Aces Full

            This world is made for a gambling man.  My father taught me how to gamble, properly, at the age of 7.  He sat me down and showed me how to play cards on our old stained coffee table.  We lived in a desolate town, Baker, Nevada so there wasn’t much else to do. We would bet pennies and nickels, that was a lot to a 7 year old.  Hell that was a lot to my old man too.  My mother never liked the idea of him teaching me how to gamble, my father thought it was the only way I could ever make it in this world.

            “Henry, you get what I’m trying to do here with yah boy?”  His voice was rough, Lucky Strikes, and bourbon will do that I guess.

            “Yessum sir.”  I lied. But he knew that.

            “Everything in this world is a gamble.  I’m trying to teach you to never fear it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a sure thing or not.  There’s no way of finding out unless you take a chance.”  As he said this he pushed all of his pennies to the middle of the table, the whole time never taking his eyes off of me. I knew what to do.  He taught me, properly. I called him with an air of childish confidence.  He flipped his cards over to show me three kings. That sure beat my pair of fours with some other off suits.

            “Boy this is the best advice I will ever give you.  Make sure you’re listening.”

            “Yeah pah”

            “Don’t yeah me! If you ever needed to listen to me, it’s now. You understand?”

            “Yes Sir”

            “There are three types of gambling men in this world; the fools, the cheats, and the professionals. A fool bets everything he has when he can’t afford to lose it.  A cheat will take you for all you’re worth, before you even know it, worst kind of man to be, they often end up in jail or dead.  Then there’s the pro, he will play hurt when he’s hiding Cowboys and Dames, just as dangerous as a cheat, but it hurts worse when a pro wins.  Boy, in life you’re going to have to spot these men if you want to beat the odds.  The fools are easy to spot, usually young, energetic, they think they’re untouchable and they have a very noticeable confidence to them.  That’s you son, right now you’re a fool.  You’re dead money, and you knew it.  Yet you still called it.  A cheat is a little harder to spot; they’re usually dapper dressed, friendly, and speak kindly, you’ll want to trust these men.  Don’t do it, a kind face lies boy.  A pro, they’re the hardest to spot, they usually don’t stay in town for too long for fear they’ll be spotted, and they’ll usually go by an alias.  OK boy.  That is probably the most knowledge you’ll ever get out of me.  Now can you tell me which one I am boy?”  He kept looking at me; he had hope in his eyes that my young mind took all of this in.          

            With that I reached for those cards that my father had placed down in front of him.  I took the two that he didn’t turn and flipped them over.

            “You’re a cheat pah.” I said bluntly as I sat there looking at his 5 kings.

            “Haha! You’re good at this boy!  Now use what I’ve given you here today to make your life better, better then what I made of mine.”

            “You don’t like you’re life pah?”

            “It’s not that son, you’ll understand someday.”

That was the last thing I remember my father saying to me.  That night I went to sleep, same time I did every night.  I woke up in the morning to see my mother crying in the kitchen.  In my 7 years of life I never remember seeing her cry, so this particular time stands out greatly in my memory. 

            “Mama what’s the matter?” I said still wiping the crust from the corners of my eyes.  She didn’t say anything and just handed me a letter stained and wrinkled with tears.  That letter read:

            My Dearest Evelyn:

                        They were after me for too long.  I was afraid that they would come for me here.  I could not do that to you and our boy.  You two had no hand in what I had done, I feel terrible even bringing you into this.  I hope you realize that I’m trying to do what’s best.  Henry can help you round the house for now, and in a few years he can go to work downtown and in the mean time you can do your regular shift down at the diner.  If you look under the 4^th floor board in the closet you’ll see I left you something to get by for awhile.  Tell Henry I love him, and that I know he won’t be a fool anymore.

                                                With Love and Sincerity,

                                                                                    Emil

  I worked everyday from the time I was 10 to help my mother to keep the house.  I would do odd jobs around town; crawling under houses, digging ditches anything that paid.  I did that for 8 years, until one night I found my mother in the bathtub.  I walked in one night from the slaughter house I was working at three towns over to find her laying there in a bathtub that was crimson.  The red liquid was up to her neck, I ran over to turn off the water, but that’s when I realized it wasn’t running, she had bled out.  The doctor said she had committed suicide, but I knew that wasn’t the case.  My father had killed her, he killed her 11 years ago, she had been a walking shell of the woman she once was.  I made it my goal that day, to become the man my father wasn’t.  I set out for the only place in this state I knew I could make good money, Vegas.  I spent the next 10 years of my life gambling, grifting, and scamming my way in Vegas.  I had to, only way to survive in that town.  One night I walked in to the Jackpot, looking to get a few hands of poker so that I could get a room for the night.  I took a seat at the table, ordered a scotch and lit a smoke.  The old man across the table asked me for a light.  I slid the Zippo across the felt and the man caught it in his right hand, something wasn’t right.  His right hand was missing the middle and ring finger.  This man had been in the game for years, that’s the way people used to settle debts.  Luckily things have changed.  The game was No Limit Texas Hold’em, this is a dangerous game.  The guy sitting across from you can be sitting on 5 or 6 large, while you have nothing but a note in your money clip.  Well this night in particular I was holding a lone 5 dollar bill.  Luckily there were a bunch of tourists in town this night and in no time at all I had made about a grand large.  People came and went the whole game, except that old man. He barely placed a bet the whole night, and when he did it was when I had folded my first hand.  He spoke even less then he bet, said his name was Mack “The Knife” McKenzie.

            “Like the Bobby Darin Song?” I asked looking at the man, who seemed like he could have been the basis for that song. He didn’t say anything but just nodded.

            “That song about you?” I asked.  He shrugged his shoulders.  This was starting to get to me, this quiet act.  But you can never let a hot head kill your game.  I ignored him for the rest of the night, and started talking to all the tourists whose money I took.  I met people from everywhere; Ohio, New Orleans, Nebraska, Vermont, and even a bloke all the way from England.  They all came, they all saw, they all lost.  It’s the cycle of Vegas.  A couple of big wigs from LA came in and sat at the table.  Each threw down 7 large; I myself was up to about 10 grand now.  And the only person who was above me was the old man, only a few hundred more.  I had Aces in the hole, so I bet large off the bat, the big wig’s called, and the old man raised.  First time the whole game he raised anyone.  So I went all in, the two big wigs called, and that left the old man. 

            “Big bet boy.” He said in the longest sentence he made the whole night. With that he called me all in.  This made me nervous.  The flop came out, and there were two aces on the board.  Thank god they named this place right, Jackpot.  The rest of the cards got flipped, but that didn’t do anything for any body.  I flipped over my aces to the demise of each of my opponents, except the old man didn’t seem too bothered.  Every body left the table at that point. 

            “What did you have old man?”

            “Why do you want to know?

            “I’m trying to figure out what kind of player you are.”

            “Does this help?”  He Flipped over his two cards. His two aces

            “You Bastard! How could you do that in a Casino like this? Don’t you know what they’ll do to you in here?”  I was trying not to make a scene, but the sheer thought of cheating in a Vegas Casino is absolutely ludicrous. As he raised his right hand, showing me the missing digits he said very roughly

            “Once a cheat, always a cheat. But I see you’re no longer a fool.”