PLAYING CARDS

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

PLAYING CARDS

By R. Peterson

          I stopped at the Dollar Tree on my way home for work. I needed pop and I was getting low on money.  Everything in the store was a dollar or less. Santana’s Black Magic Woman was playing softly from hidden speakers. I bought two large bottles of Shasta Cola and a bag of chips and was almost to the checkout counter when I remembered tonight was poker night and I was supposed to bring a new deck of cards. I found the place on the shelf where playing cards were usually kept but it was empty.

“Can I help you?”  The store employee startled me. Her skin was so dark it seemed to swallow light, and her head was completely bald … or shaved to look that way. Her face looked like two Wint-O-Green Lifesavers staring at you from the bottom of a burglar’s bag. The brilliant white dress she wore, printed with tiny flying ravens, galvanized the contrast and the twenty gallons of Sun Shine perfume she’d bathed-in before work … made my senses reel.

            “I’m looking for some playing cards,” I told her, “but it looks like you’re out.”

            “We’re out of the Bicycle brand,” she said looking behind several packages of poker chips and baseball trading cards, “but I thought we had one deck of off brand here someplace.” I looked at my watch. It was getting late and I needed to eat and shower before I went to Larry’s. It was a forty-five minute drive along the ocean with two lane traffic and a cliff on one side. There was another store I could try, but I didn’t want to be rushed getting to the game.

            “I’m kind of in a hurry,” I told her. “I’ll come back another time.”

I had just started to walk away when she laughed. Her hands moved so fast I thought for a moment she was grabbing an animal. I thought it was a cat. I realized I’d been holding my breath and I let it out. “There you are, Ouanga! You can’t hide from Boko!”

She tossed me a package of cards. MARIONETTE plastic-coated playing cards the cellophane-sealed box read. I’d never heard of them … but for a buck I didn’t need to.

            “Thank you,” I told her, handed over the cash, grabbed my purchases and scampered.

-------2-------

            Larry Conner had held Thursday night poker games at his house for the past three years. I had lost money at most of them, but never a fortune. “Ten dollars!” Thelma yelled as I walked out the door with the two bottles of cola in my hand. “You write a check to cover a bet and I’ll toss your body in the river!”

            “Even if I win?” I called over my shoulder. We’d been married five years; I knew her answer.

            “Especially if you win!” She smiled.

We had an agreement, Thursday night was my night out with the boys but the amount I could spend including my soda and snacks was fifteen dollars. Thelma had the same fifteen dollar limit when she went bowling or to a movie with her sisters. It was our way of budgeting money … and it worked usually.

            Larry was on his second beer and Chuck and David were counting out poker chips and placing them in neat piles in front of the four chairs spread around the kitchen table. The blue chips were a dollar, red ones fifty cents and the white ones a quarter. The pile in front of my chair was the smallest. Everyone knew about my budget.  I knew my way around. The new pack of playing cards felt oddly cold as I took them from my coat pocket and dropped them in front of Chuck. Larry was the bank so I handed him my ten dollars.  By the time I opened the bag of chips and poured them into a bowl, Chuck had three glasses filled with ice and David was filling them with my cola and a shot of his bottle of Jack Daniels.

Larry had the cellophane off the new cards and was removing the jokers. I stared at the cards. They looked like black cats dressed in human clothing and they appeared to be moving.

Larry started talking like an Indian, something he had a habit of doing when he was drunk. “Me think white man get plenty drunk from whiskey … lose squaw and teepee to brave warrior who drink-em beer!”

            “Not a chance,” Chuck told him as he took a drink.

“Are these cards marked?” Larry scowled as he expertly shuffled the deck with silicone slick movements. I could see he was staring at the dancing marionette that covered the back of each card. Something didn’t seem right; I blinked my eyes as he slammed the shuffled cards down on the table. The marionette on the top card was staring at me with violent beady eyes. I was afraid of him and he knew it. The marionette smiled as he lifted one of his legs and I could see a backward 4 and a red shape behind him.

            “Of course,” I blurted and my voice cracked. “But they came from the dollar store so they don’t tell you how.” I was beginning to think I was having a flashback from the acid I took in college.

They all laughed when I got up and splashed cold water on my face from the sink. “Got something in my eye,” I explained”

            “Poor baby crying cause he knows he’s going to lose his ten bucks!” Chuck teased.

            “All playing cards are marked at the factory,” David said ignoring me and pulling the top card from the deck. He flashed it to everyone. It was the four of diamonds. “You just have to know what to look for.”

            “Is that why you spilled your drink on the cards last week so we wouldn’t know you used them to lose eighty bucks to me and Larry?” Chuck and Larry both laughed as Chuck took the card from David and shuffled again.

            “Last week was a mistake … Tonight I’m feeling lucky,” David said as he reached over and cut the cards.

Chuck Burgess looked around the table and then smiled. “Five card stud,” he said then dealt each of us three cards.

I wasn’t aware of anything terribly wrong until I looked at my hand: the seven of diamonds, king of hearts and 4 of clubs and then glanced across the table. Chuck picked his three cards off the table and spread them out about three inches in front of his nose. The dancing marionettes on the backs of the cards were gone. It looked like the cards had been printed on clear plastic and I could see through them to the face. It was like looking into a mirror. Everything was reversed, but I could tell what the cards were: a six of clubs and two queens. I looked at the cards David and Larry were holding and they were also transparent. Two, three, five for Larry, possible straight in mixed suits and David was holding a pair of nines watched over by the jack of diamonds. The jack of diamonds winked at me. “Don’t you see that,” I blurted pointing to Chuck’s cards.

            “See what?” He said as he tossed a blue chip in the center of the table. “You want to look at my hand, you got to pay!”

I looked wildly around the table. Was I the only one who could see something was wrong with the cards?

            “It ain’t going to be me … I fold,” Larry said. He lay his cards face down on the table and I could still read them. Then he got up and refilled his glass with cola.

I looked at David. He had his poker face on and it was impossible to read but I could still see the two nines and the jack. “I’m in,” he said as he tossed in a blue chip.

Both of them were looking at me like I was a lit firecracker. A thousand thoughts ran through my mind in the few seconds that I stared at my hand. I could see myself winning, but that would be cheating. I’d never had a big night. I should tell everyone what I’m seeing but they’ll think I’ve flipped. Once I came home with eight dollars extra and I felt like a king. I usually always surrendered my ten dollars to someone else. Maybe tonight was my night. There was something magical about these cards and also something dangerous but only I could see it. I had nothing, but I still threw in a blue chip.

            “There’s a sucker born every minute!” Chuck smiled as he dealt us each another card.

I drew the six of hearts and I couldn’t help looking at what Chuck and David had. Chuck drew a six of diamonds. He now had two pair Queens and sixes and David drew the nine of clubs … he had three nines.

“Last card,” Chuck bellowed. He tossed in another blue chip. “But it’s going to cost you suckers another buck to see my hand.”

I folded. I was thinking about going home early. I could tell everyone I had a headache. “Too rich for Mr. Rockefeller here?” Chuck laughed and everyone laughed with him.

David threw in his blue chip and then threw in five more. “I’ll raise you,” he said.

Chuck smiled and counted out five blue chips and added them to the pile. “What’s that saying?” he chuckled. “A fool and his money are soon parted?”

Chuck dealt the last two cards. He ended up with a boat: two Queens and three sixes. I could see him biting his lip to keep from smiling. David drew another nine. I wanted to gasp but didn’t …. Four of a kind will beat anything except a Royal Flush! His face was like a brick.

            “Let’s make this interesting,” Chuck said. He counted out twenty five blue chips from his pile and tossed them into the pot.

            “I’ll go for that,” David said, “and raise you another twenty five.” Both my friends had to buy more blue chips from Larry.

Chuck moaned and David rose from his chair dancing around the table when the cards were turned over. David made the mistake of slapping my head when he gyrated past. “That’s how you win kid!” he chortled.

I forgot about going home early with a headache. Luck only comes around once to most people sometimes not at all!

            “Let’s play some cards I told them as I sat back down at the table.

I won a few hands but still played cautious. I was waiting for Acey Deucey where the pots sometimes get enormous. The rules are simple. The dealer lays down two cards and the player bets up to the amount in the pot that the next card will fall between them. If the first two cards are an ace and a duce the chances of the next card coming between them are very good hence the name of the game. However if the ace or the duce should appear then you lose. Chuck went first. He drew an eight and a three and bet fifty cents. He lost when the next card came up a jack.

            The game went on until all the cards were gone from the deck. Larry won twelve dollars when a seven came up between a queen and a three. Chuck lost eighty bucks when an ace came up between a three and a king.

I looked up once and I swore I saw the marionette from the back of the cards peering in through the kitchen window. We were playing a game but he was playing with us.

            It was late. We’d shuffled the deck at least five times and there was twenty-five hundred dollars in the pot including the title to Chuck’s pickup. Larry dealt me the ace of hearts and the two of spades. I didn’t want to look at the next card … but I did. The card waiting to be drawn was the Ace of spades. “Pass,” I said.

            “Are you crazy?” Chuck said. “That’s why you never win!” He wrote a check for fifty- five hundred dollars and tossed it in the pot. “I might have to call my bank in the morning, but the money will be there!” You could tell he had no intention of losing.

            “That’s a lot of money,” I told him. “Better think about it.” Chuck Higley was a truck driver that lived paycheck to paycheck. He had two boys at home with muscular dystrophy and his wife had recently been diagnosed with cancer. He was in for a rough time at the bank.

            “Everything is a gamble in life, kid,” he told me. “There is a price for everything and if you don’t take chances you never go anywhere.”

I didn’t want to look when Larry drew the Ace. The silence in the room could have wakened the dead. “Bad luck man,” was all anyone could say to Chuck as they continued the game. Three deals later Larry, David and I ended up splitting the pot. I could tell they felt bad … we all did.

            “Let me get some things out of my truck … er your truck and I’ll call my wife to come get me.” Chuck’s voice was just above a whisper. He had been silent as a mouse.

            “Don’t worry about it,” David said not looking Chuck in the eye. “Drive it home … we’ll settle up later.”

            “There is no later,” Chuck said as he walked outside.

We were all surprised when we heard the gunshot. At least we know what Chuck had to get out of his truck.

I stuck around until the police and the ambulance left. There was nothing anyone could do for Chuck. He’d shot himself in the head with a 44 magnum.

            “Don’t forget your cards,” Larry told me just as I was leaving. It was near morning. I felt guilty. One of my friends was dead and I was leaving the game nine hundred dollars richer. How was I going to explain this to Thelma?

The Marionette plastic coated playing cards were back in the box but I still didn’t want to touch them. I imagined the dancing puppet on the box biting my fingers as I picked up the box. When I climbed in my car my hand was bleeding.

            I intended to throw the cards in the ocean on the way home. I parked on a pullout next to a cliff and gazed down at the surf breaking on jagged rocks a good two-hundred feet below me. The sun was rising and the box was open when I pulled it from my pocket. The king of spades had somehow slipped from the deck and was lying on top.

The black figure on the card turned and spoke to me. His eyes looked into mine and I knew I was captured. I was powerless to resist what he told me I must do. There is a price for everything I thought as I walked to the cliff edge and then closed my eyes. There were strings moving my arms and legs. The wind felt like a hurricane as I jumped and it rushed past my face.

I left the cards on a bench.

I hope nobody finds them … but I think they will.

THE END ???