drown in six inches of soup.” She was looking at the ceiling.
Mason took a glass and drained it.
“That thing you read …?”
She looked at him. “It was beautiful,” she said. He didn’t know how they usually were, but her eyes seemed deep with confusion. “Don’t you think?”
Mason shrugged.
“I didn’t know he could write.” She put down her glass. “I guess it made me see him differently. But so did killing himself.”
Mason felt his guts drop; only his knees were holding them up.
Ms. Shanter turned to take in the rest of the room. “Do you know these people?” she said. Mason looked around for someone who might be Carolina. Then for the first time it occurred to him—maybe she didn’t exist. He turned, pushing through the doors, across the foyer, then outside past rows of Doric columns.
Fast as you can
, he thought, through the rotunda then into the back of a cab. He called up Chaz as he headed for home.
There are those who say you can’t play good poker with only two players. They’re either ignorant or scared—the same people who tell you duelling never solved anything, don’t pick up hitchhikers, everything in moderation … At least that’s how Mason and Chaz saw it. For them, heads-up Texas hold ’em was a perfect one-on-one battle: Ali vs. Frazier, Borg vs. Becker. Man against Nature.
Chaz knew every backroom booze can in the whole damn town, and yet here the two of them sat, facing off across the table in Mason’s apartment, time and time again. It wasn’t about the money, and it was all about the money—a tactile moving entity, flowing between them like breath, inspiration and purpose.
Mason cut lines while Chaz shuffled. He snapped the cards down, lifting them in a riffling bow, then together like ice floes colliding—into one hand, three stacks splitting, over and under. Mason snorted a line.
They cut for deal. Mason took the cards. Shuffled twice, not fancy but so fluid and natural you barely noticed him do it. It was as simple as pressing his hands together. It often gave others at the table a vague feeling of unease, imperceptible and nagging. Chaz knew why. It was because everything else Mason did came off as unnecessarily elaborate, overly difficult. Only when shuffling did he seem in control.
“Stacking the deck?” said Chaz.
Mason used to let that get to him, Chaz using his own dead father to mess with Mason’s focus. But he’d have done the same—any way under the skin was fair game.
Chaz’s dad was known as Tenner because he’d bet on anything—stars in the sky, chicken wings in a pound, words in a newspaper headline or that he could get himself on the front page the very next day. “Let’s put a tenner on it,” he’d say.
To Chaz and Mason he was like the last of the old-time men—with scars, stories and secrets. He was born on Vancouver’s west side before the yacht clubs and coffee shops, even before paved roads. There was a photo of his father, Chaz’s grandfather, on a horse in the front lobby of City Hall. He’d ridden it there from his boondocks house, just for a drunken laugh.
Tenner, too, had spent his life doing things for a drunken laugh. He’d had a few steady jobs—helped build bridges, ran a crew of high-wire guys for the telephone companies. At work he wore a sabre in his belt, just for the hell of it, and nobody suggested he shouldn’t. At various times he was a biker, a gangster, a mercenary, a drinker, and always a player.
When he caught Chaz and Mason and other underage boys drinking beers in the back alley, he drove to the liquor store in his ’59 Galaxy and came back with a gallon jug each of Ruby Red, Slinger’s Grape and Bounty—“The Taste of Exhilarating Adventure.”
“If you mugs can siphon this and keep on breathing, than you deserve to be boozers,” he said. Mason took this cryptic challenge to heart. He outdrank them all and was the last one found, in the bushes by the yacht club, just as the sun was
Mason took a glass and drained it.
“That thing you read …?”
She looked at him. “It was beautiful,” she said. He didn’t know how they usually were, but her eyes seemed deep with confusion. “Don’t you think?”
Mason shrugged.
“I didn’t know he could write.” She put down her glass. “I guess it made me see him differently. But so did killing himself.”
Mason felt his guts drop; only his knees were holding them up.
Ms. Shanter turned to take in the rest of the room. “Do you know these people?” she said. Mason looked around for someone who might be Carolina. Then for the first time it occurred to him—maybe she didn’t exist. He turned, pushing through the doors, across the foyer, then outside past rows of Doric columns.
Fast as you can
, he thought, through the rotunda then into the back of a cab. He called up Chaz as he headed for home.
There are those who say you can’t play good poker with only two players. They’re either ignorant or scared—the same people who tell you duelling never solved anything, don’t pick up hitchhikers, everything in moderation … At least that’s how Mason and Chaz saw it. For them, heads-up Texas hold ’em was a perfect one-on-one battle: Ali vs. Frazier, Borg vs. Becker. Man against Nature.
Chaz knew every backroom booze can in the whole damn town, and yet here the two of them sat, facing off across the table in Mason’s apartment, time and time again. It wasn’t about the money, and it was all about the money—a tactile moving entity, flowing between them like breath, inspiration and purpose.
Mason cut lines while Chaz shuffled. He snapped the cards down, lifting them in a riffling bow, then together like ice floes colliding—into one hand, three stacks splitting, over and under. Mason snorted a line.
They cut for deal. Mason took the cards. Shuffled twice, not fancy but so fluid and natural you barely noticed him do it. It was as simple as pressing his hands together. It often gave others at the table a vague feeling of unease, imperceptible and nagging. Chaz knew why. It was because everything else Mason did came off as unnecessarily elaborate, overly difficult. Only when shuffling did he seem in control.
“Stacking the deck?” said Chaz.
Mason used to let that get to him, Chaz using his own dead father to mess with Mason’s focus. But he’d have done the same—any way under the skin was fair game.
Chaz’s dad was known as Tenner because he’d bet on anything—stars in the sky, chicken wings in a pound, words in a newspaper headline or that he could get himself on the front page the very next day. “Let’s put a tenner on it,” he’d say.
To Chaz and Mason he was like the last of the old-time men—with scars, stories and secrets. He was born on Vancouver’s west side before the yacht clubs and coffee shops, even before paved roads. There was a photo of his father, Chaz’s grandfather, on a horse in the front lobby of City Hall. He’d ridden it there from his boondocks house, just for a drunken laugh.
Tenner, too, had spent his life doing things for a drunken laugh. He’d had a few steady jobs—helped build bridges, ran a crew of high-wire guys for the telephone companies. At work he wore a sabre in his belt, just for the hell of it, and nobody suggested he shouldn’t. At various times he was a biker, a gangster, a mercenary, a drinker, and always a player.
When he caught Chaz and Mason and other underage boys drinking beers in the back alley, he drove to the liquor store in his ’59 Galaxy and came back with a gallon jug each of Ruby Red, Slinger’s Grape and Bounty—“The Taste of Exhilarating Adventure.”
“If you mugs can siphon this and keep on breathing, than you deserve to be boozers,” he said. Mason took this cryptic challenge to heart. He outdrank them all and was the last one found, in the bushes by the yacht club, just as the sun was
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