//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: A Pact With Pride // Story: Monophobia // by Aquaman //------------------------------// “You ever smoked a cigar before, by the way? ‘Cause I haven’t. I mean, I’ve tried a vape, just one time, like as a casual thing, but it’s gotta be different, right? Gotta be. It’s not like we’ll get good ones anyway. Like, not high-quality rolls, y’know? Those are expensive. It’s just rush. Fuck, it’s cold. Are you guys cold?” Crescent’s a little ahead of Woody and I, backpedaling so he can walk and talk at the same time. He’s been doing that  — both the backwards walking and the nonstop talking — pretty much since we all met up outside Woody’s dorm to head to the KNZ house together. I don’t know Crescent that well yet, but so far it seems like he feels the same way about social situations as Woody and I do, and also like his attention span probably comes from a pharmacy bottle. “Yeah, it’s pretty cold,” I tell him. “And no, I haven’t smoked a cigar. Woody, have you?” Woody shakes his head. He’s hunched up under his winter coat, just as quiet now as he’s been the whole walk over. Maybe he’s just cold too. Or maybe he’s feeling exactly the way he looks, and how Crescent sounds, and how I’m doing my best not to be right now between them. “Okay, but you’ve played poker before, right?” Crescent goes on, shuffling his feet so he’s facing forward and walking next to me. Woody mutely falls behind us. Our new friend keeps being anything but mute. “‘Cause I actually have done that. Watched a lot of it on TV too. It’s all mind games. Like, playing the people at the table more than the hand you have.” We pass the streetlamp marking the turn onto Jefferson Street, and I give it a little knowing nod as we go by. It’s seen me at my worst, so I might as well let it know I’m doing better-ish now. As for Crescent’s question, I played some practice five-card stud hands on a website I found earlier today, and that’s about it for my poker experience.  I’m trying to be fine with that — with just winging it tonight and seeing what happens. I was fine with it for most of today, but mostly because I wasn’t thinking about it at all, and between Crescent and Woody both, right now it’s really hard not to. “Guess that’s why they made a rush event out of it,” I say. “To see if we can play people.” “Or get played.”  Both Crescent and I turn around. Those are the first words we’ve heard from Woody so far tonight. He sounds exactly the way he looks. “Maybe that’s what they’re looking for,” he adds, clenching his teeth so they don’t chatter, cheeks and eyes crumpled into a grimace to match.  “I think they just wanna play poker,” I assure him — and myself a little bit, but mostly him. “Just a different type of game, right? We’re good at those.” “And hey, worst case, free drinks,” Crescent adds. “And cigars.” “If you say so…” Woody mumbles as we reach the edge of KNZ’s front yard. Before we make the turn, though, I make all of us stop and clap both my hands on Woody’s shoulders, looking him square in the eye. Everything I don’t want to think about is streaming out of Woody’s face like a spotlight. If I want to keep not thinking about it, I have to make sure he doesn’t either. “Hey, I do say so,” I tell him. “All right? We’re supposed to be here. They wouldn’t have invited us if we weren’t.” It kind of feels like I’m reassuring myself in the mirror, but instead of just imagining it working, I can actually see Woody bite his lip and feel the tension in his shoulders. “I mean, yeah,” he mumbles, “but –” “No, no buts. That’s just the truth. We’ll be fine. We got this.” Actually, it really is working, on Woody and on me too. Somehow, him being nervous makes me feel more confident, more sure of what role I’m supposed to play tonight. Even if I can’t play poker for shit and everything around the game turns into the nightmare I’ve been expecting for three nights in a row now, I can at least be there for my friend. That’s something to focus on — to think about instead of how terrifying this all still is. Next to us, Crescent rocks on his heels, squinting suspiciously at both of us. “Did you guys pregame without me?” he asks. I don’t answer him. He’s not who I’m focusing on right now, and also I don’t actually know what “pregaming” is.  “You good?” I ask Woody, realizing right after I say it that I kind of need him to be. Whether I want to think about it or not, I know I can’t do this by myself — not unless I know my friend can do it too. And he can. He squares his shoulders and takes a bracing sigh, and he mutters in a tone that tells me he’s still a little anxious but he’ll be okay, “What happened to you today?” A lot happened today, honestly. I reconnected with an old friend who might want to be more than that, and I’ve got two new friends right beside me and maybe forty-odd more waiting for all of us to come hang out with them. And between those two things, I spent six hours that felt like fifteen minutes working on a song that’s not done yet, not even close, but feels so close to being done — to being real — that part of me wants to skip rushing entirely so I can go back to my laptop and keep chipping away at it. It’s too much to think about all at once. I don’t know what I should think about any of it. And more to the point, it’s too much to explain to Woody right now, so I just shrug and tell him the sort-of-truth: “I don’t know. Just feeling good about tonight. Let’s get in there and see if I’m right.”  “God, can we please?” Crescent interjects, still bouncing on his heels. “It’s fucking freezing.” Woody cracks a grin, and says silently with a jerk of his head that he’s good to go and also that Crescent’s got a point. Good enough for me. We get moving ahead and head across the yard towards the house. As we climb up onto the porch, a guy with orange hair and a beard to match — Mandarin, from last night and technically the night before too — nods to us in greeting. He’s wearing slacks and a button-up, just like Woody and I both are. Points to us for finally getting the dress code right. Crescent looks like he’s got a truly hideous Hawaiian shirt on under his coat, so I guess he’s close enough. “‘Sup,” Mandarin says, bumping his fist against each of ours in turn. “Good to see you out again.” “Good to be out,” I reply.  “Yeah, good,” Crescent adds. “How’s it look in there?” “Like more probation if admin hears about it,” Mandarin says. “So phones away tonight. And don’t narc on us.” “Narc about what?” Woody asks. “Exactly,” Mandarin replies with a grin. I laugh — because Mandarin’s joking, right? Probably. Has to be. Either way, I tug gently on Woody’s coat sleeve until he realizes he should act like that wasn’t a sincere question he’s absolutely not going to get a real answer to. Once he gives Mandarin a tight-lipped nod, we both head inside with Crescent right behind us.  Source wasn’t exaggerating about the theme for the night. The house’s main living area has been transformed into an underground casino, complete with felt-covered circular tables ringed by folding chairs, stacks of poker chips emblazoned with the frat’s letters, and even neon beer brand logos and posters of mobster movies on the walls. Actually, now that I think about it, those might’ve been there already, but it still adds to the overall effect. And speaking of Source, he’s not hard to spot even through the crowd of brothers and rushes mingling around and between the tables. He’s behind a bar off to the side made of matte-painted plywood and lined with half-empty liquor bottles, wearing a tight-fitting tuxedo t-shirt and raising his eyebrows in recognition as he spots me. I get my knuckles ready for another fistbump as I lead my friends over, and — at the last moment — uncurl them so I can accept the handshake-into-a-one-armed-hug Source actually goes for. “Evening, gents,” he says by way of greeting. He’s holding an unlit cigar in the hand he didn’t press into mine, and he lifts it to clamp between his teeth as he nods towards the wall of booze. Guess it makes sense that no one actually wants to smoke the things indoors. “What’s your poison?” Crescent speaks up first. “Uh… vodka? Vodka something?” “One vodka-something coming up. Button, whiskey? Or did you get enough a couple nights ago?” My stomach turns over just thinking about a couple nights ago, but I don’t want to turn him down either. I’m still feeling confident right now, and a confident person wouldn’t get thrown off his game by one night of overindulgence. “I’m fine. I’ll take whiskey,” I tell Source. “Rocky.” “Is ‘on the rocks’ okay?” On the other hand, sometimes your game throws you off like an angry bull at a rodeo. “Y-Yeah,” I mumble. “Whatever the term is.” “Eh, you were close enough,” Source chuckles. As he grabs two red plastic cups and fills both with ice from a cooler on the floor, he looks past me at Woody. “Woody, you want anything?” “I’m good,” Woody says. Source seems unfazed and grabs a third cup, cracking a plastic water bottle open overtop of it with the same flourish he puts into the other two drinks.  “Sorry we took so long with the invites, by the way,” Source says as he mixes. “We’re like a family here. Dysfunctional and late to everything.” I smile and Crescent gamely chuckles, but Woody doesn’t say a word. Instead, he just drains half his cup of water the moment he gets it in his hand. I grab the cup darkened with amber whiskey from a bottle with a label I didn’t recognize, and my first sip burns in my throat and makes my face redder than it already was. Judging by the look on Crescent’s face, his drink — vodka mixed with something dark red and fruit-scented — is going down just as easy. So much for feeling good about tonight. Maybe the whiskey will help again after another cup or six. “So what’s the game?” I ask Source once my throat clears, nodding back at the poker tables. “Hold ‘Em,” he replies. “Two cards in your hand, five on the table. Best five-card hand wins, or whoever doesn’t fold. It’s easy, until it gets hard.” “When does it get hard?” Woody nervously asks. “Pretty much right after it starts.” After a moment of silence, Source blows out a sigh and sags in place. “Jesus, guys, work with me a little.” “Sorry, we’re… we’ll get better.,” Crescent says, before taking another pull from his drink. I do the same with mine. Rocky or on the rocks or whatever, the ice definitely makes the second sip hurt a lot less than the first.  “Dude, you’re fine,” Source says, his smile softening a bit. “We’re not playing for money or anything. Just hanging out.” After another moment, he adds, “But preferably hang out at a table, ‘cause we’re gonna start in a minute.” Sure enough, the crowd around the bar has mostly moved to the seats around the poker tables. I look at Woody and Crescent, and get two different species of deer-in-the-headlights back. Guess I’m taking the lead again. Once I spot a table with three open seats, I draw my friends’ attention to it, but right as I’m about to head over there with them, I hear Source speak up. “Button, hold up a sec.” I do hold up, and Woody and Crescent keep going. I don’t think they heard Source, and I don’t think Source wanted them to. The look in his eyes — still friendly, but a bit firmer now too — looks like it’s for my eyes only. He motions with his head for me to follow him off to the side of the bar, so I do, sipping from my whiskey along the way. The ice is helping a lot now. It hardly burns at all, and tastes oaky and sweet instead.  “So, shot in the dark here,” Source murmurs once we’re away from the bar crowd a bit, “you don’t have an older brother who was in a frat?” The whiskey might taste better now, but I haven’t had enough of it yet to keep my heart from skipping a beat. “I… no? Is that a problem?” “No, not a problem, just…” Source works his tongue around in his mouth, trying to figure out how to phrase whatever he really wants to say. “Don’t just hang around Woody and Crescent all night, okay?” Make that multiple beats. “Why not? Are they not…” “Nah, nothing wrong with them, or you. You’ve been fine so far. But the last two nights, that was just a vibe check, y’know? Weeding out the guys we hundred-percent don’t want. Now it’s about making an impression, making sure all the brothers know you and that they’re gonna remember you come voting time. Because now we want to figure out who we hundred-percent do want, and that means more than just fine.” Source sees my deer-about-to-be-roadkill expression and clarifies. “Hey, this isn’t criticism, you haven’t fucked up or anything. Just… Woody knows how all this works through Hawthorn, and I figured you might not. Just friendly advice, all right? You got this, man.” Sure. I got this. I’ve got every part of this thing I apparently have to do all by myself, without knowing a single thing about how it actually works and without anything else to focus on but how badly I might fuck it up. “Can I get a refill?” I ask Source, holding up my cup. “Fair enough,” he says as he nods back towards the bar. Once Source makes me what he calls a “rocky triple,” there aren’t many empty poker table seats left to choose from. The table I end up sitting down at has four brothers I haven’t met and two rushes I remember chatting with last night. I’m glad to see they made the cut, and — as far as I could see on my way across the room — the guy who was a dick to Woody and me didn’t. Guess we weren’t “fucking dorks” after all.  The thought warms me up a little, and another sip of whiskey gets me saddled up and back on my game again. I told Woody we’re supposed to be here, and if I meant it then, it should still be true now. I got through the last two nights just fine. I can get through tonight too. “Sup, Button,” one of the brothers says as I sit down to his right. He’s shuffling a deck of red-backed cards, and he has a chip in front of him bigger than the ones stacked in front of me that says “Dealer.” “You feeling lucky?” I want to say something corny like “I make my own luck,” but I miss my chance to answer  because reality answers for me. There was one empty seat left at this table, and it just got filled by the very last person I wanted to spend tonight hanging out with. “I hope you’re all feeling lucky,” Alkaline says as he settles in, massive hand clawed around a noticeably rock-less cup of whiskey. “‘Cause I’m about to clean you fuckers out.” It’s too late to switch tables, and all the other ones are full anyway. As Alkaline leers across the table at me, I give him the politest nod back I can manage. “I’m feeling lucky,” I tell him. “Oh, trust me, you are,” he replies, grinning behind his cup. “Hope you keep it up.” My knee’s twitching under the table — and not out of fear this time. I don’t know what Alkaline’s problem with me is, but he definitely has one, and even more than being awkward or looking stupid around the other brothers, I can’t stand the thought of letting him think he’s getting to me. So as Al stares at me, I stare right back, and don’t look away until a pair of face-down playing cards slide across the table towards me. “All right, folks, ante up,” the brother who dealt says. “Starting blinds are one buck and two.” Alkaline barely looks at his cards before grabbing two white chips off the stack in front of him and tossing them towards the center of the table. The rush to his left puts in two white chips as well, and the next two players slide their cards back to the dealer instead. I’m up. I have to decide whether I’m going to play. I tilt my cards up from the table and see double: the Five of Clubs and the Five of Diamonds. Not a great hand, if I remember right from my practice rounds earlier, but not a terrible one either. Probably worth staying in with. Wouldn’t be crazy to fold either — but how much of an impression would that make? “Don’t make us wait, bud,” Al says, still grinning. “What’s it gonna be?” I look at him, then back at my cards, then at my chip stacks. The white ones are ringed by little symbols: “$1”. I grab two of them and slide them towards the center of the table.  “I’m in,” I say. “Let’s do this shit.” === Credit where it’s due, Alkaline wasn’t exaggerating either. He really is good at poker, or at least good at betting aggressively and getting the absolute most out of every good hand he has. Woody, on the other hand, is broke before a half-hour has passed, and spends the next hour after that nursing something with a lime wedge in it that Source gave him as consolation.  As for me, I’m about breaking even, not winning any big pots but not losing any big ones either, and that’s been enough to keep me and Al both playing long enough to merge with the winners from another two tables, and then to survive that table to the last one still going in the house. Crescent made it to the final table with us, but judging by how this hand’s going, he’s not going to be at it for much longer.  I folded my hole cards for this hand — Nine-Six, unsuited — pretty much the moment I saw them, and Crescent not only stayed in but saw Alkaline’s ante raise and raised him again. All night, Al’s always raised right away if he gets dealt any kind of pair, and if Crescent were paying attention even just at this table, he’d have known better than to re-raise without a pocket pair of his own.  And when Al doubled that first raise after the Ace-Six-Four unsuited flop, Crescent should’ve known that Al was trying to buy his way out of the hand — because that’s what he always does when the flop doesn’t give him the cards he wants — and re-raised him then. But instead, he just called and let Al stick around until he got exactly what he wanted, which was another four on the turn and a Jack for the river.  Al’s got at least two pairs, and Crescent maybe has Aces at best. My friend’s lost the hand and he knows it, but Al’s staring him down with a relaxed little smirk, and he’s already put way too much into the pot. He’s going to call. I could just about mouth his response along with him. “Call,” Crescent reluctantly says, pushing the last of his chips forward and practically radiating dread of the inevitable. Sure enough, Alkaline reveals his pocket pair — Tens to go with the Fours on the table — and Crescent deflates as he tosses his suited Ace and King away in defeat.  The crowd gathered around us murmurs in sympathy as the hand’s loser gets up and leaves the table, but Alkaline doesn’t seem to notice. The stare he had pointed at Crescent a second ago is now leveled straight at me. “You got somethin’ to say, Button?” he says, daring me with his eyes and face and obnoxious fucking smirk to put what I was thinking about the last hand into words. But neither Alkaline nor Crescent deserves that, so I just shrug instead. Crescent was right about this being a mind game. I haven’t played it much before, but I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of it. “You played that well,” I tell him. “Good hand.” “You should try playin’ a hand one of these days,” he bites back. “Let’s see if I get something worth playing with.” He chuckles and lifts his cup — still whiskey, “neat” and knocked back in the same kind of sloppy gulp he’s been taking all night. I’ve switched to beer, so I’m lucid enough to know I’m drunk and buzzed enough to not care, and I take a sip too as the dealer shuffles the deck.  Rather than the dealer position rotating around with the big and little blinds, the final table has the fraternity president himself — Case Brief the PoliSci major — running the show for each round. He hasn’t said much to me tonight, and I’ve been telling myself that’s a good thing, but the longer I’ve stayed in the game tonight, the more I’ve started to wonder if it is. Source said to make an impression, and so far I’ve just been fine — not winning, not losing, not taking any unnecessary risks. Maybe Al has a point. Or maybe I’m just being smart — playing the game, and not the players. Case cuts the deck, then deals out hole cards to the six people — Alkaline, four other KNZ brothers, and me — still at the table. The player to Al’s left glances at the hand he’s been dealt, scowls, and pushes it right back towards Case.  “Gotta say, Button,” Al says over the shifting cards. “You’re better at this than I thought you’d be. A real gamer.” He says the last word like a slur, and he certainly meant it to come off like one. The brother to my right tosses out four blue chips — $100 in fake money, just to match the ante. It’s my turn. I peek at my cards, then push four blue chips of my own forward. “It’s been fun,” I reply. “You guys throw good parties.” The player to my left makes a face and gives up his cards. It’s the little blind next, then Al as the big blind. If Al checks, it doesn’t mean much. If he raises instead, it might mean a whole lot.  “So do you, I hear,” he says. “With your, what? Ogres and Obstacles shit?” “Oubliettes,” I correct him. The little blind puts in two blue chips. Al could just check, and we could move on to the next round. “The fuck is an oubliette?” he mutters, looking at his cards instead of me. I’m watching him, though, and I see the little twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Another word for ‘dungeon,’” I explain. “Just what the people who made the game decided to call it.” “Wild,” Al says, sounding totally disinterested. He plucks four blue chips from his hoard, considers them for a moment, then replaces them on their stack and tosses in five black ones instead. “Raise to five hundred.” The crowd murmurs, and at least one other player at the table — I don’t see who — blows out a curse under his breath. That’s a big bet even for Alkaline, big enough to get the guy on my right to fold like his cards are burning his fingerprints off. Al must have been dealt another pair, probably Jacks or better. I peek at my cards again. They’re the same ones I saw when I looked a minute ago. “You wanna play this one?” Alkaline asks. “Or you wanna go back to your dungeon?” Another bit of credit where it’s due: Alkaline plays the mind-game part of poker pretty well too. Or maybe he’s always like that, and it just also gets people to misplay Hold ‘Em hands. Maybe earlier in the night, it’d have gotten me to bow out of this one — but whether it’s the booze, or the crowd, or just the simpering smirk across the table from me that I’ve seen on countless identical asshole faces, right now it’s not making me feel anything at all. All my life, I’ve been terrified of guys like Alkaline — boys who think they’re men, bullies who saw me as an easy target for insults and taunts and little spurts of random violence just outside a teacher or parent’s view. And for the first time, rolling a poker chip between my fingers and surrounded by guys I would’ve grouped thoughtlessly together as one indistinguishable mass a week ago, I find myself wondering why.  Why should I be scared of an upperclassman who has to go after a freshman to feel like a big shot? Why should I think he’s got some plan for his hand I’m not seeing, instead of believing that all the practice I have with reading people and planning ahead has led to me reading this situation exactly right? And you know what, jackass that Al is, he does have a point: why shouldn’t I take some risks on some hands tonight? It’s fake money. For all I know, I’m surrounded by fake friends. I have nothing to lose but my dignity, and the only way I could lose that is by doing exactly what I’ve always done and choosing to guarantee failure instead of risking success. Besides, a pocket pair’s not enough to win this round just yet. I want to see the flop. And more than that, I want to see Alkaline see the flop. And most of all, I want to watch Al’s face fall when I outplay him, win this hand, and clean him the fuck out. “You know what’s funny, Alkaline?” I say, chuckling as I clack two of my chips together in front of me. “I bet you’d be good at O&O.” “Yeah, but then I’d have to still be a virgin too,” he shoots back. “You’re telling me half this frat’s still virgins?” “Exceptions that prove the rule. You gonna call, or –” I cut him off with the sounds of chips clacking together — four black ones, stacked on top of the four blue ones I put into the pot before. “Call,” I say, before adding, “I’m just saying, it’s a lot like poker. You gotta play the good rolls when you get ‘em, find a way out of the bad ones. Maybe bluff your way out sometimes.” “You think I’m bluffing?” Al says through a wolfish grin. “I think it’s his turn,” I tell him, nodding at the little blind and keeping my eyes on Al. As we stare across the table at each other, the little blind folds. Al twitches his eyebrows. It’s just me and him seeing the flop. “All right, game boy,” he says as Case gathers our chips into a pretty hefty pot at the table’s center. “Let’s see some of those O&O skills.” “Sure. What class are you playing?” Al squints at me. So do a few other brothers in the crowd around us. “Fuck you talking about?” “You wanna see my O&O skills, I gotta know what character class you’re playing as,” I tell him. “Y’know, sorcerer, druid, barbarian… take your pick.” Al stares at me until he realizes I’m not kidding, then he laughs. He can’t believe I’m actually doing this right now. Truth be told, neither can I — but like I said, sometimes you get a good roll, and sometimes you play through a bad one. One way or another, I’m seeing this round through to the end. “Fuck, okay,” he says, in the tone of someone stringing along an annoying younger cousin. “Uh… barbarian, I guess. What are you?” “DMs don’t have classes,” I reply. “But I usually play as a wizard.” “Would’ve thought you’d be a fairy.” “We’ll save the homebrew classes for next time. So, you’re a barbarian. Built around Strength and Constitution, skill proficiencies in… let’s say Athletics and Intimidation. We’ve been playing a while, so you’re a pretty high level, but that means your enemies are as well.” “I think I’ll be okay,” Al says through a snort. “Spoken like a true barbarian,” I reply, before glancing at Case. “Roll for initiative.” He takes a second to realize that means I’m ready for the flop. For a moment, I swear I see a smile flicker across his lips, but he’s stone-faced by the time he grabs the deck, puts the card on top aside, and flips the next three face-up on the table.  The crowd around us is dead silent, all eyes on the cards the dealer just revealed. I’ve never DM’d in front of an audience before, but my usual flow — egoless, ethereal, just a vessel for a story that has to be told but not interfered with — isn’t hard to find. “Your long journey across hostile territory ends on a steppe overlooking a verdant valley,” I say, watching Alkaline but projecting my voice for the crowd. Al’s fingers drum against his face-down hole cards. He’s staring intently at the flop — the King and Ten of Hearts, along with the Six of Clubs — and at one card in it specifically. “The King of Hearts awaits you below, gathered with his army, flanked by his loyal advisor and a spy from a distant land. He may still be your ally… or maybe a mortal foe. The truth — the only truth you’ve ever known — will be found on the battlefield below.” “I’m gonna attack,” Al says, already reaching for his chips. Case lifts a hand to stop him, but I don’t need the help. “And you can, when it’s your turn,” I tell him. “But you’ve traveled a long way, and the journey has left you exhausted. So for now, the Wizard — your rival in this clash of crowns — will make the first move.” I wait for a beat, until everyone’s eyes are on me, then I tap my right middle finger against the table. “And the Wizard checks.” Al barely waits for me to finish speaking before he grabs a full stack of black chips and shoves them all forward at once. “Thousand,” he says, smiling at the sound of the crowd around us murmuring. “You wanna play with that, Mr. Wizard?” Actually, Mr. Wizard does, and so do I. Al really is a barbarian all the way through, right down to swinging first and not thinking about what might hit him back. But I know better than to let what I’m thinking show on my face. Whatever I personally think or don’t think about it, the story — the performance — always comes first. “You charge down the hillside, greataxe raised, your battle cry — a song of guts and glory — serenading your descent,” I narrate. “The King of Hearts’ infantry advance to meet you, and just as quickly fall beneath you, each titanic blow from your weapon spawning a whirlwind of blood and viscera. You have no interest in politics, no taste for subterfuge. You have allies enough already, and with them you will conquer this foe like you have so many others before.”  I wait another beat, and then continue. “But as you cut your way through the king’s army, man after man felled by your unrivaled strength, you see a familiar figure in the corner of your vision. He stands at the edge of the fray, ensconced in arcane wards, little more than an apparition… but there nonetheless. Keeping pace with you. Following in the path you carve towards your goal.” I reach for my own chips, collect ten black ones, and push them all forward once I’m sure the count is right. “Call.” The little action ripples through the crowd like a stone splashed into a lake. As I lean back in my seat, I catch a glimpse of Woody inside that crowd. He looks like he’s on the verge of panic. Next to him, Crescent doesn’t look much better. They’ll be fine, though. I’m doing this for them — for every guy like us at this college and in the whole goddamn world. Case burns another card off the top of the deck and flips the next one face-up by the three already on the table. It’s the Jack of Hearts, and the exclamations I hear from the crowd tell me they know what that could mean just as much as Al does. If one of us has two more Hearts in our hand, it doesn’t matter if the other player has a pocket pair. The Hearts flush beats any other hand on the table right now. “You repel the first wave without much effort,” I say, “but then, all at once, the remaining soldiers pull back. As you catch your breath, blood dripping and steaming from your axe’s lethal edge, you hear a trumpet from the east, heralding the arrival of reinforcements. The King of Hearts’ son has joined him on the field of battle, bringing a hundred more troops along with him. You’re outnumbered now… and behind you, the wizard draws near. He raises his hands, and the sun overhead glows brighter, infused with unholy energy, bursting down upon you and your stunned companions.” I don’t have enough black chips to make the bet I want, so I push the ones I do have forward and then add a stack of blue ones next to them. “Fifteen hundred,” I say, eyes never leaving Alkaline even as brothers and rushes alike curse in quiet anticipation. “Make a Constitution saving throw.” The smart play for Al now would be to cut his losses and fold, or to re-raise me and hope I’m bluffing. But he’s a barbarian — a big-shot frat star. He doesn’t know how to be the smaller person in a room, how to edge around obstacles rather than smash through them.  So instead, he just stares at the community cards, hems and haws over his own stack for a bit, and finally pushes enough chips forward to equal fifteen hundred fake dollars, muttering as he does, “Call.” This is already the biggest pot of the night so far, and we’ve still got one more betting round to go. If I had a pin to drop, I could probably hear it echo inside this room right now. “You know this wizard well,” I say. “You’ve seen him fight before, seen warriors and warlocks alike struck down by his spellwork. He’s deliberate, cunning, powerful almost beyond measure… but in the end, mortal. He can be beaten. You’re sure of it. And buoyed by that belief, you call upon every ounce of your resolve and resist his spell, even as half your army dissolves to ash and the rest fall to their knees, clawing at their sightless eyes and writhing inside their glowing, molten plate.” Case should have already dealt the last community card, but he’s watching me just as intently as everyone else. Is he caught up in the story too? Impatiently hoping it’ll end? I glance his way and nod, and only then does he burn one last card from the deck in his hand and flip the river card face-up on the table: the Six of Diamonds. As the crowd reacts, I can’t help but smile. If Alkaline’s playing with a pocket pair, he needed a miracle to beat a flush, and he might’ve just gotten one. I can already see the rest of this story spooling out in front of me, waiting to deify one player and destroy the other — and I can also see relief flowing through Al’s sagging shoulders, followed by insufferable swagger swelling in his chest. “And perhaps your faith will be rewarded,” I murmur, channeling the reverent tension around me into every word. “For in the forest to the east, almost invisible save for the glint of the wizard’s spell in the lens of a spyglass, you see someone familiar: an elven ranger, once a compatriot of convenience, now potentially your savior. He emerges from the trees, striding forward with his longbow at the ready, and flanking him on either side and for seemingly miles behind him are unholy beasts of all shapes and sizes, enough to overwhelm any army… or at least, fill the castle the King of Hearts treats as his house.” That line gets a few chuckles from the crowd, and for good reason: with a pair of Sixes on the table and three-fifths of the royal Hearts family along with them, it’s more likely than not than anyone at the table with a pair of face cards in their hand just stumbled ass-backwards into a full house, which beats a standard flush every day of the week. And Al can lean back in his seat and squint at the community cards and put on the worst acting job since Battleship Terra all he wants, but everybody in the room who’s paying even a little attention should know exactly what hand his backwards ass has. “The Wizard checks,” I say, tapping the table. “He didn’t expect this. He wants to see how the Barbarian will react.” “Oh, he does, huh?” Al says, his standard smarmy tone restored and reinvigorated. “Had enough of playing pretend?” “Only if you have,” I say back, knowing exactly what it’ll make him do — and just like him, having my faith rewarded. “Oh, okay,” Al says, grinning down at his chips. He lets the moment drag out, then pushes every stack he has forward with one hand, dropping his other hand below the table so he can root around for something out of view. “All in, then. And you know what, while I’m at it…” From his pants pocket, he pulls out a black leather trifold wallet, bulging with cash and cards. Before any other brother realizes what he’s doing, he peels two bills out and tosses them in with his chips.  “Add another two hundred,” he says. “Just for fun.” If my plays earlier were rippling pebbles, Al just tossed out a ten-ton boulder. Several brothers laugh nervously, and a few — Case among them — put on pained smiles as they try to back things down. “Al, come on, man,” I hear one say. “It’s just a game, bro.” “Yeah, exactly!” Al retorts, completely unbothered. “He got to play his game, now I’m playing mine.” “Dude, just –” “Hey, he doesn’t have to call.” Now he’s leveled his gaze back on me. “He can quit anytime he wants. Can’t you, game boy?” The same voracious look I remember from two nights ago — like a lion circling a wounded gazelle — is back. But now I finally realize where I’ve seen that look and heard that tone before: not from high school bullies, but from players who are sure they’ve royally fucked over their bastard of a DM.  They’re not always wrong. It does happen sometimes. But even when it does, it doesn’t change the one cardinal rule of DMing: no matter what, you are always in control, and woe to any player who thinks one lucky roll means otherwise. “And react the Barbarian does,” I say, slipping back seamlessly into narration and waving off the frat brothers gathering around Alkaline. Almost all of them look like they want to ignore me and stop the game, but once I spot Sloop among them and Sloop spots the look in my eyes, he bites his lip to keep from grinning and wordlessly ushers his friends back from the table. Sloop’s definitely played O&O before — and if Al had played before, he’d also recognize the look his gamemaster has right now, and he’d be fucking terrified.  “With a primal roar, you surge forward, hacking and slashing, cutting your foes to pieces with your indomitable might. The tide of battle has turned, and with it, your assurance of your own unquestionable victory — because, as it turns out, you do know a little something about politics after all. After all, if a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush… a king in the field can’t possibly beat two in your hand.” I pause, wait for the audience’s energy to echo back towards me, then call my shot, staring Al down straight to his busted soul. “Full house? Kings and Sixes?” Chattering from the crowd fills the room, louder than it’s been all night up to now. It’s meaningless, though, compared to what I get from Al: a shift in his seat, and a knuckle pressed under his chin, and a painted-on smile that might as well be a hundred-foot billboard screaming, “How the fuck did you know that?” in bold block letters. “Why don’t you call and find out?” he eventually says. “All right, so full house, Kings and Sixes,” I repeat, just to rub it in. As I poke around a few of my remaining chips, letting everyone’s nerves stretch just a little bit thinner, I can see Sloop still grinning behind Alkaline, and Woody and Crescent both gaping at me like I’ve grown a second head. Hell, maybe I have. The one that’s in control now feels like it’s been doing this for years, like this is just the natural way for things to be. Like it belongs here. Time to make it count. “Pretty good hand,” I continue. “Lucky hand, given that flush on the table, but a win’s a win, right? Sometimes you just get lucky.” “Talk it out all you want, buddy,” Al says — seemingly the only person who hasn’t caught on to the energy of the room right now. “It’s just a bad beat.” “It is, isn’t it?” I agree. “All that planning and battle strategy, just to drown in the river in the final moments of the fight. Incredible to think such a powerful Wizard would forget to account for such a simple obstacle.” “All right, we get it, you’re good at this O&O shit. You gonna fold or not?” I look at my chips, and purse my lips, and act like I’m really thinking about it. “Well, I would,” I tell Al. “Except there’s something the Barbarian forgot about too. The same thing most kings forget about when they run off and fight wars together.”  “What?” I lean forward, elbows on the table, and level my best I-know-something-you-don’t Dungeon Master stare at my opponent.  “Where’s the queen?” I ask Alkaline. Finally, there’s a hitch in Alkaline’s grin, the smallest droplet of doubt in an ocean of unearned confidence. “What?” he says again. “Spoken like a true barbarian,” I can’t help but quip. There’s no laughter from the crowd, though. Most of them want to know what I’m getting at just as much as Al does — and the few who seem to have figured it out already are wide-eyed and whispering, just as eager to see it all play out.  “The Queen of Hearts, specifically,” I go on. “She’s been absent from the battle up to now, maybe ordered to flee by her husband… or maybe making plans of her own. Maybe, in the dead of night, unseen and unheard, she slipped the bonds of matrimony and found a new ally, one who could help her end the king’s tyrannical reign and vanquish the Barbarian’s advancing horde in one fell swoop. Maybe she thought the Wizard could help her in this quest… and maybe she had help from within the kingdom as well. From the King’s chosen champion, his secret weapon… his ace in the hole.” Everyone’s caught up now, and all but breathless save for a single voice out of sight muttering, “No fuckin’ way…” Whoever it was, they’ve got a point. The only hand that could beat Al’s right now is a straight flush, and maybe a royal one — Ace through Ten suited — at that. There’s no way I actually have that. I’d have to be the luckiest motherfucker alive. Al tries to sound confident, and he almost succeeds, save for a little quiver in his forceful final word. “Fuck off. You don’t have the Queen.” “An Insight check from a Barbarian,” I muse. “Now I’ve seen everything. But I’ll allow it… and two sixes on the table makes a roll of twelve. Decent enough. We’ll call that a success.” You’re not supposed to show any of your cards in poker before the last betting round ends. You’re also not supposed to put real money into a fake pot, or narrate a hand like an O&O session. In any case, no one stops me from picking up one of my two hole cards, checking to make sure it’s the right one, and then flipping it face-up. It’s the Queen of Hearts. You’re also not supposed to show emotion as a DM, or let your players know just how much you’re enjoying watching them squirm. But since we’re already breaking every rule in the book, I don’t feel too bad about smiling as the crowd realizes — in one jumbled and exuberant voice — that yes fucking way, I might’ve actually had Al beat since the turn, and he might’ve just hung himself by his nuts by thinking my flush wasn’t nuts enough. “No,” Al mutters into his clenched fist. “You don’t have the Ace with it. You would’ve bet it harder. You wouldn’t go through all this shit now.” I shrug in response. “Could be the Nine too,” I suggest. “Or it could be nothing. But since we’re gaming, let’s game this out: if I had nothing, and I knew you had the full house, I probably would’ve just folded. I mean, there’s real money on the table right now. Big-game money. I wouldn’t keep playing for that unless I knew my hand was better… or unless I knew you’d play like it wasn’t. Unless I was sure you’d do what Barbarians always do, and think with your heart instead of your head, and assume that just because Wizards fight in different ways doesn’t mean they can’t fight at all. Could be that too.” “Whatever, quit fucking stalling,” Al replies, every word rushed on its way out of his mouth. The fist he had pressed against his lips is resting on the table now, knuckles knocking softly against the felt. “It’s all in to call. Plus two hundred bucks.” I let my eyebrows drift up and make a show of mulling it over. “Well, if you insist,” I eventually say — and then I gently push all my chips forward, reach into my pocket, and pull out my own wallet. “All in, call your two hundred bucks…” I don’t have cash, so instead I pull out my debit card and toss it into the pot. “... tack on another three.” Ten-ton boulder, meet state-sized meteorite. I can literally feel the floor vibrate from the noise that fills the room, the shocked curses and the is-this-really-happening laughs and, from Woody specifically, the breathless realization of what definitely did just happen. “Button…” he whispers. “That’s…” I know. It’s just about every cent I have left from my summer job. It’s a brand-new gaming console, two dozen extra-large pizza orders, an entire semester’s worth of risk and regret tossed casually out onto a poker table like it’s nothing, instead of everything I have in every possible way. It takes everything I’ve got left right now just to keep my face blank, to look at Alkaline and not at the crowd or down at my knee bobbing under the table in time with my thrumming heart. And across from me, knuckles still tapping, brow creased over his narrowed eyes, Al looks like I’ve never seen him look before: scared. His brain wants to back out. His pride wants to keep going. He needs something — someone — to tip him towards one or the other. “The Wizard raises his hands,” I say softly, quieting the room in an instant, “and the sky splits apart. Blazing meteors swarm down from the heavens, carpeting the battlefield, annihilating every living being still standing upon it. If the Barbarian retreats, he’ll likely survive the onslaught. If he advances, he may find eternal glory… or just an eternity spent on this very field, reduced to ash and shattered bone, a forgotten remnant of a foolhardy war. It’s his decision, and his alone. Make the call… or be undone by it.” “You want me to call, huh?” he mutters. I meet his eyes, steeple my fingers, and smile. “You can certainly try.” That did it. His decision’s made. He looks down at his cards, twitches his hand towards his wallet — then his whole face crumples into a petulant scowl. “Fuck you, man,” he says. Then he shoves his cards towards Case, roughly enough that they both flip over as they slide away from him: pocket Kings, Diamonds and Clubs. He did have the full house — and he just folded it to save three hundred bucks. “You gotta show ‘em, though,” he adds next, shouting over the ruckus around us. “Did you have it or not?” Technically, I don’t have to show my other card. I’ve already won the hand, and made some real money doing it. I could just keep smiling and collect my chips and bills, and leave it a mystery for everyone forever. But whether it’s showmanship or peer pressure or, fuck, just pure overwhelming relief, something makes me want to. I just put on a hell of a show. Might as well give it the ending it deserves. “The Barbarian retreats with his allied Kings,” I announce, hushing the crowd one last time. “He’ll live another day, perhaps win all the next battles he chooses to fight. But this battle, and this war, goes to the Queen…” I reach for my other hole card, slip it between my thumb and forefinger, pause for just a moment… “... and the Queen alone.” … and flip over the Seven of Hearts. “Motherfucker!” Alkaline yells — and the room explodes. I’ve never played any kind of sport, but this must be what winning a championship feels like. I’m jostled from every direction, hugged and shaken and slapped on the back by hands whose owners I can’t pick out of the throng surrounding me, whose voices have all blended into a shapeless roar that reverberates in my chest and shoots like a static shock through every single inch of me. I can’t help but grin, and then laugh, and then just shake in my seat from an emotion that used to be just a word to me: euphoria. I did it. I drew to a flush, and Al got lucky on the river and acted like a giant prick about it, and I bluffed him into folding and fucking beat him anyway. I should feel fucking great right now, even if it feels kind of like hyperventilating in a weird, good way. After a bit, the melee around the table settles down, and I’m able to pick individual faces out of the crowd. Al’s stood up from the table and is glowering over his refilled drink, Crescent’s nearby with his jaw still near the floor, and Woody standing next to him is beaming like it was him who just won that hand and not me. I flash him a thumbs-up, and he lifts his cup in a mock toast before — braced for it, with a brave face on — drinking from it.  The last face I focus on is Source’s — still behind the bar, leaned forward with all his fingers spread-eagled on top of it. The look I give him is more of a silent remark: “How’s that for an impression?” He laughs to himself, then gives me a look back: “Pretty fucking good, kid.” “Hey, you want this back?” Case is talking to me, and holding my debit card up in front of him. “Yeah, thanks,” I say as I take it — and as I do, my eyes fall on the giant chip pile at the center of the table, and the two hundred-dollar bills perched on top of it. “Uh…” “Take ‘em, man,” Case says, a few brothers around him agreeing with nods and grins. “Al put ‘em on the table, you won ‘em. Fair’s fair.” “All right, then.” I manage to get my arms around the pile and slide all my winnings my way at once, then pluck the two bills off the top and slip them into my pocket along with my wallet and card. “Gonna keep ‘em off the table for the rest of tonight, though.” “Good move,” Case says, before addressing the table. “Ante up. Let’s get this shit moving.” “Fuck me,” the new big blind says. “I don’t wanna follow that.” “Man, I just burned all my luck for the year last hand,” I tell him as the cards come out, using the last of my drunken confidence to get one last chuckle from the crowd. “You’re probably gonna kick my ass now.” And actually, as it turns out, he does. I last four more hands and two more awful river cards before that same brother knocks me out by drawing to an inside straight when I just had a high pair. But hey, fifth place out of the whole frat isn’t bad, and going out of the game gives me more time to meet some more brothers and hang out with Woody and Crescent, and hear so many people call me “Mr. Wizard” that I start to worry it might turn into a nickname. Worst case, though, I’m still up two hundred bucks on the night. Maybe next time I meet Sweetie Belle, I can pay for coffee.