by Mark Joseph
“Ah, bullshit,” Dean countered. “Life has no redeeming social value. Life is just life if you have the balls to live it. If you don’t, then you might as well be dead.”
“Put on anything you like, then sit down,” Alex demanded, a little annoyed. “It’s my deal.”
“Hold your horses, Alex. I just went from winners to losers, an experience that may be beyond your ken.”
“Are you in, Dean?” Charlie wanted to know. “Or are you gonna mess around with the records all night?”
“Yeah, yeah, deal me in.”
Dean put on Johnny Cash and they played a few more hands with no one catching cards worth betting. The game was like the sea in a squall, turbulent and dank but not really threatening. The big storm was somewhere beyond the horizon. As midnight approached Nelson looked at his watch every few minutes, Alex smoked Luckies, and Dean drank more rum. In normal years the game provided a superb diversion from the stress and anxiety of their lives, but tonight poker could provide only so much distraction from the gritty issue of whether or not Bobby McCorkle was going to arrive, what it meant if he didn’t, and what might happen if he did.
“It’s not the first time,” Nelson reminded them. “Remember, six or seven years ago we had a wild card who didn’t show. Just crapped out and you got all pissed off”—he jerked a thumb toward Dean—“he was your guy and you got drunk and dragged some old gal from the bar up here. You wanted to play strip poker.”
“I did. With her. In the bedroom.”
“You’re a horny old toad, you know that?”
“Well, I ain’t dead the way you think we’re dead. Time warp, my ass. I fuck women. I race my boat. I have a good time and mind my own business, and I sure as shit ain’t dead. Not on your—”
“Listen,” Alex interrupted. “Maybe we’re not dead, but we’ve always known we were living on borrowed time. When you borrow and borrow and borrow, sooner or later you have to pay and pay and pay.”
“No, you don’t,” Dean declared. “You can croak and nobody collects.”
He laughed at his own morbid joke and lit another joint.
“Look,” Alex said. “Somebody has to say this. The one thing we were most afraid of has happened. Our worst nightmare has come true. Now, it’s up to us, including Bobby, to determine what we’re going to do about it. I swear he’ll show.”
“Who are you, the fucking pope?” Dean asked. “You gonna wave your magic wand and make him walk through the door?”
“Where do you think he is?” Nelson asked Alex. “Maybe he missed his plane. I can call the airline.”
“Nah,” Alex said. “My guess is that he hasn’t been to San Francisco for a long time and he’s taking a tour, Noë Valley, Baker Beach, you know, the old stomping grounds. It’s hard for him. He doesn’t know what to expect from us any more than we know what to expect from him.”
“Maybe we should do the same thing,” Charlie piped up. “Let’s play tourist. Let’s forget the game and go to one of the old Irish bars in the Mission. Let’s go to the Dovre Club and get fucked up.”
“We’re here to play cards,” Alex asserted, mildly alarmed that the game might be slipping away. “Even if Bobby shows, poker is the main event.”
“You’re a poker junkie, Alex,” Nelson said. “We all know that. You’re crazy. And you,” he said, pointing a finger at Charlie, “you’re losing, so shut up.”
“The Dovre Club!” Dean exclaimed with a gleeful laugh. “Hot stuff. All right.”
“Shit,” Alex said.
“Sorry, Wiz,” Dean said, “but we have all weekend. Maybe Charlie can find another player tomorrow.”
“Nelson, would you rather play or party?” Alex asked.
“I don’t care. If these guys want to go to the Dovre Club and make fools of themselves, I don’t give a shit.”
“I have an idea,” Alex said brightly. “Let’s make the game more interesting. Let’s raise the stakes to a hundred dollar ante.”
“Leave it alone, Wiz,” Dean said. “Look, the game isn’t working with only four players. That’s too bad, but that’s the way it is.”
“I didn’t fly three thousand miles to go bar-hopping,” Alex protested, petulant.
“Then why don’t you go down to Artichoke Joe’s,” Dean hissed, naming a well-known local card room.
A look of undisguised horror blanched Alex’s face. After a long, long pause he said, “You know I can’t do that. I can’t even think about that.”
Dean immediately regretted his faux pas and apologized. “Sorry, Alex. I’m sorry. Really, I didn’t mean it.”
“Ah, what the hell,” Alex conceded. “Every year the game goes haywire one way or another, but usually not until the second night. The wild card usually keeps it interesting until he goes broke.”
“You mean until you skin him alive.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ve got a fat head sometimes,” Dean said. “And if it gets rough, you’d better have the cards.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Alex said. “I used to beat him left, right, and upside the head.”
“Except for the last time.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Alex reiterated.
Edgy, inhaling several slow, deep breaths, Alex started doing card tricks to keep his hands busy. For a moment he contemplated going to Artichoke Joe’s, sitting down, and never getting up. Maybe he wouldn’t lose everything, and if he did, so what? After tonight it might not make any difference.
14
The doorbell chimed, followed by a loud rap on the door. They froze. For a moment the only sound in the room was a scratchy old recording of Johnny Cash’s ballad of addiction and redemption, “I Walk the Line.”
“Holy shit,” Charlie squealed, jumping up. “I’ll get it.”
Dean pointed a threatening finger at Nelson and said, “This better not be one of your stunts.”
“I’m pretty sure it is,” Nelson replied. “Justice will be served. The star witness is about to step into court, and we get to be our own judge and jury.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Dean mumbled.
Alex spread the blue deck face up and flipped it over face down, then back and forth, back and forth like a tide. His hands were sweating.
Standing in the corridor was a middle-aged man of medium height, balding, clear-eyed, a little paunchy, and dressed in a tailored English sport jacket, polo shirt, outsized silver belt buckle, flannel slacks, and snakeskin cowboy boots. A diamond-shaped ruby stud brightened his left ear.
“Bobby!”
“Yeah, hello. Charlie?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s me. Thirty years and thirty pounds.”
They shook hands and fumbled through the lightest of brotherly hugs.
“Hey, Charlie, all right. How are ya, man? Good to see ya.” The voice was instantly recognizable, boisterous and full of hail-fellow-well-met.
“Come on in. We saved you a seat.”
“Sorry I’m late.”
“No sweat. C’mon.”
Charlie ushered Bobby into the living room where Dean and Nelson stood at the table while Alex, resplendent in Panama and dark glasses, remained seated, smoke from his cigarette swirling into the light.
“Hey, Dean, Alex, hey, Nelson. Looks like you boys got yourselves a game going.”
“We got a game,” Charlie said, the congenial, effusive host. “We got eats, we got seegars and booze and Dean has some dynamite weed. We got everything.”
“Well, all right. Sounds good to me.”
“Check into your room all right?” Charlie asked, wondering what happened to the bellhop who was supposed to notify him of Bobby’s arrival. “They take care of you?”
“I didn’t check in, no. I came right up. Nice room, pretty fancy,” Bobby answered, pursing his lips, nodding his head, and looking around. Noticing the pictures of Maverick and company he added, “Nice decorations.”
“Care for a drink?” Charlie asked.
“Sure. Got a
soda and lime?”
“Got everything.”
While Charlie hustled into the kitchenette to fix a soda and lime, Bobby stood between the foyer and the card table, arms folded across his chest, slowly nodding his head and looking appraisingly at Alex, Dean, and Nelson. They returned his frank gaze until the long looks became awkward.
Breaking the ice, Dean came around the table to shake Bobby’s hand. Grinning, the light making his beard shimmer with rum drippings, his sleeveless T-shirt revealing faded tattoos and munificent belly, he pumped Bobby’s arm, saying, “Well, I’ll be damned. Good to see you, man, even though you just cost me a hundred bucks.”
“How’s that?”
“The Wiz and I had a bet. He said you’d show, and it looks like he won fair and square.”
“A little action on my arrival, hey?” Bobby said with a nervous smile. “I shoulda guessed. They still call you the Wiz, Alex?”
“It’s a time warp in here, Bobby. Nothing much has changed. We just got older, that’s all.”
“Nice hat, jack o’ diamonds.”
“I only wear it once a year,” Alex said, slowly standing and removing his dark glasses. He walked over, stood for a long moment in front of his long lost friend, and then gripped his shoulders.
“It’s been a long time, Bobby. Too long, a lifetime.”
Bobby grinned. A rising swell of emotion pushed the two men together and they grasped one another in a strong bear hug. As soon as Alex let go, Nelson grabbed Bobby, slapped him on the back, and was too overcome to say anything more than, “God damn, God damn, it’s good to see you.”
“Hey, Chinaman, you, too.”
Embarrassed, almost blushing, Bobby felt as though they were back in Alex’s parents’ garage, full of swagger, high on life, getting ready to play on a cable-spool. In those days poker had been fun. Now, when he sat down to play every night, he felt nothing. He was neutral. Poker was work, his métier, and he’d long since surpassed cockiness or any mindset that interfered with his play. This was different. A swirl of emotions battered him from all directions, and he struggled to maintain his mental balance.
“So you guys do this every year, right?”
“Most years,” Alex said. “Sometimes we miss for one reason or another.”
“And some years we get so wasted we can’t play,” Dean said, laughing. “At least I do.”
Charlie returned from the kitchen with Bobby’s drink, and they endured another long pause until Bobby said, “I went by Lyle Tuttle’s tonight, and he’s gone. The whole building is gone.”
“Still got your tattoo?” Nelson asked.
Bobby’s hand went to his left shoulder. “Yeah. It’s faded, but I can tell you one thing,” he said with a sharp laugh. “I don’t look like Dean. You’re a walkin’ billboard there, boy. USMC. I heard you were in the Corps.”
“Semper Fi, dude,” Dean said. “I heard you were a lifer.”
“Yeah, twenty and out,” Bobby said. “How long were you in?” he paused and snapped a mock salute, “Sir?”
Dean smirked and returned the gesture of mutual respect. He wanted to say, “The past is gone and I don’t want to think about it anymore,” but he couldn’t say that because before the game was over the past was going to become the main topic of conversation. Instead he said, “Four years, and that was more than enough. I don’t dwell on those times. I got a life.”
“You seem to have had a lot of lives,” Bobby said, gesturing with his head at Dean’s body art.
Dean laughed heartily, his beard quivering and spraying droplets of rum. “Sometimes I use up two or three a day,” he said. “I don’t give a shit.”
Earlier in the evening, while eating at Joe’s, Bobby had wished aloud that he wanted to be eighteen again, and suddenly he was, or almost was, as though time had stopped and rolled back to the point where his life had been sheared off and rent asunder. A bond that had been broken was now precariously rejoined. He felt uncertain and a little queasy, and when he decided not to bring up Shanghai Bend immediately, he realized no one else was in a hurry to mention it, either.
Another awkward silence persisted until Alex said, “How about let’s play cards. We can reminisce and tell war stories later.”
“Right on,” Bobby said. “Let’s do that.”
Standing around grinning foolishly at one another, they were like stardust bouncing aimlessly around the universe. At the poker table their reunion would have a structure that would make it bearable. With a clamber of fussy noise they scrambled into their chairs, fiddled with chips, rattled ice in their drinks, and plinked fingernails against the hotel’s fine tumblers.
Bobby took the empty seat and ran his fingers over the felt. “Nelson said you fellas play five and seven stud and draw,” he said.
“That’s right,” Alex replied and rapidly outlined the rules they’d established earlier.
“Sounds like poker to me,” Bobby said. “You still playing with chips?”
“The same chips we used in the old days,” Charlie said, handing Bobby a blue for inspection. “You don’t use chips in your games?”
“In private games it’s usually cash, but chips are fine, especially nice ones like these. Five grand, right?”
“Five big ones,” Nelson confirmed.
“We don’t have a banker,” Dean said.
“We never did,” Bobby said, turning over the old, flat disk in his hand, triggering a flood of memories. “I remember that.”
While Alex counted out five thousand dollars in chips, Dean produced the rum box and Bobby chuckled at the huge wad of bills. He took out a money clip, counted out fifty crisp, new hundred-dollar bills and added them to the box. Alex noticed that Bobby’s hands were freshly manicured, the bills turned all the same way, and his manner of counting money efficient and well-practiced. The nervousness in his voice didn’t affect his hands.
“Well,” Bobby said, arranging his chips in neat stacks, “here we are, a bunch of fat old farts. Except you, Nelson. You look in pretty good shape.”
“I work out, go to the gym.”
“You live down south, right? That’s where you called from.”
“Yeah, I live in Hermosa Beach and work in Venice. You ever go to L.A.?”
“I don’t come to California very often,” Bobby answered, lighting a Winston. “I went to Gardena once.”
“The card rooms,” Nelson said with a knowing smile. “Oh, yeah.”
“It’s a living,” Bobby said with shrug.
“All right,” Charlie said. “Is this a new game? First jack deals?”
“Don’t start over on my account,” Bobby said. “Carry on.”
“It was your deal, Dean,” Alex said. “You decide.”
Dean shrugged. “It’s all the same to me.”
“Carry on,” Bobby repeated. “As you were, please.”
“Okay. Deano’s deal,” Alex said. “What’s the game?”
“Five stud,” Dean announced. “Comin’ atcha.”
The antes clinked into the center of the table, the cards rolled out, and Dean sang the dealer’s cadence. “The nine of clubs to the new player, a four to Charlie, another nine to Nelson, an eight to Alex, and a three to the dealer. First nine bets.”
Bobby peeked at his hole card and looked up to find Alex studying him like a laboratory specimen. They both smiled.
“First nine bets twenty-five dollars.”
15
The wait was over, the long hiatus ended. The light over the table seemed a little brighter, illuminating their faces with more energy than before. Cards crackled as they flew across the table; chips dropped into the pot with the sharpness of an axe on pine; the players perched on the edges of their seats, alert and eager, the Dovre Club forgotten, the records ignored, the food abandoned. When it became apparent that the cards for the hand would be nothing special, the unwritten code of competition was temporarily suspended by silent consent because no one wanted to fold the first hand with all of them t
ogether. A perfunctory bet of one white chip was made on each card, and Nelson drew a second nine on the last card to win the pot.
“Thank you, gentlemen, thank you, thank you,” Nelson said cheerfully, gathering in the chips.
“You’re a winner,” Bobby said to Nelson as he shuffled the blue deck. “Do you guys still call this Chinaman Crazy Nelson?”
Before anyone could answer, Nelson fixed Bobby with a stony glance, reached under his chair for his .44 magnum and swung it around until it pointed away from the table directly at the photo of Wyatt Earp. “You tell me,” he said, sighting down the barrel. “What do you think?”
Eyeing the big pistol warily, smelling the clear scent of gun oil, Bobby cleared his throat and said, “I guess some things don’t change.”
Nelson spun the cylinder, making sure Bobby saw the weapon was loaded, leaned over the table and growled, “You’re the only white man who ever called me ‘Chinaman’ and lived.”
Bobby paled, suddenly afraid he’d caused terrible offense. Before he could sputter an apology, Nelson leaned back in his chair and laughed, saying, “No sweat, Kimosabe. Call me whatever you like.”
“Put that damned gun away,” Dean barked, his voice stiffened with the fiber of command. “You’ve been living in shit-fer-brains Hollywood too long, Nelson. Nobody gives a rat’s ass about your cannon. You ain’t Wyatt Earp.”
“Oh, yeah?” Nelson said, replacing the gun under his seat. “I’m the closest thing to good ole Wyatt you’ll ever have on your side, Studley.” Turning to Bobby he asked, “Are you still Bobby these days, or are you Bob or Robert or what?”
“It’s Bob to most people, but Bobby is fine. Kimosabe is dandy. I haven’t heard that in a long time.”
“Hey!” Charlie shouted, his voice rising with complaint. “For chrissake, we know who we are, don’t we? What’s the fucking game?”
“There you go,” Alex said. “Thank you, Charlie. It’s your deal, Bobby.”
“Hear hear, professor,” Dean said and Nelson added, “Roll ’em.”
“Okay, same game,” Bobby declared, cutting off the chatter and dealing with the tidy deftness of a professional. “Five stud.”
