do on her father’s property. She could feel her nipples go hard under her shirt and she crossed her arms over her chest. Rudy’s smile was tainted with mockery, and he jerked up his chin like a horse shaking its withers. To Teddy, he said, “You in this round?”
“I’m in.”
“Pull up a chair.”
Teddy sat down at the table and Willa took a chair against the wall. The chair had a red vinyl seat that was ripped and you could see the stuffing coming out of it. Staring down at her from the wood paneling was a big, old moose head, its dead eyes gleaming. All over the walls were pictures of men at tables smoking cigars. It made her think of her father, who smoked cigars regularly. It was something men did together, she realized, and it was at once dirty and lovely. She couldn’t compare it to anything women did when they were alone together, and in a strange way she envied the men with their dirty cigars. The air smelled of old cigars and dust, and now and then one of the men ground out a laugh. She watched Teddy with his pretty wolf eyes and felt her heart go tight. He took out some money and bought some chips and she could see the money piled up in a bucket at Rudy’s feet. The chips made a thrilling sound as they clattered into a pile in the middle of the table. Rudy dealt out the cards and the room went quiet.
Teddy looked over his hand. He seemed confident, she thought. He wasn’t a loser like her old boyfriend, Marco. Marco came from money and had good clothes, but he was a loser and she was exceptionally grateful she hadn’t slept with him. Marco would be begging his rich daddy for money all of his life, whereas Teddy would make his own. There were things Willa knew about people. Once, a psychic had told her that she had a third eye. And she knew about Teddy. Life would be hard on him. People wouldn’t understand him like she did. The teachers didn’t. He was always in Mr. Heath’s office for one thing or another. One time she walked by Heath’s office and saw Teddy in the “disciplinary” chair and Mr. Heath offering him a piece of hard candy. Mr. Heath was like that. He would offer you hard candy instead of reprimanding you and give his sheep or shepherd speech, then you’d feel guilty and confess your sins. There was something about Teddy, she didn’t know what it was, but it got to her. Something happened to her body when she thought about his hands or his beautiful shoulders or his crooked smile. Her body went damp like a wet leaf, her tongue prickled for the taste of him.
The men played a couple of games and most of the time it was Rudy who won, but Teddy didn’t look worried even as he dug deep into the pockets of his jeans. One of the men—his name was Dale— frowned and shook his head and put more cash into the bucket.
“Don’t you fret, Dale,” Rudy said cheerfully, helping himself to the chips in the middle.
Dale grunted.
“Money don’t mean that much,” Rudy said. “You think it does, but it don’t. Not really it don’t.”
One of the other players snorted and tossed down his cards. “Who died and made you Oprah?” The man was in his work uniform, a gray shirt and trousers. Over his left shirt pocket were the words State Line, and under that his name, Harv, was stitched in blue thread. “You’re full of shit, you know that, Rudy?”
“Let’s say you win tonight. What you gonna do with that money? You gonna pay your bills with it? What about you, Dale? You gonna go pay the electric company and whoever the fuck else you owe?”
Dale’s face turned a little yellow. One of his shoulders rose in a half-shrug. “I would, probably.”
But Willa could tell nobody believed him. She looked over at Teddy, who had taken out his package of Drum tobacco and was rolling a cigarette.
“Poker’s like sex,” Harv said. “You gotta know when to pull out.”
Everyone laughed.
“And never overestimate the beauty of your hand.”
More laughter around the table.
“Money’s just a souvenir of the game,” Rudy said. “It’s not the reason you play, not really it ain’t.”
Harv shook his head. “If it’s not for the money, why do it?”
“For sport, my friend. Fun and Games.”
“There’s nothing fun about losing,” Harv said.
“You must like something about it,” Rudy said, “’cause you’re doing an awful lot of it.”
A crescendo of laughter. Harv nodded deliberately, like he was used to being the butt of jokes, then folded his hand. “I see your point.”
“You’re full of shit,” Teddy said. “Sorry boys: I got a pair of queens, ace high.”
Willa watched as he helped himself to the pot.
“You’ve just got a bad case of beginner’s luck,” Rudy told him.
“Whatever you say,” Teddy muttered.
“We used to play a lot of poker in the joint.”
The information seemed to impress Teddy.
“It passed the time,” Rudy said. “But we weren’t playing for money. We played just to get through the day. It’s what kept us going. It was a reason to get up every morning.” He sat back in his chair and lit a cigarette and looked over at Teddy. “I guess you can’t relate to that, can you, Junior? You rich kids just think you got it coming, don’t you? The world owes you a fucking shoe shine.”
Teddy shrugged. “You don’t know me.”
“Don’t I?” Rudy looked right at him. A cold silence filled the room.
“Show him the teeth,” one of the men said in a ragged, smoker’s voice. He was the oldest player at the table, wearing a brown suit and a bolo tie that he might have carved himself out of wood, in the shape of a horse. Willa noticed that he’d twisted the ends of his mustache like the cowboys in old movies.
“Prison wampum.” Rudy laughed knowingly.
“Tell the boy,” the old man said.
“We used to do some crazy shit in there,” Rudy said. “We didn’t have any money, so we’d play for teeth. This here’s the only game I ever lost.” Rudy grimaced, showing his teeth, and pointed definitively to an empty black space. Then he leaned back in his chair so he could get something out of one of his pockets. He pulled out a pill canister and shook it and everybody could see that it was full of teeth. “I won a lot of
games in there.” He set the canister down on the table. “That’s my good luck charm now.” He held it up again and shook it like a rattle then let out a whooping laugh. “You play a couple of rounds of prison poker and you understand what it really means to win.”
“Not a game for pussies,” the old man said.
“You gotta have some real fucking balls to play prison poker,” Rudy said, looking right at Teddy.
Willa shot Teddy a look that begged him to get up and leave, but he ignored her and lit his cigarette. Harv tapped a little bell on a side table and a few minutes later the bartender appeared with more whiskey. They played for another hour and Teddy started winning every hand. Every time he won, Rudy’s face twisted up a little more, like a wrung-out rag. Then Dale backed out his chair and got up. “I’m all done here.”
“Whatsamatter, Dale, you broke already?”
“Junior here’s cleaned me out.”
“He got lucky is all,” Rudy said. “That’s poker, my friend.”
Dale shook his head. “I got to get home.”
“You gonna turn into a pumpkin?” Rudy barked a laugh. “Sit the fuck down.”
“Rudy, I got—”
But Rudy cut him off. “Sit.”
Dale sat back down, his face grim.
“Now what’s Becky gonna say about this, you show up empty-handed? ”
Dale shrugged.
Rudy reached over in a fatherly way and put his arm around Dale. “You know she don’t like you gambling. She don’t want to see that. We’ve been over that ground before.”
Dale nodded his head. “I know it.”
“You want her to walk out on you again? That what you want?”
“No, Rudy.”
“I’m gonna give you a chance to turn things around.” Rudy looked over at Willa. “Shut that door for me, darlin’.”
“What?” she said, but she’d heard him perfectly.
Irritably, he slapped the air with his hand and she got up and shut the door, knowing instinctively that Rudy wasn’t the sort of man you refused. Her legs felt rubbery as she returned to her seat.
“Let’s play one last hand for Dale,” he said. “Winner takes all this.” He picked up the bucket of money and set it down on the table. Like a starved man, Dale licked his lips at the sight of it. “But let’s turn it up a notch. Make it a little more interesting for our guest over here.” Rudy looked at Teddy. “You ready to be in our club, big shot?”
Teddy shrugged.
“You think you’re man enough?”
“Try me.”
“Consider it your initiation.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Prison poker. Right here, right now.”
The men around the table snickered, shaking their heads. Willa tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry.
“Now if you lose, we take your tooth, understand?”
At length, Teddy said, “What if I win?”
“You get all this.” Again, Rudy picked up the bucket of money and put it down. “There’s around three grand in there. You can buy your girlfriend a present.” Rudy glanced over at her and held his gaze a moment longer than necessary and it made something quiver in her belly, as if her insides were being tickled with a feather. “She is your girlfriend, isn’t she?”
But Teddy didn’t answer him and she felt a burning in her chest.
“Of course I’m rooting for Dale,” Rudy went on.
A smile flashed across Dale’s mouth. His grim eyes brightened whenever he looked at Rudy, and Willa could tell he looked up to him like a brother and always ended up paying for it in the end. It was time to go, but Teddy wasn’t moving. Surely this was a joke, she thought. Any minute one of them would burst out laughing, but the minute passed and nobody did. They all just sat there, waiting for Rudy.
“We have to go, Teddy,” Willa said.
“She’s talking to you,” Rudy said almost hopefully.
Teddy glanced over at Willa and raised his chin a little and looked into her eyes and the look made her quiver.
“You willing to lose a tooth, son?” Rudy said.
“Teddy, please.”
“Deal the fucking cards,” Teddy said.
“Well, all right then,” Rudy said. “You’re either stupid, or you’ve got some fucking balls. Now who else wants to play?”
Willa looked at the men around the table. Dale had a ferret face, with a pointy chin and beady little eyes, and he was scrawny and stoop-shouldered. He was staring at the pile of money like he could almost taste it. He nodded at Rudy to deal him in. The man named Harv nodded too. “I’m in.” Then the man in the bolo tie took out his false teeth and said, “I’m afraid I don’t qualify, gentlemen. I guess I’ll sit this one out.”
Rudy shuffled the cards and dealt them out. Willa watched their faces as the men studied their hands. Rudy had thick, wind-burned skin and cold black eyes. She could remember the first time she’d seen him, pulling onto the farm in a banged-up Chevy pickup. Willa knew the horses didn’t like him on account he always wore spurs and readily used a crop, nor did the South American boys who came to work in the barn and would do anything he asked just to keep their jobs, but her father had said he was the best barn manager he’d ever hired. Her mother had told her that Rudy had grown up an orphan and had gone to reform school as a boy, and then on to prison as an adult for nearly beating someone to death in a fight. Once, Willa had snuck into his quarters over the barn and found a stack of library books by his bed, all of them biographies of famous men. It was hard to imagine a man like Rudy reading about Jefferson and Washington, but he did.
It was already eleven o’clock; her parents would be looking for her by now. She tried to catch Teddy’s eye, but he was fixated on his hand. Leaving was the thing to do, but how would she get home? She would have to call her father, and she didn’t want him knowing she’d spent the better part of the evening in a place like this. The men at the table were quiet and when the bartender came around with more drinks nobody seemed to notice, but they all picked up their whiskey and sipped. Under the table, Dale’s foot was shaking, but Teddy seemed calm, as if he was resigned to whatever came next. It made Willa wonder again about Teddy’s father and what had become of him, whether the mystery inspired Teddy to do things like this, to take risks.
They played out the hand leisurely. Willa sat in the chair, her sweaty hands tearing up a paper napkin, letting the pieces fall down to the floor like snowflakes. “I’m gonna fold,” Harv announced. “I got a whole lot of nothing.” He threw down his cards like they were poison. Rudy gazed over his hand at Dale, then at Teddy. He tilted his head back and forth as if he was trying to make up his mind. “Aw, shucks, boys,” he said a bit too happily. “I’m gonna have to pull out too.”
Teddy looked up for a moment and their eyes locked and Rudy grinned wickedly. Dale was clutching his cards. Teddy lit a cigarette then handed it to Dale who accepted it like a man about to go before the firing squad. Then Teddy lit another for himself. “What do you got?” he said to Dale.
A smile lit the corners of Dale’s mouth as he laid out his hand, a full house. He sat back carefully in his chair. “Beat that,” he said.
Teddy sighed—with relief or regret, she couldn’t tell which. “Well, that’s a really good hand, Dale. Really good.”
“You see that?” Rudy reached over and slapped Dale on the back.
Then Teddy laid out his hand. “But I got a straight flush.”
Dale let out a gasp, as if he’d been hit from behind. His eyes went bright and watery.
“I guess this just ain’t your lucky day,” Rudy remarked without emotion. Then, in the voice of an undertaker, he said, “Walter, go get me my pliers.”
The old man in the bolo tie left the room and Willa wondered if she should go after him and try to stop him. But she didn’t move, her body suddenly enervated, as if she couldn’t even stand. “Now wait just a second,” Dale said, holding up his hands like a man under arrest. He stood u
p and backed away from the table, but Rudy grabbed him, gripping him around the back, and, in a kind of awkward dance, led him across the floor. “Come on, now, Dale,” Rudy said almost gently, “you knew the rules.” Dale wriggled free for a moment, but Harv, who was beefy and strong, wrestled the thinner man down to the floor. Under their powerful hands, Dale writhed like a trapped animal, pleading for them to let him up, his spit flying out of his mouth like sparks from a fire. “Don’t do it, Rudy!” he cried. “Please!”
“This isn’t right,” Willa insisted, standing up with her hands on her hips, her heart thumping so hard it hurt, but nobody seemed to hear her. Teddy just stood there watching Dale with a troubling fascination. Willa wanted to walk right up to him and slap the look off his face, but she didn’t dare, and then Walter came back with the pliers, which looked rusty, and handed them to Rudy. By now you could smell Dale’s sweat and he’d begun to whimper.
Rudy handed Teddy the pliers. “Here you go, Junior. Winner does the honors.”
Teddy put the pliers down. “Keep your money. I can’t do that.”
Rudy grabbed hold of him in the same way he’d done to Dale and shoved him across the room. Teddy fell into some chairs. He pulled himself up. A cut had opened on his forehead. Furious, Teddy shoved Rudy back, but Rudy was quick and before Willa knew it he’d twisted Teddy’s arm up behind his back. Pinned like that, Teddy’s face turned crimson and she could see a ribbon of sweat up the back of his shirt. Rudy went up close to his ear, intimate as a lover. “You’d be amazed at what a man can do when he doesn’t have a choice.”
“I don’t want the fucking money,” Teddy whined, and she thought he might be crying. “I don’t fucking want it.”
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