by Grant Mccrea
I re-raised.
He mucked his cards.
I’d made my point.
I’d tripled my stake in one hand. But then I lost a few. These guys weren’t amateurs. They weren’t averse to slow-playing a monster hand. Check-raising an over-optimistic middle pair. Varying their strategy to keep you off balance. Players. No doubt about it.
I came close to tapping out. Got lucky with a full house on the river to survive. Boat on the river. Maybe that’s how it got to be called a boat. Or how the river got its name. Which came first? It was hard to say. A boat to float you on the river.
The question seemed way too interesting. I was caught in a blur of beer and joints and laughter.
The beer was warm. I drank it anyway. Red plastic cups. Like you get at the ball game. I breathed the smoke. I had no choice. The room was thick with it. As the night went on my head got fuzzier. I folded a Seven Three off-suit in the big blind. Nobody had raised. I could have played for free.
Uh, you shouldn’t have done that, said the Dane.
The Dane was tall and blond and young and well-meaning. I could have, should have said, ‘Oh, sorry, didn’t realize I was in the big blind.’
But I didn’t. The guy irritated me.
Hey, I said, though I said it with a smile, hold’em is my game. I know what I’m doing.
If you knew what you were doing, he said patiently, you wouldn’t have folded. You could have seen the flop for free.
Yeah, well, fuck you, I said.
I meant it as a joke. Tough-guy talk. But it didn’t come across that way. He looked surprised, taken aback. I sank into my chair.
The flop was Jack Jack Six.
Oh my God, I said sarcastically, unable to stop myself. Why did I toss my pair of Sixes?
Sorry, said the Dane, contrite. I was just trying to help. I didn’t know if you knew the rules.
I’m sincerely grateful, I said. Really, I am. I appreciate it. But fuck you anyway.
I was on a roll.
After that I lost another pot or two. I played too loose. I didn’t want to seem a churlish guest. Maybe if they took my cash they’d invite me back next time, despite my bad behavior.
The cards started coming bad again. I couldn’t catch a draw to save my life.
Cold cards, they say. You just can’t hit a thing. When you do get dealt a pair, or a couple of nice connectors, Ten Nine suited, and you chase them to the river – correctly: there’s been some betting; you’ve got the odds – you know the deck will deal the other guy his card, not you.
That’s where the Zen comes in. The master of the game just flows with it. Okay. I’m here. The weather stinks. The beach is closed. My girlfriend left with Moe. Let’s see what I can salvage. Here’s a good book. A quiet bar. Chat up the waitress. Wait for my luck to change. Wait it out. It will end, like everything else. As sure as chickens come from eggs your luck will change. Just minimize your losses til it does. Take what the cold cards give you. Steal a pot or two. Don’t ask for more.
My stack dwindled. I tightened up. I didn’t play a hand for an hour. I started watching, taking notes.
It was Mike’s game, it seemed. He lorded it over the table. When someone breached etiquette he’d fine them. Five bucks for betting out of turn. Ten for gloating. The misdemeanor jar grew stuffed with bills.
The idea was to play one hand at the end of the night for all the misdemeanor cash. It was a lure, to those who otherwise might leave, to stick around until the dawn came through the window. If there had been a window. The saddest loser would hang around, for a shot at that last pot.
It was 2 or 3 a.m., I’d lost track, when the final hand came round. One hand of hold’em for a pile of crumpled beer-drenched cash stuffed in a peanut butter jar.
It wasn’t really poker, playing one hand for all that dough. Just really rolling dice. So much money had accumulated from the fines that it dwarfed most any bet that you could make. It didn’t matter what cards you had. I looked at mine. Jack Ten again, unsuited. Could be worse.
Two bets up front, the Dane re-raising. Normally I’d fold, but with that jar in view I wouldn’t dream of it.
I’d sunk a couple hundred in the game so far. I was weary and annoyed, upset that I’d let myself lose control. The Dane hadn’t spoken to me for hours.
The flop came Nine Queen Queen. Andrea went all in. Three Queens, for sure. She knew enough to know that bluffing wouldn’t work. What the hell. I pushed the rest of my money in. An open-end straight draw. I’d take the chance. No matter what the odds, and they weren’t that bad. With that much money in the pot it would be foolish not to try.
The rest all called as well.
Drunk Jake, who’d long before collapsed from excess booze and substances, lay sideways like a fetus on the floor.
I call, he slurred, although, seeing as he hadn’t been awake for at least an hour, he’d not been dealt a hand.
Everyone was in. We turned over our cards. Andrea’s three Queens. The Dane had a flush draw, clubs. The turn was a Two of diamonds-no help to anyone. The river came, and lo, the Eight fell. The Eight of hearts, not clubs. There it was. I’d made my straight. The Dane had busted out. The jar was mine. I leapt up. I crowed. I laughed. I felt a fool.
But there’s nothing like winning.
I stuffed the stash into my jacket pockets. I picked Drunk Jake up by the armpits, dragged him out. I flagged a cab. I managed to elicit just enough inebriated mumbling to figure out Jake’s address. Three blocks from my place. Convenient.
The cabbie smelled of cabbage and chipotle. He’d never heard of Jane Street, and didn’t speak a word of English. I directed him with gestures.
By the time we got there Jake had revived enough to say, Hey, let’s have a drink.
I’m not sure that’s a great idea, I said.
Oh, come on, he said. I had a good nap. Let’s party.
I looked at my watch. Almost four. I shrugged. What the hell. I was already fucked for tomorrow.
Come on up, he said.
Okay, I said. Just for one.
32.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT I EXPECTED his apartment to look like, but whatever it was, it wasn’t what I got. The place was bare. As bare as a place could be and still have an inhabitant. The walls were white. The furniture was black. All of it. Couch. Chair. Table. Kitchen counter. A black-and-white existence. A couple of paperbacks next to the bed. I couldn’t make them out, but they had the look of airport books. Thick, cheap and designed for maximum throughput with minimal effort. In the kitchen, on the counter that served for a kitchen, one plate, one glass, one fork, one spoon.
‘Ascetic’ was the word that came to mind. The only thing missing was the crucifix over the bed.
Jake motioned me to the couch, found a bottle of Scotch somewhere, and another glass.
A plastic glass. I laughed, as though this was a very good joke.
Jake handed me my Scotch, sat on the matching black leather armchair, across from me. He seemed strangely sober.
So listen, man, he said, I think we should talk.
Okay, I said. Let’s talk.
Because, he slurred, we got a connection, you and me. We need to explore it.
Oh shit. I guess he hadn’t sobered up as much as I’d thought.
You got any ice? I asked.
Should be some in the freezer, he said.
I got up to get it.
Listen, he called after me, my life hasn’t been easy, you know.
I did not know that, I said, involuntarily adopting the Johnny Carson inflection.
Yeah, he continued, apparently not catching the irony. Things are all fucked up.
I found the ice. The ice tray was black. It made the ice cubes look dirty.
I mean, he said, there’s stuff you don’t even know.
What do any of us know? I asked.
Jesus on a stick, he said, you got a point.
He pulled out a tin box, rolled a joint. Lit it, toked it, handed it to me. I�
�d had enough of the stuff already, second-hand. It made me stupid. My mind would race in circles. But I didn’t want to seem rude. I took a hit. I handed it back to Jake.
You know, he said, sucking in and holding a major lungful, sometimes you got to ask yourself.
Yeah, I said, thinking, Right, sometimes you do, man, and then thinking, Shit, I hate this shit, I just said to myself that I thought that … what? What did he just say? Whatever. I just said to myself that he was right, and I don’t even know what he said. I hate this shit. Get me out of here before I start thinking I know what he’s talking about.
You got to ask yourself, he continued, as my refried brain picked up the thread, what’s better? You tell the truth, you let it all out, or you don’t. You keep it all in.
Right, I said, wondering if he had some Led Zeppelin.
You got some Led Zeppelin? I asked.
Sure, he said, yeah. All right.
He wandered to the stereo, picked through a pile of CDs scattered randomly on the floor, put one in the player. All of this taking an eternity and a half.
‘Black Dog,’ it was, and I sank into it. Yes, this was what you needed, at times like this. Every note and wail crystal clear and powerful, an echoing orgasm of meaning you knew you’d never remember later but it didn’t matter, right there right then. Damn, this was some good shit he was smoking.
Yeah, he said. The thing of it is, do you know, or don’t you know?
What?
Do you know or don’t you know?
Know what? I asked, searching the swirling notes for the genesis of the question. It seemed like so long ago the conversation had started that I’d need an anthropologist to sort it out.
Shit, man, he said, his voice getting loud and angry, you can’t tell me you don’t know.
Know what? I asked, feeling strangely as though I’d asked the question before.
About the thing that makes me me, he said, that makes you you, that makes the whole thing so fucked up you won’t even open up to it.
Okay, I thought, the fucker’s off the deep end. He’s hallucinating. Sure as hell he isn’t talking to me. And I don’t see anyone else in the room. Maybe there is, though. Someone only he can see.
I don’t know shit, I said, steering it back onto the epistemological plane.
Yeah, he said. And I can’t tell you, either.
He fixed me with an accusing stare.
One day, though, he said.
The guy was having some kind of psychotic episode, drug-induced or not. And I had enough of that at home, thank you very much.
I got the hell out of there.
33.
WHEN I WOKE UP next morning, I realized I still had my shoes on.
Does it get any more depressing than this? I thought.
On the other hand, I mused, it was very efficient. Take a piss. Brush the teeth. Pop the pills. Out the door.
Saved time.
The pills didn’t kick in right away. I made a mental note. Check into the effect of vast quantities of booze and cigarettes, and a touch of dope, on the effectiveness of meds.
I amended the note. Forget it. I knew the answer.
Kelly was in the kitchen. I sucked it up. Acted normal.
Where’s Mom? I asked.
My room.
Asleep?
Yep.
Okay.
Kelly busied herself with her omelet. Diced the garlic, the pancetta. Grated Emmental, ground some peppercorns.
Kelly was very particular about her omelets.
She sat down across from me while it cooked.
Dad?
Yes, angel child?
She smiled.
About Mom?
Yes?
You shouldn’t be so hard on her.
Hard on her? Kelly, I’m not hard on her. I do everything for her.
Yes, you are. You’re hard on her.
What are you talking about? Jeez. Do you have any idea what she’s put us through?
A foolish question, I realized at once. Kelly rolled her eyes.
Yes, I do, she said. I do. But she can’t help it.
Well, I don’t necessarily agree with you there. She’s helping herself now, isn’t she? Since she got back? She’s trying really hard.
That’s not what I mean. Of course she’s trying. But that’s just the point. She wants to get better. But it’s not easy.
You think I don’t know that?
No. You know that.
Then what’s your point?
The buzzer on the stove rang. Kelly got up to turn off the burner. She put on her cow-shaped oven mitt to put the pan in the oven, to briefly brown the top.
Kelly loved her cows. We’d gotten them on a whim one day, at Ben & Jerry’s. They’d been hanging on the wall, with other oddities for sale. Absurdly overpriced oddities. But we couldn’t resist the cows.
I think I’m very patient, angel child.
You’re patient, Daddy. You’re patient. But your patience shows.
My patience shows.
Yes. It shows. She sees it. She sees you being patient. Holding it in. It’s like she’s some cancer patient and nobody wants to tell her it’s terminal. They whisper about it, thinking she can’t hear. But she hears it. She sees it. It hurts her.
I was taken aback. The truth be told, I’d long ago stopped ascribing ordinary feelings to Melissa. She’d become a task, a puzzle, a conundrum. A burden, a challenge. Anything but a person, really. And Kelly knew it.
I felt ashamed. And angry. God, how much could this life expect of me? As it was, I felt my life was held together with rotting string and brittle masking tape. One trip, one fall, one more jolt and it would fall apart. Like a house of cards.
Okay, was all I could say. Okay. I get you. I’ll try. I’ll try harder.
She hugged me for that. She kissed my cheek.
There was nothing sweeter.
34.
DISGUST.
Guilt.
What had I done?
I must have done something, to make me feel this way.
What was it?
I decided to walk to the office. To purge myself.
The day was cold and windy. Gray clouds and spits of rain. I buttoned my jacket. The cold wind in my face was bracing. I walked down Fifth Avenue. I took in the famous canyon of buildings, stretching all the way to the harbor. It was a magnificent thing, in its way.
Strangely empty at the bottom end.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to that.
I thought of people falling. Husbands, wives, sons and daughters falling.
I thought of the cold water of New York Harbor.
Breathless.
At work things were normal. That is to say, depressing. The same complacent, driven faces everywhere. The endless slough of information thick and unavoidable. A fax, red-covered for urgency. Must attend to right away. Don’t ignore. An e-mail, in Alert mode. Must read, respond. Keep the process going. The telephone message slips. Calls from clients, colleagues. The whole preposterous, endless wheel of verbal commerce and pretense converging on my desktop every day again.
I needed a break.
Instead I got a call from Warwick.
Or rather, Cherise, summoning me to His Pomposity’s chambers.
He wanted to know how the Jules case was going. He was meeting with FitzGibbon later. Needed some talking points. Warwick was a fiend for talking points. We often speculated, Dorita and I, whether Cherise prepared him a point-form list of things to say to hookers. Not that we had any direct evidence that he patronized hookers. But he seemed the type. In fact, we wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that he had a dominatrix stashed away somewhere.
I shuffled and dissembled. I didn’t want to tell him that I had a line on something. Something possibly exculpatory. That there might be someone with a motive to frame the kid. That it might be the firm’s foremost client. That Kennedy thought he was not just strange but dangerous. Knowledge is a hazardous
thing. It would be particularly stupid to put it in the hands of Warwick. So I gave him the bland version: It didn’t look good. The cops, the ADA were treating it as open-and-shut. They’d charge him soon enough. The best that we were likely to do was appeal to sympathy. Emphasize his youth, the circumstances. Plead it down.
Warwick nodded, as though this was what he’d known all along.
All right, he said. We’ve got to manage expectations.
Yes, I said. I think FitzGibbon’s got to be prepared.
Warwick looked at me with uncharacteristic admiration. As though I’d just discovered something deep and interesting.
It occurred to me, at that moment, that Warwick might not be the only one setting me up to fail. That maybe it wasn’t FitzGibbon’s confidence in Warwick, or the firm - certainly not any confidence in me-that had gotten me the assignment. It could be, I thought with alarm, that for FitzGibbon it was the very fact of my inexperience, my presumed incompetence, that recommended me.
Shit.
Yes, Warwick said. Well. Now that I think of it, that’s probably a job for you.
Managing FitzGibbon’s expectations?
Yes.
It figured. If a messenger was going to be shot, it wasn’t going to be Warwick.
I knew I had no choice. I asked the obligatory question.
Do you want me in the meeting?
Yes, that’s a good idea, he said, as though I’d just come up with a brilliant new notion. I’ll make an excuse halfway through. Take an urgent call. Then you can brief him.
Excellent. Not only was he throwing me to the wolves, he didn’t have the stomach to watch the resulting carnage. Afraid his pristine shirt might get splattered with entrails.
Okay, I said. I’ll be there. Three o’clock?
Three o’clock. The Franklin Room.
The Franklin Room it is, I said, with as much good cheer as I could muster.
Good. You can meet the twins.
The twins?
Yes. Ramon and Raul.
He said it with a raised eyebrow. As though I should be intimately familiar with these twins.
I’m sorry, I said. Perhaps I’ve missed something. Ramon and Raul?