New Title 1

by Lestewka, Patrick

  “I’ll get something,” he said. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  I’ve heard the refrain so many times it has attained the singsong quality of a show tune: You are lucky to be aaa-live—YES SIR!—lucky to be drawing breath—OH MY!—a medical miracle for all to see! The fortuitousness of my survival is, I’ve come to realize, a wholly subjective matter.

  The medic returned with a glass of water. He was accompanied by an older man who I learned was the surgeon responsible for saving my life.

  “You were dead,” he told me in the matter-of-fact tone of those inured to death. “When your unit offloaded you from the Huey, your brainwaves were flatlined.”

  I asked about the others.

  “Your unit was disbanded after the mission. Unconditional releases.”

  He asked how I felt. I told him I could not feel my body.

  “That can’t be,” he said. “We’ve done reflex-tests and—”

  “Not paralyzed. It’s just…everything’s…numb.”

  He pinched my arm hard enough to redden the skin. “Nothing?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well,” he shrugged, “side-effects are to be expected. You are lucky to be alive.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  The left side of my face felt terribly wrong. I raised my hand to touch it.

  “Don’t,” the surgeon said. “The wound is still tender. Alex, give him a mirror.”

  The medic offered me a barber’s mirror.

  “Oh good Christ…”

  “I did the best I could.” The surgeon’s voice was a million miles away. “There’s only so much I could do…”

  A chunk of bone and brain and skin roughly the size of a horse’s hoof had been carved from my skull. Half my forehead, my left eye, my left nostril and cheek and ear—all gone. A skin-graft—culled, I later realized, from my ass—had been sewn over the gaping wound to prevent the rest of my brain from sloshing out. The transplanted skin was dappled with wiry black hair: my ass hair. For some reason they continued to grow and I now shave them twice-weekly, pausing occasionally to savor the absurdity.

  I was never exactly a handsome man, but sweet fuck…

  The doc said I’d lost one-fifth of my frontal lobe, one-third of my thalamus, nearly all my limbic cortex. If someone were to stab me in the back, I would feel the blade’s pressure but there would be no pain whatsoever. It’s entirely possible I might bleed to death out of sheer ignorance.

  Other complications were expected. I did not disappoint. Apart from the numbness, everything I eat tastes like burnt toast—I ate burnt toast in hopes of it tasting like Lobster Newburg but no such luck. My hearing wavers in and out like a radio on the fritz and I’ve got no control of my johnson anymore: I pop wood for no earthly reason, sometimes blow my load in public places without a pretty skirt in sight.

  “We only use ten percent of our brains,” the baby-faced medic told me. “Einstein used eleven and he was a genius.”

  I said, “Shut up, man.”

  They sent me to a veteran’s sanitarium in Coldwater, Michigan. I wasn’t bugshit like the Section-8’s they had cooped up there, but the doc felt I’d have difficulty adapting to my “altered physical paradigm.”

  I met a vet named Eugene there. Eugene was a Major with 7th Recon, spent thirty-three months in Da Nang. It takes a certain type of person to keep their shit wired tight in Recon. Eugene was not that type. At thirty-one years old his hair was snow-drop white, arctic tundra white. He patrolled his room with a squeeze-bottle of Mrs. Butterworth, filling in every crack with syrup to stop the poison gas he thought the Gooks were pumping in. He confided that when he took a dump, the voices of dead Gooks talked to him through his asshole—the shit-voices, telling him to do awful things. Sounds funny, but it wasn’t, not really. The poor bastard wore earmuffs to the bathroom.

  Eugene killed himself. A lot of vets were doing it back then; bodies left the sanitarium with the regularity of laundry sacks. Nearly cut his head off with a can opener. Tore his jugular open, bled out on the cold tiles of his room. A dull fucking can opener. Vietnam gave us that, at least: the ability to perform the unthinkable…

  Twenty years later I’m sitting in room 217 of the Lucky Sevens motel in Las Vegas, Nevada. The name is a misnomer: anyone with even a shred of luck wouldn’t be reduced to flopping in this shithole. Railcars rattle by outside my window, Sin City washouts hopping boxcars down to California, hoping their luck will turn with a change of scenery. I pity their misplaced optimism.

  The telephone is ringing.

  The room is a shoebox—cigarette burns in the carpet, mildew in the shitter, mattress smelling like roach powder and stale piss. Outside it’s a real skid row district, human wreckage shambling around, last retreat before they die.

  The fucking phone ringing, ringing, ringing.

  “What?”

  “It’s Len. Getting a game together. You in?”

  The oh-so-familiar lightning bolt of anticipation zigzags down my spine.

  “Where at?”

  “Woodlawn.”

  “What—the fucking boneyard?”

  “Problem?”

  “It’s creepy. Playing cards in a cemetery—who does that?”

  “Archie the Mongoose works there, sweeping up, polishing coffins, stealing gold fillings out of stiffs’ mouths—hell, I don’t know. Good a place as any. Real ambiance.” Len’s sun-drenched drawl mangles the word: aayym-bee-yaance.

  “What are the stakes?”

  “Whatever you got.”

  “I’m tight.”

  “You’re always tight. Regular duck’s ass.”

  “Listen, I’m tight and I got outstanding markers all over town—”

  “Cry me a fucking river. Listen, Pokerface: you in, or do I cross you off my list?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “What?”

  “Pokerface. Don’t.”

  “You’re right, I shouldn’t. You don’t deserve that name. Why don’t you hang up this phone, walk the fifty yards to the railroad, hop the next boxcar? Because you’ve crapped out, pal. Lost the eye of the tiger.”

  I tell myself I won’t let him get to me, but Len is the consummate psychological acupuncturist, always knowing where to stick the needles.

  “You should leave town, Pokerface. You’ve been busted.”

  Prick goes the needle.

  “Make tracks while you’ve still got a shred of dignity.”

  Prick.

  “You’re so over-the-hill you can’t even see the hill you’re over anymore.”

  The guy’s such a fucking prick.

  Finally I say, “What time?”

  “An hour.”

  “See you if I see you.”

  We both know I’ll be there.

  The bathroom mirror is smeared with hot-pink nail polish. I use a straight razor to shave the hairs stubbling the gouge in my skull. Once, in a fit of blind depression, I bought a softball to see if it would fit into the divot. It did. My cranial prosthetic rests on the toilet seat. It’s non-allergenic ballistic silicone (Sim-Skin™), molded to match the contours of my face. A glass eye stares from between milky folds of rubber. A five-hour operation bolted clips onto my skull which lock the prosthetic in place. I comb my hair forward, black locks descending to the tip of my nose, do my best to pass as a human being.

  I’ve got one-thousand dollars in the back pocket of my Wranglers. A final grub stake. I know what I should do: walk to the bus station and catch a Greyhound to somewhere, anywhere, put as many miles between me and Paradise Valley as possible. But I won’t. Gambling is a disease, same as malaria or polio or cancer, except the symptoms manifest themselves in your mind instead of your body. I tuck my only real possession—a nickel-plated Cobray M-11—into my waistband before hitting the bricks.

  I catch the bus at the corner of Phoebe Drive and Arville Street, heading uptown. The bus threads a meandering path up the Strip. A pack of teens breakdance on the corner of Oakle
y and Bonita, Converse high-tops beating a tattoo on a flattened cardboard box with Paul Hardcastle’s anti-Vietnam anthem “19” pounding from a boom-box: And the soldier was nineteen, nineteen; ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-ni-nineteen, nineteen…

  An aging showgirl with massive tits boards at the Tropicana. Viet women don’t have big tits. Diet and racial tendencies, I guess. Never seen anything bigger than token nubs and I am reminded of a time…

  …three months in-country and the unit on a two-day furlough. We spent the night in a village near Quy Nhon, a thatched hut trafficking in Mekong and seasoned whores. The women were hideous, faces like rotted bees nests, but a ground-pounder from 17th Recon named Quillen was horny enough to screw a knothole.

  He took one of them out back and fucked her in a pile of drying bamboo. Quillen was so short he could’ve parachuted off a dime, and Section-8 to boot: when he came, he clamped his teeth over the whore’s nipple and chewed it off. She screamed and struggled but Quillen pinned her down and spat the nipple in her face.

  “Fucking bitches!” he screamed. “We’re here to save you from your miserable existence and you cunts won’t even throw some free gash our way!”

  A child, maybe eight years old, ran out and started winging punches at Quillen. The whore’s son, we figured. The kid’s mouth was stuffed with something; he opened his mouth and I saw the blasting cap wedged between his teeth. Then Quillen punched him, an uppercut to the jaw, and the kid’s head exploded, fragments of skull and teeth tearing Quillen’s face and chest to ribbons.

  None of us liked Quillen, but Zippo razed the village on principle…

  …I get off the bus at Owens Avenue, two blocks from Woodlawn. To the east is Harte Park, where the bullet-riddled bodies of Bugsy Siegel’s rivals are pushing daisies. To the west is Valley Hospital, its wards choked with attempted suicides, strung-out addicts, alkies. I know this city with clinical familiarity. I suspect many prisoners share a similar desire to know the exact dimensions of their cells.

  Woodlawn’s quiet. I walk between rows of tombstones adorned with wilted flowers and corroded flag holders. Six feet beneath me, the dead are laid out in a matrix as organized as any urban city grid. Boneyard Metropolis, surviving population: zero.

  Len greets me at the main entrance. We walk down a red-carpeted hallway, past capsule crypts stacked five-high, skyscrapers of the deceased. I scan brass nameplates for a familiar name, a celebrity or sports hero. Len opens an oak door marked PRIVATE and ushers me inside.

  “You got to be shitting me.”

  In the foreground, four men ring a stainless steel operating table. An Aftercare embalming machine emits a dull mechanic hiss pumping formaldehyde into the carotid artery of a shrouded cadaver. Wiry strands of dead, yellow-streaked hair spill from under the white sheet. The feet are uncovered: gnarled arthritic toes, waxy untrimmed nails. A Plano tackle box sits beside the corpse’s head, its shelves unfurled stair-like, stocked with rouge and lipstick, mascara and eyeliner pencils, blush, foundation mask.

  I’m somewhat sickened to note this is not the strangest place I’ve played cards.

  I scan the table. Two faces I recognize: Archie “Mongoose” Moore, permanent detox case with the loose face of a stroke victim; Ezzard-somebody-or-other, jet-black paintbrush moustache, used to play a doctor on a daytime soap. Neither can play to save their lives: Archie has so many tells his eyes may as well be mirrors reflecting the cards, while Ezzard blows those soap royalties chasing busted straights and phantom flushes.

  The other two are unknowns. Sitting directly to my left is a fat-necked, crewcut bulldog. He’s wearing an olive-green cableknit sweater with rectangular shoulder patches. His face is thick, with heavy supraorbital ridges canopying small black eyes, and his grey-edged teeth are slightly bucked. The other guy is the bulldog’s mirror opposite: a blade-shouldered wisp with features sharp as the creases in a Marine sergeant’s dress utilities. The breast pocket of his spotless lab coat is crammed with combs, toothbrushes, and tweezers. His eyes are prune-pits behind thick, square glasses that might resemble ice cubes were it not for the accretion of dust and eye-grit.

  “You already know Ezzard and Archie,” Len says, taking the seat to my right, “and this is Rocky,” nodding at the bulldog, “and George,” nod to the rake. “George is the head mortician. Dealer fee’s twenty.”

  I peel a twenty off my wad, which Len palms with the deft sleight-handedness of a sideshow magician. Archie’s trembling like a three-toed lady: anticipation or the DT’s? I can’t tell. The mortician scrapes gunk from beneath his fingernails with a trocar needle.

  Len shuffles a deck of Bees and runs down the game: “Straight Five Texas Stud, boys, nothing wild but the players. Bets on the Flop, Turn, and River. Ante’s twenty bucks; no max, no min. Rock and roll.”

  Opening hand: my hole card’s an ace and a three, diamonds; the ace is solid if I can find it a date. The Flop is a six, also diamonds. I raise fifty, driving George and Ezzard out. Rocky raises fifty on my fifty. I call. The Turn card is the one-eyed jack of hearts. Fuck. In for one-forty, my flush busted, and unless I pair up I’ll be left ace-high and dry. Quick tabulation: three in fifty-two = a 6.98% chance of snagging an ace.

  I drop a hundred, hoping to scare Rocky off. The bulldog matches and tosses another hundred. I should fold but instead call. Five-forty in the pot and me holding a handful of scattered shit!

  “Down and dirty,” Len says.

  The River is the ace of clubs. Fuckin A. I bet two-hundred, avoiding Rocky’s eyes, my body language screaming bluff. Rocky bites hard: two-hundred plus one-fifty, back at me. I goose the pot to twelve-forty and call.

  “So what’re you packing, kid?” Rocky says.

  Spin my ace onto the table.

  “Fuck me Frieda,” says Rocky. “Rake it.” He doesn’t show his cards, and doesn’t need to: he caught a high face pair, kings or jacks, off the deal. Kept waiting on trips that never materialized and ended up hamstrung with the second-best hand.

  I’m up big on my first hand. I should cash in and hightail it. But if I did intelligent things like that, I wouldn’t be in this position. I ante up.

  Rounds pass, money changing hands only to boomerang back. I watch the other players on the Q.T. Archie’s eyes light up brighter than phosphorous flares whenever he snags a sweet holeshot, and Ezzard is plagued by betraying tics: nose scratches, moustache tugs, brow furrows. Rocky plays like a riverboat gambler, bluffing heavy to smokescreen weak cards. The mortician’s a tough read: he’s lost as many hands as he’s won, but his wins are big and he often folds on the Turn if he doesn’t get what he needs.

  I catch a cold string of rags, mismatched twos and fours, busted straights waiting to happen. I’m folding off the draw, surrendering the ante. My stack’s deflating like a tire with a slow leak. I’m down to my initial grubstake when I catch the dream holeshot: red aces, diamonds and hearts.

  Betting opens to me. I toss in thirty, Ezzard folds, Rocky gooses to fifty, Archie chases it to seventy-five, George calls. Flop’s the king of clubs: no help, no harm. I open with fifty, Rocky ups to seventy, Archie matches with a look that says he’s throwing good coin after bad, the mortician calls.

  Six-sixty in the pot and the Turn’s the king of diamonds. Now everyone’s got a high face pair—but I’ve got two dynamite pairs. A brief scan tells me Archie’s set to fold but Rocky’s still a gamer. I bet a hundred, knowing Archie’s tapped but hoping to buffalo Rocky, and maybe George, into throwing down. Rocky, prototypical dick-swinger, chases the ante to one-fifty. Archie folds. The mortician lays his cards face-down and looks ready to follow suit but, with a sideways look at Len, matches at one-fifty.

  Len says, “Down and dirty, gentlemen.”

  The River is the ace of spades. I’ve caught the strongest possible full house, aces and kings. The lock. The nuts. I pour another shot of C.C.—hands shaking, stop shaking, stop—touch my thumbtips together to form a plow with my palms, and push all my chips into the pot.

  �
��What the hell. It’s getting late.”

  Rocky consults his meager stack and must admit his finances are not the equal of his bravado. “I’m out,” he says in disgust.

  It’s me and the mortician. My guess is he’s holding the final ace, giving him a knockout double pair, but not enough to sink my full boat. He lifts the edges of his cards, flattened to the table under his left hand, as if expecting them to have changed since the last consultation. Then, with careful, precise movements, he stacks his chips in the pot.

  “Yes,” he says, “it is getting late.”

  The mortician’s stake outclasses mine by over three-hundred dollars. I fish the pistol from my waistband. “The piece is worth a thou.”