by Tom Twitchel
“You still want to play some poker?” I asked.
He glanced at the other guys he’d been talking to and shrugged, “Sure.”
He upended his paper coffee cup, drained it and tossed it into a trashcan.
“Let’s go, little man. Let’s see watcha got!” He headed over to one of the tables in the nearby cafe area. When we sat down, I got a strong sense of agitation from him—conflict. He looked edgy and he radiated impatience. Why he wanted to sit down and play poker was confusing. We exchanged names and I pulled out my deck. He waved it away and pulled out his own.
Mike was a better poker player than I was so he won the first few hands pretty easily. Once I got familiar with the way he played, I started fooling with the cards. Some hands weren’t good enough to beat him even with manipulation, but when I began changing multiple cards, I started winning a few. It was nerve wracking because I could only goof with the cards when he laid down first but even with that, I was taking a risk that a card I changed would be a twin of one he had already discarded.
We played for about a half hour when he wanted to “spice” it up a little.
“What say we make it interesting? Say a quarter a hand?” he said with a truly creepy grin that revealed yellow teeth with pieces of his last meal stuck in between them. The odd nervousness inside him seemed to ramp up.
My answer was to point to the sign on the wall above the coffee station “Absolutely No Gambling On Premises.”
“Aw, a quarter a round ain’t nothin.” Gamblin’s big money. This’ll just be for fun.” He winked at me and I felt like I needed to wash my hands or take a shower.
“Well, okay. But if somebody catches us, it was your idea.”
“Don’t worry little man. Nobody’s gonna catch us.”
“Okay, your shuffle.”
“No prob.”
I let the first few hands play out normally and he won them all. It was then that I figured out that he was cheating and suddenly I didn’t feel the least bit guilty about what I was going to do.
Being careful to let him win a hand every so often, I stretched it out but eventually I had all his loose change and he was irritated. He pushed a crumpled grimy dollar bill to the middle of the table and started shuffling determinedly.
“Okay peewee, let’s raise the stakes. I’m outta coin, so let’s do a buck.”
I hemmed and hawed and then “reluctantly” agreed.
He won the next two hands, cheating on both of them. I pretended to be upset but went on to win the next three hands putting me ahead a dollar. It went back and forth like that for a while until I saw him pull his off-the-bottom-of-the-deck move again. He made a big show of looking back at his friends and the huge clock over the exit to the street. He placed his hands over his newly dealt cards and looked at me conspiratorially. I sensed what was coming.
“S’gonna have ta be the last hand half pint. Me an’ ma boys got places to be.” Where that would be and how it could possibly be important at all was a mystery to me. Maybe he was going to buy some new clothes.
“Okay. I’m getting kind of tired anyway.”
“Yeah. I’ll betcha yar, what with your bum leg and all. So let’s make it worthwhile. Let’s jump the table stakes.”
“How much?”
“Oh, we been trading money back and fro.” Time to man up. Twenty bucks, last hand.”
Now it was pretty shady for him to propose raising the stakes after he’d already dealt the hand. But it was beyond sketch that he was basically going to try to steal money from me with a crooked deal.
“That’s almost all I have!” I whined.
“Well, here I thought I was playing a man’s game.” He put a slightly creased twenty on the table. He even pushed it closer to my side. “Come on little man, there it is. Take my money.”
“Okay,” I said trying my best to make it seem like I was doing it begrudgingly. The nonstop condescension and the dirty deal had just succeeded in pushing my resolve over the top.
I pushed two tens in his direction. “Can you change these for a twenty?”
“It’s all the same peewee. Put it in the pot. Money is money.”
“Yeah, but I want to win two twenties.”
He fixed his eyes on mine. An uncomfortable moment passed. “You ain’t gonna win anything. But fine! There! Happy?” He slapped another twenty on the table and pocketed the tens.
“Yes.”
I picked up my hand. All spades, non-sequential. I discarded three and kept a queen and a ten. He shot me three off the top of the deck. He discarded two and dealt two off the bottom for himself. I’d been waiting for the sleight of hand and caught flashes of red as the cards slid out from the bottom of the deck. Relief flooded through me. Manipulating my cards was less risky if he was saving diamonds or hearts. I was sunk if he was drawing for four of a kind on the high side. It was still a risk, but I had to see it through now. I focused on my cards and started to sweat.
“Well, looky here! That’s a full house, jacks and tens!” He spread out three jacks and two tens. When I saw black, I just about wet myself. Then I sighed with relief when I saw clubs and not spades.
“Um, I think my hand beats yours.” I laid down my straight flush.
“Yeah, I don’t think…” his eyes went wide and for a second I saw Dennis’ face at the top of the stairs.
He reached across the table and pulled the cards toward him looking at them with a furious scowl on his face. He lifted his head and looked at me with one eye closed as if he was trying to figure out how he had been beaten.
Figuring a quick retreat was my best move, I grabbed the two twenties and staggered to my feet. I jammed the money in my pocket and picked up the crutches.
He got up too. We were on opposite sides of the table but with my bad leg and needing the crutches, I didn’t have any confidence in my ability to get away.
“Slow down there cowboy. What’s the rush? Maybe we should play another hand.”
“You said you needed to leave.”
“Yeah. It can wait. Sit down.”
“No. I’m tired and I don’t want to get caught.”
“I think you’re going to give me a shot at…” he stopped in mid-sentence when a hand gripped his shoulder. Mike spun quickly to one side and turned around to face the owner of the hand.
“What’s going on here Benny?” Seth had walked up behind him without our noticing.
“Nothing. We were just playing cards.” I stammered. And thank God, you showed up when you did.
“That right?” he looked at Mike, who was struggling to compose himself. “You two wouldn’t be playing for money would you?”
Mike forced a laugh and scraped his cards off the table. “Nah. Nah. Why would I play a kid for money?”
“That’s good because it’s against the rules. Any gambling or drugs and it’s back outside,” Seth said. He was giving Mike a good looking over and it was obvious that he didn’t like what he saw.
“Follow the rules. That’s me!” Mike laughed hollowly as he turned away and headed toward the doors to the street.
Glancing back to me, Seth gave me a “Don’t disappoint me” look and shook his head. “Benny, I think you and I are going to have to schedule a little talk.”
I felt a big lead weight drop in my stomach. I figured that my days at the hostel were numbered.
Turns out, I was right.
CHAPTER THREE
Seth had concluded that my mother was never going to show up, and because he was a decent person, and not spiteful, he was prepared to appoint himself my shepherd, but not in the way that I would have preferred. He told me that I could stay for a little longer but that he needed to contact Social Services. He wasn’t clueless. He knew that might not be a home run for me but he believed that the system could help people like me if you crossed all the “T’s” and dotted all the “I’s.” I guess you need to believe in something.
I wasn’t willing to take the chance. I couldn’t risk having
my identity being run through any database and winding up with Dennis again. I needed an exit strategy and fast.
The day we had “the talk” I spent the afternoon “running,” actually “crutching” some errands. When I got back to the hostel, I set up in a corner on the floor in my small room and spread my belongings around me. A couple of hours of intense concentration and some carefully addressed envelopes later and I was done preparing phase one.
During the next few days, I resisted any temptation to engage in a game of cards and I definitely steered clear of Mr. Green Jeans. I saw him around but carefully avoided being in the same area. I caught him watching me a handful of times, but he never went out of his way to approach me. I don’t know if he ever figured out that the two tens he had put in his pocket were actually singles, but I didn’t feel compelled to ask.
Using convenient brochures that were available almost everywhere downtown, I studied the bus routes and found several parks within easy distance. Freemont, Canal and Rodgers were all on the same line and didn’t require any transfers. Needing to keep it simple, I didn’t carry any big props, just a deck of cards and some small odds and ends. I would stake out a place not too close to the entrances and find a flat surface to work with, which usually meant a low wall or bench. My upside-down Chargers baseball cap on the ground for tips and I was ready to start. The illusion stuff could scare up an easy twenty to forty dollars. People would “ooh and aah” over the changing of the suit of a card and back. I made it seem like sleight of hand by slowly passing my hand over the card while I was changing it. The women almost always nudged their boyfriends or husbands to be generous. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t milk the bad leg angle. Being a kid in a cast working for tips in a park has a few advantages.
The better money came when some smart aleck would happen along and my act would shift into a version of a couple of carny staples. The three-card shuffle was my favorite. I had put in so much practice that I could make a card change fast enough that you couldn’t track it. I absolutely didn’t accept any bets unless there was a decent sized audience. My lesson with Mike stuck with me.
The best money was when a guy (I usually refused to take money from girls) who thought he had me figured out and would get all puffed up insisting that I accept a steep bet with all sorts of restrictions on me. It would go like this: “You can’t touch the cards after I pick” or “Why don’t you just shuffle the cards once and see if I can pick the right one?” It didn’t matter, of course, because the hand movements had nothing to do with what I was doing.
Those bets were usually good for anywhere from five to twenty bucks. I didn’t accept wagers higher than that because I had learned there was too much potential for drama. That lesson had been learned during a confrontation with a muscular Latino gangbanger.
He had been walking in the park looking cocky and disinterested. His curvy girlfriend had her arm around his waist and was whispering in his ear. She was wearing a tight blue tee-shirt under a bulky black jacket that was unzipped, and tighter jeans that left nothing to the imagination. Her long glossy black hair was pulled back in a bun held there by a brightly colored hair tie. Long false eyelashes, bright eyeshadow that matched her shirt and glossy red lipstick stood out on her caramel brown skin. Her natural beauty was almost hidden under all the makeup, but there was no denying that she was attractive. She kept looking at me and my small audience and managed to drag the gangster in my direction. He was tall, taller than she by more than a foot. He walked up reluctantly with a rolling, confident stride, his arms carried far from his sides in a display of muscle and bravado. His hair was slicked back on his head with a long braided tail dangling to the middle of his back. Under his brown corduroy coat, he wore a black Lakers jersey. He had a square face with a broad nose, thin lips and wide set eyes. There were three small tattooed tears trailing from the corner of his left eye. The number thirteen was tattooed on one side of his neck. The word “Oso” tattooed on the other.
The vibe coming off him was not good and under normal circumstances, I would have closed up my act and gone home happy. But I had been winning more than usual. I’d made over two hundred dollars and was feeling pretty cocky myself. The money in my pocket and the mesmerized crowd put me in an unusual frame of mind. Translation: I got greedy.
“Hey niño, que pasa?” he asked emphasizing his question with a quick nod of his chin.
I knew some Spanish from school so I responded, “No pasa nada, señor.”
He thought that was pretty funny and he drew closer. “Muy comico, niño. Show me trick.” His girlfriend watched me from hooded eyes, a smirk turning up the corners of her mouth.
I was so focused on him and his girlfriend that I didn’t notice some of the crowd was drifting away.
“Okay. Do you want just a trick or a wager?”
“What’s wager?” he looked irritated that I had used a word he didn’t understand. I was picking up something else but couldn’t nail it down.
“For money.”
“Si. Show me for money.” He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off a twenty.
The bad feelings I was picking up from him faded a bit.
I used the three-card shuffle on him three times and he seemed genuinely entertained even though I took sixty dollars from him. Each time he had confidently pointed to a card while staring me down, and each time his eyebrows rose when I flipped over the card and it wasn’t his. I had to think fast because he had actually picked the right card each time.
His smile seemed tight when he peeled off another twenty. Eyes locked onto me again, he said, “Okay niño, something magia. Mi chava wants real magic, not just tricks.”
This was new. I hadn’t really used any other games or tricks although I had experimented with a couple back at the hostel. He must have taken my hesitation as negotiation because he peeled a hundred dollar bill off the roll to go with the twenty he already had in his hand.
“You trick me good and I pay you with this,” he said.
“Okay. Do you have a pen?”
“No.” He grinned at me. It seemed as though he knew something I didn’t.
“I do.” Another guy in the now much smaller crowd said.
Handing me a black Sharpie, he smiled at the gangster in an ingratiating way. The gangster just stared at him. The bad vibe started back up again.
“Okay. I’m going to hand this to you and you write your name on the card and show it to me.” I handed the felt pen to him.
Taking the pen, he scribbled an almost illegible name on the card and held it up so I could see.
“Okay. Remember the card and put in back in the deck.” I fanned the deck, holding it in two hands while I looked up and away from it. I felt the card being placed in the deck.
I handed the Sharpie back to the guy who had offered it. He smiled and said, “I think I’ve seen this on TV. This is so cool.” He glanced at the banger again and got a cold stare for his trouble.
“Okay. I didn’t see where you put it. Now I’m going to make the ink disappear from the card.”
Closing my eyes, I waved my right hand over the deck that I was holding in my left. At the same time, I was concentrating on the card he’d put into the deck. Focusing on an unmarked face on the card and picturing an image of his scrawl on another surface.
“Okay, what was the card you drew?”
“Six of spades.”
I pulled the card from the deck and showed it to him and the rest of the audience. There were a couple of gasps and Oso raised his eyebrows.
“Pretty good. But you could just hide the card, no?”
Smiling, I said, “No. The ink has moved.” I pointed at his girlfriend. She looked back at me and then to where I was pointing—her arm.
I wasn’t prepared for the screwy sequence that followed. She looked at her arm where I had caused the autograph to appear. First, she yelped. Then the guy who had provided the pen grabbed her arm to get a look at it. That apparently didn’t sit to
o well with Oso; he smacked the guy’s hand away and pulled his coat back exposing his waist and a handgun that was stuck in his belt. It was small and almost looked like a toy, but it was still scary. The crowd that had thinned out to about a half-dozen onlookers started to disperse rapidly. One couple just backed off a few feet, but the girl pulled out a phone and started recording video.
The pen guy backed away with his hands raised in front of his chest, palms out.
“Hey, I didn’t mean anything.”
“Yeah? Well, don’ put your hands on my woman,” said Oso. His voice was low and even. His face was tight and his lips were pressed in a very thin line.
The negative juju I had been picking up from him skyrocketed.
Looking at the fragmented group around him, the banger pointed a finger at the retreating guy who had grabbed his girlfriend’s arm.
“Walk away pero. Just walk away.” Scanning the rest of the group, he focused on the girl taking the video. “Give me the phone, chica.”
She stepped backward and her boyfriend moved between her and Oso.
“Don’t make me take it from you.” Face whited, she shook her head but kept filming over her boyfriend’s shoulder while continuing to back away. Her boyfriend was awkwardly walking backward, eyes wide.
Oso’s hand strayed to the butt of the pistol.
That’s when I made another mistake. I reached out to put my hand on his shoulder.
Don’t hurt him!
He turned to look at me and raised an eyebrow. “Cierra la boca!” he snapped as he struck my hand away.
“No. It’s not his fault. I made the ink appear on her arm. I thought she wanted to see real magic.”
He took a step toward me and then turned back. The couple and the guy who had touched off the confrontation were a good fifty feet away now, moving quickly toward the street. He looked back at me and scowled fiercely.
He lunged forward and grabbed the back of my neck squeezing hard enough to make me gasp.
“You live around here?” he hissed.