The Humanist Read online

  A whistle then blared, sharp and piercing. It came from behind me. I could feel the eyes of the room on me as I turned.

  It was Tessa. She stood, hands on her hips, a scowl on her wrinkled features.

  “Do I need to repeat myself?”

  “I was just—”

  “I don’t give a shit what you were doing. You’re cutting a fine line here. You’re either in or you’re out, none of this half-in bullshit. Now, I can get Hugo here to escort you out if you wish.”

  I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. I dared not turn around, mainly because I was sure whatever was in my imagination was infinitely better than whoever actually stood behind me.

  “He’d be happy to do it,” Tessa continued. “That is, if you don’t mind a pair of broken legs and concussion in the process.”

  My throat tightened. My balls receded inside me.

  “I’ll take that to mean you’re in.” She stepped forward. Her bony fingers reached around my coat lapels. Her long red nails shimmered in the light. She pulled me forward and planted a wrinkled kiss on me.

  I was dumbstruck, immobile. Mesmerized? Not quite. Disgusted? Closer to the mark.

  When she finished, she pushed me away and shrugged.

  “I’ve had better. Now, get your ass to that table, because I’m not going to tell you twice.”

  I nestled down in the last position, assuming the role of my predecessor, Aston, as instructed by Talon. The rest of the players were sitting to my right.

  On the end, my lady in red—Jean. She eased a cigarette into her mouth. Her nails were black, her lipstick, red, much darker shade than her long, fiery locks. She made the mundane fantastical, turning it into an event—something people would pay to watch. Her background was as mysterious as the way she moved. Her long eyelashes folded down over piercing green eyes, like an eagle’s wings in slow-motion flight. The world stopped with her. Would it be enough? It wouldn’t be.

  Next was an older gent, Alan, whom I’d wager was a retired porn star, or maybe a CEO of a tech company. A late bloomer to the twenty-first century who had enough of an idea to move quickly and be first with something. Deeply tanned. Not orange, more natural. Years on beaches, or at least on the water. Weathered. Expensive-looking dark suit. Smoldering, angry glare. I wondered if age meant seniority. It did. And if that somehow denoted skill. It didn’t.

  A bearded man wearing a baseball cap at a weird angle. Sean. He wore a heavy gold chain around his neck and a matching watch, which signified he knew more about his wealth than he did about the game itself. He didn’t talk to the other players, very much kept to himself. His bored expression told stories, and none of them were good. I wondered if he had fallen into this position and was unable to get out, like falling into a wall—no longer able to see the top, just a tiny pinprick light in the darkness. Despair. I speculated he might play in that fashion. He did.

  Then came the lady in a black pantsuit. Olessa had slung her jacket over the back of the chair and was settled in for a long night. Her top was jet black, cut off at the shoulders, with a white collar and sleeves that were a series of swirling, patterned tattoos. She looked European, I guessed, definitely somewhere in the realms of Scandinavia. Her straight, dirty blonde hair fell evenly around her shoulders, and a pair of sunglasses finished the ensemble. She was hoping to hide her tells, to reveal as little as possible about her hand. She wasn’t successful.

  Next to me, a celebrity D-lister with a black hank creeping out of his gray blazer. Nate. He ran a hand through his thick, wavy hair to keep it away from his sweaty forehead. He massaged chips between his nervous fingers as if he thought he was a magician. He was not.

  Then there was me. Falling so deep, so fast, finding myself in predicaments I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) say no to. Struggling to keep my head above water. My mind raced at such a remarkable pace, I thought I’d pass out.

  So, there we were—me, Nate, Olessa, Sean, Alan, Jean. I should point out that I made these names up because I didn’t know who the fuck they were. It was like a bad TV show where we would solve paranormal crimes. Nobody wants to see that shit. Anyway, this was the company I was surrounding myself with. They were who I needed to overcome to get a place in that other room. And I quickly found out—what you think you know and what you actually know are two different things. And that your reality doesn’t count for shit when everyone else sees it differently.

  Chapter 14

  The dealer (whom I called Steve—but not to his face or to the others) began round one by dealing out a single card to each player, then proceeded to lay out two community cards face up, an ace and a jack. Everyone checked their standing, and Steve called for bets. That’s when strategy kicked in, and all hell broke loose. Bet too low, and people leave you alone—which isn’t what you’re after if you have a dud card. But bet too high, and you could become a target. Psychology, reverse psychology, reverse-reverse psychology. Bluff, double bluff. The man playing the game playing the man. The dream within the dream...you get it. I was expecting everyone to throw in a few chips, at least enough to show interest but not to draw too much attention.

  But what happened next disrupted my thinking. Jean placed five hundred on the table, followed by Alan, who threw down six hundred into the pot.

  I held back a cough.

  Even Sean flicked in three hundred dollars’ worth of chips, his expression remaining blank as he did so. The remaining players made their bets of similar proportions while I played catch up. It felt like a bad dream, where the green light had flashed to begin the race, and I was still trying to get into my damned car. I couldn’t tell if time was going to fly or if this was going to be the longest night of my life.

  When it came to my turn, I faltered. It was embarrassing. I had played this out so clearly in my mind, but this moment was truly unexpected.

  “Bets, please,” Steve repeated.

  I fumbled my chips, two of them slipping through my fingers and rolling across the table into the pile that was massing. Four hundred worth. Steve eyed me like I was an idiot and tidied my chips for the pot.

  “The new kid’s got balls,” someone—I didn’t catch who—said from the far end of the table.

  With the setup compete, the first change began.

  “Six,” Jean said, alerting the dealer to my place at the table.

  “Card!” Steve barked at me.

  I slid my card toward him as the other players watched. Steve replaced it with another—a four of diamonds.

  “Six,” Alan said, once again calling out my position at the table.

  I slid another card towards Steve and received a new card. I didn’t even bother looking at it.

  “Six,” Sean proclaimed, with the most emotion I had seen from him all night.

  I, once again, relinquished my card.

  The game continued, like you would expect, with Olessa and Nate also nominating my position and cards. They left me with an eight of spades.

  And then it was my turn.

  By then, I had figured out what was happening: hazing. They were picking on the new kid. Unsettling me, cruelly welcoming me to the table. I wasn’t sure if I should be grateful and take my medicine or fight back. So, I flipped a mental coin and made my call.

  “Two,” I announced.

  The dealer paused. He exchanged an uneasy glance with Alan, who leaned forward on the table and turned to look at me. “Do you know who I am?”

  He looked familiar, in that “seen-you-on-the-news” kind of way, but I couldn’t quite place him. Perhaps I should have known who he was, what he was capable of. Heck, I should have known who they all were. But how the hell was I going to find out the guest list? And even if I did, what good would that information do? At the end of the day, we were there to play cards and lose money. In the end, after all, the house always wins.

  I decided diplomacy was the best course of action.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know who the fuck you are.”

  He laughed, just a li
ttle, then exchanged looks with the rest of his game partners, who, very slowly, started to laugh nervously.

  Thump! Alan’s hand on the table.

  “Don’t fuck with me, kid. You may be new around here, but that’s no excuse for ignorance. There are people at these tables who have invested a lifetime of wealth.”

  “And you’re going to use me to claw some of it back.”

  “Perceptive,” Alan nodded. “I’ll give him that.”

  “I thought we were playing cards here,” I retorted.

  “Is there a problem here?” a booming voice behind me suddenly asked. I could sense a mass of body behind me—that sixth sense, when you just know someone is there.

  The dealer looked at me and then at Alan.

  “No, Hugo,” Alan replied, waving him away. “Just teaching the new meat the lay of the land.”

  Hugo retired back to his post, his thick arms folded over his barrel chest, as Steve announce round two of the game was about to commence.

  Steve sent our second cards whizzing around the table and added two down-facing cards to the community pile, joining the ace and jack. I peeked at my cards, the ones safely in my possession, the ones that couldn’t be taken away. Another eight. I now held two, and they were both black. As luck would have it, as the gods would anoint, my fellow players had gifted me something worth having. At worst, I had a pair. Still a shitty hand, mind you, because two numbered cards ain’t winning shit, especially here.

  And so, the second stage of strategy began.

  “Down,” Jean called. The dealer dismissed one of his hidden cards and replaced it with one from the deck in his hands.

  This action continued down the line, with each player choosing a facedown card, leaving the ace and jack untouched. I guess they liked the face-up cards. Gave them the best chance of winning.

  Then it came to me. I wondered how they would feel if I took their precious cards. Would Alan throw another tantrum? Would Jean put out her cigarette in my eye? Would Sean finally show some emotion? I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  “Ace,” I called out.

  There was a collective groan from the table.

  “Thanks, fuckhead,” I heard one of the gents say, like we were talking about the weather.

  Ms. Sunglasses beside me slammed her drink down on the table.

  I could feel Hugo’s deep-set stare fixed on me.

  Steve revealed the card, another ace, and placed it next to the jack. My heart sank, yet the collective movement of the table was skyward amidst a communal sigh. My mutiny thwarted, although I was sure I saw something from the dealer and wondered if anyone else noticed it. Maybe the tension was getting to me. I knew they had the upper hand; I just didn’t know how far up the hand went.

  The dealer called for bets, and the players manically threw chips into the pot, growing its wealth. The winner was going to walk away with (what I considered to be) a tidy sum, and the house was going to prosper as a result. There was no point hiding emotion at this point. No one was getting strung along. You were either in or out. I imagined what the others held. My lousy pair was certainly no hope for this game, and I should’ve backed out then and there. But I just couldn’t help myself.

  I paid into my pot. Was anyone getting strung along? Maybe. Okay, yes. But knowingly. More out of curiosity than anything. I could see my personal fortune diminish into a common pile on the table before my very eyes.

  With betting finalized, Steve flipped both hidden community cards, one after the other. The first card was a seven of spades. The second was a three of hearts. The chances of me winning were minuscule. The odds of me making it out of the room at the end of the night with some chips to my name, even less so. I felt so far out of my depth. I could feel myself getting sucked farther and farther under the surface, the water changing color the deeper I went, the sunlight slowly being shut out.

  Steve burned a card and laid his last one face down, his finger underneath it, letting the tension build before he revealed its value. Responsibility, they called it—the last card. With all the cards out, there aren’t any more changes. You must make do with what you’ve got. You’ve got to take responsibility for the position you’re in. No finger-pointing or blaming others at this point in the proceedings.

  The tension was wearing me down. It was only the first hand, but it felt like we had been playing for hours. With all the changes, the cards being thrown back and forth, the accusations...every minute sapped mental resources. My energy was draining. No wonder ol’ Sean beside me was running low on happiness. I wonder how long he had been playing, how long it took for his enthusiasm to shrink into a ball that sat in his chest and gave him perpetual heartburn.

  I’ve always had confidence—always believed I was right about everything. Before I left home, I had reminded myself I had a game plan and would stick to it no matter what. But not then, not at that moment. I was doubting everything—every action I took. I could feel myself slowly spiraling out of control. I needed a parachute to open, something to save me. I didn’t know what to expect.

  But then, it happened. The card turned. It was another eight. Three of a kind. The air was instantly sucked out of the room. Cards were tossed, aces and face cards littered the table. Two other sevens joined the mix, courtesy of Sean, who must’ve thought he was onto a very good thing. It’s just that my thing was marginally better.

  It was clear: I had won the game and emerged on top.

  With some surprise in his voice, Steve announced me as the winner and began to push the chips in my direction. I still couldn’t believe my luck.

  Apparently, neither could Alan. As soon as the declaration was made that I had won, he threw his hand down on the table.

  “Bullshit!” he screamed. “This is absolute bullshit.”

  I looked around, waited for Hugo to appear and intercept any violence about to come my way. He wasn’t there, not against the wall. Maybe he was stretching his legs, maybe ordering a beer at the bar, but he wasn’t where I last saw him.

  “You goddamn cheated!” Alan roared.

  It felt like the room stopped at the word. Hugo appeared behind Alan.

  “Everything all right here?”

  Alan stood. “Yeah, that little fuck cheated,” he said, waving a finger in my direction. “And I want everyone to know about it.”

  “That is a very serious allegation,” a voice boomed from the other side of the room. It was Talon, standing at the door to the secret room. He had his arms crossed and a pissed off look on his face.

  “You know the consequences.”

  Chapter 15

  Hugo led Alan and me out of the parlor, down a hall, and into another room. Two overhead florescent bulbs bathed the room in a dim glow, making the walls look brownish-yellow. The floor was concrete, and there was a grimy drain in the middle of the room. It reminded me of a prison cell, like the ones I had seen on TV. Our escort told us to wait, so we did.

  At first, I squatted down in the far corner. Then, when my legs eventually gave out, I slid down to the floor. The minutes dragged by. I took turns between sitting with my legs straight out in front of me, crossed at the ankles, and my knees pulled up to my chest. Alan, on the other hand, paced back and forth against the far wall, his arms clutched tightly around himself. Back and forth, back and forth, he went, muttering to himself.

  After about an hour, I cleared my throat. “How long do you think we’re going to be stuck in here?”

  “Fucked, kid,” he spewed out, continuing to pace. “You’ve gone ahead and fucked us both.”

  “He can’t just keep us in here, right? I mean, this is deprivation of liberty. You can’t just do that.”

  Alan stopped and looked at me, his hands on his hips. “You think he gives a shit about that? Do you really think he gives a shit about you, or me, or getting rid of someone? You’ve fucked us.”

  “What’s your problem with me?”

  “My problem? My problem isn’t with you, my problem is you! Y
ou waltz in here and think you own that table. You know who owns that table, kid? I do. I fucking own that table. I’ve worked my way through it. You fucking kids today think you can just walk in and take stuff without putting in any fucking effort. Well, guess what? I put in the effort. That’s my table. And you. You just couldn’t sit there and take your damn medicine. You just couldn’t play it out. You had to pull that shit!”

  I stood up. “Look, I’ve had enough of this. What shit was I supposed to have pulled? I played those damn cards out.”

  “An eight? Really? On the flop? Are you serious? To give you three of a kind?” He stared at me in disbelief. “Those odds are bullshit. No way someone’s doing that unless something’s at play.”

  “Luck,” I reported. “I was damn luck.”

  “Nah., I know what I saw. I had to call it out. So, fuck you, kid. You fucked us both.”

  “What?” I said, moving toward him. “You think I cheated, so you called it out and here we are, and you think that’s my fault?”

  “You’re goddamned right,” he said, walking up to me. We stood nose to nose.

  “You some kind of fucking marionette or something?” I spat out. “You called it, gramps! That’s on you. Don’t you dare blame me for your actions.”

  The blow came surprisingly fast—a swift shot to my gut that had me keeling over, trying to catch a breath. I stumbled backward until I couldn’t go back any farther. I braced myself with one hand on the wall and the other on my knee. His punch’s power had been just as surprising as its speed. For a moment, I thought I would cough up blood. The geriatric pool yoga must have done Alan wonders.

  “Respect your elders, you little shit,” he snarled. “You haven’t been where I’ve been, haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”

  I tried to respond, but I couldn’t draw in enough breath to form the words. I really needed to work on my core. I stared at my shoes, trying to maintain consciousness. Alan resumed his patrol of the far wall, his footsteps echoing at me.

  Finally, I said, “You said we were fucked. What does that mean?”