"Where should I sit?" she asked.
"Anyplace," said Tom.
She took the chair at the corner. It seemed the best place -- the spot where she'd have to sit back away from the table because the table leg was in the way. It felt just a little safer to her, to be able to sit a little bit outside of the circle of the players.
The mechanic leaned over to her and said, "Cecil."
"What?" Rainie asked.
"My name," he said. "Don't tell anybody else."
Tom, who was sitting next to her, said in a loud whisper. "We all pretend that we think his name is `Buck.' It makes him feel more manly."
"What do I call you?" asked Rainie. "If I'm supposed to keep Cecil a secret."
"Now you've gone and told," said Cecil.
"Call him Buck," said Tom.
"Does anybody else really call him that?" asked Rainie.
"I will if you will," said Tom.
"Time for a review of the rules!" said Douglas, as he took the last place at the table, which happened to be in the middle of the table on the side across from Rainie, so she'd be looking at him throughout the game.
"I hate to make you have to spend time going over everything for me," said Rainie.
"They repeat the rules every time anyway," said Grandpa.
"Cause Grandpa's getting senile and forgets them every time," said Tom.
"They repeat them because they're so proud of having thought them up themselves," said Grandpa.
The game was pretty complicated. They used plastic children's toys -- little robots or dinosaurs -- as their playing pieces. The idea of the game was to roll three dice and get around the board. Each time they passed Start they were reborn as the next higher life-form, from slime to newt to emu to human; the winner was the first human to reach Start and therefore become supreme god.
"Then the supreme god turns over his karma cards. If he's got more good than bad karma, then whoever has the most good karma comes in second. But if the supreme god has more bad karma than good, then whoever has the most bad karma comes in second," said Douglas.
"So bad karma can be good?" asked Rainie.
"Never," said Tom. "What kind of person are you? No, if the supreme god turns out to have bad karma, it's a terrible disaster for the known universe. We all sing a very sad song and cry on the way home."
"The last time bad karma triumphed, Meryl Streep and Roseanne Barr released that movie She-Devil," said Douglas.
"So you see, the consequences can be dire," said Tom.
"She didn't even get to do an accent," said Cecil, his tone mournful and hushed.
"And ... and Ed Begley Junior had to play Roseanne Barr's husband," said Raymond.
"Only John Goodman is man enough to do that and live," said Cecil.
"So you see," said Tom, "our game isn't just a game. It has consequences in the real world."
Douglas continued with the rules. Every time you landed on a teardrop or a heart, you had a chance to pray to either the Baby of Sorrows or the Baby of Love, depending. In order to pray, you had to make an offering of as many beans as the number shown on the square. "So beans are like money," said Rainie.
"Ugly money," said Raymond.
"Nasty money," said Tom.
"Filthy lucre," said Grandpa.
"We hate beans," said Cecil. "Nobody wants beans. Only greedy, nasty, selfish people try to get a lot of beans."
"Of course, you have no chance of winning unless you have a lot of beans," said Douglas. "But if it ever looks like you are too interested in getting beans, then we hold a bean council and punish you."
"I never did like beans," said Rainie.
"Good thing," said Cecil. "But watch out, because Tom is a miserable bean thief and he'll steal your beans when you're not looking."
"If I actually cared for beans," said Tom, "I'd be an excellent bean thief."
"If your prayer is granted," Douglas said, going on with the rules, "then you get a power card. There are evil powers and good powers, depending on which baby you pray to. When you use an evil power you get a bad karma card, and when you use a good power you get a good karma card. Good power cards are always played on other people -- they never benefit the person who plays them. Evil power cards are always vicious and selfish and vindictive."
"That's not in the rules," said Cecil.
"But it's the truth," said Douglas. "Good people never use evil power cards."
"Dougie's just sore because of the time we ganged up on him and killed him every time he stuck his nose out of Hell," explained Tom.
"I tried to reason with them."
"He whined all night. It only goaded us to new depths of cruelty."
"They had no pity."
"We were nature red in tooth and claw," said Tom. "You were unfit to survive."
They went on with the rules but at the end Rainie could hardly remember half of them. "You just tell me what to do and I'll get the hang of it."
She started the game with five power cards. All of them were hand-written, the good powers in red ink, the evil powers in black. She had three evil cards and two good ones. One of the good ones said:
"BUTT-INSKI"
Allows you to
cause 2 other
players to swap
all power cards.
Two of the evil power cards said:
"UP THE PIGGAGE"
ADD 2 PIGS TO THE PEN.
and
"YOUR KARMA IS MY KARMA" allows you to swap karma cards with another player
The last two cards, one good, one evil, made Rainie laugh out loud. The evil one said:
RELEASE
THE
PIGS!!
The good one, on the other hand, said:
RELEASE
THE
PIGS!!
For the good of the
whole.
"What's funny?" asked Tom.
"Is there any difference between releasing the pigs on somebody from a good power card as opposed to an evil power card?" she asked.
"All the difference in the world!" cried Raymond.
"When you release the pigs for the good of the whole," said Cecil, "it's a noble act, a kind and generous sacrifice for the benefit of the entire community, without a single thought of personal benefit."
"Whereas," said Tom, "releasing the pigs from an evil power card is the act of a soulless, cruel, despicable human being."
"But I mean, is the actual pig attack any different?"
"Not a whit," said Douglas.
"Absolutely identical," said Tom.
"I'm betting that Ida has her a couple of Release-the-Pigs cards," said Raymond.
"How many beans are you betting?" asked Tom.
"Five beans says she does."
"Oh, yeah?" said Tom. "Well, ten beans says she does."
"That's what I said," said Raymond.
"No, you said five beans," said Tom.
"Roll the dice, Ida," said Grandpa, "or we'll never get started."
"The fate of the world hangs in the balance," said the quiet guy at the other end of the table -- Rainie couldn't remember his name. He looked very sad, even when he laughed.
"Because you are first," said Douglas, "and because you have never played before, you may use the lobster dice to begin."
The lobster dice were just like the other dice -- there were about a dozen scattered around the table -- except that they had a red lobster printed on the face that should have had the one-spot.