Narrative experience
IV
Oaks smelled like cigarettes and ambiguous Asian cuisine.
Oaks smelled like cigarettes and ambiguous Asian cuisine.
I expected the usual pre-COVID ritual: walk in, act casual, lie to myself about self-control, put my name on the board, start bargaining with God.
There was a QR code.
Of course there was.
A cheerful laminated sign explained how to join the waitlist with your phone, like we were checking in for brunch instead of hemorrhaging money in a windowless room.
I scanned it, made an account, verified a text message, signed some digital waiver that probably included my first-born child, and then stared at the “You are \#17” screen like it had personally insulted me.
Seventeen.
Perfect.
Long enough to regret everything, short enough to still do it.
I paced. I sat. I stood again. I watched the monitors. I watched people walk past like they already knew what they were doing with their lives. I took out the three hundred dollars Jerry had given me and stared at it in my wallet like it was radioactive.
This was the part where I was supposed to be brave.
This was also the part where I realized bravery is just panic with better posture.
I could leave. Right now. I could walk out, drive back to the shop, hand Jerry back the money, and back out of the deal. Maybe it would turn out to be a test like a less barbaric old testament parable. Jerry would reward my responsible adult decision making by letting me keep the 300 to do practical things like groceries and bills
I imagined myself doing that. The smart version of myself. The one who doesn’t go back into casinos when his life is already unstable.
Then I walked past the bar and saw the game on TV.
Seahawks vs. Niners.
My brain did a hard little stutter.
I stopped like someone had called my name.
No.
That was tomorrow.
Or Sunday.
Or… whatever.
I’d asked my buddy who runs the mini mart where the neighborhood lads watch every Niner game like three times. I was sure. It was Sunday, 5 o'clock, BYOB, Nick makes guac, I secretly fix the recipe while he takes a leak.
But there it was, already happening, on a Friday, like the universe had slipped a new card into the deck while I wasn’t looking.
No one was watching it. No sound. No captions. Just the moving bodies on screen and the quiet confidence of something that didn’t care whether I remembered it correctly.
I told myself it was a rerun.
Playoff games didn’t happen on Fridays. Not like that. Friday was for high school football and regret. The NFL didn’t do Fridays
So it had to be a recap, a replay, a “look what happened last time.”
Only… it didn’t feel like last time.
It felt current.
And that was the first moment something in my gut went cold. Not fear. Not anxiety.
Recognition.
Like when you look at a familiar photo and realize someone’s face isn’t where it should be.
Before I could think too hard about it, the podium buzzed and my phone lit up.
Table open.
My name was called way faster than it should’ve been. Like the list had skipped. Like a space had been cut out of the waiting time.
I followed the host through the maze.
Then the host stopped.
“Seat open,” he said.
And it was the seat.
The middle seat.
My favorite seat from my old life. The perfect spot where you can watch everyone, play tight, and still feel like you’re part of the table’s heartbeat.
Across from the dealer, just like Jerry had said.
I sat down slowly, like the chair might disappear if I moved too fast.
I bought in for three hundred and tried to act like a normal person.
The first few hands, I barely played. I folded everything. I watched. I listened. I took sips of water like I was at a business meeting.
To my left, there was a guy with a huge stack and an iPad propped up like a control panel. He had that very specific tech-guy energy, the one that says he thinks the world is multicolored code and 1 and 0\. The rest of us are just decorative.
To my right, there was a woman, kind of androgynous in a hoodie and cap, glasses, short curls. The kind of person you’d want to be friends with immediately, because she looked like she had a secret and didn’t care if you ever found out.
Then it happened.
The iPad guy raised a big preflop.
The woman called.
Flop: J-5-5.
He checked.
She bet.
He called.
Turn was a nothing card, one of those cards that exists just to waste ink.
He checked again.
She shoved.
Not a cute shove. Not a “test the waters” shove.
An “end of conversation” shove.
And then it hit me.
The shuffler.
That damn automatic shuffler was making too much noise.
I know those machines are loud, but this was different. This was aggressive. Like it was chewing metal. Like it was trying to be heard from another room, or another year.
I could feel the table’s collective annoyance tighten like a rubber band. Everyone knew what she had, or at least everyone thought they did. Big pair. Queens. Kings. Something clean.
And everyone knew what he had too.
A-K. A-Q. Two big cards, no pair, trying to be a hero.
He stared at the board, off into space, back to the board, doing that annoying, “I think my brain is a calculator” bullshit.
Then he looked back down at his iPad, like it could solve courage for him.
The table waited.
The shuffler screamed.
The room hummed.
Finally, he looked up with the face of a man making a decision that would either haunt him or make him unbearable for the next hour.
He called.
Someone muttered, “Jesus.”
Someone else sighed like they were watching a toddler play with a knife.
River.
Ace.
The table erupted.
Not because anyone was happy. Because poker joy is never pure, it’s always half admiration and half disgust.
The woman stared at the board for one beat, then smiled like she’d just watched a magic trick.
“Nice hand,” she said, and I respected her immediately. That’s warrior behavior.
I didn’t react. I couldn’t. Something about it made my chest feel strange, like the air had changed density. Like the room had tilted one degree.
I looked at the shuffler again, still yelling like it was angry to be here.
And then I noticed the iPad guy wasn’t logging hands.
He was reading.
A novel.
Just killing time.
That annoyed part of me softened, because suddenly he wasn’t a calculator, he was just a dude who made a wild call.
And then the dealer change happened.
Ken stepped in.
Asian guy. Glasses. Calm face. Moved like he’d been dealing for twenty years and still had someplace to be.
My stomach dropped.
Because Jerry had said Ken.
Jerry had said dealer change.
Jerry had said the moment.
My eyes flicked up to the clock.
8:41.
Right on the dot, my phone buzzed.
A text, from a 510 number;
You gotta risk it for the biscuit.
See you tomorrow at 9am.
– JK
I stared at it too long.
Ken started the next hand.
Cards slid out.
When mine landed in front of me, my face stayed blank but my bloodstream became fireworks. I saw the cards clear as day in my head and still didn’t believe it when i saw them in my hands
Ace of clubs.
4 of spades.
Action exploded before it even got to me. Two players shoved. Big stacks. No hesitation. Like they’d been waiting all night to do it.
My brain screamed FOLD.
My body didn’t move.
I looked at Ken. He didn’t look back.
I looked at the shuffler. It shrieked.
Then I looked at my stack.
I was up, somehow. Not a lot, but enough to feel like I’d already crossed a line.
This was the moment where I could still leave without it becoming a story.
I thought about groceries. Bills. Gas.
I thought about Jerry’s voice.
I thought about the game on TV that shouldn’t be happening.
I thought about the way time had felt, all day, like it was trying to change clothes while I watched.
And then, because I am either brave or broken, I pushed my chips forward and heard myself say,
“All in,”
Someone laughed.
Someone said, “No way.”
Ken didn’t react. Ken just dealt.
And whatever happened next… whatever nightmare miracle unfolded on that board… would be the reason I didn’t give Jerry his three hundred back that night.
It would be the reason I walked into his print shop the next morning like I belonged there.
And it would be the first time I wondered, seriously, if reality had rules, or just habits.