by Bret Lott
Then you turn the channel, or crank up the TiVo, or just wait until sports or weather or whatever else comes on. And the world just keeps moving.
Same thing with a woman pried up out of pluff mud, it felt right then. After we’d watch the news, I’d drive Unc out to Mount Pleasant for poker, and we’d hand over goggles to solve the particular drama we’d been involved in with Prendergast and whoever saw us from over at the Navy tract. And now there was another, more pressing drama here in the house, with his showing up and Mom and Unc and Major Tyler’s reactions to that fact, something I didn’t know how to solve because I had no idea what it was all about. But a drama that’d made Mom get out a gun.
There was all of this. But beneath it that woman, levered up by Unc and me. And out my window the same old world going on.
Mom’s bedroom door was closed, and I went down to the kitchen, saw she wasn’t anywhere around, figured maybe she was asleep. But out the windows in the breakfast area, the same windows I’d watched the gradual light of this day come up on, I could see Unc down at the end of the dock, sitting in one of the lawn chairs we kept folded up in the marine storage locker out there.
He was parked facing the setting sun, him looking back up the creek toward the Dupont house, though you couldn’t see it from here for the arc the creek made. Once you reached the tip of the arc, the creek turned around the point, and it was still a half mile to Judge Dupont’s from there.
At the right end of the dock stood the boathouse, pylons with a roof over it, the jon boat cradled up in the rafters, all put away neat and clean by Unc alone. His walking stick was leaned up against one of the pylons, and I saw him lift his hand to his mouth now. He was smoking one of his cigars: a Hoyo de Monterrey Excalibur II. The only thing he smoked.
I reached for the door out onto the deck, started to pull it open, but stopped, turned to the breakfast table behind me. Beneath the glass top sat my book bag, exactly where I’d left it last night, and there seemed for this second something good about its not having moved. But in the exact same moment it seemed totally wrong. The goggles’d been what brought Prendergast here to the house, and so whatever piece of Mom’s past with him. But tonight Unc’d be handing them back to Prendergast, and maybe whatever shard of glass Mom’d had pressed into her hand for all this might disappear.
I turned to the door, opened it, and went out onto the deck, careful to close it quiet as I could for fear I might wake Mom.
The deck was wide as the whole back of the house, the half of it to the right under a pergola, a built-in gas barbecue and range and sink against the far side, wooden benches built right into the deck railing. The other half, right out the kitchen door, had railing, too, but had a wrought-iron table and chairs of its own. Big ceramic garden pots sat beneath the railing, filled with petunias and snapdragons. All very elegant, all right out of Southern Living, all very Landgrave.
But centered on the table was a bright blue and definitely ugly ceramic thing big as a bowling ball, a thick spray of rosemary growing out the top of it: something I’d made when I was on a field trip in third grade. I’d meant it to be a lidless cookie jar that looked like an apple, had painted it with a glaze that seemed at the time something like red. But when it was delivered with all the other kids’ creations from the kiln back to Miss Picken’s class a week later, here had been this hideous bright blue thing. I’d carried it home in my yellow nylon Jurassic Park backpack, the padded shoulder straps cinched down tight—the jar was heavy as a bowling ball, too—and had given it to Mom. I lied to her, told her it was a giant blueberry, then watched as she fussed over it and fussed. “What a beautiful planter!” she’d said, and bent to me, kissed me on the cheek.
I had no idea what a planter was, and so, because I’d already lied about its being a blueberry, I nodded, acted like that was exactly what it was. It’d sat on the front steps of the house on Marie from then on, was now in residence in the classy digs here. Still a blue apple just as ugly as the day I’d brought it home. But still displayed by Mom.
Our place had no backyard, so when you stepped off the deck onto the dock you were already in the marsh, sawgrass and salt-marsh hay on either side. When it was quiet you could hear the tick and dribble of the tide crawling in or out, filling in or emptying out the billion tiny crab holes in the pluff mud all around. The sun lay straight out in front of me a couple fists above the tree line over at the point on the creek, the tide already back on its way in for the second time since this morning, and as I walked out toward Unc, I could see the cordgrass on the edges of the creek already swallowed up in water. The world just kept moving on.
I waited for Unc to say something to me as I came closer to him. He’d have heard me from the second I opened the back door, figured he’d ask after how well I slept, or what Mom was up to. Some small talk as a means not to go headfirst into talk about last night. But he was quiet, only sat there with the cigar to his mouth.
I made it to the end, headed for the marine locker in under the roof of the boathouse, unlatched and lifted the long white lid of it, reached in and pulled out a folding chair, all still without a word. I closed the lid, parked the chair a few feet to the right and behind him, and sat down.
The air was a little thick today, the distance between the dock and the tree line over at the Naval Weapons Station the slightest white. Already I was sorry I hadn’t grabbed a ball cap of my own and a pair of sunglasses, though the sun was fast on its way down.
The marsh had hit that color in mid-spring when the brown of winter was being hustled out by the sharp green of new growth. Even with the thin white pall of the air I could see the hard push of colors one against the other out there, beneath it all the creek and cold green water. The sun was already too low to bang its reflection off the creek and up into my eyes, and for the same old reason I ever had I wanted right then to drop the boat in, head out on the water.
“You remember,” Unc said then, his voice quiet, “that first night I played cards with those gentlemen over there in Mount Pleasant?”
His voice had been an interruption, but not a surprise. But still, with just those words, here was triggered in me the surprise tremble of my mom’s mouth last night, and her tears. Here was the surprise of her gun on the kitchen table, and the stunned look of both Unc and Tyler at the news Prendergast’d been at the house with Mom, all of it crashing down on me. No tick and dribble of a tide secreting its way in, but a wave that slapped hard from high above, and I shut my eyes, felt myself holding tight the arms of the lawn chair, felt my feet flat on the boards of the dock and pressing down.
I said, “Yes,” and did my best to conjure up some picture of the first few times we went to poker night. But all I could see was that huge orange stucco house in Mount Pleasant three stories tall, a grand set of stairs up to the front porch on the second, the front doors up there a huge arch that looked more like the entry to some sort of church than anything else.
“I thought I could play without reading the cards,” Unc said, and I heard him draw in on the cigar, only now realized the smell of it in me, the comfort of it, the predictable acrid ease of it. I took in a breath.
“Thought I could win,” Unc went on, and shot out the smoke. “Before we got in there that first night, I was thinking all I needed to do at the table was listen to the people around me and how they bet, their voices. Only how they called or checked or raised. I thought, Who the hell needs cards to play poker? Just play the man at the table.”
My eyes were still closed, but I could see him, gray smoke wisping up from his cigar, sunglasses under the bill of his cap, the setting sun yellow and gold on him. I could see this all, and had no reason to open my eyes. None.
“I remember,” I said, and suddenly I could see the inside of the place that first night.
This was the summer before what would be my last gala semester at Chapel Hill, maybe four or five months after we’d sold the parcel out to Hungry Neck and moved in to Landgrave Hall. That night the owner, Th
omas Warchester Whaley the Fourth, a doughy-faced real estate agent with silver hair and a close personal friend of Grange Cuthbert—the one who’d told Unc of the gathering in the first place—had given Unc and me the grand tour of the establishment, introduced us to all the doctors and lawyers and brokers and bigwigs of one sort and another, all of them slapping Unc on the back and welcoming him, though he already knew half of them for being the same clientele he’d been serving for years out at Hungry Neck. About the only difference I could see in the crowd was that instead of the crisp and clean camo outfits they all wore out at the hunt club, these same people were decked out now in Tommy Bahama and Nat Nast shirts.
And one other difference: even though he had on his khakis and suspenders, Braves cap and sunglasses, now Unc was one of them.
The whole operation was on the bottom floor of the house, the area most people used for a garage and storage. But Whaley’d finished all the interior off, then set up five professional poker tables in there, those long oval things padded with leather all the way around, chip trays and green felt tops and a dealer’s position, all built high so you had to sit at a stool or stand to play. The place was all carpeted, paintings on the walls, chandeliers from the ceiling.
A kind of chip cage was at one end of the room, more like a closet with a half door, behind it always a chunky Filipino woman in a white shirt and black vest, in there with her the money box and chips. At the other end of the room was a full-length bar, brass toe rail, mirrored shelves behind, working it a big tanned dude dressed the same as the cashier, biceps big as that stupid planter I’d made. Somebody you wouldn’t want to argue with over the pour you got. Ever.
Each table had a dealer, too, men and women dressed in those same white shirts and black vests, all like some sort of bad TV show, like what you’d expect to expect an in-home casino in a suburb to look like. One of the paintings on the wall was of a huge martini complete with two green olives and an onion, another a croupier’s rake and two huge dice. Cheesy, to say the least.
And all of it illegal. Not because there was a five-hundred-dollar buy in, or because of the amount of cash flowing through there every Thursday night, the limit for loss five grand, after which you’d be sent home in the kindliest way by that big dude behind the bar.
No. It was all illegal, because games of chance, no matter it was Uno or pinochle or five-card no-peeky or Texas hold ’em—the one they played all night long at the Whaley establishment—were illegal in South Carolina. Period. You could buy lottery tickets fast as you could hand over a dollar, sure. But a two-man game of war? You’re a gambler.
Yet none of this was a worry for the crowd at the Whaley place, as they had among their regular players not only the tried and true of Charleston society, but also three city councilmen—two Mount Pleasant, one Charleston—a Summerville police lieutenant, a vice president of the College of Charleston, and a member of the Charleston County School Board, all of whom provided a kind of civic force field for the night’s activities.
And there was a Navy commander in there, too: Prendergast.
“That first hand I sat there with my two cards,” Unc said, and paused, drew in on the cigar again, let it out. “But I wouldn’t let you see them,” he said. “Now how stupid was that?”
“Stupid enough to lose the hand,” I said, still with my eyes closed. He’d sat starch upright on the stool that first night, me just behind him, waiting for him to show me his cards so I could tell him what he had. But he’d only lifted one edge of them a quarter inch, then set his hand flat on top of them. I’d leaned in, whispered in his ear something about needing to show me so I could help, but he’d only waved me off with the other hand. I’d stepped back, glanced at the table and all the players watching the whole thing, eyes wide open, dealer included, and the strange moment of a blind man playing cards without knowing what he had.
“One of the stupidest moments of my life,” he said now, and I opened my eyes. He was slowly shaking his head, a thin strand of smoke rising off the end of his cigar. “Totally forgot there’d be other people playing me. That I wouldn’t be the only one playing the people at the table. Didn’t figure in, too, it’d be clear as glass that every hand I’d ever play would be a bluff, even if I had a royal flush.” He shook his head again, gave out a kind of sad laugh.
A six-inch mullet jumped out in the creek just then, a silver slip of color ten yards away, gone as soon as I’d seen it.
Unc’d been about fourth or fifth at the table that first hand. When it’d come to his turn, he’d sat there for a long second or so, even stiffer on the stool. Everyone was still looking at him, and from where I’d stood I could see him swallow, try at some sort of smile. But then his hand on the cards had made a loose fist, and he’d knocked once on them, said, “I’m out,” calm and smooth as could be.
He’d spent the rest of the night grimacing every time he showed me his cards, his jaw clenched and lips tight between his teeth, as though with every deal he were being forced to drop his drawers to show the room a boil on his butt. All he did was tip the cards up for me to see, and I whispered to him. Though he ended up winning a couple hundred dollars that night, I’d figured the whole endeavor was over once we were ushered out with the rest of the rabble at two that morning, Unc quiet the whole ride home.
But the next Thursday night at around 9:30, here was a tap at my bedroom door. Unc pushed it open, stick in hand, said, “Let’s go,” and then we were parking a hundred yards down the street from that house, the Range Rover in line with all the other cars. Once at the door into the garage, we were promptly met by a grinning Whaley, who held up close to Unc’s face three decks of cards still in their wrappers.
“Braille cards!” he hollered out. By the look on his happy realtor face, you could tell his ingenuity startled even him, as though he’d in fact invented Braille itself and tonight was the big reveal.
But a moment later he lost the grin entirely. “Oh,” he let out. “You read Braille, don’t you?”
Though I’d figured on Unc’s being testy for this accommodation someone’d made to the fact he was blind, maybe even ticked off for the conventions of the rest of the blind world he’d have to observe when it came to playing cards, he actually smiled, nodded sharp. With all the genuine goodwill I’d ever seen him muster, he said, “Well enough to kick the house’s ass.”
“Then kick away!” Whaley said, and with his free hand slapped Unc on the shoulder. He took hold Unc’s arm and turned, started to lead him off between tables and players, me already wondering what the heck I was supposed to do now that I wasn’t going to be needed. But then Whaley stopped, turned to me and smiled. “Somebody here wants to meet you, Huger,” he said. “Says you got a mutual friend.”
He nodded over his shoulder, off to the left of the room. I turned, saw leaning against the bar over there a tallish guy with black hair and skin so white you’d think he’d only heard of the sun. He seemed about my age, and had a martini in his hand, his elbow on the bar. He wore a Nat Nast shirt, bright blue with a wide white stripe down the left side. Peeking out the top of the shirt pocket on the right were three pens, tucked tight in a tight row.
“My son,” Whaley said. “Thomas Warchester Whaley the Fifth. Five for short.” He smiled again, headed away with Unc on his arm.
I turned back to Five for Short, saw him hold up the martini glass, give me something of a toast. He sipped at it, and I started toward him.
That was when he called out, “Tabitha Galliard is my lab partner in Numeric Artificial Intelligence. Up at Duke.” He grinned, nodded. “Said she’s heard of you.”
Tabitha.
I paused for an instant, though flinched might be a better word for it. I made a sort of a stutter sound, too, a hitch in my throat that heaved out in the form of a word that might have been oh. And suddenly I was blinking too many times in a row.
I made it the rest of the way to the bar, maybe five or six feet and only as many seconds. But time and distance enough
to make me feel like I was maneuvering my body between the molecules of a lead wall.
I put my hand on the bar, saw the big bartender looking at me like I would know what it was I wanted to drink.
“Look like you could use a strong one,” the bartender said and smiled, nodded.
I managed a nod back at him, said, “What he’s having.” As soon as I said it I knew how lame and stupid I sounded.
I took in a breath, blinked a few times more. Tabitha who? I wanted to retort. I wanted to say, Can’t place that name, or Sounds familiar.
Or even Tell her I love her and that I’ve never stopped loving her.
These were the words, however equally lame and stupid they were, that came to me as I stood at the bar that first time I met Thomas Warchester Whaley the Fifth. But I said none of them, only watched the bartender pour off a martini from a pitcher and drop in an onion and an olive.
“Enjoy!” he said, and smiled happily, nodded. The word had seemed a preposterous thing coming from such a big dude, and coming at this particular moment, when the idea of enjoying anything at all pretty much ever again seemed not even a possibility.
I picked up the martini, nodded back at the bartender, and turned to Five for Short.
I held the glass up, like I was about to make my own toast, and saw them again: that tight row of pens in the front pocket of his fancy silk shirt, the international sign for a Poindexter. And now I saw what I could say. I had some words, ones that would knock him down, give this pasty-faced turd a thing to think about.
Tabitha said she’d heard of me. Right.
I nodded at the pens, said, “You forgot your pocket protector.”
“Did you pass Intro to Computer Programming this time around?” he said right back, smiling.
I turned, set the martini glass on the bar without taking a sip of it, put both hands on the bar top. The bartender raised his eyebrows a bit, as though I hadn’t liked what he’d given me, or to wait for the answer I was supposed to give back to Five for Short.