The St. Michael Poker & Drinking Club

by Randle, Ned;

  As they played cards, the men helped themselves to chips and pretzels and beer, which was now cold. Metzger and Crump and their host clearly were enjoying the conviviality. Crump showed himself to be something of a raconteur, regaling the other ministers with stories of his travails as a boy when his Pap, an itinerant preacher, dragged him around the mid-South where his old man preached at tent revivals on Saturday nights and operated a floating card game in the tent other evenings of the week. His father put young Billy to work as a beer runner, he told them, who walked to the nearest tavern to bring back buckets of beer for the card players. In those days, the tavern operators would sell buckets of beer to a kid if they knew it was going down the road to old Preacher Crump’s card game. When he got older, his Pap would stake him in the games, where his ability to turn a card often let them turn a good profit. Or get run out of town. Nevertheless, to this very day, Crump told the other men, there’s something about the smell of beer and the smooth feel of a hand of cards that dredges up old memories, some delightful, some not so much so.

  “I worked up a powerful thirst fetching beer,” he added as he raised a dime after drawing one card, “and even as a boy the Devil gave me a powerful taste for the stuff. I’ve been battling the Devil ever since…I’ll see your dime and raise you another dime…and that’s one reason I have a beer now and then, like this one here,” he said lifting up his can, “with you boys, just to show the Devil I can have a drink or two but still resist his temptations to give myself over completely to the juice.”

  Tom and Metzger were still in the hand and waiting for Crump to stop prattling before seeing the bet. Theo had folded before the first raise. After the final raise of twenty-five cents Crump turned over his cards, one by one, showing a five, four, trey and deuce, all clubs, and when he turned over the last card, the ace of clubs, he hollered, “Up jumped that Devil!” Neither Tom nor Metzger could top a straight flush, and as Crump raked the change off the table into his velvety bag, he chanted, “Looky here, looky here, looky here, praise Jesus!”

  Tom laughed about Billy filling his straight flush on the last card and told Crump he embodied the old adage that ‘It’s better to be lucky than good,’ to which Crump replied, “‘Luck is not chance, it’s toil; fortune’s expensive smile is earned.’”

  Theo, who had been watching absentmindedly as the other men finished the hand, perked up at Crump’s last comment, which, due to his vexing memory (for him something once learned was never forgotten), he recognized as a line from an Emily Dickinson poem, and he wondered if Crump had a hidden vein of erudition, or if he had cynically committed poetry to memory so he could spout it out in his stump speech sermons, to add rhyme and meter to his fire and brimstone. Theo considered that; but what did he know? He’d never heard Crump deliver a sermon; he barely knew the man. He chastised himself for being uncharitable and presumptive. Perhaps Billy Crump just liked poems and found a serendipitous opportunity to fit a line from Dickinson into the conversation.

  As Crump cleaned up the pot and Metzger shuffled for the next deal, Tom sipped his beer and focused his attention on Theo, who appeared to be deep in thought. It was difficult to tell whether the man was enjoying himself or not. He barely smiled at Crump’s jibber. It appeared to Tom the man just couldn’t relax. His hands were always aflutter and he shifted in his seat until Tom asked him if he wanted a cushion to sit on so he could be more comfortable. Theo declined, and as they played, Tom noticed he was trying to control his restless body by nibbling on his fingernails. And other than humming melodically, he showed little satisfaction when he won a hand. But he’d only won a couple small pots early on. When he raised a bet, ostensibly on a good hand, he did so with a loud, melodic hum, and the other players folded, leaving little money in the pot beyond the antes.

  Because Metzger was a methodical dealer, maddeningly slow at shuffling the deck and precise when doling out the cards, either absentmindedly or to show his impatience with the Methodist, Tom began to whistle the old Irish reel “Drowsy Molly” as Metzger shuffled another time. The priest had an accurate ear for the melody and his whistle was clear and on key. Suddenly, Billy Crump leaped out of his chair and, as Tom whistled, danced around the table, performing an admirable impression of an Irish reel. Metzger laughed so hard, he could barely deal. Theo watched Crump in wide-eyed wonderment and laughed out loud, mostly in bewildered embarrassment at the preacher’s unabashed display of impulsiveness. Tom started laughing, as well, which brought an end to his whistling, and Crump stopped dancing, took his place at the table, huffing and puffing, and picked up his cards without saying a word.

  “Where’d you learn to dance like that, Billy?” asked Tom.

  “When I was a boy, my Pap thought it’d be a good draw if me and my brother could dance and sing old time spirituals out in front of his tent. He had ideas like that all the time, my Pap did. Anyway, he had an old Negro down in Tuscaloosa teach us the steps to lots of dances—jigs, two-steps, reels—all that. Me and my brother would come out before the revival started and dance in front of the tent to lure in the gawkers. Then we’d go inside and dance across the stage and recite the Lord’s Prayer. Then Pap would go to preachin’. It was a sight.”

  Tom shook his head and wondered if there was anything at all that wouldn’t come out of Billy’s mouth over time and considered the little man great good fun and was glad to have him in the group. The other men, recovered from Crump’s surprising display of nimble audacity, picked up their cards and continued play. Theo took three cards, Tom took two, Crump two and the dealer, Metzger, took three himself. Theo was first to bet and he checked. Tom bet a nickel. Crump called the bet and then raised a nickel, Metzger folded, as did Theo. Tom called Crump’s raise, unsure as to whether he was bluffing or raising on a good hand but raised a dime to smoke him out. Crump saw Tom’s dime and raised a quarter. The priest folded his hand and Crump raked in the money with his obligatory “Looky here, looky here, looky here. Praise Jesus. More for the poor.”

  Tom looked at his watch and announced the next hand would be the last hand of the evening. It was Theo’s deal, and after the ante, he shuffled and dealt each man five cards. Theo stroked his chin nervously after he picked up his hand and began to hum loudly. Metzger shot him a sidelong glance and winked at Tom across the table. Tom listened intently until he recognized the tune Theo had been humming all evening. Metzger drew three cards. Tom took two cards and Crump drew three card as well. Theo stayed with a pat hand. Metzger bet a nickel, Tom raised a dime, and Crump raised another dime, and Theo called the thirty-five cents. Metzger checked the bet and so did Tom and Crump, but Theo raised a quarter. Since it was the last hand, the other three players called Theo’s bet, and with great delight, he laid down a full house—three deuces and two jacks. Metzger and Crump tossed their hands facedown onto the discard pile. Tom looked at his hand one last time—he also held a full house: three fours and two queens. He tossed his cards face down on the discard pile and pronounced Theo the winner.

  As if he’d sensed what Tom had done, Crump picked up his Crown Royal bag and softly recited “Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”

  Metzger and Crump saw themselves upstairs to the rectory door with promises to return in a fortnight. Theo was dropping his last winnings into his coin purse as Tom collected the empty beer cans and brushed the crumbs off the altar cloth. Theo offered to stay and help Tom clean up and also offered to have the tablecloth laundered to remove the wine stain, but Tom assured him neither was necessary. The two men trudged up the steps one after another and Tom saw him to the door.

  Standing at the open door, Theo summoned his nerve and asked Tom, “How’d you know you were dealing me an ace in the first hand?”

  “I didn’t; it was just a happy coincidence.”

  Theo wasn’t sure what to make of the comment but took the priest at his word and said nothing more. As Theo was wa
lking down the porch steps, Tom called after him, “Hey, Theo, I have the same feeling about ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God’ that Lincoln had about ‘Dixie’; it’s a fine tune as far as rebel anthems go, but I don’t think you should hum it every time you’re dealt a good hand. It’s a tell, and you’re never going to win any decent pots if you keep it up.”

  Chapter Six

  Over the ensuing months, the biweekly card games resulted in little money changing hands among the clergymen. The men had studied each other well enough to know when each held a formidable hand or merely was bluffing. As expected, Tom and Billy Crump proved to be the best card players; Theo tried but seemed to lack a certain acumen for the subtleties of the game. Metzger was, for the most part, disinterested or distracted. He had difficulty concentrating on the game.

  Tom noticed other, more subtle changes in the players as they became more comfortable with, or perhaps contemptible of, each other. Although disengaged when playing, before the games and between hands, Metzger labored to be more affable and gregarious and, correspondingly, irritating to Tom. His good humor, which set a light tone for earlier card games, lately had become tedious and stale. Of late, during the first hand of the evening, he made a point to tell a joke, usually applicable to the clergy and with the butt of the joke usually being a Catholic priest, which prompted Tom to ask him if the Methodist publishing house sold joke books written just for Protestant preachers who wanted to roast a Catholic priest. It seemed to Tom the Methodist was over-compensating for some deficiency he couldn’t identify in a man who appeared to have everything. And though he outwardly appeared lighthearted and disinterested in the outcome of the card games, he remained a cautious card player, never overreaching or chancing a bluff when engaged, throwing in his hand when his ability to concentrate was overmatched by his thoughts.

  After the first few meetings, Billy Crump began to display an irritating side as well. His long-winded tales took a darker turn as he babbled between hands about his struggles growing up and his herculean efforts at overcoming adversity in his life to become a preacher of the Word. And he shamelessly bragged about his successes, particularly in establishing congregations throughout the mid-South. Metzger, who was well-aware of Crump’s church-building methods, was tight-lipped and silent through his soliloquies. Theo was indifferent, finding Crump to be a coarse but harmless bumpkin who told wild, unbelievable tales around the card table and likely told them from the pulpit as well. Tom wasn’t sure if Crump’s posture was an affectation he assumed around classically-educated clergy or his natural bent. He leaned toward the former; he suspected Crump was self-aware and cultivated his image to fall in line with expectations. He was, at least superficially as Tom recognized, a self-drawn caricature of a southern Bible-thumper. But who’s not a caricature, a stereotype? Tom even questioned whether Billy Crump was his real name.

  Tom looked around the card table at the embodiment of his long-held belief in the factual underpinnings of stereotypes. He recognized that the reliance on received ideas when assessing a man’s character can lead to prejudice and malignant small-mindedness, yet he’d long been a believer in the generally accurate and illustrative function of stereotypes all of his life. Like it or not, stereotypes have root in facts, he conceded, and are a good place to start if one doing the assessment had the ability to discard the prejudicial aspects of the accepted stereotype found in the subject. He believed he had that ability. And the group of men at the table, himself included, comprised the epitome of clerical stereotypes: the portly, affable Irish priest, the dour Lutheran prig, the vapid Methodist, and the Bible-thumping rube.

  But it was Crump’s behavior as a rube with feigned naïveté that irritated Father Tom most this particular evening. The man alternated between arrogance and practiced obsequiousness. He continued the noisome habit of repeating, “Looky here, looky here, praise Jesus” in his nasally twang when he won a poker hand. “Praise Jesus, more money for the poor,” he’d added to his refrain as he dropped coins into the Crown Royal bag, one at a time, sometimes repeating, “Come to papa, come to papa” with a smarmy smile. After one such display, Metzger observed that if Billy kept winning nice pots he’d soon have enough ready cash to erect a second billboard on the north end of town.

  “Perhaps,” Crump said to Metzger without looking up as he counted his coins, “if your membership tanks you might consider placing your own billboard. Perhaps with a picture of your new associate minister? They say she’s a looker.”

  Father Tom noticed Metzger blanch and fold forward at the comment, a pained look in his eyes, as if his groin were on fire, as if he’d been kicked soundly in the nuts. Tom sensed some relationship between his reaction to Crump’s rib and his disengagement during the card games.

  “Is that what they say?” Metzger asked with a hard edge to his voice once he recovered. He shifted in his chair and pulled himself up to his considerable height and glared down at Crump. “Was that remark merely sexist, or was it commentary on the Methodist practice of ordaining women, or did it have some other nasty intent?”

  Tom spoke up to defuse the tension. “Okay, boys, let’s play cards. Leave it alone.”

  “I meant no offense,” Crump said flatly, a tense smile on his face as he set his bag to the side. “But I will say one last thing: every one of us has his own way of finding souls to save. You guys got it easy. You get most of your members when they’re babies, before they understand the underpinnings of your pomp and circumstance. By the time they figure out what’s really going on, they’re invested and you keep most of them for life. On the other hand, I have to go after the disenchanted and unchurched. It’s a constant labor, and expensive, and I use all means at my disposal.”

  Theo thought Crump’s comments about old line churches, which obviously included his own, opprobrious and could see that Metzger also was quietly fuming. Theo remembered what the Methodist had mentioned about Crump’s tactics for seeking souls during their telephone conversation, and he figured Brian likely was biting his tongue in deference to Tom’s intervention. In any event, it seemed to him that Crump had crossed a line, yet no one spoke up to disabuse him of the notion held by many preachers of his ilk. Theo looked to Tom, who had to realize Crump’s characterization applied most pointedly to him and his parishioners, and saw that the scar on the priest’s chin had reddened considerably in response to the remarks until it looked like a pulsating, external artery ready to burst. Nevertheless, Tom remained tightlipped and grim until he finally spoke up in measured tones.

  “You’re right about the labor, Billy. I sometimes think all this life consists of is placing one foot in front of the other, trying to do good, day in and day out, until one day you just step right into your grave.”

  “And they say we’re dark,” remarked Theo, disclosing more self-awareness than Tom thought him capable of, causing the priest to smile at the pastor’s insight.

  However, Father Tom’s uncharacteristic and saturnine comment caught the men off guard. Theo thought Tom should have taken Billy to the woodshed for his obnoxious blathering, and he was disappointed when Tom turned the other cheek, and in such a resigned and cheerless manner at that. In the wake of the exchange, no one spoke, and the only thing that could be heard was the riffle of the cards as Tom prepared for his deal.

  “Tell me, Tom,” Brian Metzger finally asked, more to ease the tension around the table than to delve into spiritual esoterica, “as a man, and not as a priest, are you afraid of dying? Despite all my faith and all my training, I’ll admit there are times I am, to be perfectly honest.”

  Tom didn’t find Metzger’s admission odd. From his many years of pastoring the sick and dying, he’d learned many who feared death most had too great an opinion of themselves or too much worldly to live for. In regard to his own fear of death, he at first was tempted to respond flippantly, offering the affirmative aphorisms rough boys at the seminary, like himself, often spouted in response a questio
n whose answer was so obvious: is a bear Catholic? Does the Pope shit in the woods? But he held his tongue and gave the question due consideration. The answer he arrived at was not so obvious.

  “It’s not fear I feel when I consider my own inevitable death, Brian,” Tom answered as he doled out the cards. “It’s more a feeling of embarrassment. You know, it’s like that self-consciousness you feel in one of those dreams where you show up at some formal shindig, uninvited, naked, or barefooted? Since I’ve not died before, I don’t know the etiquette of it, and I feel a bit embarrassed that I might not do it well. And I don’t think I’m alone in that regard. How many times have we heard about a family member or hospice worker leaving the moribund person’s bedside, just for a minute, to go the restroom or have a smoke or get a cup of coffee, only to come back and find the sufferer dead?

  “I think it is the indignities the dead suffer that bother me,” Tom went on. “The disregard for the former life, the gawking curiosity, the rough handling of the body, the tossing and turning on the embalmer’s steel table, the draining of the lifeblood, the cork up the ass—”

  “Indignities are personal torts,” Metzger offered. “Why worry about it if you’re dead? There’s no indignity if you are immune to the insult. I don’t worry about that; I have greater fears.”

  “Well, I look forward to it,” Crump volunteered, undeterred by the silent reproof of his last comments. “I want to meet Jesus face-to-face. I’ve got a few questions for Him.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” Metzger replied.

  “He’s got some explaining to do.”

  Not wanting to allow an opportunity for Crump to elaborate on his blasphemy, Theo asked if they could drop such a morbid subject and get back to the card game. Since he’d lost the earworm and no longer hummed when he had good hand, his luck had started to change, and although he had a long way to go to master the game of poker, for the first time in his life he felt he could master a secular skill.