Poker Face

         “Deal.” Pete pushed the well-worn deck of cards, red bicycle design up, along the kitchen table toward his sister, Susan. It was four in the morning and he found himself in the familiar weekly occurance of coming within one hand of cleaning out Susan and their younger brother, Clayton. It was a situation Pete found immensely gratifying, but it didn’t begin to make up for what his two siblings had done to him.
         “Why don’t we call it a night?” Susan picked up the deck. Her eyes began to close, then popped open. She snatched her cigarette from the tin ashtray beside her; a column of ash an inch long broke away as she took a drag. “I’d like to go home with a little money this week.”
         “You know the house rules.” Pete tapped the kitchen table top. “No one leaves until there is a clear winner. The player comes to the table with one hundred dollars and leaves when they’re broke.”
         Susan took a quick drag, finishing her cigarette. “Christ, this isn’t Vegas,” she said. “Look around. We’re in a small tract suburban home in Sandusky, Ohio.” She blew out smoke with the words.
         Pete stared at her. Susan had snuck off to California with the man of her dreams when she was nineteen, and ended up marrying him. The marriage lasted seven months. She had wanted to watch the sun set behind the Golden Gate Bridge (she traveled as far as Houston, which is more south than west when you got down to it), and told Pete it didn’t bother her, but she always bluffed her weak hands. Now, ten years after she walked out the door, she wasn’t that particular about where to escape to. She was seeing Ned Grelick, and Pete was sure they planned to leave town soon.
         “Well, don’t you have anything to say?” Susan asked Clayton.
         “I don’t think one last hand would hurt,” he said, and guzzled half his beer. Clayton had left at eighteen, two months after their father died he grabbed a scholarship and left for Kent State. Clayton, who never promised to make anything of himself, dropped out after two years and had spent his savings on a six-week whirlwind tour of England, pub-crawling from Liverpool to London. He had come back a mess. He passed on career opportunities as quick as he folded poker hands.
         “I can’t believe you,” Susan said. “Not enough backbone to stand up to your big brother?”
Clayton, in mid-sip, lowered his beer and stared at Susan. “Not enough energy to be disagreeable,” he said.
         “I can’t believe this. Mom wanted us to keep in touch as a family,” Susan said. She turned back to Pete and stood. “I’m sure she hadn’t intended for you to rob us blind.”
         “I understand,” Pete said. “You weren’t there, as I was, for Mom’s last days. Wishing, pleading through the pain for her family to be at her side. ‘Where’s Susie?’ she kept repeating. ‘Where’s Clayton? I need to tell them so much. I need to tell them that I love them.’ Since there was only myself, her last words were to keep the three of us together as a family.”
         “I tried to make it back,” Susan said, sitting. “Had to keep my job in Houston to get the money to fly back. I loved Mom.” Pete smiled. Guilt made people do the damndest things, and it was far easier than any other method of persuasion. Susan sat, picked up the deck, and shuffled. Pete loved the plastic snapping sound the cards made.
         Poker was Pete’s game, and he had picked it up at an early age watching his father play. Though it was always dealer’s choice, he perferred either seven card stud, a game that lengthened suspense while gorging the pot, or the immediate winnings he collected from the quick five card draw. Pete loved to make specific cards wild when he delt (One-Eyed Jacks and Man With The Axe, for instance), never a range of numbers as his brother did when it was his turn: too easy and not enough control, for God’s sake. Show nothing but your poker face, until it’s time to show your hand and take the pot, that’s what Pete believed. He could have made a killing in Las Vegas. Just could have moved out there and owned a casino within three years. His plans were taken away from him abruptly when Susan and Clayton each made their exits, leaving him alone to care for their mother, who battled bone cancer off and on for five years.
         Toward the end it had got tough, and that was a word that didn’t begin to describe it. The hospital staff had done all it could for her, then Pete had to approve her transfer to a convelescent home. He stayed at his mother’s bedside for the week it took for her lifesigns to slowly fade away. During that week Pete endured the cycle of loud, focused screams and low, drugged moans. His mother’s mind was at its clearest when she screamed the loudest. Then the pleas came: to keep her drugged, to stop the pain, to let her die. Pete had to listen to all of it, and when it was over he had to take care of the burial arrangements. The plastic snapping sound stopped, and brought Pete back to the game.
         “Cut them,” Susan said, and passed the deck to Clayton, who tapped the top and passed them back.
         “That’s typical,” Pete said. “Pass the responsibility to cut the cards just like you pass--”
         “Hey.” Susan pointed at Pete. “It’s his choice to cut them, not yours. When it’s your turn to cut cards we’ll sit here and listen to your shit. Until then,” Susan started flinging cards like frisbies, face down on the table, “the game is five card draw, dueces wild.”
         It took less than two minutes. Susan had a pair of fives; she tried to bluff a better hand, but her twitching nose gave her away. Clayton surprised Pete by showing his three of a kind; a pretty solid hand. Pete had a straight, to the Jack, finishing the job he had started seven hours ago.
         “Well, it was nice seeing my little brother and sister,” Pete said, shoveling the last of the change into his hands. “So, next Friday at nine, then?”
         “Why don’t we go out to dinner, instead?” Susan asked, pulling her jacket on.
         “Oh no,” Pete said. “I have to save my money. Besides, we couldn’t hear ourselves talk. No, Friday night is family night. Just us.”
         “All right, so let’s meet at my apartment. I’ll cook dinner.”
         “Great! I’ll bring the cards.”
         “No, damnit,” Susan said. “No poker.”
         “Then I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it,” Pete said, collecting the rest of the cards scattered on the table.
         “Fine, then it’ll just be Clayton and I next week,” Susan said, and headed for the front door. Clayton came out from the kitchen with a beer and followed her.
         “Of course, I can’t help thinking how disappointed Mom would be if she knew we couldn’t get together for one lousy night.” Pete smiled as Susan stopped, her shoulders slumped, her hand frozen in the act of reaching for the doorknob. She stayed a statue for a minute. Then she turned and walked back to the kitchen table.
         “All right,” she said. “Let’s go. We’ve got one more hand to play.”
         “Excuse me?” Pete replied.
         “You heard me. Clayton, I’d like you to deal, please.” Susan craned her neck to look back at Clayton, who had the door open and was halfway through. Silently, he turned around, walked back to the table, took the deck from Pete, and started shuffling. “The game is Showdown,” she said. “If you win, I’ll be your poker buddy without putting up a fight, and take your crap without comment, for as long as you like.” She withdrew a cigarette from a pack in her purse, lit up, and took a few puffs. “If I win, I get to leave this exhausting, demented, weekly party, never to be seen by you again. The deal is five card stud, one-eyed jacks are wild, and no looking at our down cards. Ready to play?”
         Pete hunted for tells. Her eyes didn’t blink, her nose didn’t twitch, she did not look away. She wasn’t bluffing.
         “I’m not comfortable with the stakes,” he said. “I stand to loose a sister, after all.”
         Susan sighed. “What would you consider fair?” she asked.
         “Earlier tonight you told us you were seeing Ned Grelick.”
         “Yes. So?”
         “He’s a good man,” Pete said, trying to keep his lips from curling into a smile. “The kind that could help you get out of this town.” He paused. “If I win, you break it off with Ned. Permanently. And you keep our Friday night appointments.” That should be the end of that, he thought.
         Susan looked up at Clayton, who shook his head. “Deal,” she said.
         Clayton dealt two down cards, one to Pete, one to Susan. Then he gave Pete his second card, an up card, the Ace of Diamonds. Susan received the Queen of Hearts. “Ace bets,” Clayton said.
         “Bets?” Pete asked.
         “Continue or fold,” Susan replied. “You can always fold.”
         Pete studied the card; one solitary red diamond, alone in a field of white. He shook his head to dismiss the thought, leaned over the table, and whispered to Susan, “You’re going to lose.”
         “Ace and ten showing, nothing there,” Clayton flipped the Ten of Clubs to Pete. He threw down the Four of Spades for Susan. “Queen and four showing, nothing there either. Ace and ten bets.”
         A family of clubs, Pete thought. He remembered Thanksgiving dinner when he was eight, of all things. Relatives from all over the state had traveled to their house to celebrate the holiday. Grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles. Dad had still been alive. It had been a good time, until Susan dared Pete to steal a bite of turkey off the drumsticks saved for Dad. He initially refused, but all it took was for Susan to call him chicken. After a failed attempt, they argued until they were both sent to their rooms for the night. Most of their relationship consisted of that--dares. One after the other, including this one, here. Now.
         “Pete,” Clayton said.
         “Come on,” Pete spat, shaking his head, concentrating on Susan’s face.
         “Pair of tens showing,” Clayton tossed the Ten of Spades in with Pete’s hand, “and a pair of queens,” he finished, adding the Queen of Spades to Susan’s hand. “Pair of queens bets.”
         “Deal the damn cards,” Susan said, and took a long, slow drag on her cigarette.
         “Two pair, aces and tens,” the last card in Pete’s hand was the Ace of Spades. The Death Card. “Three queens showing,” Susan’s last card was the Queen of Diamonds. Clayton’s hand started shaking. The cards almost cascaded from his hands, but he held on to them at the last second. “Three queens bets.”
         “I’m not leaving this table,” Susan said. “How about you?”
         Pete started to squirm. He touched the single spade, rubbed it with his index finger hoping it would rub off the card. The odds were one in fifty-two. Most players would kill for this card. Pete tossed it back on the table, disturbing the rest of his hand.
         “Well?” Susan asked again. “Continue or fold?”
         “Let’s do it,” Pete said, and they picked up their down cards. Pete wasn’t looking at his, however. He watched Susan’s nose twitch instead, and smiled. Her part was done, all he had to do was come through with the right card. “Well, I’m afraid you’ll be breaking a poor man’s heart before the day’s out,” he said, and put the Ace of Clubs down. “Unless you can beat a full house.”
         Susan closed her eyes tight and put her fist up against her forehead. Tears began to make their way down her face. Clayton went to the kitchen and reappeared with a few sheets of Kleenex. She took them, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. She still held her card.
         “Don’t cry, for God’s sake. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a sore loser,” Pete said. “You had a solid hand. Mine was better, that’s all.”
         “I’m not upset because I lost,” Susan said, and put down her last card, the Jack of Hearts.
         “Well then what are you--” and then the man who made poker his life’s ambition noticed the jack’s single eye gazing face front. “I’ll be God damned.” The odds of being dealt a four of a kind were one in four thousand when no wild cards were allowed. Pete supposed the odds with one-eyed jacks as your wild card were just slightly better. Just enough for him to lose. Enough for Susan to leave him, again.
         “Your nose twitched,” was all he could think to say.
         “I had an itch,” Susan answered. “Ned and I have talked about moving to New York, you were right about that much. I’ll write you. Maybe, someday,” but her voice trailed off. She hugged and kissed him. “Goodbye,” she said.
         “Wait, wait a minute,” Pete said. Susan started to pull away, but Pete held on.
         “Wait for what?” Susan asked. Pete lowered his arms and Susan slowly backed away. “Goodbye, Clayton,” she kissed him, and then she left.
         “And what about you?” Pete asked Clayton.
         “What about me?” he replied, heading for the door.
         “Are you going to abandon me as well?”
         Clayton laughed. “Look, Mom may or may not have said she wanted us together as a family. One thing’s for sure, our sister did not abandon you. You two just don’t get along. You always have to get under each other’s skin. Your relationship wasn’t healthy, you understand? What Susan did tonight, well, one of you should’ve done it months ago. Before this Friday night poker thing got out of hand.”
         Pete caught up with him at the doorway. “Will you...just come on over next Friday?”
         “Are we going to play poker?” Clayton asked.
         “Yes. No. I don’t know. Probably not.”
         Clayton nodded. “I’ll see you Friday,” he said. Pete exhaled and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he watched Clayton drive off.