Hero

by Dan Sugralinov

  You’ve dealt critical damage to Vazgen Karapetyan: verbal injury

  -25% to Spirit

  -25% to Confidence

  “I do,” he finally said.

  “You do what?”

  “I understand.”

  “Good.”

  I let go of his neck and stepped aside just in case, remembering the earlier incident with one of his compatriots today.

  As I turned round, I saw Veronica who’d ignored my request to stay in the car. I gestured to her to get back in. She obeyed without saying a word.

  That was funny. I wasn’t really used to people listening to me. Having said that, I’d asked her to stay put, hadn’t I?

  My Lie Detection was still active.

  “Quits?” I offered Vazgen my hand.

  He stared at it for a while, looked up at me, then answered my handshake. “Quits...”

  He paused, thinking, then exploded in a hot hasty flood of words, “Sorry, brother. I saw you two together going somewhere. The blood just went to my head. My heart nearly stopped...”

  His words didn’t feel particularly warm — regarding Lie Detection, I mean — but they didn’t feel cold, either. He wasn’t lying. That’s exactly how he felt even though he wasn’t very sorry about it, his losing the fight being his only regret.

  Only later, when I’d already parted ways with the PVC windows vendor, bidden goodbye to Veronica and headed for Gleb sitting on the bench staring into his smartphone, did I realize that Lie Detection seemed to have had a quaint effect on people I spoke to, forcing them to open up.

  I summoned Martha who confirmed my conjecture.

  The program adapts to the user and evolves as he progresses, I remembered one of my first discussions with her.

  It looked like the laconic skill descriptions offered by the system didn’t give you the whole picture.

  * * *

  I WALKED OVER to Gleb and stood next to him for a while, watching him. He was playing online poker — with real money, by the looks of it. He seemed to be in a bad way. He was wearing an old faded pair of jeans with an oily spot on one knee, worn-down dress shoes of what once must have been patent leather and a loose green short-sleeved shirt. His hair was greasy. He scratched the back of his head, made a decisive wave of his hand clutching a smoldering cigarette and went all-in.

  He then held his breath and froze, whispering,

  “Come on now! Do it! Respond!”

  His mantra seemed to have worked as the last remaining opponent went all-in, too.

  Gleb had a decent hand: a Big Slick and a flop of 2, 7 and A. Which meant he already had two aces — and if he managed to get another one, he’d have trips even though the chances of it were rather slim.

  The virtual dealer showed all the cards. Before the last card was opened, I could see Gleb was still winning because his opponent had a pair of 7s.

  My friend tensed up, his nails digging deep into his white-knuckled fists as he mumbled a prayer.

  The dealer showed the last card: a 7.

  His opponent had runs of 7s which meant Gleb’s two pairs had just lost.

  Having realized he hadn’t had any more money, the poker app promptly suggested he topped up his balance.

  Still oblivious of my presence, my friend finished his cigarette off down to the filter in a couple of powerful drags, then took a swing and smashed his phone on the tarmac.

  The broken pieces landed at my feet. Finally realizing he wasn’t alone, he looked up at me, squinting shortsightedly as he tried to work out who it was standing in front of him. He never could see very well at dusk and now after the bright phone screen, his eyesight took some time to adapt.

  “Hi,” I said. “Are you playing?”

  “Ah, it’s you,” he wheezed. “Did you see it?”

  “How much did you lose?”

  He startled. “What, now? Or in total?”

  “We’ll talk about that when we get upstairs. I take it, this is the problem you wanted to talk to me about. So how much was it this time?”

  “Er... I borrowed some money from someone. Ten grand[30]. I’ve just lost it all! And I was winning! I had thirty grand! I even thought I should have put half of it aside to pay the guy off and play with the rest.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “I did! But then I wagered it again when I’d lost all my winnings. I thought I might bounce back. But you saw it yourself, didn’t you? Just not my day. Who’d have thought that this idiot would get a third 7?”

  “Yeah, I noticed. You had better chances. But why did you break your phone?”

  “To give up playing,” he mouthed. “Yes. In any case, I don’t have the money to go on.”

  “Okay. Come on, you can tell me all about it upstairs. Are these yours?”

  He nodded. I picked up a few shopping bags packed full of cheap beer and bagfuls of chips. “Come on, then.”

  By the time I was done with my first beer, anxious about the growing Intoxication debuff, Gleb had already downed three and gone to the bathroom, leaving me pondering over my own dark memories.

  He and I, we both had a compulsive streak. We’d started spending time in gaming halls already in our freshman year, clubbing together and sharing both our winnings and our losses[31]. Because when you lose your last money, it’s easier to survive it when you have someone to share it with. Someone you could pour your heart out to and discuss things, ending with a naïve hope to recuperate your losses. Because it's not gambling that ruins you: it’s trying to win it back. As both of us had parents in the same city, we hadn’t been left starving and homeless, but at a certain moment I personally had gotten fed up with this vicious circle. Think for yourself: I was working hard and studying at the same time, I made very decent money only to lose it all in one evening, not even.

  One time he and I had just been paid by one of those fast food joints which was known for hiring students. We’d already had plans for the money: Gleb needed a new phone while I wanted to finally ask Marina out, a girl I knew from campus. I had no idea where it might go from there but I definitely could use some money to get this relationship on the road. By then, I’d already stopped pestering my parents for money, trying to pay for all my entertainment myself.

  Then we’d come up with what we thought was a bright idea: to go and spend a fraction of it on one-arm bandits. At the time, they were everywhere in town and we’d been round them all.

  If we’d won, that would have allowed Gleb to buy a better phone. And as for me... I couldn’t even remember what I’d hoped for. A college student always has plenty on his wish list.

  To cut a long story short, we’d lost our quota in the first thirty minutes and spent the rest of the hour trying to win it back. It really hurt to lose our hard-earned money, so we started raising the stakes and lost twice as much. By then, each of us had only about half our wages left.

  That’s when we were struck by an even brighter idea: to bet everything we still had on black. Because that particular hall had an electronic roulette wheel, too.

  Predictably, it fell on red. It had taken us an hour to piss a month’s worth of hard work into the wind.

  That was when I’d first experienced this eerie feeling when you completely forget about the consequences, including your plans to take a girl out. I could neither eat nor drink; we just sat there chain-smoking, thinking desperately where to find the money to recoup our losses. We’d finally finished our marathon gambling session in the morning of the following day when we’d lost everything we could have begged and borrowed — both from our parents and from our college buddies.

  It hadn’t happened in one go. We kept lying to our families who’d scrape together some money for us which we’d then take back to the slot machine hall. Still hoping to win it back quickly, we would play for big stakes, always on a lookout for hot slots. We’d change them, taking turns pressing buttons, betting up or down, and basically using all the gambling superstitions which you adopt quickly once you start betting
something more important than just a portion of your wage.

  Having lost everything again, we’d have another brainstorm in order to decide whom to borrow more money from. At four a.m., when all our reserves had been depleted, Gleg had finally scraped together enough courage for us to go and see his girlfriend. She used to work with us so we knew for sure she had money because we’d been all paid out together.

  Now, I still smart at the memory — but at the time, we couldn’t have cared less. This girl whose name I can’t even remember gave Gleg everything she had left. Still groggy from her sleep, she couldn’t quite work out what was going on. All she knew was the boy she loved was in trouble and that she could help.

  “It’s all right, babe, I’ll explain to you later, we need to help a friend out. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can! Thank you!” Gleb mumbled as he took her money, every single penny she had.

  Knowing this was our last chance, we took every possible precaution. Either it was common sense that had finally prevailed, or the realization that we were hungry and that we’d still have to survive for a month somehow once the night was over — once we’d paid back everything we’d borrowed, of course.

  Either the machines were prop full and had started to pay out, or we’d chosen wiser strategies and stopped betting so recklessly but Lady Luck must have taken pity on us — or most likely, decided to teach us an even harder lesson. In any case, by the time the hall closed for the morning maintenance break we’d had won back almost everything other than our wages.

  I knew we shouldn’t have left but by then, we were on a roll. The winning steak had given us wings. We put some money on black again and it came up red. We used the Martingale strategy doubling our bets — and it came up red again. By then, we were on a tilt so we bet everything we still had.

  It came up zero.

  We were idiots, what do you want? We’d spent the next year trying to pay off all the debts. We'd even thought we’d quit gambling for good. Still, as time went by, we’d forgotten the bad parts. Both of us had gotten back on our feet financially. We started earning more. So after a night out in a bar, instead of going home, one of our friends suggested we went to a casino.

  “Why not? No one forces us to play, right? We’ll only pay the entrance fee. That way we’ll get our drinks free!”

  So we had the free drinks. Then we played a little and even won a few times, then left utterly pleased with ourselves.

  But afterwards, Gleb and I started to frequent it. We dismissed slot machines as being a rip-off and concentrated on the casino poker which for some reason seemed honest to us at the time. Because if you think about it, a dealer can’t just deal the cards he wants.

  Morons. It had taken us a long time to realize that the casino would always come out best.

  Still we continued going there for over a year — until the memorable night when I’d borrowed all of Gleb’s money and never returned it. We stopped seeing each other, and without our team play, the game had lost its attraction to me. Also, I was already getting involved with the World of Warcraft which seemed to quench my compulsive streak.

  In the meantime, Gleb had married Lena who was two years ahead of us at college, and even fathered two sons with her. Still, he’d carried on playing. Knowing his weakness, he’d surrendered the family budget to his wife and replaced the gambling halls and casinos — the access to which had by then been restricted in Russia — with online poker. He took out a special bank card where he secretly deposited the proceeds of any occasional jobs and used it to play.

  Because by then, he played everywhere: at work, at home and out in the street using his smartphone.

  Whenever he won, he’d buy presents for his wife and kids. He never bought anything for himself. Any losses he took in his stride, knowing he couldn’t share his secret with anyone, least of all his wife. On the one occasion that he’d admitted his shameful addiction, his wife didn’t speak to him for several days, then gave him an ultimatum: it was either the game or the family.

  Gleb chose his family. Still, he kept playing.

  He kept losing more and more until finally he was on another tilt and borrowed so much money from everyone that he was forced to take out a loan. He thought he might bounce back and pay it all off...

  “D’you want it opened?” Gleb asked when he’d come back, reaching into the bag for another beer.

  “Yes, please.”

  We walked out onto the balcony as Gleb was already dying for another smoke. As he was clicking his lighter, I asked him,

  “So what’s gonna happen now? What kind of loan did you take out? Do you have so many debts?”

  “I told you already. It’s over two million[32].”

  “How much?” my mind couldn’t take it in. How could he have lost so much? “And the loan?”

  “The loan isn’t so big. Relatively, of course. It’s two hundred grand. I managed to raise the same amount by borrowing it. And as for the rest...” he drew noisily on his cigarette and washed it down with beer without exhaling.

  “Come on, out with it.”

  “Now I’m really deep in it, Phil. I’m in it good and proper,” he relaxed and spoke quickly, swallowing the words. “I found a sports poker club in town. I saw their ad online. Like, they were holding a poker tournament. Everyone was welcome. The entry fee was seven thousand but I thought, with my experience, I stood a decent chance. The most important thing was to get to the final table.”

  “What experience are you talking about? Are you off your rocker? You’ve been playing all your life either against a casino dealer or online even! It’s completely different! You can’t even keep a poker face! And when you face a real-life opponent...”

  “I know, Phil, I know! I do now! Actually, I performed quite well. I told Lena I was on a business trip and went to the tournament instead. I played for almost twenty-four hours with a short break until I made it to the final table. So that time I managed to get my money back. And even won some.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” Gleb barked, so annoyed that he even spilled his beer over himself.

  “Do I take it that this isn’t the whole story?”

  “Almost. I liked it probably too much. The award ceremony, everybody shaking my hand, my winnings warming my pocket... And the whole thing, you know. My Lena’s always at home, overweight. And those girls there, they were all over me. All the really cool guys speaking to me as if I was their equal. It’s a sport, you know. You get some respect, not to even mention other things. I probably heard too many stories about guys going through the ranks until they reached international level and won hundreds of thousands of dollars — millions even. I imagined myself quitting my job. I could already see myself flinging my work contract in the face of that scumbag boss of mine, then taking Lena and the kids on vacation.”

  “Where to?”

  “To the seaside, preferably. My youngest has asthma. He needs the sea air.”

  “And?”

  “I started playing in the club with those guys. At first, I went there once a month, then one a week until finally, I played there almost every evening. I was doing okay for a while, winning some, losing some, but keeping my head above water. Until finally I hit a bad streak. I just had no luck at all. I tried everything: taking it easy, bluffing, calculating the pot odds and the hands odds — nothing. I had nothing but junk, can you imagine? And that night, I finally was on a winning streak. I had straights and flushes and even a couple of full houses. Imagine! I spent a good fifty grand on tips alone! Shit, there’s no more beer. Wait here, I’ll go get some.”

  “No, you stay here! You can hardly speak as it is! Finish your story first! What happened next?”

  “What happened next? I was sitting pretty. I’d already started thinking how I’d buy a PlayStation for the kids, pay back my debts and have enough money to go to Turkey.”

  “That’s when you should have left!”

  “That’s exactly what I was going to do! I decided t
o stay just one last hand. I had a flush, can you imagine? I still remember it: Ace-King-10-6-3. I went all-in — and he went all-in too!”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Just a guy. They called him Dimedrol. He’s some sort of police big wig. He gave me the creeps. When you look at him, he’s all so friendly, he cracks jokes, but his eyes are... how can I put it... they’re dead. He always plays big.”

  Strange associations began to swell in my mind. Wet earth... fire... “And?”

  “And I was in the crap. Or so I thought at the time. But it was only the beginning. To cut a long story short, he beat me with his straight flush. Can you imagine? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing and he happened to have had it just as I was about to leave! And then he was all so sympathetic about it. He kept saying, ‘It’s all right, Gleb, you can still win it back!’”

  His voice quivered, betraying resentment. He was angry with himself, with Lady Luck, with the mysterious Dimedrol and even with his own addiction.

  “So you lost all your winnings, and then what?” I asked. “How did you manage to lose such an enormous amount of money? That’s two million we’re talking about!”

  “How can I say... This Dimedrol offered me to play on credit. Like, who needs to keep tabs between friends? And then I got really unlucky...”

  He continued talking, struggling with his words and barely making any sense. Still, I managed to get the general gist of it before he passed out.

  This time, he’d hit a brick wall and lost thirty thousand dollars. He had to pay it back with interest before the end of the month. The clock was ticking. Apparently, this Dimedrol had promptly stopped being a sympathetic funny guy, transforming into a cruel loan shark... with dead eyes.

  “If you can’t pay back, Gleb, I’m afraid you’ll have to sell your apartment. A card debt is a sacred thing. It has to be paid no matter what! Understood?”

  As if to confirm the seriousness of his words, the club’s staff had suddenly lost all interest in Gleb. All those saucy waitresses and old poker partners, previously so nice and friendly, now gave the unlucky client the cold shoulder, to the point where Gleb had been barred from entering the club on the sole occasion when he’d finally scraped some money together hoping to recuperate his losses.