The Poker Report

5/29/01

"Making Friends Enemies Since 2001"

Yesterday was bad poker juju. Couldn’t win a hand. Nobody would let me leave. Jon was gunning for me. Lost twenty bucks with a splitting headache and wanted to leave without seeming a poor sport, without coming off as annoyed. It was red meat and cards and lot and lots of beer. Finally I just left, left the bank, the cards, the chips just to be able to cruise outside in the stiff mission wind.

Yesterday was ten dollar buy in, ten cent ante, fifty cent max. Typical poker, typical boys in white t-shirts and memorial day shorts. College grad patriots. Coffee cups full of chips. The air was thick with shit talking. Jon was winning. Ferg was winning. Pete was winning. Jon says he always wins. Jon says he wins more than he loses. I had a headache and Jon was chirping in my ear, "You gunning for me? I’m gunning for you." It was like a bad movie. It was Gullivers Travels. I felt like I was tied down and made fun of by little people.

Shaw was losing. Ferg was winning and when people win people talk. Ferg told us how to play. Ferg talked stategy. Ben was losing bad. Ben was losing as bad as me and I was losing. It was memorial day. Memorial day is no day to be playing poker. Memorial day is for flowers on the graves of our veterans. Memorial day is for movies commemorating all of the good white people living in Hawaii.

We all descended on Shaw’s house. Shaw is moving. Shaw is still nursing wounds from the mountain. Fox was there. Karena was there. People loved and lost. It was an apartment full of late twenties. People ate. People left. I meant to leave with them. It would have been the right thing to do.

Rowen is back and sat in on the game a little bit. He brought a bunch of zen and positive attitude from the far east none of which did anything for my game. It’s good to see Rowen again even if he did bring me bad luck.

This morning I woke up feeling better. Last nights bitter taste replaced by generic toothpaste and a cup of coffee. What good is money if it can’t buy friends? I feel that I will be closer to Shaw and Jon with my money in their pockets. It’s a sunny morning and I am in the cafe doing my work. Rumors float across the mission to my cafe perch. I hear that Jon went down after I left. I hear he struggled with his guilt and stayed in on hands he shouldn’t of. I hear he bet big money on a lame horse. Jon sent out a raven and when I left the raven returned to Jon. Jon stayed in with a low straight and the raven croaked, "never more."

Steve Elliott

Editor

The Poker Report