Hold ‘Em
by John Arthur
We rigged the deck while Jay was taking a piss, so he would be dealt the eight and nine of hearts, but I’d have the king and the ace. The three others we needed would also show their faces, one on the flop, one on the turn, one on the river, and we knew he’d think he finally had a winner. He was always on an epic run of bad beats. We all watched to see his excitement. His tell was licking his lips before he bet. He licked them like he was about to eat the first real meal he’d had in days, which for him was often the case. His parent’s pantry was bare and the only thing his mom and dad cooked bubbled up on a spoon. Their favorite meal would soon be his too. But that day we were just playing hold ‘em in my basement, six old blood brothers getting older, forgetting all the pacts we made, five of us getting ready to leave him by leaving home. Before we dealt we counted his chips. The goal wasn’t to rob him, just to play a joke. When he showed the straight flush his face was flushed with hope. For a moment, to preserve the only joy I’d seen in his eyes in years, I thought about saying, “nice hand,” and tossing my cards into the muck, but I didn’t. I slow rolled them with a grin, letting him know that he never had a fucking chance.
John Arthur is a writer and musician from New Jersey. He has worked as a valet at a casino, a Ferris Wheel operator, a cook, a cashier/deli worker, a pizza delivery driver, a kati roll delivery driver, a fast food delivery driver, a UPS overnight box loader, a caddy for a weekend, a landscaper for a week or two until the guy didn’t pay us and me and a friend had to show up at his house and demand payment, a librarian and library director, a municipal manager, a waiter, a journalist, an editor, and the world’s worst jewelry salesperson. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, failbetter, trampset, Maudlin House, and elsewhere. His band is The Deafening Colors.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Hold ‘Em”? “Hold ‘em” started off as a response to Rattle’s prompt poem challenge. In its original form it included a haiku at the end and was titled Hold ‘em Haibun. While it wasn’t selected that month for Rattle’s prompt poem of the month, I received some positive and encouraging feedback from their prompt poems editor. I then began to revise the piece and ultimately felt I wasn’t getting the haiku at the end right, so I cut the haiku and the piece became flash fiction instead. I think the piece works better this way. The original prompt was to pick a card out of a deck of cards and write a poem about it. I was a teenager during the poker boom following Chris Moneymaker’s win at the World Series of Poker in 2003. I also grew up near Atlantic City, New Jersey. Gambling was all around us, and we used to gather after school and on weekends to play hold ‘em for hours. Unfortunately, this also coincided with the opioid epidemic, which was devastating throughout the country, and the town I grew up in was hit hard. A few classmates died from overdoses while we were in high school. Others struggled with, or are struggling with, addiction long after. Many of the friends I grew up with spent some of their formative years as young adults in and out of prisons, rehabs, or both. This piece straddles the line between creative non-fiction and flash fiction, but it is fictionalized enough that I felt it should fall under the fiction category. Either way, as with all writing, I hope it offers something true.
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