by Paul Volponi
“He tried to tell me how important it was to him,” Mom said. “I just didn’t hear.”
Then she grabbed me by the chin and lined my eyes up with hers.
“Listen to me. Abbott didn’t have anything to do with it. Your father just died. That’s all,” she explained. “It was his time, and he’s gone.”
“I know,” I answered her, with the tears starting down my face.
“Your mother and I have talked about that a few times. I’ve been praying the tournament would resolve some things for you,” said Father Dineros. “Just not exactly like this.”
“None of it’s an excuse for lyin’,” Mom told me, wiping my tears with the sleeve of her robe and punishing me at the same time. “You’re grounded, and except for school you won’t be leavin’ this house without me for a while.”
“If it makes any difference, Mrs. P.,” Sheriff Connor said, heading for the door. “I hear this Huck is one hell of a poker player.”
After Sunday service, I was sitting on my bed, dealing solitaire. Mom hadn’t mentioned if I could work my shift at White Castle, and I wasn’t about to ask.
I could hear her talking to herself in the kitchen, slamming drawers shut. She was giving parts of angry speeches, like I was standing there in front of her.
“Disobedient…dishonest…untrustworthy…and I can’t say what else, not on a Sunday.”
Then there were a few minutes of silence before I heard her on the phone.
“I understand it’s short notice,” she said. “But my son can’t make it to work today. It’s a private family matter.”
I thought that was part of my punishment—losing a paycheck. But ten minutes later Mom walked into my room and said, “There’s a part of me that’s more disappointed in what you did than you could ever imagine. The lies every day to my face, and the way you had me worried about you.”
“I just didn’t have any real choice,” I tried to argue.
“BALONEY!” she exploded. “You always have a choice. You just need to be prepared to answer for the one you pick!”
“I know it,” I answered her, hanging my head down.
“That’s why I’m gonna make my choice now, and let you start your punishment tomorrow,” Mom said, still steaming. “You started this already, so go finish it. Just remember, Abbott never left a mark on this family. He doesn’t hold a thing over us, and after today, I don’t ever want to hear his name mentioned in the same breath as your father’s again.”
“You won’t,” I said, with the emotion building up inside me.
For the next half hour, I paced up and down my room, thinking about Dad and not Abbott.
Before I left for the tournament, I built up the courage to ask Mom, “Do you think there’s poker in heaven?”
She thought about it for a few seconds, then said, “There better be. Your father’s not the type for harp music and singin’ all day long.”
That whole walk to Saint Bart’s, my mind got clearer and more focused with every step.
I reached the rec center, and Father Dineros was under the hood of his Mercedes, fiddling with the engine.
“Something in my heart told me your mother might make an exception,” he said, wiping the grease from his hands. “But don’t you think we’ve seen enough of you hiding behind those glasses and other things? They don’t change how the cards get dealt. Do they?”
“No, they don’t. Especially not in Caldwell,” I answered, heading inside.
I never wanted to see that elevator again, so I started up the stairs. And by the time I’d climbed to the third floor, the headphones were down around my neck, and the shades and baseball cap were jammed into my back pocket.
chapter eleven
ABBOTT WAS SITTING BEHIND his stack when I walked through the door, and he didn’t blink when he first saw me. The tournament directors had put everybody’s chips out on the table. I recognized the size of my stack right away and took the seat they gave me, facing Abbott.
Buddha was there already too, and Jaws came off the elevator almost right behind me.
“So it is Mr. Porter. Just like my ravishing wife suggested when I got home last night. I guess you’re through playin’ dress-up, huh?” Abbott said, snide. “Tell me. How’d you invent that clever Huck character? Read a book in English class?”
“That name’s for real,” I answered.
“No, it’s not! You’re a sniveling little math student of mine!” he shot back. “Not a poker player!”
That’s when Jaws laughed. “Then we must be real donkey-shits to let him get this far. Especially you, teach.”
“I’ve seen him play the river,” said Buddha. “I’ll keep callin’ him Huck.”
“Yeah. Me too,” Jaws said. “Anything to get under your skin, Abbott.”
“My dad gave me that name,” I told Abbott. “You remember the last time you saw him, right?”
Abbott wouldn’t answer. But I watched his neck and shoulders go super tight.
Meantime, Rooster showed up breathing fire.
“Don’t anybody mention that crook’s name,” warned Rooster. “I’m tellin’ y’all, right now. Nobody here got clipped for more than me—money and personal.”
The tattoos of the fighting rooster and coiled-up cobra on his forearms were bulging like he’d been pumping iron all night long, getting ready to pound Stani if he ever saw him again.
“You’re Julius Porter’s boy,” Rooster said, taking a good look at me for the first time. “No wonder you got ice water in your veins.”
Before the first hand, Father Dineros came upstairs.
“Thank heaven no one was hurt last night,” he said, crossing himself.
“That’s just till the rat stops runnin’, Father,” roared Rooster.
“Remember, being judge and jury consumes too much of a man,” said Father Dineros. “But there’s another lesson here. Maybe those black chips have become too big a part of this. So I’m going to ask that we settle things today without them—in the spirit this tournament was intended.”
Everybody understood that Father Dineros really wasn’t asking—he was telling us. And none of those other four put up an argument.
“So we’re all in agreement. Good luck to everyone, then,” Father Dineros said as he left. “And let’s see where that old watch of mine is going to find a home.”
The dealer opened a brand-new deck. He spread the cards out on the table facedown, mixing them around before he started shuffling. And as he put that deck back together card by card, straightening the edges of the pile, I thought about all those days it took me to get here, and how I was finally ready.
Abbott bet his hole cards on the first hand, but I threw mine away just to show him I was in control of myself.
“No rush,” I said. “Nothin’ good happens too fast.”
The stacks stayed even for a while, till Jaws took a good chunk of Abbott’s chips with a killer flush.
“Beginning of a bad day for you,” said Jaws.
“You’re gonna give it all back, and more,” Abbott told him. “You got no idea. None of you do.”
“You wouldn’t even be defending champ if Huck’s father was here,” ripped Rooster. “Forget havin’ that watch. You wouldn’t know what time it is.”
That got me pumped. But Rooster was on a bad roll, losing hand after hand, and I could hear him cursing Stani under his breath for it.
Then I got dealt an ace and king in the hole. Abbott bet big, and I followed him into the pot. The dealer flopped two more kings with a red queen to keep them company. Abbott moved in a second stack of chips. I wanted to raise him, but I played it cool and just called his bet.
A nine came down on the turn.
I was still sitting chilly with my set of kings, and did everything I could not to bat an eye.
Abbott checked, instead of betting more, so I pushed in half a stack.
I’d just pulled my fingers off the chips when Abbott said, “I fold,” turning over a queen and
nine.
“No way!” cried Jaws. “You went out with that?”
Something inside made me turn my cards over too.
“See! You don’t think I knew this kid had kings wired?” hollered Abbott. “Who else coulda dodged that hand? Nobody! That’s who! I coulda went broke, but I didn’t!”
I couldn’t figure out how he’d read me, or if it was just some special antenna he’d been born with. I’d won a huge hand, but it felt more like Abbott had pulled the chair out from under me and was standing there laughing his ass off.
I saw my reflection in Abbott’s shades and remembered what Dad said when my Mom wouldn’t let us play for money anymore: A poker player’s most dangerous when he’s not afraid to lose.
After that, I watched myself a lot in his glasses and tried to stay loose, like I was looking into a mirror and Abbott wasn’t even there.
Over the next half-dozen hands, Rooster was fighting for his tournament life and got caught in the cross-fire more than once between Buddha and Jaws.
Buddha bet his hole cards strong and Jaws went in after him. The rest of us quit on the hand, but when Rooster saw two sevens come out on the flop he nearly put his fist through the table.
“Christ! Now everybody knows you had a seven!” Jaws screamed at Rooster. “We’re playin’ for somethin’ important here!”
Rooster had screwed up bad, letting on that another seven was dead.
But he was too angry to admit it.
“I’ll split the pot with you if ya want,” Buddha offered Jaws. “Just to be fair.”
“Why, ya feelin’ weak? Rooster ruin your little bluff?” Jaws challenged him. “Unless you’re gonna fold, you keep that little green freak on top of those cards.”
But Jaws read him wrong. Buddha had the better cards and took most of his chips. It was a hand that Jaws and Rooster never recovered from, and inside of an hour they’d both gone bust.
Now it was between Abbott, Buddha, and me.
Jaws was still hounding Rooster over him screwing up that hand. Only that was like fooling with dynamite.
“You picked the wrong day to be flapping your gums at me,” Rooster told him, making a tight fist.
They’d both pulled their chairs back from the table, but neither one of them was going anywhere.
“Will you two losers shut up so I can play poker?” Abbott finally screamed.
I smiled through that racket, mainly because Abbott was so pissed off at it.
“Noise doesn’t bother me one bit,” said Buddha. “I tune pianos for a living.”
Then the tournament directors told Jaws and Rooster both to quiet down or go home.
Buddha was the new chip leader. My stack was just a little bigger than Abbott’s, and that had me feeling confident.
Slowly the cards started to go cold for Buddha, and Abbott and me took turns pecking away at his stack. Abbott had nursed the same soda all day long, till it was nothing but backwash. Then all at once he downed what was left of it and pushed a mountain of chips into the pot against Buddha.
The flop and turn looked harmless, but everything about the way Abbott held himself screamed out to me that he was sitting on something huge.
Buddha called that bet, and sure enough Abbott took him for a ride, winning more than half his chips.
“So how many keys on a piano, Bud-man?” popped Jaws.
“Eighty-eight, counting the black ones,” Buddha answered in an even voice.
Abbott was the leader now, but at least I was reading him right.
Twenty minutes later I busted Buddha on the river.
“There’s that luck I must have wished you by accident,” Buddha said, as he shook my hand and put his jade statue on the seat next to mine.
I don’t think anybody else there noticed it, but I was happy to have him sitting shotgun. Then Buddha went over by the rest of them, and it was just Abbott and me at the table.
I’d been waiting so long to face him like this. It didn’t feel anything like I thought it would. I didn’t want to rip Abbott’s throat out or smack him around the room. I just wanted to win Dad’s watch back and prove to Abbott who I really was.
“You know you failed the math final, Mr. Porter,” Abbott said out of nowhere.
“Maybe you should stick to poker if you’re gonna bluff,” I answered.
Then Jaws made his voice like an old Chinese guy’s from a kung-fu movie and said, “Ah, Grasshopper, when you can snatch the silver watch from my wrist, the student shall become as the teacher.”
And even Buddha cracked up over that.
“I once heard something from Sheriff Connor,” Rooster broke in, serious. “That the champ here took that watch off your father when he was in a coma, lying in the hospital. That true, Huck?”
There was nothing but silence, and I could feel that meeting hall turn cold.
Then I looked at myself hard in Abbott’s shades and said steady, “I wasn’t there. Why don’t you ask him?”
But Abbott just shook it off and barked at the dealer, “Let’s go! I’m here to play poker!”
Abbott kept stacking and restacking all his chips, trying to show me how strong he was. But I didn’t blink at that crap and started playing like a real wrecking ball, knocking flat what he had, piece by piece.
I drew a pair of nines in the hole. Abbott bet light and I called him. The dealer flopped three diamonds—the king, ten, and six. Then Abbott drummed his fingers across the table. He cocked his head sideways and pulled his shades off, just like when he had Cassidy nailed on those homework problems in class. I looked into his steel gray eyes, and in my gut I knew he’d been dealt two diamonds in the hole to make his flush.
He bet a few more chips, and I did the same.
The turn card was a nine, and now I had three of them.
Abbott looked over my stack and said, “I’ll put you all in.”
Nobody folds with three nines before the river—nobody. But it was either call his bet, or trust what I felt in my bones.
I kept thinking, Nothing to lose.
“It’s yours,” I blurted out, turning over my nines.
The words stuck in Abbott’s throat for a second, before he put his glasses back on and said, “You just wanna show us all how stupid you are, Mr. Porter? How I bluffed you off of trip-nines?”
“Just gods and clods,” I answered. “I heard somebody say that one time.”
But Abbott never showed his cards. And I could see in his face how his eyes must have been spinning behind those shades over how I sidestepped all those diamonds.
“I’d tell you how you’re too young to fill that seat in the Vegas tournament, Mr. Porter. How that’s automatically mine now, no matter what,” Abbott said. “But that would mean I thought you could really win this tournament. And I don’t.”
chapter twelve
OVER THE NEXT HOUR, we went back and forth taking pieces of each other. Then I went on a real good run and pulled almost even with Abbott.
On the hand that got me there, Abbott ranted at the dealer, “You peeled him off a jack when he needed one! You treat me the same from now on!”
“Baby, this is better than the Cartoon Channel!” roared Jaws.
Then Father Dineros came upstairs and saw the two of us at the table.
“Well, this thing really is almost finished now,” he said. “Maybe you boys oughta get on with it. You know there’s all kinds of life going on outside these four walls.”
The next flop was a king of spades, queen of clubs, and nine of diamonds.
Abbott’s straight shoulders showed me he was strong. I was hoping he had either queens or nines in the hole. So I grabbed the jade Buddha off the seat next to me and squeezed it tight inside my fist. Then I stood straight up and said, “I’m all in!”
“I…call,” said Abbott in one long breath, like I’d pushed him further than he wanted to go.
I turned over my two kings.
Only Abbott was hiding a jack and ten to fill out a straigh
t.
Everybody was crowding around the table now.
Abbott was the favorite to win with two cards to go, and just him and the dealer were still sitting.
I needed the last king to make four of a kind, or a queen or nine to fill out a full house.
Before the next card came down, I studied myself hard in Abbott’s shades. I looked smaller than I really was. But I didn’t feel that way anymore, in either his eyes or mine. And I knew I’d still be the same Huck, no matter what the dealer did.
The turn was a six.
Now another one of those would give me a full house too.
Abbott’s cheeks were puffed out, and maybe he was holding his breath.
“Come on. Let’s hear it,” Jaws said, poking at my shoulder. “Huck lives on the river! Huck lives on the river!”
But I just shook my head at him.
The second hand on Dad’s watch looked like it was moving in slow motion when the dealer reached for the top card on the river.
Abbott was tighter than tight, with his elbows pressed up against his chest.
I saw the red paint on the card before anything else, and my toes pushed hard into the floor. Then I saw both her faces—top and bottom, as the dealer snapped the queen of hearts down onto the table.
Voices exploded, and the air vibrated all around me. For a few seconds, Rooster had raised my arm over my head, like I was the champ already. But Abbott still had a handful of chips left, so I didn’t want to celebrate too soon. And when I didn’t grab for my winnings right away, the dealer pushed them toward me with two hands.
Then Abbott looked at his stack of six or seven chips and slapped them away.
“Here,” he said, tossing the watch onto the table and walking for the door.
“You punk! What, are you too good to run second?” Rooster screamed after Abbott, till Father Dineros got in front of him. “You don’t even respect the game that made a shit like you half a somebody!”
