Authors: Bret Lott
“I thought I could play without reading the cards,” Unc said, and I heard him draw in on the cigar, only now realized the smell of it in me, the comfort of it, the predictable acrid ease of it. I took in a breath.
“Thought I could win,” Unc went on, and shot out the smoke. “Before we got in there that first night, I was thinking all I needed to do at the table was listen to the people around me and how they bet, their voices. Only how they called or checked or raised. I thought, Who the hell needs cards to play poker? Just play the man at the table.”
My eyes were still closed, but I could see him, gray smoke wisping
up from his cigar, sunglasses under the bill of his cap, the setting sun yellow and gold on him. I could see this all, and had no reason to open my eyes. None.
“I remember,” I said, and suddenly I could see the inside of the place that first night.
This was the summer before what would be my last gala semester at Chapel Hill, maybe four or five months after we’d sold the parcel out to Hungry Neck and moved in to Landgrave Hall. That night the owner, Thomas Warchester Whaley the Fourth, a doughy-faced real estate agent with silver hair and a close personal friend of Grange Cuthbert—the one who’d told Unc of the gathering in the first place—had given Unc and me the grand tour of the establishment, introduced us to all the doctors and lawyers and brokers and bigwigs of one sort and another, all of them slapping Unc on the back and welcoming him, though he already knew half of them for being the same clientele he’d been serving for years out at Hungry Neck. About the only difference I could see in the crowd was that instead of the crisp and clean camo outfits they all wore out at the hunt club, these same people were decked out now in Tommy Bahama and Nat Nast shirts.
And one other difference: even though he had on his khakis and suspenders, Braves cap and sunglasses, now Unc was one of them.
The whole operation was on the bottom floor of the house, the area most people used for a garage and storage. But Whaley’d finished all the interior off, then set up five professional poker tables in there, those long oval things padded with leather all the way around, chip trays and green felt tops and a dealer’s position, all built high so you had to sit at a stool or stand to play. The place was all carpeted, paintings on the walls, chandeliers from the ceiling.
A kind of chip cage was at one end of the room, more like a closet with a half door, behind it always a chunky Filipino woman in a white shirt and black vest, in there with her the money box and chips. At the other end of the room was a full-length bar, brass toe rail, mirrored
shelves behind, working it a big tanned dude dressed the same as the cashier, biceps big as that stupid planter I’d made. Somebody you wouldn’t want to argue with over the pour you got. Ever.
Each table had a dealer, too, men and women dressed in those same white shirts and black vests, all like some sort of bad TV show, like what you’d
expect
to expect an in-home casino in a suburb to look like. One of the paintings on the wall was of a huge martini complete with two green olives and an onion, another a croupier’s rake and two huge dice. Cheesy, to say the least.
And all of it illegal. Not because there was a five-hundred-dollar buy in, or because of the amount of cash flowing through there every Thursday night, the limit for loss five grand, after which you’d be sent home in the kindliest way by that big dude behind the bar.
No. It was all illegal, because games of chance, no matter it was Uno or pinochle or five-card no-peeky or Texas hold ’em—the one they played all night long at the Whaley establishment—were illegal in South Carolina. Period. You could buy lottery tickets fast as you could hand over a dollar, sure. But a two-man game of war? You’re a gambler.
Yet none of this was a worry for the crowd at the Whaley place, as they had among their regular players not only the tried and true of Charleston society, but also three city councilmen—two Mount Pleasant, one Charleston—a Summerville police lieutenant, a vice president of the College of Charleston, and a member of the Charleston County School Board, all of whom provided a kind of civic force field for the night’s activities.
And there was a Navy commander in there, too: Prendergast.
“That first hand I sat there with my two cards,” Unc said, and paused, drew in on the cigar again, let it out. “But I wouldn’t let you see them,” he said. “Now how stupid was that?”
“Stupid enough to lose the hand,” I said, still with my eyes closed. He’d sat starch upright on the stool that first night, me just behind him, waiting for him to show me his cards so I could tell him what
he had. But he’d only lifted one edge of them a quarter inch, then set his hand flat on top of them. I’d leaned in, whispered in his ear something about needing to show me so I could help, but he’d only waved me off with the other hand. I’d stepped back, glanced at the table and all the players watching the whole thing, eyes wide open, dealer included, and the strange moment of a blind man playing cards without knowing what he had.
“One of the stupidest moments of my life,” he said now, and I opened my eyes. He was slowly shaking his head, a thin strand of smoke rising off the end of his cigar. “Totally forgot there’d be other people playing
me
. That I wouldn’t be the only one playing the people at the table. Didn’t figure in, too, it’d be clear as glass that every hand I’d ever play would be a bluff, even if I had a royal flush.” He shook his head again, gave out a kind of sad laugh.
A six-inch mullet jumped out in the creek just then, a silver slip of color ten yards away, gone as soon as I’d seen it.
U
nc’d been about fourth or fifth at the table that first hand. When it’d come to his turn, he’d sat there for a long second or so, even stiffer on the stool. Everyone was still looking at him, and from where I’d stood I could see him swallow, try at some sort of smile. But then his hand on the cards had made a loose fist, and he’d knocked once on them, said, “I’m out,” calm and smooth as could be.
He’d spent the rest of the night grimacing every time he showed me his cards, his jaw clenched and lips tight between his teeth, as though with every deal he were being forced to drop his drawers to show the room a boil on his butt. All he did was tip the cards up for me to see, and I whispered to him. Though he ended up winning a couple hundred dollars that night, I’d figured the whole endeavor was over once we were ushered out with the rest of the rabble at two that morning, Unc quiet the whole ride home.
But the next Thursday night at around 9:30, here was a tap at my bedroom door. Unc pushed it open, stick in hand, said, “Let’s go,”
and then we were parking a hundred yards down the street from that house, the Range Rover in line with all the other cars. Once at the door into the garage, we were promptly met by a grinning Whaley, who held up close to Unc’s face three decks of cards still in their wrappers.
“Braille cards!” he hollered out. By the look on his happy realtor face, you could tell his ingenuity startled even him, as though he’d in fact invented Braille itself and tonight was the big reveal.
But a moment later he lost the grin entirely. “Oh,” he let out. “You read Braille, don’t you?”
Though I’d figured on Unc’s being testy for this accommodation someone’d made to the fact he was blind, maybe even ticked off for the conventions of the rest of the blind world he’d have to observe when it came to playing cards, he actually smiled, nodded sharp. With all the genuine goodwill I’d ever seen him muster, he said, “Well enough to kick the house’s ass.”
“Then kick away!” Whaley said, and with his free hand slapped Unc on the shoulder. He took hold Unc’s arm and turned, started to lead him off between tables and players, me already wondering what the heck I was supposed to do now that I wasn’t going to be needed. But then Whaley stopped, turned to me and smiled. “Somebody here wants to meet you, Huger,” he said. “Says you got a mutual friend.”
He nodded over his shoulder, off to the left of the room. I turned, saw leaning against the bar over there a tallish guy with black hair and skin so white you’d think he’d only heard of the sun. He seemed about my age, and had a martini in his hand, his elbow on the bar. He wore a Nat Nast shirt, bright blue with a wide white stripe down the left side. Peeking out the top of the shirt pocket on the right were three pens, tucked tight in a tight row.
“My son,” Whaley said. “Thomas Warchester Whaley the Fifth. Five for short.” He smiled again, headed away with Unc on his arm.
I turned back to Five for Short, saw him hold up the martini glass, give me something of a toast. He sipped at it, and I started toward him.
That was when he called out, “Tabitha Galliard is my lab partner in Numeric Artificial Intelligence. Up at Duke.” He grinned, nodded. “Said she’s heard of you.”
Tabitha.
I paused for an instant, though flinched might be a better word for it. I made a sort of a stutter sound, too, a hitch in my throat that heaved out in the form of a word that might have been
oh
. And suddenly I was blinking too many times in a row.
I made it the rest of the way to the bar, maybe five or six feet and only as many seconds. But time and distance enough to make me feel like I was maneuvering my body between the molecules of a lead wall.
I put my hand on the bar, saw the big bartender looking at me like I would know what it was I wanted to drink.
“Look like you could use a strong one,” the bartender said and smiled, nodded.
I managed a nod back at him, said, “What he’s having.” As soon as I said it I knew how lame and stupid I sounded.
I took in a breath, blinked a few times more.
Tabitha who?
I wanted to retort. I wanted to say,
Can’t place that name
, or
Sounds familiar
.
Or even
Tell her I love her and that I’ve never stopped loving her
.
These were the words, however equally lame and stupid they were, that came to me as I stood at the bar that first time I met Thomas Warchester Whaley the Fifth. But I said none of them, only watched the bartender pour off a martini from a pitcher and drop in an onion and an olive.
“Enjoy!” he said, and smiled happily, nodded. The word had seemed a preposterous thing coming from such a big dude, and coming at this particular moment, when the idea of enjoying anything at all pretty much ever again seemed not even a possibility.
I picked up the martini, nodded back at the bartender, and turned to Five for Short.
I held the glass up, like I was about to make my own toast, and
saw them again: that tight row of pens in the front pocket of his fancy silk shirt, the international sign for a Poindexter. And now I saw what I could say. I had some words, ones that would knock him down, give this pasty-faced turd a thing to think about.
Tabitha said she’d heard of me. Right.
I nodded at the pens, said, “You forgot your pocket protector.”
“Did you pass Intro to Computer Programming this time around?” he said right back, smiling.
I turned, set the martini glass on the bar without taking a sip of it, put both hands on the bar top. The bartender raised his eyebrows a bit, as though I hadn’t liked what he’d given me, or to wait for the answer I was supposed to give back to Five for Short.
But I had nothing more, only nodded at the bartender, said, “Thanks.” I turned, headed back out the door and onto the driveway to the same warm summer night Unc and I’d left out here only a couple minutes before. Tree frogs droned, cicadas whirred, the moon shone.
I walked back to the Range Rover, turned it on, sat with the AC on me, then listened to a few different programs on XM. Eventually I plugged in Durham on the Maps app. Eventually, too, the phone buzzed: Unc, calling to tell me he was waiting for me to come get him.
I’d seen Five for Short only a few times after that, bumped into him as I was ushering Unc into the orange palace now and again. Sometimes I’d hang around inside for a while, if I knew school was going on and he wouldn’t be around.
And Unc won at cards. Usually around a grand a night.
Thus began, with only the break that fall of my last pathetic semester of college, the routine of Thursday nights.
“I
was thinking,” Unc said now, “maybe I’ve been playing cards too long even to ponder the man behind the man I was playing.” He paused, took another pull on the cigar. The sun was low now, almost
touching the trees out at the point, the marsh everywhere even sharper in its colors. “I’ve been playing cards and only thinking about the man there at the table with me, what he’s going to do with the hand he’s got.”
He tapped the cigar on the end of the lawn chair arm, on the dock board directly beneath it a tidy heap of ashes. He had only about three inches or so left on the cigar, almost time to give it up. “Works well enough to win money,” he said. “But you tend to forget there’s a man behind the man at the table. Prendergast, for example. I know from playing him he’s a little desperate at times. He goes bust, then waves around a set of goggles to cover a bet.” He paused. “Gives up something ain’t his in order to get what he wants. I know when he’s got a hot hand his voice tends to go lower, him trying to stay cool but trying to stay cool the signal he’s hot. I know when his voice goes high and tight he’s got nothing better than a pair, because he wants you to think he’s all excited about a good set of cards. But—”
He stopped. His hand with the cigar was still on the chair arm, and he sat there, quiet.
I said, “But.”
“But what does any of that matter when you’re at a table with someone you know is fundamentally bad?” He shook his head again, this time even slower. “What does that say about the man
you
are, sitting there at the table?”
Still he didn’t move the hand with the cigar.
I put my hand up to my forehead, squinted hard across the marsh to the Navy tract over there. Like I could see anyone at all.
“I feel like we got a good hand,” he said, quieter now. “There’s no bluff involved in our having that set of goggles and his wanting it. He knows what we have.” He tapped the cigar again. Nothing came off it. “But I can’t help but wonder what the man behind the man at the table wants them so bad for. All he’s got to do is write the missing pair up as a Field Loss, and they disappear. Can’t help but figure,
actually, that that was what he’d done after I won them off him in the first place. Mark a piece of equipment off as a Field Loss, and all questions cease. Equipment destroyed in the field of action. End of story. Don’t even matter what happened. And he’s got plenty of access to the kind of paperwork all that involves.” He paused. “But what I’m wondering is what does it say about me, that I’ve been playing him every Thursday night all these years?” He shook his head again. “That it’s been me winning what I could off him, and your momma here at home and …”