These three and I had been cronies back in the thirties, when we were young bachelors. We used to gather for a weekly poker game—penny ante with a quarter limit, and a case of beer. It made each of us feel like a hell of a fellow.
Then came the war. Afterwards, Ed and Mitch moved to other parts. Besides, I had discovered that I did not really get so much pleasure from the game itself. It was, rather, the talk and the camaraderie that I enjoyed. One could have those without the distraction of cards.
Carl, however, urged the real old thing. Since his house was being painted, I invited the others.
On the Saturday of my party, our television set acted up again. Since I had counted upon the machine to keep my offspring out of my hair while I entertained my old pals, I was concerned. Priscille said:
"Armando's sore again, because you've left those same old wax flowers in front of him for a week without changing them."
"He's an ungrateful little spook," I said. "The wax flowers keep indefinitely, which real ones don't."
"Well, there's your evidence. You'd better take away those and give him some others."
"Oh, nonsense!" I said. "You know it was just a coincidence."
Nevertheless, when none of the children was looking, I removed the first pair of waxen blossoms and put another in their place. The television set cleared up at once.
Carl, Ed, and Mitch arrived with a quarter-century quota of bald heads and potbellies. Since I, by dint of diet and exercise, had kept my shape the best, they kidded me about my gray hair.
"My hair turned gray fifteen years ago," I said, "when I found I'd authorized a bad loan by the bank; but at least I still have it. Draw for deal."
"King deals," said Ed.
We did not argue over the form of the game, for we always played simple draw—not even five-card stud, let alone spit-in-the ocean or other female aberrations with wild cards. We were purists who allowed nothing fancier than jack pots. The draw-poker party is one of the last stands of the heterosexual all-male social group.
On the first hand, my kings beat Mitch's jacks.
On the second, my aces and treys beat Ed's queens and fives.
On the third, Carl drew to a pair and made three tens. Since I seemed to be having an exceptional run, I drew to an inside straight. I would never do that ordinarily, having better sense; but I, too, made it.
On the fourth, I had nines up and Ed, queens over deuces. He discarded his low pair with the odd card, which is usually sound tactics, and made three queens. I dropped my odd card only and made a full house.
After a few rounds, the others had to buy more chips, even at our minuscule stakes. They looked uncomfortably at each other.
"Where have you been the last twenty-seven years, Willy?" said Ed. "Las Vegas?"
"No," said Carl. "A banker is used to carrying figures in his head. He's got all those probabilities memorized."
"No," said Mitch, "he got the dope from those statistics courses at M.I.T. He was always a pretty sharp player, and he's just refined his skills."
"Then why sit behind a desk in a bank, Willy?" asked Carl. "Wouldn't it be more fun and money to gamble for a living? You could have all the booze and broads you wanted—"
"Me?" I said. "Look, you guys, don't you know a banker has ice water in his veins instead of blood? I can take my booze or leave it. As for broads, I find one about all I can manage—"
"He had enough blood in his veins to get three kids," said Mitch.
"Assuming he didn't have to call in outside help," said Ed.
We went on with the game, with the same results as before. No matter who dealt, at least one of my guests had a bettable hand, while I always topped him. After a while, not wanting to be suspected of sleight-of-hand, I began losing deliberately, failing to draw when I had an improvable hand, dropping out when I had a pat hand, and folding when I would normally have called or raised.
We had our coats off. When I went out to the kitchen for more beer, I quietly rolled up my shirt sleeves. At least, they could see that I had nothing in those sleeves.
About eleven, the game died by unspoken mutual consent. I suppose they realized, as I had from the start, the futility of trying to recapture one's lost youth. Even when one goes through the same motions, the feeling is never the same.
Instead, we drank more beer and told of our careers. Having moved to California, Mitch was full of the virtues and faults of his adopted state.
"I have to go out there next month," I said. "One of our trust accounts just died, in a place called San Romano."
"I live thirty miles from there," said Mitch. "You must come and see us."
Carl put in: "Isn't that where all the college kids have been raising hell lately?"
"One of the places," said Mitch. "No worse than you've got back here. Look at Columbia—"
"Ought to machine-gun the lot," growled Ed. "Damned long-haired, loafing, dope-shooting bums—"
"I'll tell you about it when I get back," I said. "I'm staying with my brother-in-law, who's a professor there."
"Damned yellow, cowardly professors," said Ed. "Haven't the guts to can these young thugs when they act up, when they're not red revolutionists themselves. Now, when I went to college, if you presented the prexy with a list of non-negotiable demands, he'd have thrown you out the window without first opening the window."
The party ended soon after midnight. Middle-aged men are less charmed by the small hours than once they were. There were good-nights and badinage. As the other two started out the path to Carl's car, Carl turned back and quietly asked:
"Willy, tell me something. Why the hell did you drop when you had four queens? I looked at your discards."
"Must have been plain stupidity," I said. "I probably mistook them for queens and jacks."
"Don't give me that! Anyone can see you're just as sharp as ever."
"I'll try to explain some other time," I said. "It has to do with the way my television set has been acting, but it's too complicated to tell you now."
"You mean radiations from it?"
"Something like that. Good-night, Carl."
When Denise returned from her safari and I was packing for California, on an impulse I put Armando in with my socks. In the late thirties, I should have scorned such superstition. There was no harder-boiled materialist than I; I rejected Marxism as too mystical and not materialistic enough. But with all the funny things that have happened to me ...
My brother-in-law is Avery Hopkins, Ph.D., professor of Middle English. He and my sister had one child, a boy of the same age as my Héloise and a student at the local college. I had not long been in the Hopkins house when I caught the tension.
"We're so worried," said Stella. She was a willowy blonde, an inch taller than Hopkins—a little round, bald man, sweet-tempered and gentle. He and Stella seemed to get along well enough. My sister continued:
"With all these demonstrations and things, you never know when the police will cut loose with their guns. Robert might be killed."
"It's the fault of the municipal government," said Hopkins. "The police shouldn't have guns. The students are only exercising their constitutional right of assembly."
"Okay," I said, "but I think the Constitution says: peaceably to assemble. When somebody heaves a rock, as usually happens, you assembly isn't peaceable any more."
"But, don't you see? If the system hadn't produced so many injustices and oppressions, there wouldn't be all this resentment to incite people to throw missiles—"
"Ever hear of a human system that didn't have injustices and oppressions? Besides, the world is full of people who, if they got to Heaven, would complain about the tune of the harps and the dampness of the clouds. And some like to throw rocks for the hell of it. Why don't you just lower the boom on young Robert? Tell him he may not, repeat not, take part in these marches and riots?"