“Jones! Jones! You play poker right?”

“You know I do.”

“I’ve got a proposition for you… There’s a tournament in the Hunter Valley on Sunday. You make the final table, you get a grand.”

“How many runners?”

“A hundred, maybe a hundred fifty. I’m driving up tomorrow and it makes it cheaper if I get you in for fuel money. We drive back on Monday.”

The thought of a field of a hundred pub poker players flashed through my mind… Each one believing he was the best player at his pub, or in the world. Each repeating the mantra: “I’m a great player! Do you realise how many times I’ve made the final table at the Werribee social this month?” Each one eager to shove with bottom pair. I licked my lips.

“Oh. I don’t know man – I have work on Monday.”

“So what – chuck a sickie. They have GPs in New South Wales – we can stop and get a med cert for you.”

Harting chimed in “I think they’ll notice that the letterhead for the GP is in Albury.”

“Fuck it, I’m sure you can figure something out,” said Ambleton.

“I don’t really do sickies. But… have a look at this.” I turned around and looked at my schedule for next week. They were meant to have changed me to part time hours, Monday through Wednesday. Instead, they’ll left my schedule completely blank.

“There you go!” said Ambleton. “It was meant to be!”

I paused. “I’ll think about it. I’ve got your number.”

I’d already told Cin about my schedule, and she’d walked out at 4:44 pm, saying “I’ll take care of it, right now,” and strode off to an unrelated meeting.

I got back to work, and when I took my last call and logged out at 6:31 pm, my schedule was tumbleweed. The attitude at SalesBlast, at least on my campaign, is that they like to count every minute of every day, and if it’s not listed on the schedule, it may as well have never happened. Still, I wondered what would happen if Cin called me on Monday at midday.

“Jones – where the fuck are you?”

“What? Why aren’t you here, at work, on a Monday morning?”

Then I would probably say something like:

“I’m not sure Cin – can you tell me what time I was supposed to start?”

“You were scheduled to start at … Oh. Right.”

Either that, or I would come in on Tuesday, and say: “Sup guize?” and do my best not to flinch even though I’ve been MIA… making like I’d been abducted by aliens.

Fuck it, I thought. They’re so anal about that schedule, I suppose I’d better follow it still. And even if I came in on Monday and worked as I was supposed, it would negatively affect my “adherence” – one of my major KPIs.

I called Ambleton and told him I was in.

“Okay, I’ll see you at 6 am.”

I woke up at eight minutes to six. “Shit!” I put on some pants, grabbed some clothes and my laptop and stuffed them into a bag, took a cab to Spencer Street and got there at 6:20. Hopped in the car with Ambleton and Miraj. Then we drove north, and passed two blocks from my place. I sighed.

We stopped at a rest stop just after the Victoria-NSW border.

Ambleton started telling a story “My friend Luke’s bucks’ party… We wanted to do something special. So we bought a lamb from a farmer, loaded it onto the truck. The farmer says ‘So… have you guys ever done this before?’ And we said ‘Yeah… uh sure.’ So we took the lamb on the truck and introduced it to my friend. Her name was Chelsea. We wanted him to get friendly with Chelsea before he slaughtered her later – ”

I laughed. “What? That’s sick!”

“Yeah – it’s his bucks’ night so we wanted to do something different.”

“Like get him to kill his dear friend.”

“Exactly. So he got all friendly with her. Then we took her off – and you know that saying ‘like a lamb to the slaughter’? – that saying is 100% accurate. She didn’t struggle or make a peep. I handed Luke the knife and said ‘Okay, now you’ve got to be careful and – what?! What have you done?!? You’ve killed Chelsea!’ He’d slit her throat. He just laughed ‘Hurherhurher. Do you think that’s deep enough?’ and said ‘I always wondered what that would be like.’”

“Your friend is obviously a cold-blooded murderer in the making.”

“I think so too.”

We got to the Hearly’s Hotel. It was a pub in Cessnock and they’re charging us $50 a night each, for a room with three beds. The sign out the front said “The best food beer in town!” The coolest part was, they had arcade machines with Galaga and Frogger and one hundred Neo-Geo games. Classic. As we were eating dinner, Ambleton said to me “By the way… if anyone asks tomorrow, just tell them you played at Rosstown.”

“Rosstown… where the fuck is Rosstown?”

“It’s a pub near Carnegie station.”

“Okay… This sounds dodgy.”

“No, no. I’m sure it’ll be fine. But remember, Rosstown.”

“What if I win the tournament and then they turn around and say, no, you never played at Rosstown – you can’t have the money.”

“It’ll be fine. He said anyone from Victoria could come… It should be fine.”

As we were settling into bed, Ambleton started telling me stories about Kenya.

“It’s a strange thing about their culture. They don’t really have dreams or ambitions. They get a job as a maid, or someone tells them they’re going to be a maid. They work as a maid for the rest of their lives. They don’t think to start their own business, or anything like that – they just accept it.”

“Did you ever see a lynch mob?”

“How do you mean?”

“Say a thief steals a woman’s purse and she calls out ‘thief!’ and everyone gathers to catch this guy and beat the crap out of him – does that ever happen?”

“Oh, yeah sure. But not to a white man.”

“Not to a … mazungu.”

“Exactly. ‘Mazungu’ – that’s a Swahili word. Nobody mess with mazungu. Maybe if you’re alone at night, they might rob you. But not in the daylight. Mazungu are rich and powerful.” As he spoke about Kenya, he started to regress into a Kenyan accent.

“In Kenya, there’s such a distinct caste system. Mazungu live in the nice cottages… Indians live in the brick cottages. Kenyans live in the shitboxes. Sheets of corrugated iron for roofs.

“It’s a hard thing socially. Because how can you relate to someone like that? You can’t talk about cars or bikes, because they don’t have them… or video games, no, or movies, no – they don’t have a cinema. I would say that to people and they would say, you’re so racist – but it’s just how it is. Like if you had a rich friend and he talks about how he spent $3000 on a jacket or something. You can’t relate to someone like that.

“One time I was in a store. A Kenyan pulled up on a bike and I checked it out. He said ‘Nice huh? You like? Want to ride? It’s 150 cc!’ I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my learner’s bike back home was 500cc – and it could only go 80 kilometres per hour – downhill.

“Their culture is just, they live from day to day. A guy from the Lewuyak tribe will work for food. They will do a day’s work just for enough food to feed them or their family. They don’t care about money. Enough for today is enough – tomorrow, they’ll take care of tomorrow. And that’s part of the Kenyan culture, not just Lewuyak. Someone buys fuel for their car… They’ll only buy enough for today. They need phone credit, they will buy enough for today – fifteen cents of phone credit. One time I went to the petrol station, they said ‘how much, mazungu?’ I said, ‘fill it up.’ They said ‘huh?’ Nobody cares about making money – they only care about saving money.

“Another time, I was at a school, and one of the kids started pulling pipes out of my bike. I came out and saw it with its guts all over the place. I took the kid away and called the mechanic. Mechanic came, fixed the bike, rode it around a little bit to make sure it was okay. Charged me about eighty cents. I gave him the money. Wondered if I could have charged the kid’s sponsor for the repair cost. Anyway, of course, the next day the bike broke down again.

“Kacuyu is another tribe. Most of them are businessmen, they run corner stores and petrol stations. Kalinjin is a tribe who only care about cows. They herd their cows across the country, grazing them on grass on the side of the road – of course they don’t own paddocks of their own. Kalinjin believe that every cow in the world belong to them.

“There’s a saying, kind of a joke, but it’s also true. You come home, and a Kenyan has broken into your house. You will know which tribe they’re from right away. If it’s a Kacuyu, he’s gone into your room and taken all your money. If it’s Kalinjin, he’s stolen all the cows from your yard. If he was a Lewuyak, your fridge door is open and it’s been raided.

“Girls in Kenya… in the touristy parts, sure, they like mazungu. Prostitutes mainly. I’d never felt like that before. You walk in the room and suddenly realise that everybody is looking at you.”

“Like an object?”

“Yeah. Your skin looks like money to them. But if you’re away from the tourist destinations – they don’t even care. You walk in and get totally ignored. Most of them don’t even like mazungu. I remember I went to this place with my friend Collins. I met this girl, half-Kenyan half-Korean. She was hotttt, just really, really gorgeous. The first night I met her, I was dancing with her for a bit. Then she’d go back to her friends. Then I was talking to her for a minute. Collins wanted to go back to that club again because he was meeting up with a girl. I thought, maybe I’ll see that girl again. My friend Collins knew her and said to her to show me a good time. When I went back, she was all over me. After that, I didn’t really want her any more.

“It’s funny the way they think. They’re all Christian… but they all screw everybody. On average, they have about six sexual partners at any given time. They would look at me funny for drinking a beer – meanwhile they’re out screwing someone’s wife on the weekend. You can look at the model for the way AIDS spreads in Africa. Your lover’s husband has a lover, who has AIDS, and it will get through to your wife’s lover’s dog – I mean wife.”

On Sunday, we drove to the RSL. Ambleton gave me a membership card for his Pub Poker franchise. He went in and spoke to Don, who owns the company of which Ambleton’s company is a franchise. I was sitting in the RSL with Miraj and Charles. Ambleton came back with a dejected look on his face.

“Uh… so… it kinda looks like you won’t be able to play.”

“Ah. Okay.”

Ambleton was more put off than I was. He offered to reimburse me for the cost of the trip. I booked a flight from Sydney to Melbourne. He gave me a lift to Hamilton station.

As we were driving, I watched him put on his sunglasses. I turned off the stereo.

“Are you okay?” I said.

“Yeah, I just… It’s okay if I put myself out. But putting others out… I could have just called Don and asked him if you could play, and he would have said no, don’t be a dickhead, and that would be the end of it.”

“Don’t worry about it. Sure, the weekend’s gone, but I’ve got a lot more where that came from. We can accept it, or waste more time worrying about it.”

“Yeah… I guess you’re right.”

On the train from Hamilton to Central, I was sitting across the aisle from two kids who must have been about 14. At first I assumed they were brother and sister, but when they started making out I discounted that theory.

“You are so hot,” he said to her, between kisses.

“Why do you have to say it like that?”

“Sorry – what I meant to say was,” and every word he would follow with a kiss: “You, are, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, two, hundred, and, sixty, eight, times, much, much – ”

“Just say it already!”

“much, more, beautiful, than, a box.”

“What?”

He laughed, and I held back a laugh.

I flew home at 6.

You guys should be proud of me. A couple of months ago I moved up stakes to $2/$3. No more micro bullshit. And hardly any old nits. Everybody on $2/$3 at Crown wants action. You can be first to act and make it $30 pre-flop and get two or three callers. The word is, Crown has one of the loosest games in the world. My bankroll is looking better than ever; I’m playing better than ever, and my chances of quitting my day job within a year are looking buenissimo.

I’m in the big blind with pocket threes. There’s a small $10 raise preflop and I call with $450 or so behind. Three runners. The flop comes KQ7, rainbow. I missed and I’m not committed. I check. The preflop raiser, an old groper fish, checks. The button checks behind.

The turn comes a three. I bet out for $30. The Groper calls quickly. The buttons pauses and calls.

The river a repeat seven. I filled up, bottom book. I make it $50, thinking I might get paid off by a a weak king or queen. The Groper doesn’t blink. He raises to $150. The button mucks just as quickly.

I consider it. I think the only hands that beat me here are K7, Q7 and 73. I didn’t even consider kings or queens, which could have been a crucial mistake. The most likely hand is something like 67 or 78. I think this is the best time to maximise against a live one.

“I’m all in,” I say.

Groper stops to think for the first time in the hand. As soon as he does, I know I’m good here. I want a call. Groper has $215 more behind, and I want that money in the middle. He cogitates, procrastinates. He pauses again – then he ums and ahs. I call “Time,” and the dealer calls the floor manager.

I haven’t seen this floor manager before. He’s late forties to early fifties, and seems to be in a constant hurry. He starts counting down, and before we realise, he says “Twenty seconds.”

“What? Twenty seconds is all I have?” says the Groper in a Polish accent.

“How long do you need! I’ve been here two minutes already!” says the floorman.

“I didn’t know the staff were allowed to needle the patrons,” I said.

“Sure – it gets the next buy-in on the table quicker.”

“Ah… Then, thanks I guess.”

“Uh… buh uh… I call,” says the Groper.

“Treys full… threes full of sevens.” My hand shakes a little and I struggle to turn over my cards. I’m a little relieved that they are the same cards I remember.

The Groper nods and then shakes his head. He had KQ and flopped top two – slowplayed to death.

“If it makes any difference,” says the floorman. “He had you pre-flop.” And he marches off. Burn.

A couple of hands later I lobby and go to the bathroom. I look at the colour of my pee and make a mental note to drink more water. A cleaner starts wiping out the urinal to my right. Damn, it’s really uncomfortable to pee while someone is cleaning the urinal. But then, I know what’s more uncomfortable. Having a job where you need to clean urinals.

Crown Casino is filled with hustlers and punters, glam girls and the occasional rail bird. Late at night, rich Vietnamese women are running around to talk to other Viets. They’re trying to sell a $10 000 ring for $3 000, to put the money on a baccarat table, and win their original stake back so their husbands don’t kill them. Down in the basement, there’s the cardroom. At the far end, there are high stakes tables. $5/$10 no limit hold ‘em. $2/$2 pot limit Omaha. In the middle, there are the grinder’s limits. $2/$3 no limit, $1/$2 no limit. On the near end, there’s the low limits, and there’s me, Jones Brixton. I’m playing on the $0.50/$1 electronic PokerPro tables, trying to establish a bankroll enough to move up to the grinder’s limits.

On my left is a congenial fellow, maybe at one stage he was a regular, because he asks Mandy: “Where is your friend Israel?”

“He went back to Israel.”

“Oh, right.”

His name on the screen is Kenks.

To his left, is a sexy brunette, wearing blue jeans and a plain white T. If I looked at her objectively, I might think there is nothing special about her. Her mouth is too big. When she smiles, it reveals a little too much gum. Her nose is slightly crooked. But there is something about her. She has a tight body and a pleasant face. I’m fascinated. Her name on the screen is K-Fresh.

I make a squeeze for eight and a half big blinds, from the small blind. Kenks folds.

K-Fresh looks at me, then her cards, then me again. I put both of my thumbs up and give her a big cheesy grin. She smiles. She folds. The kid on the end hits top pair jacks and I stack him with queens.

“K-Fresh? Is that your real name?”

“What can I say, that’s how I roll.”

She threw up her set, some random arrangement of fingers.

“Throw up yo set. Go like this,” I said, my thumb pushed to my ring finger, with my index, middle and pinkie extended. She complied.

“Hell yeah. Two in the pink, one in the stink.”

“What??? That’s disgusting – how could you make me do that!??”

“Just needed to know if you were into it.”

An Aussie drunk waltzed over and asked if he could sit. “Ah. That one is broken my friend.” He stumbled off.

“We should make room for him,” said Samuel. “He looks profitable.”

“You want to kick off the nits and bring in the drunks, huh?”

I got up to go to the toilet, and when I came back I tried to insert my card to log into my terminal, but it was obstinate.

“You should come sit next to me,” said K-Fresh

“I’d have to log out first.”

I sat there inserting it and removing it until it worked. “In and out,” she said.

“Right on.” I said. She giggled.

“Damn, how come everything I say or do gets turned into something dirty.” She laughed.

Kenks was sitting on $130, more than doubled up. K-Fresh lost her stack of $20 to him when he flopped two pair.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Kenks.

“What? Already?”

“I just took your stack. That means it’s time to go.”

As she stood up next to me, I could see her white shirt revealing the bottom of a tight belly, and a straight scar. It appeared to be indicative of a Caesarian section. I shook K-Fresh’s hand, grappled it and clicked my fingers.

“Whoa… That is too gangster for me. Bye,” she smiled.

I shook hands with Kenks and they left.

“Are they friends of yours?” said Boriska.

“Nah, I just met them tonight… The girl is hot.”

“She is – she’s gorgeous. A lot of girls that come in here are very blonde, bleached blonde. False, sequined messes. She’s different – there’s something very intriguing about her.”

“I agree.”

“Though I’m not sure if it’s the best way for a relationship, to take your girlfriend to a poker table.”

“I don’t think that was her boyfriend. She was flirting with me in front of him.” Should have asked. Should have gotten her number.

A voice rang out from two tables away: “LISTEN, YOU FUCK!”

I jumped up immediately to my feet. The drunk from before was swinging at a Lebanese, about to do the same hugging dance that boxers do when they get too close. A surge of adrenalin rushed through my veins. My first instinct was to take responsibility, to run over and grab one of them to separate them. I was afraid. Instead I yelled out “SECURITY!!!”

Five Agent Smiths filled the space. They escorted the drunk out as he said to his girlfriend “I got him a good one!” Neither of them were even bleeding, which I thought was odd considering how hard they’d come to blows.

I guess it was some dispute over a twenty dollar pot. I called to Samuel, “Aren’t you glad now, that he didn’t sit at our table?”

In walks 105 kg of Irish man-meat. They call him the Can Crusher. He’s roughly 28 years old, 25 kg overweight, boisterous, and whenever I see him, drunk.

He bought me a drink “I’m up $2500 on 2-3.”

“Are you serious? Do you play the same way there as you do here?”

“Yep hahaha. My favourite play I ever made was when this guy pushed all in preflop, and I called with absolute shit. When the entire board was dealt, neither of us had connected. I talked so much that I convinced him I had him, and he mucked. It was about a $250 pot.”

I laughed “You son of a bitch!”

“Hey Crusher, what happened to your hand?” I noticed the bandage.

“This kid in Perth came up to me and asked me for a cigarette. I refused, and he stabbed me.”

“The kid asked you for a cigarette, and then stabbed you?”

“With a ballpoint pen. He didn’t exactly ask. He just demanded: give me a cigarette. I said no, and he launched. Have a look.”

He took off the bandage to reveal three or four stitches. It looked like it had been a deep wound. Damn.

“Yeah. I thought about rubbing the blood in the little bastard’s face but nah. I left him in pretty bad shape. In a storm drain somewhere.”

“Are you serious?” said the 19 year old at the end of the table.

“Nah,” said Crusher, and then turned to me. “But seriously, that kid will probably spend the rest of his life with mental retardation. I left him in a storm drain somewhere.”

“Didn’t the police have anything to say about this?”

“I didn’t tell the police.”

“Didn’t the medical staff at the hospital have something to say about this?”

“They didn’t ask any questions. It’s fine. Plus, the hospital is free. What do you call it, Centrelink paid for me.”

“Medicare.”

“Medicare paid for it.”

“Are you an Australian citizen?”

“No.”

“Are you a permanent resident?”

“No.”

“Then how can you get Medicare?”

“I have it – I didn’t say it was mine, but I have it.”

That night, I finished down $100, plus the extra $40 that Crusher staked me. The drinks guy came around and I offered to buy Crusher another drink.

“No thanks,” he said as he downed the last quarter of his pint. “I’m driving.”

Every week or so, we have a regular home game at Diefendorf’s or Ruchstashel’s place. Though Dief hasn’t really played much, ever since that night when I made it $6 preflop with seven-deuce. He flopped a pair of kings with top-pair-top-kicker, and I flopped two pair, sevens and deuces. It must have been a $160 pot. Getting beaten and outplayed is one thing, but getting beaten with the hand that has the least playability of all hands in hold ‘em is another. Everyone shipped me a dollar for the side-bet, and Dief went on tilt for a month.

Last night, I went by the Inselligence building in Richmond, to get a lift with Vasily to the game. He’d recruited one of his new salespeople to come to the game. It was 8:00. Our game started at 8:30, and as always, Vasily decided to get in early with the trash-talking.

“Don’t mind this guy – he’s just some fish I picked up. He’ll probably call you to the river with bottom pair.”

“Venizio.”

“Jones.”

“Don’t mind what he says, I think I’ll beat Vasily flat tonight. He’s been talking that shit all day.”

“I’ll bet he has – you hear that Vasily? He’s going to beat you flat.”

“He can beat me flat, and I’ll beat him standing, sitting, or doing a hand-stand. Noob.”

“Hey, be nice to the fish,” I laughed.

We all piled into the car.

“How long have you been playing poker Venizio?”

“About two years. How about you?”

“About a year.”

“Actually I haven’t been playing that long. I play about once a month or so. Maybe once every three months. Really, I hardly play at all. This is my first serious game really, ever. I thought about going and meeting a girl tonight but then I thought nah, I love poker too much.”

“You know what I’m going to do to you tonight?” said Vasily to me. “I’m going to call you all the way to the river with the best hand, and then when I shove, you’ll think it’s a bluff and be forced to call.” He’s making a reference to a hand that cost him $100, when we were playing heads-up. I slowplayed aces, while he kept betting with middle pair. On the river, I made a set, and he made aces-up. I shoved for another $40 into a $145 pot. He tanked, and I made myself look nervous. “You called me all the way with that flush draw didn’t you?” I looked up, looked him straight in the eye, and smiled.

“Hello Jones.”

“Hello Vasily.”

“…I call.”

“You just can’t beat luck,” he said after the hand, and I repeated to him over and over to taunt him. I think he knows deep down that I outplayed him. It sent him on tilt for the rest of the night. It’s a sick game.

“You know what I’m going to do to you tonight?” said Baltrus to Vasily. “I’m going to push a massive hand all-in early on, and you’ll call, thinking it’s a bluff. Then later, when I have air, I’ll do the same move and you’ll have to fold.” Baltrus let out a belly laugh.

“I love these home games,” I laughed.

When we got to Ruch’s place, no one was home. Vasily and Baltrus kicked off the action by doing $20 Omaha flips on the porch.

“What are they playing?” said Venizio.

“They’re playing Omaha, but with only one betting round.”

“So there’s no skill involved then? Why don’t they just play for high card?”

“Of course there’s skill involved,” said Vasily. “You have to squeeze the best. Whoever can squeeze the best cards, wins.”

Baltrus touched his cards lightly to reveal his final hole card, the queen of diamonds. I looked at the board. It made nothing.

“That’s so sick,” said Vasily. I looked his cards. His final card made jack-high, and Baltrus had just squeezed queen-high. Baltrus chuckled.

“So remind me again, how do you play poker?” said Venizio.

“It’s like this,” said Vasily. “If you get four-of-a-kind, you should be really worried about the strength of your hand.”

Baltrus chimed in: “Yeah, and if you suspect your opponent has a full house, you should drop that four-of-a-kind as quick as you can. My four-of-a-kinds always get sucked out on by full books.”

“Then if you have a pair, you should move all-in. If you think someone else at the table has a pair, you’re in big trouble.”

“Yeah, Baltrus and Vasily always get called by a single pair on the river and they go on tilt.” I said.

After half an hour, Ruch arrived and we got down to playing.

One hand, I was in middle position. I limped in on Baltrus’s straddle. He made it $8, Vasily called. I made it $18. Baltrus shoved and I called.

“You got pockets?” said Vasily.

“Yeah, I’ve got something.”

“Jacks then. How many times do you want to run it?”

“Run it once.” Baltrus agreed. Vasily dealt the flop. All diamonds, queen-high. I had the ace of diamonds. When the whole board was run, Baltrus said “You win.” Which probably meant he didn’t hit a single thing. Even if he had ace-high, he’d wait for me to show first before he mucked, just on the off-chance that I had king jack of spades. He probably had three six off-suit or some crap, just playing it in the hopes that he would hit two pair, or that I would fold ace jack off-suit preflop. Or he just wanted to thoroughly establish, once again, and beyond all doubt, his table image. What a sickbox. I showed aces and took the pot.

All through the night Venizio kept receiving texts from this girl.

“I feel like such an asshole because I said I’d meet her tonight. What can I say to her? I don’t like her that much.”

I said “If you don’t like her that much, you don’t even have to reply. Who gives a shit. Girls do that stuff all the time.” A ridiculous rationalisation. I was just trying to get him to shut up so we can play cards.

“Actually, well it’s not that I like her.”

“You seem to be putting a lot of thought into a girl who you don’t want to have sex with,” said Baltrus.

“Well, I do like her. It’s not that I don’t like her.”

“How old is this girl?”

“She’s eighteen this year. And I’m twenty-one this year.”

“Right,” I said. “So she’s seventeen and you’re twenty.”

“Yep.” I was amused that he didn’t seem to see any flaws with the way he’d presented this information.

“I mean, this girl. She’s seventeen and she’s a virgin. And she basically said to me that she wanted me to take her virginity. She’s basically going all-in on the virginity card. And I am folding my dick to her.”

“Sounds like you’re just toying around with the pot.”

“Well… yeah.”

I ground it out for a couple of hours, and picked up $100 or so from a $50 buy-in. Then I lost most of it when Vasily out-played me on the flop.

The game broke up at 1 am. Ruch had lost his second buy-in at around 11:30, and his girlfriend was lying on the couch not feeling so hot. In the end, I was up $10. Vasily was up $400 $540 [Ed: "I was up $540, not $400." "Oh, I'm sorry I missed that vital plot point."] and The Boy Wonder Venizio won $100 or so. Baltrus was stuck $500.

On the last hand, Baltrus had straddled $10. This is a $0.50/$1 game, and that’s a big bet to make before you even know what you’re betting on.

“Why do you have to do that on the last hand of the night?” I whined.

Vasily called, I folded, Venizio folded. Baltrus shoved for $180. Vasily thought about it for about two seconds and called. He had king-ten of clubs. King-high held up.

“I knew when you straddled $10 you were going to shove no matter what. So I figured I was in pretty good shape there.”

“Yeah yeah… nice hand,” said Baltrus. “I can’t believe I run so bad. How do I get so card-dead?”

It was still early. I thought about going to the casino. I bid my fellows “Good game,” and hopped into a taxi straight to Bimbo Deluxe Restaurant and Nightclub.

I walked inside, said hi to a blonde on the stairs, and took a most righteous dump.

“Athlete!” someone called at me while I was drying my hands. It was my friend Theophonus, drunk as I normally see him at the casino. He was there with his friends. I shook his hand and said what’s up. We stood outside the bathroom for a second chatting.

“We’ll just wait here for a second. My girlfriend is in the bathroom.”

“Ah. So that’s why we’re standing outside the girls’ bathroom – it’s not because we’re perverts.”

A blonde wearing black on white polka dots, also waiting by the bathroom, heard me and smiled at me. I fonzied at her.

I went downstairs and met Theophonus’s friends and girlfriend.

I shook hands with Art. “Oh man. I was playing a $70 sit an’ go today… Final table – shoved with kings preflop. He calls with pocket deuces. Two deuces on the flop. How sick is that.”

Oh gosh, another bad beat story. Forgetting to excuse myself, I grabbed the nearest girl and started twirling her. I talked to her for a minute, then she disappeared. Walked back to Theo and the guys.

“Was that your girlfriend you were dancing with before?” said Art.

“No, just some girl I thought needed to dance.”

He laughed. “Brilliant!”

Theo said he was heading off, and said I should hang out with the guys. I sat down with Art on my left, his friend Pinch to his left, and their female friend Aneka to my right. She doesn’t really fit in here, but that’s okay.

I introduced myself to Pinch, and he said:

“You’re gay with Theophonus aren’t you?”

I laughed, heartily.

“You’re Theo’s lover, right?”

I laughed, politely.

“Because you know Theo is gay, don’t you?”

I snorted.

“You’re gay, right?”

“Yeah, I love sucking dick.”

“Whoa, too much information.”

I turned to Art. “Hey Art, why is your friend acting so weird?”

Aneka is sitting there, and he’s trying to act cool in front of her. Welcome to grade two. I’m not mad, but this is the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a while. I ignore him, and talk to Aneka instead.

“Are you gay?” says Aneka.

“Yeah I’m gay. I can be your gay best friend. I can be your girlfriend.”

“Awesome! I need a new gay best friend. I used to have one, but he moved away. I used to jump up on him and wrap my legs around him.”

“Every girl needs a gay best friend. In my hometown, I think there was only one gay man in the entire town, so every girl had to share him. Anyway, the moral of the story is: I’m not gay.”

“Great! We can still be friends though.”

In a few minutes I was getting her phone number.

“Anyway I’m going to go home.”

“Oh okay. I’ll add you on Facebook. Do you have Facebook? I’ll text you. I’ll call you. We can go to the Lower Plenty Hotel and have drinks.”

“Cool. Text me.”

Then I walked home and met a drunk guy who owns a video game company.