The Poker Report

1/9/02

"Questioning Your Assumptions Since 2001"

The world looks and tastes like lemon flavored pasta. In the center of the room the poker table still stands, awash under the mornings diffuse light, clay chips splashed haphazard against her center.

It was the first poker game of the new year. We finally put into use my new poker table, my new chips, beautiful instruments handmade by the Gods. This is what happened: Jon went too far and ran out of plank. It was terrible to look at, he waved his arms, he kicked and fell. We were playing scrotum, which is a friendly enough game, and Jon had four jacks, which should take it any time, and there was fourteen dollars and forty cents in the middle of all that green felt, in the middle of the well stenciled table which reads, Steve’s House O’ Poker - Suckers Welcome. When Jon showed Jacks I blurted out, "That oughta win it." But it didn’t win it. In fact, Chris Donahue was holding five tens, an unbelievable hand. Jon nearly cried, and then left for the backporch to have a cigarette, the game not yet finished. Ben went with him, to offer moral support, saying nice things like, "Well Jon, I guess you bet more than you could afford on that one!" Because Jon owed fourteen -forty to the pot, and Jon didn’t have it. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, would Jon’s debt be forgiven, or would Jon have to go down to Folsom and sell his ass like the rest of the junky hookers? Ben came in with a bailout clause. He loaned Jon twenty dollars, in return for his soul. Jon was quiet for the rest of the game, eager to go home and play his neogeo pocket.

There were other strange happenings. Abby played exceptionally well. She pulled and pushed. She was the ocean and the chips were her shells. If you picked one up and listened you could hear her voice saying, "I got you now." She left up, without ever once making a mistake, some would say a perfect game. Erik Jenson left up three pink ones, a regular champ. Ben lost his ten dollar stake but what he had over Jon was worth so much more. Ben played poorly, like he was eager to lose and go find his girl. He looked around a lot but there was nobody to hold his hand. Nobody could honestly tell Ben that everything was going to be OK. Wendy didn’t show, and her presence (money) was sorely missed. My editor Pat won on some strange hands, but Ben always says that if you win then you did everything right, though it’s hard to believe that playing Clue with no trump and winning all three books could be the right thing to do. Pat’s also a pretty good chess player, which is why I’m offering to play him three games for $100.

At the end of the night I was drunk and up seventeen dollars. It had been rough going early, out in the Abby, my sails unfurled. I knew where I wanted to go but I didn’t know how to get there. I had been sick all day and had drank a quart of carrot juice before any of this even started. I saw clay chips through rose covered goggles on the green sea floor. And Biggie Smalls sang to me from my little radio, "It’s my nigger pop, from the barber shop." And I thought about Biggie’s nigger pop and kept my hand steady. Because you always play the same, every card is the beginning of something wonderful (unless you’re Jon, and the card is a jack).

It’s a different world now that I have a real poker table. America is dropping fifteen thousand pound bombs on the mountain tops of the near east and Bush is playing Daschle in dirty pool. But there’s eight spots at the table and it’s easy enough to squeeze a ninth or a tenth. Each spot has two drink holders, and racks to place your chips. It’s a heavy table, it stays its place. The felt stops cards from sliding but not chips from rolling. The table was a gift for my thirtieth birthday and I guess there were a lot of things I didn’t know in my twenties, that I know now that I have this table. It sits in the middle of my room like an oracle. The table was originally the son of Zues and a mortal. But when Hera intervened Zues sewed the table into his thigh, so it could be twice born, both of woman and man. The wisdom of the ancient Greeks remains, stenciled on the face, surviving the long journey from Olympus to my secular studio in Hoe-town. The oracle says, Suckers Welcome.

Stephen Elliott

Editor

The Poker Report