“What the hell are you talking about?” Adam asked. “Just deal the cards, and let’s get this over with. These weekly games are starting to wear a bit thin. It might just be time for me to move on.”
I shuffled the deck one final time and pushed it over to my left, waiting for Tony to cut the cards, and turned to Adam. “And if luck singles you out, then you may well get your wish, Doctor,” I said.
I had their attention now, each staring at me not sure whether I was drunk or tired or had totally spun my wheels off the rails. Slowly and with great care, I doled out seven cards to each player, myself included. “This isn’t at all like you, Ike,” Jeffrey said, more than slightly annoyed. “Maybe Adam is on the right track. We may all need to call it for tonight. You look like you could do with a good night’s rest.”
“You might be right on that score, Padre,” I said. “I might just need a few solid hours of shuteye. But before I push back and trot off to bed, I need to bring our little game to a fitting end. I think that’s something we all would want. So how about you sit back and sit tight? This won’t take very long.”
I caught the glances racing across the table from one set of eyes to another, the looks a mixture of confusion, anger, concern, and indifference, and it made me smile. I had them now, these six friends of mine, men I had trusted and confided in, to some had even bared secrets I would never want spoken outside this room. For a long stretch of time in my troubled life, they were the raff that I could wrap my arms around and ward off, however briefly, the arching waves, dark clouds, and approaching storm of an existence that seemed destined to end with my drowning death. But they all carried with them the Judas coin, and the blood of a good woman was now smeared across it.
We all turned our first card over. Steve was high with a jack and casually tossed a one-dollar chip onto the center of the table. I stared at him and waited for him to return my look. “She cared about you,” I told him, “and took good care of you after your minor mishap a while back. It was her idea to put you in bed— our bed —and leave you there until you were well enough to walk out on your own. But even after all that, you seemed to act as if you didn’t even notice when she was around. Or was that a charade meant only for my eyes?”
Embarrassed that his suicidal secret was now open for discussion, Steve looked around at the others before he turned to me. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Ike,” he said. “You’re a bit out of control and not just tonight, but for a while. We’ve all picked up on it and let it slide figuring you needed to work a few things out, is all. But now it’s reached a tipping point, and maybe we should bring it all to a stop right here and right now.”
“It’s only a game, Ike,” Jeffrey said. “It would be madness to let friendships be cast aside over some silly game.”
“What’s only a game, Padre?” I asked, turning my attention to Jeffrey. “The hand you’ve just been dealt, or the deal between you and Dottie?”
“What are you implying?” Jeffrey asked. “I have never had an improper moment with Dottie. Not one, not ever. And for you to even think something like that borders on madness.”
“If it wasn’t you, Padre,” I asked, “then who did have their moments with Dottie, improper or otherwise? Maybe it was you, Jerry. Dottie always did do a fast spin toward a man with money, and you have more than most. Or maybe you, Joe, Mr. Reebok himself. After all, how many games can one man go to without wanting to play in one of his very own? Of course, there’s always Adam, the good doctor and the one who once rushed in to rescue her in a time of need. What woman wouldn’t want to show how grateful she was for a second chance at an unfinished life? Or maybe it was the one obvious choice in the room. That would be you, Tony, the shrink with the black-book Rolodex. Dottie’s main complaint about me was that she talked but I never listened. And who better to listen and be receptive to her problems than someone like you? A man who has devoted his life to soothing and comforting women in need.”
“Is that what all this is about?” Joe asked. “You think one of us is having an affair with your wife?”
“You’re a fool, Ike!” Tony’s voice was crammed with pure hatred. “And you may live under the same ceilings as Dottie, but you don’t know the first thing about her, or you would know she is willing to do anything to help salvage the shambles you’ve made of your marriage.”
“You’re right about one thing, though,” Steve said. “We haven’t been square with you about our relationship with Dottie. We’ve all been seeing her, everyone sitting at this table. She insisted on it.”
“All of you?” I didn’t bother to mask either the shock or the surprise. “You’ve all been with her?”
“Yes,” Jeffrey said, “but not for the reason that’s currently racing through your mind. Her visits with us were not of a sexual nature.”
“Then what the hell were you seeing her for?” I shouted, pounding a closed right fist onto the table, knocking over Steve’s wineglass, the red liquid flowing over a stack of chips. “Why was she spending time with any of you? And if it all was on the up and up like you’re trying to sell me, then why didn’t she tell me about it?”
“She couldn’t — at least, not yet.” Adam’s words were weighed down with a certain edge of sadness. “There were a few more items she needed to clear up first.”
“Dottie was sick,” Jeffrey said. “Very sick. That bout with the stomach that Adam helped clear her of was merely the first indication of how deep her illness ran and how serious a final outcome it would lead to. That was what brought her to us, individually at first, and then later in small groups.”
“What did she want from you?” I asked, the words forcing their way from my mouth. My throat burned and I felt my heart doing a Keith Moon pounding against my chest. I held on to the edges of the table as if it were a life vest, doing all I could not to scream out in agony.
“She asked us to take care of you, look after you after she was gone,” Steve said. “Each in a way she knew we could. Adam would make sure you took care of your health. Jerry would pull you out of debt with whatever was left of the insurance money coming your way, working to set your finances in order. Me? I had been your closest friend, and she asked that I stay that way, no matter how much of an ass you turned into.”
“I would take you to as many games as you could stand,” Joe said. “Dottie told me how often you wished you had a chance to see one team or the other play, and she felt going with a friend would help take your mind off your loss. Tony could show how good a therapist he really is and would see you free of charge. Only you wouldn’t know it, since all your bills would be going to Jerry, anyway.”
“And Adam and I were asked to simply look after anything else that fell through the cracks,” Jeffrey said, “either spiritually or physically. Dottie covered every base by simply turning to the only friends she knew you had. The men at this table.”
“It was also important to her that the game keep going,” Jerry said. “She felt the weekly poker nights served as an anchor against all the other crap that was going on in your life. She thought you needed it. But after tonight, I’m not all that sure she was right on that count.”
“Your suspicions were right,” Steve said, “only they were headed in the wrong direction. We were all involved with Dottie. And Dottie was involved with all of us. We each had a mutual interest, and that was you.”
“Feel better now?” Adam asked.
I looked at them, scanning their tired and worn faces, and nodded. “I’m sorry.” My mouth was as hot and as dry as an August afternoon. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I most likely said a lot of the wrong things. And I did something horrible which I know can never be undone.”