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Lead Story. April 10, 2001 A Day In The Night...The
elevator opened on the 7th floor and I nearly tripped over a giggling
Lymie on his hands and knees
mopping the reeking floor under the doleful supervision of Edict.
An empty and miraculously unbroken bottle of Miller Genuine Draft stood
accusingly on the wet tile of the small hallway. Removing my shoes, socks
dampened from the remainder of Lymie’s spill, I pushed open the door to 7A and
entered the game. I
noted these inauspicious beginnings and prepared myself for a long night. Most
of the players had already arrived. I
sat down on Edict's neo-Victorian canary-yellow couch next to Dano who, arching
back to slide two grungy fingers into his jeans pocket, produced his
typically spindled auto repair bill for $455.82.
“And 82 cents?…was that totally necessary”, I said.
“Pa-lease…this bill should have been $700,” he justified.
He looked me in the eye when he said that.
I pulled out my checkbook. After
a brief and painfully rendered discussion about the details of my car’s repair
with Dano on the couch, I was accosted by Hank.
Unwrapping a wad of greasy paper in his hand he foisted a thin red
pepperoni-like meat product on me, unconsciously holding it close to his crotch.
Hank has a strange obsession with wrapping things in wads of greasy
paper. “Try it…it’s expensive
and it's German…”. "Like your
ex-wife," I muttered too quietly. "C'mon, Try it." “No
Hank….and what’s with the homoerotic juxtaposition here…what are you
trying to pull?” That’s when he
attacked me with it. I quickly
disarmed him of his meat/weapon and got him into a modified half-nelson. With Hank’s thin neck firmly in my grasp I shot a glance
over to the rapt Dano who seemed to mouth the words “snap it” so
imperceptibly as if only to himself. I
let go: Hank seemed to be enjoying it a bit too much. He gets like that when he’s single. Edict
hates to host when Hank’s around and Koneo greeted me at the table looking for
2:1 odds that Edict would “flip-out” before night’s end.
I wouldn’t take the action. On
this night and with this crew it seemed like a lock.
Dano
began the ordering of Saigon Grill and Koneo and Chowhound
launched into a discussion of whether or not they would sleep with an attractive
one-legged woman. “Below or above
the knee?” Chowhound pondered. As
if it made a difference. Then Edict
misdealt Cincinnati by using a Pinochle deck.
Everybody thought they had a great hand. I had 4 nines. It
was the first of three Edict misdeals: each one taking him closer to the brink. The
food came and went uneventfully. Lymie,
who’s been on a winning streak more from great luck than great skill,
announced for the umteenth time that he was wasted “or sumthin.”
I didn’t believe him. I
figure he’s been on a bull market run with his cards lately, and thinking his
skill had caught up to his ambition, clumsily floated a rouse.
It’s a clear indication his streak will soon end.
Like when that shoe-shine boy gave a stock tip to Bernard Baruch.
A
tremendous car crash was heard outside. |
