Flyboy
January 28th, 2008, 04:41 PM
I was bored Sunday and I hadn't done any creative writing in a while so I wrote this up. It's a title less story that takes place in the depression. Not my best work but worth posting for anyone willing to read it.
When I paste it it gets rid of all my indents. I'm too lazy to go back and fix it so just cope with it.
He opened the door, like every other day he stepped into the broken down saloon, if it could even be called that. Like every other day he walked up to the bar, sat down on the scratched, green leather stools. Like every other day he called up the bartender and ordered one of the pale yellow glasses of scotch. He coughed up what little money he had, what little money did anyone have anyway? And like every other day, he just sat there and drank, keeping to himself despite the commotion and rotary of the passing people in the street or the thunder of the drunks inside. Just like every other day. Always the same for him.
For the past three months this had become the common routine for Veto Bertuchi. Work by day. Where? Anywhere he could find. Every month it had become worse and worse, people losing their homes, giant corporations collapsing on themselves, families selling off even the smallest of children to anyone who could afford to stop their endless hunger.
No one had work, he often spent hours wandering in the pale and depressing streets of the city, going to every meat shop, slab market or corner store, begging in the most convincing manner for work. Anything, shop tending, cleaning, delivering, fixing that leak in your roof you’ve never gotten around to, hell even scrubbing down the toilets for 10 cents an hour was better than nothing. However that was a long time though. Now all he got was “I’m sorry we can’t afford it,” or “There’s nothing we need done,” or, for the more honest folk, “Get the hell out of here you greaser!” Now he’d be lucky if he could find a dime on the ground let alone someone who would be willing to pay him for work. Things had escalated from bad to worse, and God knows what this new president’s claims will likely not be his actions.
Veto Bertuchi, an Italian in New York 1932, that’s all he was, that’s all he’d ever be.
He stared down at his half empty glass of scotch, or was it half full? Who cares he thought as he hung his head down to the glass and sucked in another gulp of the ale. He lowered it to the table, swirling the concoction around in the clear cup a bit, pondering where he would spend the night. Ah, but then again, pondering wouldn’t be little help, only bring more worry down upon his half broken body and mind. He chugged down what was left in his glass and attempted to rid himself of those thoughts. He raised it above his head.
“Bartender! More!” he chanted in a voice loud enough to be heard, but nothing to grab attention from the surrounding folks who were everywhere. The bartender turned his head from whatever it had been previously focusing on. He trotted over to Veto’s reserved part of the bar table, as he’d taken liking to that seat over the past month or so. He grabbed the glass from his hands and began filling it with what was left in his stockpiles of ales.
The bartender relieved himself, “You know, every day I see you here. You sit down, drink until your heart stops and take a nap on my barstool. Why?” He finished filling the glass, yet kept it in his hands.
Veto lifted his head from his hands and gazed up at the bartender, “Well you would too if you were in my situation.”
The bartender didn’t move his gaze at all, he kept a smug tone and his head high. Convincing himself that he had worth over the man before him. “I highly doubt that.”
Veto’s face flushed with red. Whether it was the scotch or the events befalling him the past few months he didn’t care. He had little tolerance with these people who got some sense of satisfaction to know they were better than him. He already knew this so why did they insist to push it on him further? “Hell if you know. You sit here serving drinks to what? A hundred people a day. Last time I checked you’re not the one who has wander in the streets to find the softest staircase to sleep on and the thickest newspaper to keep you warm.”
The bartender kept his face at a constant neutral, though it was obvious he wasn’t enjoying the conversation. He kept silent however. Veto took the chance to continue. “Now if you will, please give me my drink.” He reached down into his torn up coat pocket, felt around a bit, and pulled out a dime and landed it on the table.
The bartender glanced down at the silver coin on the table, still keeping the neutral monotone that always seamed to follow him. “Ten cents won’t do it.”
Veto quickly retorted. “It was ten cents last drink!” “Well you drank all my scotch, so, now it’s thirty cents for a glass.” Veto stood up, ready to hit the bastard square in his cocky mouth, but he stopped himself, knowing no good would come from it. He sat back down and took a deep breath, calming himself. “No one pays thirty cents for a drink.” “Well then you’re not getting a drink.” The bartender walked away to another customer at his counter, Veto’s scotch still at hand. Veto almost swore he could hear the man mutter “greaser” under his breath but he paid of no mind.
He turned his vision to his right, still sitting down in the poorly maintained barstool. A small group of four or five men were playing a game of cards, for money. They sat around the table, each with a hand of bicycle cards. And in the center of the circular wooden table lay the rarest thing in what seamed to be the universe, money. A huge pile of it mixed with paper and coin. He counted as best as his half drunk mind could from this distance. Thirty five, at least thirty five dollars, and that wasn’t counting the coins stacked along side the pile.
He didn’t hear the discussion, but each man laid down his cards. The one standing directly in front of Veto wrapped his arms around the pile of cash with a grin and hugged it to his individual pile. The others surrounding him expressed their disappointment in any and every expression. Veto got out of his seat and mindlessly stalked up to the men, drawn by the beacon of cash. “What will it take?” The man who recently made his claim diverted his attention to him. “Fifteen cents is the anti.” “I have ten” Veto replied. “Good enough for me,” replied the man with an ominous grin. He was obviously still cheery over the pile he just leached out of the other men at the table.
Veto sat down on one of the cheep wooden armchairs still available around the table. The man on his left shuffled the cards in a rather quick and hasty method and began throwing them down to each of the people seated. Veto threw his ten cents into the small pile of coins that had recently accumulated like rain.
Everyone remained silent as they picked up their cards. Veto had quite a bit of experience with the game; he used to play it back home with several friends every Thursday, that was when he had a home. He knew every expression a man could show when staring at those sinful sheets of colored paper, and he had every intention to use it. Thirty five dollars, God he still couldn’t get over it.
Before even glancing over his own hand he watched everyone whiff at theirs. They all kept a strait face, to the common eye. But to Veto he knew the man on his left had nothing, as his lip had twitched slightly. The one in front was neither excited nor depressed with his hand. And the two to his right, particularly the dealer could do little to hold off a small grin.
He finally glanced at his hand. Ace of spades, two fives, a left alone three and seven. It wasn’t a bad hand, but nothing worth risking.
“Two cards.” He chanted out first, and threw his three and seven face down next to the dealer. The dealer didn’t even glance at the deck and glided two cards down near Veto’s edge of the table. Not long after everyone followed with their requests of 1, 2, 3 or even a whole hand of new cards. Veto glanced at his new hand. He got an ace of hearts and another seven, now giving him a perfectly desirable two pair.
The man in the middle was the first to place his bet. How couldn’t he had been when his pile climbed as high to make it hard to see the man’s exuberant face. He threw a quarter into the pile, and it went around as expected. The man on his left, even after turning in his entire hand folded his cards rather than giving up more of his already small pile. Then it came around to Veto. Then it hit him, he had been so obsessed with the pile he had not taken into consideration his own lack of finances, yes he had the ten cents to anti up, but that was it, he had nothing to wager.
He reached down into his raggedy coats seemingly endless pockets, and yet nothing. The man in the middle coughed up a small chuckle, “It’s fine. I’ll see the bet for you.” The man tossed in twenty five cents for himself and Veto, still smiley. He was either very kind, very cocky or very drunk. Or all three.
“Um, thanks,” chocked Veto as he eased himself. The two men on the right both saw the bet, and thankfully for Veto’s sake no one raised each other.
Each of them turned over their cards. The two men on the right had high pairs, but nothing along the lines of what Veto anticipated, but with the amount of people playing at once it made sense. The man in the middle had a two pair like Veto. However, Veto’s Ace and five beat his Jack and Seven. In a show of the best luck he had received in a while, Veto took in the dollar eighty five of coins on the table. The man in the center wasn’t affected by this, as he still held the majority of the money, and was rather thrilled to have a new player to stomp.
* * *
The game carried on throughout the remainder of the day all the way until the sun set bellow the Manhattan skyline. The cards had been handed around several times, a variety of winners and losers in each hand, however the majority of winners was comprised of Veto and the man in the center. People came and went from the table, taking their winnings before they lost them. Even the dealer eventually left, taking the eight dollars and seventy cents that he could. By six o’clock none of the original players remained save for Veto and the Man.
He wasn’t very tall, and seemed much older than he actually was. Wrinkles littered his face, his hair greased and tethered, even small grey hairs combed down his thin naturally brown beard. Apparently he was only thirty four, something Veto learned with the conversations he had carried with him and the other players throughout the day. His name was John Bradock, he managed, or rather did manage a restaurant on the eastern edge of the island. Now he lived in his car down at the eastern edge of the city.
Though those facts mattered little to him, Veto conversed with him about such things throughout the game, he might as well seem interested, after all, the man did allow him to play despite all he had lacked.
“So what about you? Where you from?” John stated as he gathered the card from the last hand of which he had won. Veto chuckled, “Sometimes I forget. You know I came to this country like, what, seven, maybe eight years ago. God it was nice at first.”
Bradock shuffled the cards relentlessly as he nodded to Veto’s short, pointless story.
“I used to work on the skyscrapers, go up there; scrub the crap out of the gutters and windows and everything, saving up for school and whatnot. Nothing big, but you know people made it along. Then bam, this whole depression thing hits. Lost my job, my apartment, lost everything. Pfft, now look at me, I’m walking around in a god damn trench coat sucking up booze I can’t afford.”
He raised his arm and swerved through his pyramided of bottles he had accumulated, grabbed one with some remaining liquid and brought it to his lips. He lowered the glass after sucking it dry, “So that’s my life story.”
Bradock continued to shuffle the cards, eager to commit his own version of the depression. “We, well, me and my wife held out a bit. But after a while people just stopped wanting anything, lost my house and my restaurant. Even lost my kid. Wife sent him out to some relative in Minnesota.”
For the first time in the entire game, the man moved his complexion from the grin that Veto was beginning to believe was his only expression, to a more regretful serious tone.
“We couldn’t have fed him, it was…it too much.” He stumbled, “I’ve been working my ass off to get him back, but no one has anything. I can barley keep the fires going at night to keep the cold out of the car. No work, no money, no nothing. This Roosevelt better-”
Veto jumped at the name. “Look, screw Roosevelt. We’ve never gotten anything good out of any politician, even in my country. People are better off relying on themselves rather than their governments to fix their problems. Pfft, Do you think Roosevelt can get me my apartment back?” He sipped the remaining bottle dry.
The man grunted in agreement, for once not shifting his monotone back to his constant grin. Still shuffling the cards he had started almost a minute earlier.
A large black man trotted down to the table with a glass of wine in his hand. He stood out from the typical barroom crowd, wearing a clean jacket and a groomed bald head. Not to mention his race, as Blacks men weren’t exactly common in this division of the city. Based on physique, most people inferred him as one of the Boxers from Madison Square Gardens, but who were they to know.
He sat down at the table, tossed in fifty cents to the pot. Bradock ended his endless shuffle as if the man had knocked him from a trance, he began throwing out the cards to each of the men surrounding the table.
Veto didn’t bother staring through everyone else around the table. He had gathered nineteen dollars and fifty six cents at this point and he simply stayed in the game from lack of anything better to do.
He disorderly drew up his own pile of cards on the table with little effort. He slumped himself back at the chair as he brought them to his face, eying over them like a scanner on a document. Seven of clubs, four of spades, six of diamonds, and a nine and ten of once again, clubs. Veto pondered the options, it was a nothing hand, no pairs or orderly combinations. He did however have three clubs, going for a flush was against the odds, and a stupid move for anyone outside of typical sanity. But Veto had enough money to risk it, and besides, he could always fold.
“Two cards,” he muttered as he shot the four and six to Bradock. Bradock quickly threw two back at him. Veto edged his hand over and maneuvered them into his three current cards. A nine and jack of clubs, a small burst of satisfaction came over him, he had got the flush he wanted.
But wait, he looked more closely, seven, eight, nine, net jack. This wasn’t an average hand, in fact he had never seen a hand like this before. A Strait Flush, nearly impossible, literally a one in a million shot. He couldn’t hold his mouth from opening slightly as he stared down at the perfect combination.
The black man to Veto’s left raised his pointer finger signaling one card as he threw in his own. Bradock responded quickly and then drew two cards for himself. A grin molded across his face, he couldn’t hold it in as he glanced down at the cards folded neatly in his left hand. He took everything in his pile and shoved into the center, then glanced over at the black man, still maintaining a slightly ominous grin.
The man appeared just as shocked. As soon as he entered the game he either had to fold or go all the way. He folded his cards, a wise move, he hung his head slightly, then turned his gaze to Veto.
Veto stared at Bradock for a fraction of a second, then to the two beers to his right. He compared it with his mountain of bottles. No, he wasn’t drunk, though it seamed hard not to believe it when someone is putting over twenty dollars on the line over a hand of cards. Veto stared down at his own perfect hand, he knew that anything Bradock had could not even come close to his hand. He moved cupped his hand and prepared to shove his own mountain into the pile.
But then he stopped. Just for a second, a second to think. Bradock had just wagered everything, everything he had. He saw the glimmer in his eyes, he was the most aware and upright that he had ever seen him over the past seven hours they’d played. It had to be his son, he thought that winning thing game would give him the money to get his boy back. Veto couldn’t take only a fraction away, if he put his cards and his money down, and he would take it all and crush not only the mans hope, but condemn his child as well.
Veto stared down at his stack of booze bottles, he tilted his head a little and then looked back up at Bradock, searching for the choice to make. The human one, or the sensible and rational one.
“So are you in?” Bradock boasted, leaning back in his chair slightly, content with his chances.
“Nah,” Veto retorted slowly lowering the golden paper in his hands, “I’ve got nothing.”
When I paste it it gets rid of all my indents. I'm too lazy to go back and fix it so just cope with it.
He opened the door, like every other day he stepped into the broken down saloon, if it could even be called that. Like every other day he walked up to the bar, sat down on the scratched, green leather stools. Like every other day he called up the bartender and ordered one of the pale yellow glasses of scotch. He coughed up what little money he had, what little money did anyone have anyway? And like every other day, he just sat there and drank, keeping to himself despite the commotion and rotary of the passing people in the street or the thunder of the drunks inside. Just like every other day. Always the same for him.
For the past three months this had become the common routine for Veto Bertuchi. Work by day. Where? Anywhere he could find. Every month it had become worse and worse, people losing their homes, giant corporations collapsing on themselves, families selling off even the smallest of children to anyone who could afford to stop their endless hunger.
No one had work, he often spent hours wandering in the pale and depressing streets of the city, going to every meat shop, slab market or corner store, begging in the most convincing manner for work. Anything, shop tending, cleaning, delivering, fixing that leak in your roof you’ve never gotten around to, hell even scrubbing down the toilets for 10 cents an hour was better than nothing. However that was a long time though. Now all he got was “I’m sorry we can’t afford it,” or “There’s nothing we need done,” or, for the more honest folk, “Get the hell out of here you greaser!” Now he’d be lucky if he could find a dime on the ground let alone someone who would be willing to pay him for work. Things had escalated from bad to worse, and God knows what this new president’s claims will likely not be his actions.
Veto Bertuchi, an Italian in New York 1932, that’s all he was, that’s all he’d ever be.
He stared down at his half empty glass of scotch, or was it half full? Who cares he thought as he hung his head down to the glass and sucked in another gulp of the ale. He lowered it to the table, swirling the concoction around in the clear cup a bit, pondering where he would spend the night. Ah, but then again, pondering wouldn’t be little help, only bring more worry down upon his half broken body and mind. He chugged down what was left in his glass and attempted to rid himself of those thoughts. He raised it above his head.
“Bartender! More!” he chanted in a voice loud enough to be heard, but nothing to grab attention from the surrounding folks who were everywhere. The bartender turned his head from whatever it had been previously focusing on. He trotted over to Veto’s reserved part of the bar table, as he’d taken liking to that seat over the past month or so. He grabbed the glass from his hands and began filling it with what was left in his stockpiles of ales.
The bartender relieved himself, “You know, every day I see you here. You sit down, drink until your heart stops and take a nap on my barstool. Why?” He finished filling the glass, yet kept it in his hands.
Veto lifted his head from his hands and gazed up at the bartender, “Well you would too if you were in my situation.”
The bartender didn’t move his gaze at all, he kept a smug tone and his head high. Convincing himself that he had worth over the man before him. “I highly doubt that.”
Veto’s face flushed with red. Whether it was the scotch or the events befalling him the past few months he didn’t care. He had little tolerance with these people who got some sense of satisfaction to know they were better than him. He already knew this so why did they insist to push it on him further? “Hell if you know. You sit here serving drinks to what? A hundred people a day. Last time I checked you’re not the one who has wander in the streets to find the softest staircase to sleep on and the thickest newspaper to keep you warm.”
The bartender kept his face at a constant neutral, though it was obvious he wasn’t enjoying the conversation. He kept silent however. Veto took the chance to continue. “Now if you will, please give me my drink.” He reached down into his torn up coat pocket, felt around a bit, and pulled out a dime and landed it on the table.
The bartender glanced down at the silver coin on the table, still keeping the neutral monotone that always seamed to follow him. “Ten cents won’t do it.”
Veto quickly retorted. “It was ten cents last drink!” “Well you drank all my scotch, so, now it’s thirty cents for a glass.” Veto stood up, ready to hit the bastard square in his cocky mouth, but he stopped himself, knowing no good would come from it. He sat back down and took a deep breath, calming himself. “No one pays thirty cents for a drink.” “Well then you’re not getting a drink.” The bartender walked away to another customer at his counter, Veto’s scotch still at hand. Veto almost swore he could hear the man mutter “greaser” under his breath but he paid of no mind.
He turned his vision to his right, still sitting down in the poorly maintained barstool. A small group of four or five men were playing a game of cards, for money. They sat around the table, each with a hand of bicycle cards. And in the center of the circular wooden table lay the rarest thing in what seamed to be the universe, money. A huge pile of it mixed with paper and coin. He counted as best as his half drunk mind could from this distance. Thirty five, at least thirty five dollars, and that wasn’t counting the coins stacked along side the pile.
He didn’t hear the discussion, but each man laid down his cards. The one standing directly in front of Veto wrapped his arms around the pile of cash with a grin and hugged it to his individual pile. The others surrounding him expressed their disappointment in any and every expression. Veto got out of his seat and mindlessly stalked up to the men, drawn by the beacon of cash. “What will it take?” The man who recently made his claim diverted his attention to him. “Fifteen cents is the anti.” “I have ten” Veto replied. “Good enough for me,” replied the man with an ominous grin. He was obviously still cheery over the pile he just leached out of the other men at the table.
Veto sat down on one of the cheep wooden armchairs still available around the table. The man on his left shuffled the cards in a rather quick and hasty method and began throwing them down to each of the people seated. Veto threw his ten cents into the small pile of coins that had recently accumulated like rain.
Everyone remained silent as they picked up their cards. Veto had quite a bit of experience with the game; he used to play it back home with several friends every Thursday, that was when he had a home. He knew every expression a man could show when staring at those sinful sheets of colored paper, and he had every intention to use it. Thirty five dollars, God he still couldn’t get over it.
Before even glancing over his own hand he watched everyone whiff at theirs. They all kept a strait face, to the common eye. But to Veto he knew the man on his left had nothing, as his lip had twitched slightly. The one in front was neither excited nor depressed with his hand. And the two to his right, particularly the dealer could do little to hold off a small grin.
He finally glanced at his hand. Ace of spades, two fives, a left alone three and seven. It wasn’t a bad hand, but nothing worth risking.
“Two cards.” He chanted out first, and threw his three and seven face down next to the dealer. The dealer didn’t even glance at the deck and glided two cards down near Veto’s edge of the table. Not long after everyone followed with their requests of 1, 2, 3 or even a whole hand of new cards. Veto glanced at his new hand. He got an ace of hearts and another seven, now giving him a perfectly desirable two pair.
The man in the middle was the first to place his bet. How couldn’t he had been when his pile climbed as high to make it hard to see the man’s exuberant face. He threw a quarter into the pile, and it went around as expected. The man on his left, even after turning in his entire hand folded his cards rather than giving up more of his already small pile. Then it came around to Veto. Then it hit him, he had been so obsessed with the pile he had not taken into consideration his own lack of finances, yes he had the ten cents to anti up, but that was it, he had nothing to wager.
He reached down into his raggedy coats seemingly endless pockets, and yet nothing. The man in the middle coughed up a small chuckle, “It’s fine. I’ll see the bet for you.” The man tossed in twenty five cents for himself and Veto, still smiley. He was either very kind, very cocky or very drunk. Or all three.
“Um, thanks,” chocked Veto as he eased himself. The two men on the right both saw the bet, and thankfully for Veto’s sake no one raised each other.
Each of them turned over their cards. The two men on the right had high pairs, but nothing along the lines of what Veto anticipated, but with the amount of people playing at once it made sense. The man in the middle had a two pair like Veto. However, Veto’s Ace and five beat his Jack and Seven. In a show of the best luck he had received in a while, Veto took in the dollar eighty five of coins on the table. The man in the center wasn’t affected by this, as he still held the majority of the money, and was rather thrilled to have a new player to stomp.
* * *
The game carried on throughout the remainder of the day all the way until the sun set bellow the Manhattan skyline. The cards had been handed around several times, a variety of winners and losers in each hand, however the majority of winners was comprised of Veto and the man in the center. People came and went from the table, taking their winnings before they lost them. Even the dealer eventually left, taking the eight dollars and seventy cents that he could. By six o’clock none of the original players remained save for Veto and the Man.
He wasn’t very tall, and seemed much older than he actually was. Wrinkles littered his face, his hair greased and tethered, even small grey hairs combed down his thin naturally brown beard. Apparently he was only thirty four, something Veto learned with the conversations he had carried with him and the other players throughout the day. His name was John Bradock, he managed, or rather did manage a restaurant on the eastern edge of the island. Now he lived in his car down at the eastern edge of the city.
Though those facts mattered little to him, Veto conversed with him about such things throughout the game, he might as well seem interested, after all, the man did allow him to play despite all he had lacked.
“So what about you? Where you from?” John stated as he gathered the card from the last hand of which he had won. Veto chuckled, “Sometimes I forget. You know I came to this country like, what, seven, maybe eight years ago. God it was nice at first.”
Bradock shuffled the cards relentlessly as he nodded to Veto’s short, pointless story.
“I used to work on the skyscrapers, go up there; scrub the crap out of the gutters and windows and everything, saving up for school and whatnot. Nothing big, but you know people made it along. Then bam, this whole depression thing hits. Lost my job, my apartment, lost everything. Pfft, now look at me, I’m walking around in a god damn trench coat sucking up booze I can’t afford.”
He raised his arm and swerved through his pyramided of bottles he had accumulated, grabbed one with some remaining liquid and brought it to his lips. He lowered the glass after sucking it dry, “So that’s my life story.”
Bradock continued to shuffle the cards, eager to commit his own version of the depression. “We, well, me and my wife held out a bit. But after a while people just stopped wanting anything, lost my house and my restaurant. Even lost my kid. Wife sent him out to some relative in Minnesota.”
For the first time in the entire game, the man moved his complexion from the grin that Veto was beginning to believe was his only expression, to a more regretful serious tone.
“We couldn’t have fed him, it was…it too much.” He stumbled, “I’ve been working my ass off to get him back, but no one has anything. I can barley keep the fires going at night to keep the cold out of the car. No work, no money, no nothing. This Roosevelt better-”
Veto jumped at the name. “Look, screw Roosevelt. We’ve never gotten anything good out of any politician, even in my country. People are better off relying on themselves rather than their governments to fix their problems. Pfft, Do you think Roosevelt can get me my apartment back?” He sipped the remaining bottle dry.
The man grunted in agreement, for once not shifting his monotone back to his constant grin. Still shuffling the cards he had started almost a minute earlier.
A large black man trotted down to the table with a glass of wine in his hand. He stood out from the typical barroom crowd, wearing a clean jacket and a groomed bald head. Not to mention his race, as Blacks men weren’t exactly common in this division of the city. Based on physique, most people inferred him as one of the Boxers from Madison Square Gardens, but who were they to know.
He sat down at the table, tossed in fifty cents to the pot. Bradock ended his endless shuffle as if the man had knocked him from a trance, he began throwing out the cards to each of the men surrounding the table.
Veto didn’t bother staring through everyone else around the table. He had gathered nineteen dollars and fifty six cents at this point and he simply stayed in the game from lack of anything better to do.
He disorderly drew up his own pile of cards on the table with little effort. He slumped himself back at the chair as he brought them to his face, eying over them like a scanner on a document. Seven of clubs, four of spades, six of diamonds, and a nine and ten of once again, clubs. Veto pondered the options, it was a nothing hand, no pairs or orderly combinations. He did however have three clubs, going for a flush was against the odds, and a stupid move for anyone outside of typical sanity. But Veto had enough money to risk it, and besides, he could always fold.
“Two cards,” he muttered as he shot the four and six to Bradock. Bradock quickly threw two back at him. Veto edged his hand over and maneuvered them into his three current cards. A nine and jack of clubs, a small burst of satisfaction came over him, he had got the flush he wanted.
But wait, he looked more closely, seven, eight, nine, net jack. This wasn’t an average hand, in fact he had never seen a hand like this before. A Strait Flush, nearly impossible, literally a one in a million shot. He couldn’t hold his mouth from opening slightly as he stared down at the perfect combination.
The black man to Veto’s left raised his pointer finger signaling one card as he threw in his own. Bradock responded quickly and then drew two cards for himself. A grin molded across his face, he couldn’t hold it in as he glanced down at the cards folded neatly in his left hand. He took everything in his pile and shoved into the center, then glanced over at the black man, still maintaining a slightly ominous grin.
The man appeared just as shocked. As soon as he entered the game he either had to fold or go all the way. He folded his cards, a wise move, he hung his head slightly, then turned his gaze to Veto.
Veto stared at Bradock for a fraction of a second, then to the two beers to his right. He compared it with his mountain of bottles. No, he wasn’t drunk, though it seamed hard not to believe it when someone is putting over twenty dollars on the line over a hand of cards. Veto stared down at his own perfect hand, he knew that anything Bradock had could not even come close to his hand. He moved cupped his hand and prepared to shove his own mountain into the pile.
But then he stopped. Just for a second, a second to think. Bradock had just wagered everything, everything he had. He saw the glimmer in his eyes, he was the most aware and upright that he had ever seen him over the past seven hours they’d played. It had to be his son, he thought that winning thing game would give him the money to get his boy back. Veto couldn’t take only a fraction away, if he put his cards and his money down, and he would take it all and crush not only the mans hope, but condemn his child as well.
Veto stared down at his stack of booze bottles, he tilted his head a little and then looked back up at Bradock, searching for the choice to make. The human one, or the sensible and rational one.
“So are you in?” Bradock boasted, leaning back in his chair slightly, content with his chances.
“Nah,” Veto retorted slowly lowering the golden paper in his hands, “I’ve got nothing.”