The
Poker Report
'Exchanging
Chips For Pearls Since 2001'
4/9/02
Preparing
For The Game
It's
been a while since we've played poker
and some days are more productive than
others. War is raging across the Levant,
the Hezbollah are shelling the northern
borders, the Golan is at risk. It's always
this way.
I
have forty-five students this quarter
so I'll have to be organized, I'm teaching
the Films of Woody Allen. I'm going to
be busy. My apartment is a mess. I have
to clean it, paint it, decorate it, or
do away with it. My apartment is so messy
that it's mess spreads down 16th Street,
past the transvestite bar Esta Noche,
to this coffee shop and interrupts my
writing.
These
are the things. I'm writing a story about
a man that works in a coffee shop. One
just like this one. With junkies in the
back room and a Tetris game up front.
The barrista has pink hair and her lover
rides a tiny dirt bike which he bounces
on near the white boxes full of muffins.
When the line is short enough they stand
outside past the washroom passing a joint
back and forth looking nervously through
the open door to the counter and laughing.
The story's not working out. Not every
story does. Not every story has the necessary
details. And some stories never end.
In
preparation for our game Sharon has pulled
out of two cities in the West Bank. But
then he has entered two more. The soldiers
are still surrounding the Church of the
Nativity. The United Nations speaks of
horrors in the West Bank, but nobody believes
the United Nations anymore. If the West
Bank is a horror, what was Rwanda? What
did the blue helmets do then?
We
are betting small stakes tonight and asking
only for peace. We are shipping out fifty
cents with Powell, our maximum raise,
two white chips made from clay, one for
Arafat, one for Sharon. I will clean my
apartment first. All of us are willing
to do our small part for change. Even
the messy can be neat.
The Game
Ben
and Abby show up first. There's five beers
in the fridge. We play hold 'em and baseball.
Baseball's a good game for three people.
Especially the Abby part. Abby pulls a
straight flush, and then another. Abby's
all threes and nines. Pure wild card to
the eyeballs. Cooney shows up with his
brother, Lil' Iowa. I let Lil' Iowa know
straight off the bat, his brother's a
liar, there won't be no chickens left
if he trusts Cooney with the farm. Jensen
shows late and Andy later still.
Andy
drinks from a big can. He says he's got
a job now. He says he wants to change
his picture while slipping aces from the
bottom of the deck. Abby's pulling four
of a kind every chance she gets. When
I think about Oklahoma I think about four
kings and what they did to that windblown
state and the cattle there. Cooney loses
hard when waiting for a full house and
tries to pass his bluffs for wisdom and
only has two dollars in red when the chips
are counted.
It's a mean, masculine game. Erik says
I talk too much and Abby calls me a jerk.
In this way I keep the peace. Jensen muscles
my queen with his ace on the last hand
of Clue. He pushes my girl out to the
street where the cars are coming. Abby's
wearing her boyfriend's slim pants. Wendy
is home sick. It's Wendy that keeps us
honest. Ben rubs his forehead when thinking
about his girl and Jon never came, stayed
at home with his demons. Donahue went
to the ballgame waving a rainbow colored
flag for the team he loved the most. At
our peak tonight we were six men and Abby
in tight jeans, seventy-cents worth of
ante. The game lasted three hours. Enough
to wipe Cooney clean and for Lil' Iowa
to buy in twice.
The
game cracks when Wendy calls Ben home
and Ben trips over his pants leg streaking
out the door. The game collapses when
Jensen offers the Cooneys a ride back
to fogville and Abby calls Shotgun just
for kicks.
After
The Game
By
the time the game is over another bus
has blown up on its way to Haifa. Peace
is four aces with two cards coming. There's
ten dead by eleven o'clock according to
the Jerusalem Post and fifteen soldiers
slain in the refugee camps in Jenin. The
Palestinians are dying by the hundreds.
Powell has stepped up his schedule. San
Francisco is quiet. Sharon says there's
going to be trouble but nothing he has
done has worked so far. Not the massacres.
Not the settlements he pushed east to
the Jordan River or the Jewish picnic
on top of al-Aqsa Mosque.
It's
only ever taken one bomb to close the
horizon. One militant to shoot Rabin.
One settler to stride down the hill into
Jericho.
By
11:30 I've put away the chips, stood the
table, and taken the empties down to Folsom
Street. I won eight dollars. Nobody's
taken responsibility for the bombing and
an emergency meeting has been called for
the morning. Our game is over for tonight.
That is our story. The story of Tuesday
nights. It's a hipster story about kids
turning thirty, contemplating marriage,
and moving into their first homes. It's
about growing up, measuring your loyalties.
It's a story filled with gambling and
sex. It has a beginning and an end. That's
our story. There's lots of stories. The
best hand for the night, four kings, nothing
wild.
© Stephen Elliott 2002
Stephen's
Web Site
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