Special Guest Blogger Rutherford LeGrand Bowles-Cox
It was quite a sight, the wrecking ball, hung as it was from the giant crane. One didn’t need to be an expert in geometry to know that the slightest movement at the apex of the massive machine’s uplifted arm would roll down the cord to the iron ball, which would in turn stir and sway ominously in the cold night air. Concrete and timber would be no match for Kharraberim, the ancient Hittite god of orgiastic ruin, who on this night, sitting in the driveway of The Crescent Lounge Casino, sought fit to clad himself in the clothing of steel and iron destruction.
A wary eye was no doubt cast by all of the poker players as they shuffled past this monstrosity and into the warm confines of the neon-hued basement, the Lounge as it was known, which had for years provided evenings of delight and agony. It may occur to the uninitiated to inquire about the agony in particular. What made the agony such a draw to the gambling crowd? The simple answer is this: at the Crescent Lounge, the agony was of an exquisite sort, so much so that it was rumored that some sought it out with greater fervor than they did the delight. Witness the modus operandi of John M__, or “the Grecian Urn” as he was known by his counterparts. Between the hours of eight and ten, he would invariably be an unstoppable force of nature, the chips on the table making their way to his vast stacks as though he were the conjurer of a whirlpool. Then, something would happen, a run of bad luck, an inexplicably poor decision, and poof, within seconds, all was lost. Although poker players are prone mistaking their luck as a reward for their skill, it became apparent to a woman at the table that something was amiss with the regularity John’s loses.
On one such evening years back, she mentioned this directly to him. “Say, you big nincompoop,” she laughed, “it’s as though you’re losing on purpose like you get some kind of perverse pleasure out of it all!” After saying this she noticed a tear rolling down The Urn’s cheek, and she knew, that this tear wasn’t the result of losing some poker chips but finally, for the first time in his life, being understood by another. The woman’s name was Laura, and at the next poker night she and John were married down the hill from The Lounge along the banks of the Charles River. It was an impromptu affair, that came about after a Joe B___ declared he had inexplicably acquired the powers of a Lakota Sioux shaman after smoking some extraordinarily strong weed that Jeremy had stolen from some Taliban guys in Jalalabad. “Hurry up, let’s do this,” Joe declared. “My guess is I won’t be a shaman for much longer than fifteen minutes, and will then no longer be legally fit to perform as a wedding officiant.”
And thus it was that all of the poker players stumbled out of the Lounge and down to the river bank, all except Jaimie McB_by, who in the exciting hubbub was absentmindedly left strapped in his high chair by Andy R__. Finally, on this, the final evening at The Crescent Lounge, Jaimie would get his revenge on Andy, when he flat called with pocket aces and then checked down the flop, turn, and river to rake in a whopping $4.50 pot. Then, as is his custom with big pots, he divided up and passed his winnings out to the rest of the table saying “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” a phrase he picked up from watching an episode of Gilligan’s Island when he was a fetus.
The final game proceeded on late into the night. Around 2am, Andy T__ started getting the itch to “swing my tractor.” For whatever reason, he considered the giant crane outside the building a tractor. “Yeah, time to hop on the tractor,” Andy T__ gleefully proclaimed, his mouth frothing like a rabid dog, and out the door he went.
“Holy Mother of God!” Andy K__ exclaimed, “he’s going to smash this place down!”
With that, all of the remaining players exited the building for the final time. Well, all of the remaining players except for Joe B__ and Andy R__. Ever the addicts, Joe B__ insisted on “just one more round” and Andy agreed, the two of them gambling it up despite the perilous circumstances.
…
The next morning, when emergency crews digging through the rubble discovered Andy’s lifeless right hand, they noted it was still grasping two hole cards, a 2 and a 7, offsuit, naturally. While it’s a shame that he had to die in the way he did, we can all content ourselves with knowing that Joe would have called him anyways.
Au revoir, Crescent Lounge