2 to the A, CHSD

2 to the A, ♣ ♥ ♠ ♦

 

 

K♦ 'Lucky' Andy gathered up the $20s, the $10s, the $5s, and the chips, with a small subtle glance at the clock. I looked too: it was almost nine-thirty. "Quite the game," he said. As he was sorting through the bills, his phone went off. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at it in surprise and dismay. What could it mean? Who could it be? With all that money in front of him, and no losses to speak of, he pressed some button on his phone and started talking. "Hello? Oh. What? No! Yes. I'll be right there." An emergency, pray tell?

 

9♣ He knew the game so well. Paul had given me a hand that included a queen and a king. I threw away two cards and took two. I declared: "Two queens and a king." Paul told his cousin that each declaration had to exceed the last declaration. The cousin caught on quickly. He wanted to start. He was dealt five cards. He declared: "A full house." Paul said: "I don't think you understand the game." "Yes, I do. I declare I have a full house." Paul said: "Then I have to say you're lying." The cousin showed his full house. Paul lost his first stake.

 

10♣ Such a lousy break! Paul said: "That was almost too lucky." The cousin said: "I suppose it was. Maybe we should start again?" "No, no." "So, what happens now?" "The hand starts at the person who lost, which is me." Paul quickly gathered up the cards and shuffled them. I looked up at the clock; it was a quarter to eight. It was going to be a long night, perhaps. Paul gave me five cards. After some rumination, I said to them: "A king and an ace." Thinking this entirely plausible, Andy said: "I believe you are telling the truth. Yes indeed, I bet you tell the truth."

 

4♥ Not to be uncouth, I went through the possibilities of reference, narrowing the field down to a cool one hundred girls. Narrowing it down further, I could think of ten possibles. But which one did he mean? I couldn't know, so I said: "Who?" Roy said: "Madelaine, of course. Your one-and-only." "Madelaine? Oh, oh, her!" Somehow, a forgotten memory came from nowhere by chance into my head and I could recall this Madelaine. A dinner, a date, then good-bye, not even a kiss. And Roy thought she was my one-and-only? However, I wasn't going to correct Roy. Instead, I said: "How is she? Still the same, I s'pose?"

 

10♥ Andy slightly rose, for he was four dollars richer. (We never played for much money; it was a 'friendly game.') Roy whistled through his teeth and said to Andy: "You're quite the pro." Andy replied, as he was neatly adjusting his stacks: "Actually, it's my first time. I think it's called 'beginner's luck'. Paul and I hadn't said anything until Paul said: "Okay, let's move on, there's four of us, so let's move into a more normal game. How about straight five-card draw, with two draws of two?" Agreed, and the three of us told Andy the rules of that very basic game.

 

A♥ I thought he'd do the same, but instead Paul quickly folded; and I folded, following 'suit.' It was back to Andy, who looked at me to ask: "Can I raise again?" He is so sweet, I thought, though wormwood at heart. I was convinced he was cheating up and down and left and right. I told him: "Yes, you can raise again." Andy put in $1.25. "I see you and raise you a dollar." Roy cried: "Fine," put in a dollar, and continued: "I see your dollar bet." "Very good," said Andy. "I think it's now you can take cards." Roy tossed two down. "I'd like two."

 

Q♠ "That might do," Eve said: "I don't see why not." She looked over to Steve, mainly. "We're going to go read an article." Steve was judging his stakes. "Sure, go ahead." Eve and Andy seemed in a rush to get up the stairs, and up the stairs they went. Roy said: "Hmmm." Steve looked around the table. "Is something wrong?" "No, no. Okay, another card to each of the remainders." Four cards went up. Steve checked his down cards again. "I'm betting a quarter." Paul didn't have to look; he'd memorized his. "I'll see that bet." I had two jacks. "I call that bet."

 

3♥ Not sitting yet, Roy circled the table to put his beers (sans one) into the fridge. He said: "Well, hello, here we are again, and you must be the cousin Andy," to the cousin, thereby thankfully clarifying to me the name of the Chilean cousin. 'Andy,' newly-Christened, said: "Hello, I think your name is Roy?" which proved Andy's superiority in that he was able to remember the names of people he hadn't even met. Roy said: "Yes, pleased to meet you." Changing entirely the subject, he looked at me and said: "I ran into an old flame of yours yesterday."

 

8♥ There was nothing I could say. Paul gathered up the cards and shuffled them well. "The deal falls back to John." Five cards were in my hand. Roy was sizing up Andy to see what kind of a person he was. I declared a pair. Andy took the hand, discarded three, and said: a pair of sevens. I accepted and replaced three cards. I said: a pair of sevens and a ten. Accepted. Three replaced. "A pair of sevens and a jack." I bit. Replaced three. "A pair of sevens and a king." Accepted, replaced three. (I'd lied.) "Two sevens, a king, and a five."

 

5♠ I hadn't survived. Andy scooped up all the chips from the centre of the table. "Huh!" I heard him utter. Maybe, I thought, things were going to change now. Maybe, I thought, I had been imagining it all. Maybe, I thought, it truly was the luck of the beginner; or maybe he wasn't really a beginner.... There was a lot to be suspicious of, in relation to the guy from Chile. I wondered, in a weird way, for how long had he been cousins with Paul? You might think it had been from birth; but there are situations where that's not true.

 

3♣ The tension grew. He turned it over, and it was indeed the three of spades. Well, I figured, all that means is he can could much faster than I could. Given a little practice, one can easily count in fives, for instance. I figured I'd be giving him a turn for his money once the game got underway. He took up all the cards again, and shuffled them four times before laying them down on the table in a tidy and even pile. "I could impress you," he informed us, "by telling you what the top card is. No. Spoil the table."

 

A♣ Not exactly stable, I laughed at what I was hearing. I replied: "How does any of that matter?" I wanted to use his name there, but I still didn't know it. "This is like that Pushkin story called 'The Queen of Spades.' One of my cards magically changed, and I can't think of an explanation. And, worst of all, we're on small stakes. In Pushkin, it's a game that's a matter of life and death: but this? Well anyway. I guess it's my turn to get a hand. Give me something good." Paul gathered the cards and dealt me five of them.

 

7♦ Guts: explained: ahem! Briefly: in the game of Guts, a single chip is the initial pot, and each player gets two cards. Each player, using a token, declares either in or out. The in players compete for highest two-card hand. Winner takes the pot; losers pay in the amount of the pot. Thus, if three players are in, the pot doubles. If four players are in, it triples. Game continues until only one player declares in. As you can see, the pot can grow rapidly, or the game can fizzle out pretty much immediately. How Gutsy the players are makes the game's duration.

 

J♣ Without a hint of consolation, I gave him the cards. I'd been telling the truth. The other three cards had been a six, eight, a nine. Andy tossed away three cards, and Paul gave him three more. "Two eights," declared Andy. Paul said: "I believe it." Paul tossed two, and said "Two aces." I took it. I wound up with two aces, and a nine. I made some deceptive noises, just to throw the cousin off the scent. I looked at him: "Two aces and a nine. He said: "I think you are bluffing." I lay the cards down in triumph, showing two, six, seven, king, ace. "Wait, what? I had a pair, aces!"

 

7♥ I kept my stasis and ignored his implications because there was some poker-playing to get through. I finally looked at me hand. I said: two fives. Andy accepted. He replaced two cards and said: two fives and a jack. Paul accepted. He replaced two cards and said: two fives, an ace, and a jack. I accepted. I replaced two cards and said: two pair. Andy accepted. He replaced one card and said: full house, aces over fives. Paul had no choice but to challenge, and he lost. Paul was out of the game, and so it was just Andy and me to gamble.

 

2♣ "As preamble, note that I hold in my hand," said Paul's Chilean cousin, "a regular deck of fifty-two cards. There are four suits, each suit counting thirteen cards." He spread them out like a fan on the quiet wood of the kitchen table. "As you know, they are in factory order, because I have not shuffled them yet. However, if I shuffle them, as I am going to do quite soon, you will not know where any of them are. Look." He put his finger on a card in the middle of the fan. "That's the three of spades. Trip spades."

 

8♣ Though we had played the game for decades, I said: "That might be a little too complicated for a ... newbie Spaniard." (I smiled, of course.) Paul's cousin said: "Oh, no, I don't see why not. How embarrassed can I get, if it's just the three of us?" So, we went into a hand of liar's poker. (I won't go through all the rules.) We each put two stakes down, and began. Paul demonstrated. "I declare I have a particular hand. John can either take it or reject it. Watch. 'A queen and a king'." I searched Paul's eyes before saying: "Sure." He handed me the five.

 

8♦ Only one could thrive in a game of Guts, since there can only be one winner, with that winner being possibly the winner of a substantial amount. I also knew that fate, destiny, what-have-you, was going to make Andy into the winner. I was certain of it. So how was I to bet, knowing I was destined to lose? The strategy I devised was to never go in. I'd thwart Andy. I checked my pocket for my rarest token, which turned out to be a subway token. I put it on the table for quick access. Steve dealt two cards down apiece to each, distributing a dozen.

 

5♣ Paul's Chilean cousin asked: "Why would that follow?" I said: "It's because years later he murdered his neighbour, and the psychiatric assessment said he was a paranoid schizophrenic. He's in a prison for mental cases now. Aside from guessing cards, I remember he'd throw darts at me. I guess I could have told you that story in reverse-order. Start with the murder, go on then about the card-guessing. Because, really, both were caused by the same thing' so the order doesn't matter." Paul's cousin said: "Interesting. I think there's a Spanish term for that, though I can't recall it."

 

5♦ Steve said: "Doggonit! Wow. Wow. $103.00. One hundred and fuckin' three fuckin' dollars." "We've never been that high before." "It was that sixteen at the end that did it." "I wish we'd had a camera on." At that moment, Andy and Eve came back downstairs. Steve got up quickly, saying: "Eve, look, I won a hundred and three dollars!" She said: "That's great!" He went to kiss her, but she turned her head away, so he ended up kissing her cheek. (Years later, I heard tell it was because she didn't want Steve to taste Andy's semen on her mouth.)

 

K♣ The cousin from the south continued: "Did your mistake happen when you said 'Two aces'? If we were being irresponsibly fanciful, we could likewise believe that you did in fact have two aces, but one of them changed while you were looking at me. Oh, this is all wool-gathering and monkey-shines. The fact is, the error took place either at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end. These points in time are not related to one another; in fact, like after the shuffling of a deck, there is a new order of time, arbitrary albeit, but with a hidden organization."

 

K♠ It was up to Roy's exquisite computation now. "Interesting. I wonder: can pull it off? I see that quarter, and raise fifty." Steve saw the bet, and so did Paul, and so did I. "No-one dropped. Interesting!" (That was Roy speaking.) Four more cards went up, each player betting $1.50 and staying in, then four more. Steve was showing 10♠, J♠, 3♥, 4♥. He bet fifty. Paul, showing 6♥, 8♣, 10♦, A♦, said: "I'll see that," and tossed in fifty. I was showing 3♠, J♦, 9♠, 2♠; but I also had a jack and a three; two pair. I raised six bits.

 

A♠ What do you wits think Roy was showing? Why, he was exhibiting A♥, 7♠, 5♥, Q♣. He said: "I'll call," putting in $1.25. Steve quickly said: "Yes, here's my seventy-five." Paul stayed in for three chips, and the round was at an end. One more card apiece, all four down. Roy dealt them out, and we were silent. I'd gained a jack; amazingly enough, I had a full house. The bet was up to Steve. "I start? Yes, seventy-five." Paul said: "Raise seventy-five." I said: "I raise a dollar." Roy said: "How sweet it is! There's my two-fifty, and I raise another buck."

 

3♦ "Yes, and just my luck" I said (ingenuously). "We're probably past it. I think Roy should get last bet." We all agreed. It was my bet; the penultimate bet. "I'm betting five." Now it was Roy's last move. "Then it's five more from me." We other three caught up, with no-one folding. We all looked to Roy to reveal. He showed and told: "I got four fives." He had beaten me! Paul said: "Motherfucker!" and unnecessarily revealed his straight, six to ten. Steve said: "Fuck. Thought I was going to have a stroke. Check it out. Royal flush, in spades. Read 'em and weep."

 

2♠ Andy the creep gave him two, then Andy said: "I will stand." Roy cried: "For the love of God! I pass!" Andy toyed with his chips a bit, then bid one white chip. "Fine, let's see it through!" That was Roy, who ponied up two-bits and said: "I'll take two again." Andy gave him two cards before saying: "Ah, now I think I understand this game! In that case, I'll take two cards myself." He exchanged two cards. Roy didn't bet; Andy put in a dollar. Roy saw, then said: "Okay, you have to show now," and Andy showed three kings.

 

6♠ I had to know some things. I asked Paul: "So, are you two really cousins?" Roy was shuffling the cards, while Eve settled down between himself and Andy, while Steve settled down between himself and Paul. The latter (Paul) said: "Actually, not really. He (indicating Andy) is the step-son of my step-father's brother. But all that happened so long ago, right, Andy?" Andy made a gesture of agreement. "So, in fact, we're only, ah, adopted cousins; adopted to the situation, but I don't think there's any harm in that. We're close; probably closer than a lot of cousins. We've known each other forever. That the trick."

 

9♠ The only dick to respond was Andy. "That is a very interesting theory. You are obviously exceptionally bright, in addition to your other qualities." Eve replied: "It was in Scientific American." "Perhaps you can lend me your issue at some point." "Oh, I read it online." "Then you can send me a link to it." He pulled out a wallet and pulled from his wallet a card. "Send it to me as soon as you can; perhaps this evening, before you go to bed." She smiled at him and squirmed a bit. "I'll do so!" she replied very brightly.

 

9♦ I, sprightly, checked my cards. I had two fours. Thereupon I changed my strategy: I would go in as seldom as possible. After all, we were playing a friendly game, and what's the fun without gambling? We all held one closed fist over the table, with each fist holding a token or not holding a token. We opened our fists, and tokens dropped from Steve's hand, Eve's hand, Paul's hand, and my hand. My pair of fours won me a quarter; the other three paid up. The pot was now at the princely amount of 75¢. At least, I won.

 

10♦ That hand done, in a glance at Andy, I could see him look at the clock. He was getting impatient. He bit his thumb; he'd made a mistake not going in. He should have bet to increase the pot. Two cards were dealt. I had garbage. Fists went out; tokens were dropped. Roy, Steve, Andy, Paul. Roy won the six bits, and the pot became $2.25. More cards! I had a pair of aces. Okay then. Eve, Roy, Andy, me. I took the cash, and the pot grew to $6.75. Andy looked again at the clock. Two cards. Paul, Andy, Steve, Roy.

 

7♣ "Oh, boy, how did chance 'play again'?" That was me asking. Paul's Chilean cousin said: "My mother won a trip in a sweepstakes, and that trip brought them here. They decided they liked it, and stayed put. End of story." He was shuffling the cards. "How many others are coming?" Paul said: "Three more." "Well, isn't there something we could play? I don't know your games, but there must be something that can be played with three people. Something simple, I beg of you. I'm afraid I've never played poker before." Paul took the cards from him and said: "Liar's poker?"

 

Q♣ This rhyme has to happen. "Joker?!" I was sitting there, in shock, wondering if anyone believed me. Did I believe myself? Paul stated our everlasting dictum: "The cards do the talking." I knew he was right, and I had no way out of it: was there something in the air? Was real magic taking place? I was pedestrianing as he hauled it in, the cousin, saying: "I have a bit of an interest in error and misprision. You made a mistake, that is plain to see, but where did the error take place? Did it happen when you accepted the card?, or when you looked?"

 

9♥ I had to accept, being crooked. Replaced two. "Pair of sevens, an ace, and a king." Perfectly reasonable. Andy accepted. He replaced one card. "Pair of sevens, an ace, a king, and a six." I accepted, replacing one. "Two sevens, an ace, a king, and a nine." He accepted, replacing one. "Two aces, two sevens, and a king." I reluctantly accepted. One discard. I was forced to say: "Full house, sevens over aces." Andy looked me up and down. He said: "I don't believe you," and I was forced to give in. Andy had won all four hands played. No losses, by God.

 

4♦ "My God, what a hand!" I cried. "I'm not up on my algebra, but that was the most unlikely round probably, like, ever!" I showed them my full house. Starting from Paul, I pointed out: "Straight. Full house. Four of a kind. Royal flush. Each beating the last, all the way to Steve." Steve had started to rake it in. "I guess it's my lucky day. Wow!" Roy said: "I've never had four of a kind like that, and yet I got beat!" Steve was stacking the chips up, and counting. We all wanted to know the total pot.

 

6♣ I didn't see why not, so I said to Paul's Chilean cousin (whose name I had heard spoken through a telephone call, but not since I'd arrived at Paul's place): "But aren't you Spanish? How can you not know a Spanish word?" He replied as he tidily shoved the deck back and forth: "I was six when we left. Chance got me born in Chile, and chance got my family to leave. My father was a travel agent who got stranded there in 1973. While he was waiting for a reprieve, he met my mother, and they put off leaving until 1980. Chance played again."

 

5♥ Roy said: "Again? She's fine. She's married now. I guess you didn't get invited to the wedding, or the invite got lost in the mail, or sent back No Forwarding Address. I don't mean to laugh, but she says she hardly remembers you." I looked down at the cards on the kitchen table before saying: "I haven't thought of her at all in a very long time." Roy plunked himself down opposite me, with Paul to his left and Andy to his right. He saw the stakes on the table and said: "Oh, is there some liar's poker going on?"

 

7♠ ""You're non? You're not related at all?" I asked. Andy butted in, saying: "No blood relation at all. I could really be a Martian for all anyone could say." I asked him: "Are you a Martian?" and he replied: "That's for me to know and for you to find out." Roy interrupted the entertainment by holding forth the deck of cards and saying: "I had such luck with that one, let's do something else!" Eve said: "I need chips!" Steve snapped his fingers. Steve and Eve, 20$ apiece, bought their chips.

 

4♣ Paul (family name Kipps), who was sitting to my right (only the three of us were there then), said: "I'll give it a shot." He concentrated hard, or appeared to be concentrating hard. "I believe it is the queen of spades." His cousin turned over the card. Three of diamonds. "So much for that." I said: "I knew a guy when I was a kid who believed he could fine-tune his psychic abilities by guessing cards. He'd scrunch his face, guess something, be wrong 98% of the time. Maybe he thought he was creating the card with his willpower. Which would follow."

 

2♥ While I, with a swallow, was carefully picking them up, there was a knock at the door, followed by an uninvited entrance. It was Roy, with a six-pack of tall boys in hand. Paul and Roy and I had known each other for years, so many so that we often argued about who met whom first or second. Paul said he'd met Roy one day before he'd met me, I said it was the other way around, and Roy was certain it had all taken place on the same day, order being so chronologically close it didn't matter, not in the least.

 

4♠ Roy released: "I suppose you know these miscreants (gesturing to Paul and me), but you haven't met this son-of-a-bitch (gesturing to Andy) who just beat me in the most unorthodox fashion. His name is Andy. Andy? This is Steve and Eve." Andy smiled at them, saying: "I heard from Paul you were going to be here. Who could forget those names?" Eve laughed. "Yeah, we're pretty remarkable. I've considered changing mine to Amaryllis, thinking that would help our relationship. As if!" Roy returned to the game. He said, to Andy: "You win. You got me. You're very lucky tonight."

 

8♠ As Roy, as was his right, was shuffling, then passing the deck to Steve for a cut, Eve said: "Argument. With Steve. On the way here. Is time travel possible? Because I heard of these things called entangled particles, and it just so happens that no matter how far apart they are, they influence one another; plus, it just so happens, they can be years, decades, centuries apart, and yet they work the same. If you do something to one entangled particle, say, one in 2019, it could affect its twin, way back in two million BC. Do any of you believe that?"

 

A♦ Andy said out flat: "So sorry; I have to cash out and go. I have a family emergency." Roy said: "Not giving us a chance to win anything back?" Andy smiled ashamedly. "I'm sorry; it's my aunt; she is dying." Of course, we couldn't object to that. He said to Eve: "Send me an email next time you have some particle physics to discuss." Away he went, to the door, to the street, to wherever. I think I was the only one who knew how we'd been taken. How could I have even explained it to them? Rest of evening unremarkable.

 

J♥ As Andy (as victor remarkable) dealt the hands, Roy (being Roy) brought up something totally irrelevant. He said: "I had the strangest dream last night. A subway car with my childhood friends with me, them I was at my old school's playground and all my adult friends were there. It didn't seem odd to me until I woke up that I had moved both gangs to the wrong places. Everything else made perfect sense except for that transposition. I didn't even feel like I was dreaming. I figure that, in one's head, when things happened doesn't matter in the least."

 

J♠ Without cease or waiting for an answer, he flipped his cards, saying: "I fold." Eve bit her lip thoughtfully, then said: "I don't have a thing; I'm folding too." (In the middle of that sentence, I heard Andy, sotto voce: "Not true.") She flipped over her cards. Roy looked around the table. "Now we are four." Andy looked eagerly across the table to Paul. "Paul: do you have a computer available?" "There's a good one upstairs, in the bedroom." "Very good! Can I use it?" "Sure, go ahead." Andy turned to Eve. "Could you come with me? Show me the piece?"

 

2♦ Steve, refusing to cease: "Raising another dollar." Paul: "I call." Me: "Raising another dollar." Roy: "Another dollar." Steve: "I see it all; and another dollar." Paul shoved in chips: "I call." I was nervous; I was sure my tell was showing, whatever that means. "I call." Roy asked: "Just this once, can we go sky's-the-limit?" Paul, since it was his house and his table, replied: "How about up to ... five dollars?" Roy quickly said: "Fine, I bet three." Steve caught up to the bets and said: "And three." Paul put in and said: "I think we're at the limit for raises."

 

J♦ Paul won, plus praises. Pot now $20.25. (I was keeping track.) Now it was serious money to stay in. Two more cards. I had an ace high; not worth a double sawbuck. And yet Andy, Paul, Eve: Paul took it; $40.50. Next hand, I got two nines. Fine. In. Roy, Steve, me: I took it, yet now $81 stared at us. We couldn't stop! Not now! Junk next two cards, but Andy and Steve went in. Andy took it; pot stayed at $81. Junk for next 2; Eve, Steve, Roy. Roy won. $162. Andy looked at the clock. Something happening soon.

 

6♥ Paul said: "Yes, the tune is liar's poker, but with the way my cousin is playing, we won't be long." I looked down: the cards Paul had dealt to me were still in my hand, unseen. Before I looked, I asked Roy: "How do you remember this, about this Madelaine and me? Fuck, I can barely remember what she looks like." The cards, un-looked-at, were still in my hand. Roy said, leaning back and, after taking a swig, said: "You stared at her, once-upon-a-time, I saw it. I learned something from you in that futile relationship of yours."

 

3♠ The dénouement of ours was held off at that moment by a shout from outside the kitchen: "Hello? We're coming in!" I recognized the voice: it was Eve, and with her was probably Steve. They came into the kitchen. Eve and Steve were most properly friends of Roy's. First, he'd known Steve, and then, through Steve, Eve. Steve was a blond and strongly built, while Eve was a little firecracker of a redhead, always in a passion. Steve clappered Roy on the shoulders, saying: "Sorry we're late," and Eve, near the sink, said: "Nothing really happens until I arrive, so what."

 

10♠ None spoke but Roy. "Straight-up seven-card stud. Do we all know it well enough?" Andy said: "Ah, I've seen that on television, so I'm ready." "Okay, good. So, there's no ante." Roy dealt two cards down and one card up to each. Steve: "Pass." Paul: "Pass." Me: "Pass." Andy: "I fold." Roy said: "Andy, you don't have to fold. There's no bet." Andy: "Ah! Very well. That makes sense. Pass." Eve: "Pass." Roy said: "I bet ... a quarter." Steve, Paul, and I anted up, happy to have some money on the table. Andy asked: "Can I fold right now?"

 

Q♥ The antes being down, it was Roy's turn to bid. Roy was a good player; he had a very good mind for the mathematics of chance. Brown hair cut short, a bit balding (like the rest of us), and he was solid and tall. He looked off casually, to the window on his right, and said: "I pass." Paul, quickly, said: "Pass." Paul was of an average stature, wiry and thin. The call was to me. I had nothing of interest to anyone, unless he was playing faro or primero or some such defunct game. I said: "Pass."

 

K♥ Now it was Andy's ass. He looked at me to innocently ask: "Can I bet now?" Andy was rather small, and somewhat ashen, like he hadn't been out in the sun for quite some time. I told him: "Yes, up to a dollar." He held up a red chip. "Is this a dollar?" "That's a dollar." He placed it gently in the middle of the table. "I bet ... one dollar." Roy, always eager to start with a bang, and afraid Paul and me would chicken out, put in a red and a white chip. "Seeing: and raising: twenty-five."

 

6♦ As I've indicated, we still had all our hands sitting on the table, and Andy, as he sat down to my left where he'd been sitting before, said: "Why don't you undo what you've done?" Steve said: "Why would I want to undo it? It's a done deal, and I got $103.00!" "Oh, I don't know. For the pleasure of turning back time's hands?" Eve had settled down into her seat and was staring at the cards on the table. "Sorry we took so long. It was a very involved article." Steve swept together the cards randily. "So, let's play some Guts!"

 

Q♦ We would have been going nuts, pulling out hair if that wasn't an uncouth thing to do. More money was on the table than ever before. Who would go in now? Chequebooks were checked, and the chips were now banknotes. Next two: I had a pair of tens; but no! Andy and Steve in; and Andy won with two fives. Next hand: all afeared. Fists went out with or without tokens: fists opened: and Andy and Andy alone dropped his token: a nickel, just a common nickel. He said: "Well, that was tense!" "What luck!" "Beginner's luck extraordinaire!" "Recount, recount!" "Fuckety-fuck!"