by Paul Volponi
“I’m never short!” Rooster came back. “Only thing different today is you’re here!”
chapter seven
ON FRIDAY MORNING I flew through Abbott’s math final. I was the first one in class to finish, but I wasn’t about to hand in my paper and have him think twice about how much I really knew. So I sat there staring at my test with one eye and at Abbott out of the other. I even turned my pencil around a few times and erased some of the answers, before I wrote them over the same way.
The class was stone quiet when Abbott jumped up from his chair and charged over to Cassidy’s side of the room, like he’d caught somebody cheating. Everybody quit writing, and most of the kids in those two rows probably stopped breathing, too.
“Eyes on your own paper!” shouted Abbott, with his finger pointing among them all. “If I take your exam away, you fail. It doesn’t matter what kind of star athlete you are, or where you think you’re going to college. And remember, I’m the one teaching summer school!”
Then Abbott sat down again, with his elbows flat against the desk and hands clasped tight in front of him. Nobody was cheating. He was just jerking kids around for the fun of it, and I swore I saw him fight back a grin.
Cassidy had been struggling since the beginning and was starting to really sweat now. The day before, during the phys ed final, I had to climb to the top of a thirty-foot rope. Anybody on a varsity team didn’t have to take the test and got an automatic passing grade. So Cassidy was sitting on the side, calling guys who used a pair of leather gloves to climb “homos.”
The kid who’d just come down tried to hand me off the gloves, but I walked right past him.
“That’s the only way to do it—like a stud,” said Cassidy, coming over to anchor the rope for me. “Now go make the music.”
There’s a silver bell at the very top you need to slap. You can hear it ring all through the gym. That way kids can’t cheat even an inch, or have people say you didn’t make it when you really did.
I threw one arm over the other fast and got three-quarters of the way up before I needed a breather.
“Don’t hang there too long, Porter!” the gym teacher shouted. “You’ll go numb!”
The muscles in my arms were already turning to lead, and every part of me was straining just to hold on.
I felt Cassidy’s weight pull the rope tighter. But I wouldn’t look down for anything, because I wasn’t going there without getting to the top first.
I couldn’t be that kind of nobody ever again.
Then I pictured that poker player without any arms hanging from the top of the rope by his legs, smacking the bell with his chin, celebrating.
That got something burning from deep inside me.
I pulled up every bit of strength I had and inched closer.
Then I reached my arm up high and swiped for the bell.
I heard it ringing in my ears all the way down and had to slide the last ten feet when the rope slipped through my hands. Both my palms got scraped raw. And when Cassidy gave me a super hard high five, it was all I could do to keep from crying out in pain. But I’d made it, and that could never get stolen away.
Abbott checked Dad’s watch and wrote “5 minutes remaining” up on the board.
By then, almost half the class had handed in their papers and left.
I followed Audra up to Abbott’s desk, dropping my test on top of hers. And I wished I could go over to where Cassidy was struggling with his final and slap him good luck on the back, just as hard as he gave me that high five the day before.
That night at the tournament, the directors shuffled lots of players around to different tables. I’d just settled into a new seat when I saw Abbott walking straight toward me. Every muscle in my body tightened up, like I was getting ready for him to sock me in the gut as hard as he could. Then I’d laugh in his face and tell him how it didn’t hurt a lick. But Abbott walked right past, taking the seat behind me at the next table. We were sitting back to back with just a half foot between us, and I could feel the heat from him.
Sammy and Zucchini were still at my table, but Rooster got sent to play someplace else. There was a big heavy dude sitting across from me wearing glasses that had snake’s eyes painted over the lenses, and it gave me the creeps to look him in the face. There were three other players at the table too. Then Jaws filled the last open seat, greeting Snake Eyes with a slap on the shoulder, as the dealer started sending cards around.
“Tell me I gotta go up against Huck the boy wonder today? Another legend in his own mind!” Jaws started in. “I heard your little speech about livin’ on the river. I think you need to take an acting class at whatever college you’re in, because you’re not that convincing.”
Everybody at the table was rolling over that, and even Abbott turned around to cackle in my ear.
But I kept my mouth shut, spinning the bill of my baseball cap around to face Abbott, like he might recognize me from the back of my neck.
“My wife was here for the kid’s speech,” Abbott announced. “‘A classic narcissist,’ she called him.”
“Your wife?” cracked Jaws, looking over at Snake Eyes.
“I think you need to remind her of something,” Snake Eyes said, taking his turn like it was a tag-team match. “’Cause from what I hear she forgot to change her name—or maybe you changed yours.”
“You went to high school with the champ here, Snaky?” asked Jaws, loud enough for both tables to hear.
“Oh, yeah,” answered Snake Eyes. “If you could call it that.”
“Tell me ’bout him.” Jaws grinned. “I wanna know.”
“Not much to say. I think he was voted Most Likely to Be Forgotten,” said Snake Eyes in a booming voice. “No friends. No girls. No sports. He was a loser only a mother could love, ’cause I hear his father didn’t.”
I could feel Abbott’s chair rock and the air rumble through his lungs.
For a second I almost felt sorry for Abbott, listening to those assholes. I wondered who his father was, and what went wrong between them.
But then I thought about Dad, and stopped myself cold.
And I didn’t want to cut Abbott an inch of slack that he probably didn’t deserve anyway.
“You know what happens when you come after me. I proved it to you at the final table last year,” sneered Abbott.
“Relax!” said Jaws. “Just tryin’ to get under your skin, man. Nothin’ personal.”
“Maybe I don’t know my own name. Somebody, tell me my name…. It’s CHAMP!” Abbott yelled out, after no one else would do it for him.
One of the new guys had a tiny jade Buddha to hold down his cards. Zucchini even called him “Buddha,” and when he didn’t fuss over it, that became his name. He was playing a big stack of black chips and took lots of time between bets, like he was meditating on every move.
“Shouldn’t you be sitting under a tree somewhere, looking for the answers to life?” joked Sammy, after Buddha beat him out of a big hand.
“I can learn more at a poker table—what’s real, what’s fake, how people try to hide the truth behind a pair of shades,” Buddha said, raking in his chips.
“Yeah? I don’t need no stinkin’ shades,” Jaws popped off, chucking his glasses onto the table. “Look at these green eyes, baby! The color of cold, hard cash! Besides, what kinda freakin’ Buddhist plays for money?”
“Never claimed to be one,” Buddha answered, calm as anything. “You geniuses talked yourselves into believing that.”
On the other side of the gym, players were clapping for the man without arms, who’d just got busted. Somebody even walked up to him and stuck out an arm to shake his hand. Then, when the idiot realized what he’d done, he pulled his arm in quick and went back to clapping.
Father Dineros stepped out of his office and put his hands around the man’s shoulders, walking him to the middle of the gym floor.
“This soul’s a true inspiration to me. He accepted God’s will—never made any excuses
or blamed other people,” Father Dineros said, taking off the man’s hat and shades. “Now they can all see you better. Tell them who you are.”
“Brian Pulsipher, from just north of here in Hansen,” he said, standing in his bare feet, with his head and voice shaking.
Everybody cheered one last time. Then Father Dineros walked him out of the gym and the tournament started up again.
“I raise!” said Abbott from behind me.
My heart jumped and I nearly reached for my chips to call his bet, before it hit me that Abbott wasn’t part of my game. After that hand, I heard the crisp new bills piling up in Abbott’s palm as he collected off another player he’d wrecked.
“Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty,” the loser counted off, frustrated. “That’s it, I’m outta here.”
That afternoon I’d gone into the garage, turning myself sideways and slipping past our broke-down car to the packed shelves in the back. I pulled out Dad’s old poker chips from the middle, nice and slow, trying to keep an avalanche of cartons from falling on my head. There was a stack of black chips inside an old cigar box, and they all had Dad’s initials, “JP,” scratched into them. That’s how players at Saint Bart’s knew who to collect from. I looked at them long and hard, and I remembered everything Dad said about losing focus in a tournament. Then I looked at the space where I was standing, caught between an old Chevy that hadn’t been out of the garage in months and those rickety shelves, and I felt squeezed into taking a handful of those chips with me.
At the table, I reached deep inside my pocket, grabbing hold of a black chip.
I’d heard Rooster crowing most of the night, and he’d sent plenty of players packing, lining his pockets, too.
I’d kept everybody off balance that night with my cards and even got Sammy to fold his hand on a good-sized pot, instead of facing me on the river. I was worried what gambling might do to that good groove I was in. But dumb players were going bust everywhere, one after another, and I wasn’t making a dime. So I took out one black chip and kept it cupped inside my hand, thinking about it.
Father Dineros was nowhere in sight now.
Snake Eyes suckered Zucchini into going all in.
Out of the two of them, Zucchini had the shorter stack. And when he stood up, Zucchini saw the black chip in my hand.
“So you wanna bet against the magic man too, Huck?” he asked. “Well, you got it.”
My heart jumped up inside my mouth, and before I could say a word, Snake Eyes turned over two killer hole cards and won.
Zucchini’s face went blank as he handed Snake Eyes a fat roll of bills.
His whole spirit looked crushed, and nothing like the smiling guy who twisted balloon animals for little kids. And seeing him reminded me of those men in the street who’d lost everything in that brushfire.
“That’s it,” he moaned. “Totally wiped out.”
Before he left, Zucchini went to hand me his last twenty dollars for the bet he thought we’d made.
But I wouldn’t take it.
“You read me and the cards wrong,” I told him, running a finger across Dad’s initials. “I wasn’t tryin’ to bet you. This chip’s a keepsake somebody left me. I’ll put it away ’fore anybody else gets confused.”
“Then, for my final trick of the evening, I’ll make myself disappear,” said the Great Zucchini, without a stitch of humor.
And I pushed the idea of betting for real completely out of my mind.
That mooch Stani got moved into the open seat. He had stacks of black chips now—he must have gone on a red-hot roll with the money Rooster loaned him, or whatever he’d swiped from the service station. I hadn’t seen Stani play a single hand yet, so I kept a close eye on him, trying to get a read.
“Cops dropped all those charges?” Snakes Eyes asked Stani.
“There were never any charges!” Stani shot back, with his stubble-filled upper lip curling under his hook nose. “Just some blind old lady, thought she could see through a cloud of smoke!”
“Rippin’ off people’s houses while you’re helpin’ ’em evacuate,” Jaws said to Snake Eyes. “I don’t think even he’d do that. Not enough balls!”
Then I watched Stani’s eyes turn to fire, like he’d strangle the two of them if he could get away with it.
It was just past midnight when the tournament got trimmed down to fifty-four players, a number small enough to move upstairs the next night. The directors said the final hand would be dealt out at twelve thirty. I decided to coast with the eight hundred dollars’ worth of chips I already had and not take a chance on getting chopped down late. So I put out some chips to cover the antes I’d miss, and headed for the gym’s bathroom.
The white tiles and porcelain looked rosy red through those shades. There was a long row of stalls and urinals on the opposite wall, but I was alone. I stood at the sink, watching the door behind me in the mirror. Then I took the cap and glasses off, splashing my face with cold water. I stared into the mirror like I was looking at somebody I hadn’t seen in a long time. Only I had to shove him away again quick, and I guess part of me was glad.
When I stepped back outside, Father Dineros was waiting by the door.
“Mr. Huck,” he said, “your mother tells me you’re serving sandwiches here. How’s that job going?”
Even wearing shades, I couldn’t look him straight in the eye.
“I know you’ll correct that mistake soon,” he said. “She also mentioned you have a big date for the dance tomorrow night. Are you twins now too?”
Before I could answer, Father Dineros handed me his car keys.
“Let me be very clear,” he started out. “I don’t know what you have planned, but this is to make things easier on your young lady, so you won’t have to rush her around on foot. The car doesn’t leave Caldwell for any reason.”
I finally got out a “Yes, Father,” trying to hold down the excitement in my voice.
Six more players went bust before the cards got put away that night. Abbott was still the chip leader, with Rooster and Snake Eyes close behind. I was less than halfway from the top and hadn’t made a real mistake in three long nights of poker. But I knew I had to risk more and push a lot harder if I was ever going to really challenge Abbott and the rest of them.
I cruised around Caldwell twice in the Mercedes and hit the horn every time I saw somebody on the street. Then, before I went home, I swung by the drive-through at White Castle and ordered myself some food.
chapter eight
AT AROUND NOON THE next day, Mom pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and told me to sit.
“You can’t take a girl out in a car that classy with your hair a complete mess,” she said, holding a comb and a pair of Dad’s old scissors.
“It looks fine like this,” I argued, pushing the hair off my face.
“It’s uneven—all on the sides and in the back. If your father could see you walkin’ around like that he’d be turnin’—,” she said, before pulling short on her words.
There was nothing but silence after that, and I sat down as Mom tied a towel around my neck.
For months Mom had been coaching me on how to handle Audra giving me the cold shoulder.
“Loosen up a little. Just smile and laugh with her. Don’t make going out again seem too important. Take that kind of pressure off her and you,” she’d say. “Before we were going steady, your father could turn a two-minute hello into half a date. And that was one of the things I liked about him most—all the time he spent with me felt like it really counted.”
When I’d told Mom I was taking Audra to the dance, she was as excited as me.
“How’d you do it, Romeo?” she asked. “You finally turn on that Porter charm?”
I couldn’t tell Mom how I’d played Audra, because it was the same way I was playing her over the tournament. So I just gave her all the credit, and she was still taking bows.
“Yeah, your mother’s pretty smart about these kinds of things,” she said, snipp
ing my sideburns slow and even. “But what girl wouldn’t want somebody like you?”
Dad had cut my hair since I was a little kid sitting on a stack of phone books in his barber’s chair. But after he died, I didn’t get it cut for six or seven months. Finally it got so long I couldn’t live with it. Mom called up Cassidy’s mother without telling me, and the next thing I knew I was going along with Cassidy to where he got his hair styled.
I sat on the side while the woman there worked on Cassidy first. I was trembling, listening to the scissors and missing Dad. Then, right before she’d finished with Cassidy, I felt a flood of tears rising through me and ran out the door.
That’s when Mom started cutting my hair herself.
I don’t think Cassidy ever told other kids what happened, but after that, the tone in his voice said he’d lost a lot of respect for me.
“You gotta get over this,” he said, harsh. “You’re actin’ like a baby.”
And that put even more space between us.
“Lower,” Mom said, tilting my head forward with two fingers.
I saw the hair on the floor and thought about the day after Dad’s stroke, when I went back to his shop. I had to sweep up after the last haircut he gave. The man Dad was in the middle of working on even left fifteen dollars by the register. But I wouldn’t touch it. I wanted Dad to ring it up himself when he got better, and give the man his three dollars in change.
“There, now you look presentable,” said Mom, brushing away loose hairs from the back of my neck.
“I look like somebody?” I asked, without getting an answer.
Then she handed me a broom and dustpan and said, “Here, this is your part of the job.”
A half hour later I drove to the rec center and parked Father Dineros’s car out front. The card tables had already been moved upstairs. Audra and a bunch of other kids were busy working, hanging streamers and balloons in the gym. I waited in the center of the wooden floor till I was sure Audra saw me. Then I lifted up my shades and went over to where she was.
