Episode 1: The Santa Fe Swindle
“All in.” Sanchez pushed his chips into the pot.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Reggie admonished him, “what are you, off your meds?”
Addison was sitting between the two of them, in front of the doorway. He quietly folded, and then scooted his chair back a few inches.
Earlier in the day, we had pushed the furtiture over to the dining nook, partially blocking the kitchen in the process, to accommodate a large circular poker table in the living room.
Is it wise, to Antagonize Sanchez? I wondered.
I raised my eyebrow at Reggie, as he was peaking at his cards, but he didn’t notice me.
Reggie had outrageously messy blue hair, styled into a mad-scientist-mohawk, sticking straight up, with the sides of his head shaved. Reggie’s back was to a tall, glass window that showed a glare from the outside porchlight, gleaming through the darkness.
“Fine, Fuckface,” Reggie tossed down his cards, “I fold.”
I’m not sure if calling Sanchez, ‘Fuckface’ is such a smart idea, I observed, he’s totally wasted, and is most likely to be armed, to the teeth.
“That’s Mr. Fuckface to you,” Sanchez smiled and chugged the rest of a can of Miller Lite. Crushing the empty can in his fist, he burped loudly. With a crazy glimmer in his eye, and an evil grin, Sanchez sized Reggie up, as he stared across Addison at him.
Bill Sanchez was Johnson’s neighbor from the across the street. He was unhappily married and spent as much time as he could over here with Johnson, drinking and playing poker. He was in his 50’s and looked like he had once been a handsome man, but now his face was faded and weathered. He still had a strong frame, but his whole body was bloated and atrophied from chronic alcohol abuse and too much television. Sanchez had a nice thick head of black hair, that was greasy and matted down on his head.
“Well, things seem to be going downhill here, pretty quickly.” Crackle chuckled, as he slid his cards into the muck pile. He was seated with his back open to the kitchen so that he wouldn’t feel claustrophobic and could stand up when he wanted to. Crackle was from Virginia and spoke with a slight southern drawl.
“I don’t get it,” I added in my two cents, “if your life is going to shit, then they say you’re going downhill, but if you’re facing a bunch of insurmountable challenges, then it’s an uphill battle? My question is then, where is it safe to go?”
“Don’t go anywhere, ever.” Reggie offered.
“Just stay safe on level ground.” I further elaborated.
“Yeah, I heard that bit before,” Johnson called me out, as he cast away his cards, “it wasn’t funny, the first time.”
Ok you unpleasant prick... I took a deep breath, and smiled, I’m not going to let you flummox my mind, and throw me off my game.
“So, on a scale of 1 to 5,” I pushed back, “how many stars would you give that joke?”
“You’d be lucky to get one star.” Reggie roasted me.
“Well, that’s fine with me,” I followed up, “to be honest, I’d prefer no stars. As much as it sounds like it would be great to have stars in theory, how am I going to practically manage, store, and properly care for one- giant, flaming ball of gas, let alone five?”
“Can we just play the game please?” Johnson’s impatience cast a pall, and a dark cloud of discomfort over the game. As he turned back around to pick up his cards, Johnson knocked over his drink with the back of his right forearm, spilling ice-cold absinthe all over himself, which soaked his t-shirt and stack of chips on the table.
“Johnson, you are drunk as fuck,” Reggie mocked him.
Johnson picked up a dried, hardened, dirty blue towel from the floor and dried himself off before padding on the table where he had spilled.
“And this guy,” Reggie hectored Crackle, “I haven’t seen you, take one drink all night.”
Crackle smiled and held up a coffee mug as if to say cheers.
“What are you and Johnson, swindling us?” Reggie continued to be a stick in Crackle’s craw.
“Their scheme to hustle us,” I jumped on the bandwagon at a chance to break Johnson’s balls, “is more transparent, than a game of One-Card Monte.”
Johnson gave me a mean look, as if daring me to keep talking.
What unpleasant, evil creature, I speculated, has crawled up your ass to die tonight, Johnson?.
“Roscoe, arrest them, Duke boys!” Sanchez pointed accusingly at them both in turn with a big drunken grin. He crushed another can of Miller Lite under his fist on the table and then cracked open a fresh one.
I was screwing myself, with a vodka and OJ, while nearly everyone else at the table, was twisted from the absinthe that I had brought back from Taos, which Ben had distilled, at home in his garage.
“You can’t trust these young guys,” Sanchez snickered, “They’ll hoodwink you, the second you let your guard down.”
“It’s the oldest trick in the book,” I fingered Crackle and Johnson, “they’re playing ‘Good Cop, Drunk Cop’.”
Johnson again, flashed me a look of poison.
Why he being such a girthy, uncircumcised, johnson? I couldn’t remember, if I had done anything recently to piss him off.
“We’re leaving in a few hours,” Crackle defended himself, “I have to drive the first shift.” Crackle was dressed preppy in a white button up shirt with his short blond hair shining, slicked back neatly behind his ears. His strawberry beard was tightly cropped over his face.
Crackle looked over at Johnson, his face contorted in a snarky sneer, “fucking Johnson over here, gets to sleep in ‘till Barstow, son of a bitch!”
“You maniacs, are leaving tonight?” Reggie was flabbergasted, “after the game? Oh my God, what is wrong with you?”
“It’s just business,” Johnson’s face was stoic and serious, as if to make the point.
Johnson shot a quick glance over in my direction.
He had recently banished me from coming along on the trips with them, citing the rationale that three people made them more of a target. I couldn’t really argue that he was wrong, though I would miss the fun, work adventures, making deals, and hanging out with Johnson’s childhood hippie friends, way out in the redwoods.
Everyone else folded, bullied out of the hand pre-flop by Sanchez, as he took down another small pot.
It was my turn to deal. I shuffled, and then handed the cards to Alan who was sitting to my right.
He cut the cards and then scratched at the side of his thick, curly, red Jew-fro. Alan was short and looked like a little kid. He wore a red goatee to try and hide his baby face. Alan sat between Johnson I at the poker table, sporting a Dallas Mavericks t-shirt.
Sanchez was the first to act and he went all-in again.
“Stop standing on my dick, mother-fucker!” Reggie castigated Sanchez, “that’s like four hands in a row, now!”
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“Five.” Alan quickly corrected.
“This is not cool, man.” Earl shook his head disapprovingly, “are you going to go all-in, every single hand, for the rest of the night?”
Earl was tall and slender. He wore a black cardigan and skinny jeans, both of which seemed several sizes too small for him. Earl had a thin, wormy mustache and fine black hair that was prematurely receding from his forehead. He was seated in front of a defunct fireplace that was next to the television.
Sanchez shrugged.
“When you got ‘em, you got ‘em?” He grinned.
As Sanchez had grown increasingly intoxicated over the course of the night, his judgement had continued to deteriorate proportionately.
“Did you even look at your cards?” Reggie reprimanded him.
“He didn’t,” Alan reported, “I’ve been watching him.”
“Jesus,” Reggie ranted, “come on man, what is wrong with you?”
“I fold.” Addison uneventfully laid down his cards.
Addison Thomas Munford, had earned the nickname ‘ATM’ from the circle, for making bad calls all the time and always losing his money. Earl had recently told Addison about the mocking acronym that had been monikered to him behind his back, and it was purported, that Addison had allegedly learned from his mistakes, and would be making an effort to play more conservatively tonight.
“Oh my God, I hate you!” Reggie shook his head.
“Hey man,” Sanchez giggled, “I can’t help it, if I’m lucky.”
“You don’t even know, what you have!” Reggie upbraided him.
“I don’t know.” Sanchez took a sip of his beer, “Still feel lucky, I guess.”
“Agghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!,” Reggie pulled on his manic hair, before laying down his cards, “This is a crock of shit!”
For Christ’s sake, Reggie, I tried to make eye contact and catch his attention again so I could warn him somehow, quit picking on the psychopath!
Every time Sanchez walked into the house it felt like we were rolling the dice with our lives. He was almost always armed and dangerous, and he appeared unstable, even accounting for the very few occasions, when I had actually seen him sober. I was concerned that Sanchez might snap at any moment and go on a mass shooting spree, starting with Reggie.
“Ok Sanchez,” Johnson tossed his cards into the heap, “well played. I might have called a fifty-cent raise, but it’s not worth, fifty-dollars.”
“I call,” Alan’s eyes were cold and calculating. He held his breath and slid his stack of chips, into the center of the table.
“Donkey balls!” Earl swore, “maybe I can play, one hand tonight?”
He looked us over, one by one, as if waiting for someone to answer his rhetorical question.
“It’s just too expensive.” Earl sighed and shook his head, “I’m a poor college student, for fuck’s sake!” Frustrated, Earl dramatically threw in the towel.
Sanchez had been terrorizing the entire table for at least two hours, and now, he was going all-in on nearly every hand; half of the times it seemed, without even bothering to check his cards.
Sanchez had already knocked two players out of the game. He would occasionally get hot, but more often than not though, Sanchez would lose all his money to Alan, and then have to buy more chips from Johnson. So far, Sanchez was in the hole for almost $400, on the night.
“I’m out,” Crackle got up from the table, and walked over to the kitchen to start another pot of coffee.
They flipped over their cards. Alan had a pair of queens while Sanchez had garbage. I quickly dealt out the rest of the hand and there was no saving Sanchez, as he was drawing dead, by the turn.
The room got quiet.
If Sanchez keeps losing all his money, I dreaded, there’s sure to be a massacre.
Alan had Sanchez covered, and he was left with nothing.
“Deal me in,” Sanchez pulled out his wallet and a pile of folded up papers from his pants pocket, as he searched in vain for more cash.
I cut the cards for Earl, who dealt the next hand.
Addison raised $2, as Reggie bulldozed passed him.
“I’m all-in motherfucker,” Reggie threw Sanchez a look of defiance, as he clumsily pitched his chips into the middle, splashing the pot, and sending his tokens tumbling all across the table.
Sanchez stared back with a serial-killer’s smile.
Earl looked at his cards and quickly called, “Yes, ma’am, I’m in!”
“Sitting this one out,” Crackle called over from the kitchen without picking up his cards.
“I’m going to call,” Sanchez was determined, “but first I need more credit from the house.”
Sanchez reached down under the table and pulled a handgun out from the waistline of his pants. He placed the weapon down sideways, on the table in front of him.
“This is a Springfield Armory EMP,” Sanchez bragged, “it’s got an MSRP of over a thousand dollars, brand new.”
Johnson considered the offer for a moment. I contemplated what he might do to intervene and stem off the terrible atrocities and the bloodbath that we were trending towards, short of a major course correction.
“I can cover you for $300 worth of house credit,” Johnson rendered his verdict, and in doing so, he enabled this to continue; a game which had started ostensibly as poker, but for all intents and purposes, had now evolved into a variation of Russian-Roulette.
“He can just buy another $300?” Reggie objected, “that’s not fair, we’re in the middle of a hand!”
“He hasn’t even looked at his cards yet,” Johnson pointed out.
“Ok, what the fuck ever,” Reggie sniggered, “this is the most insane poker game, I’ve ever even been to.”
“All-in” Sanchez tossed his firearm onto a pile of chips in the center of the table.
“I call,” Addison slid his stack into the center, carefully avoiding the gun.
“Wow, this is the biggest pot, all night,” Crackle watched with morbid curiosity from a safe distance.
“Flip ‘em over fellas,” Earl challenged the table as everyone showed down their hands.
He dealt the first three cards face up in the center of the table.
“In your face, Sanchez!” Reggie taunted the violent, insecure, madman.
Reggie was clearly wasted and not making rational decisions at this point.
How can you not see, where this is going? I looked at Reggie in utter disbelief of how oblivious he was to his own deadly peril. This is how a lot of preventable, murder-suicide stories begin. I rubbed my eyes with the fingers.
“Interesting hand,” Alen commented from the sidelines, “Reggie’s running the table with a straight on the flop, Earl’s right behind him with a set of J’s and he’s hoping for the board to pair and pull ahead on the turn. Sanchez is way, way behind, needing two consecutive cards to a flush to stay in the game, and ATM… well… ATM is drawing dead. Thanks for playing, ATM!”
ATM gave Alan the finger.
Earl dealt the next card on the turn, implausibly laying out a Jack of diamonds, dealing himself, four of a kind.
“No way,” Reggie screamed. “No, fucking way! That’s bullshit!”
“Fuck, nice hand,” Sanchez wiped sweat and grease off of his forehead with the front of his wife beater, “I can’t compete with that shit, bro!”
I looked around the room for the best place to duck and seek cover if the killing started.
“Wow,” Earl smiled taken aback, “I’ve never gotten four of a kind before.”
“You dealt that to yourself, you fucking, cheater!” Reggie charged.
“I cut for him,” I vouched, “and I can tell you honestly, that the whole conspiracy started all the way at the top, at the highest levels, of the CIA.”
“Likely story.” Reggie dismissed me.
“Hey,” I countered, “don’t judge the book by its cover. Or in this case, it’s cover-up.”
“I’ve already read your book, front to back,” Reggie rebutted, “that’s how I know, it’s totally full of shit.”
“On second thought,” I reconsidered my argument, “if you never judged a book by its cover, then… how would you know, which book, that you’re checking out, from the library?”
“Hey guys, these hands are taking forever,” Johnson complained, “the game would probably go a lot faster, if the people who aren’t involved in the hands, stopped talking and distracting everyone.”
“Is it even worth, playing this hand out?” Reggie questioned, “what’s the point of even seeing the river? There’s no possible way I can win, right? I think I’m drawing dead. Earl just dropped the fucking mic.”
“Protocols gentlemen,” Earl was beaming, “I want to go through the proper protocols, to make sure that no one thinks I cheated and dealt myself, a once in a lifetime hand, on purpose.”
“Just to let everybody know though,” Earl rubbed it in, “I am, going to cash out after this.”
“You suck!” Reggie lambasted him.
Humming a tune, Earl bobbed his head ignoring Reggie, and dealt out the last perfunctory card, which was merely a formality at this point.
“What the fuck?” Earl’s smile turned sour.
“No,” Alan did a double take, “that’s impossible!”
“Christ!” Crackle cawed, as he walked over from the kitchen, “are you kidding me, right now?”
“Statistically speaking,” Alan continued, “that shouldn’t have happened.”
Staring back at us from the river, was a 9 of diamonds. Sanchez had somehow and miraculously, triumphed over four of a kind, with the best possible hand in poker- a straight flush.
This was a crushing, and highly unlikely defeat for Earl.
“Fuck,” Earl was devastated. Shaken, and taken completely by surprise, he suddenly found himself broke.
“Well, that fucking sucked.” He stared down at the cards in disbelief.
As if just realizing what had happened, after a delayed reaction, Sanchez started hollering with joy.
“Wooooooooooohooooooooo!” He screamed.
“Ok, I quit poker,” Earl was shell shocked, and heart broken, “I’m going home.”
“Oh man, alright!” Sanchez celebrated gleefully as he hauled in the pot. “That’s my car payment, right there! And I’m going to take my little girl out to get some ice cream. And if I have enough money left over after that, I might even get a new tattoo!”
“I’m out of here, too.” Resigned, Reggie reluctantly peeled himself up from the table. He didn’t look very happy, and his pockets might have been a little lighter, but at least he had lived to fight another day.
ATM took off as well and then we rearranged ourselves at the table for better spacing.
Johnson dealt the next hand, and Alan, Cackle, and I all folded.
We all waited to see what Sanchez would do, but even he folded, as he counted out his new stacks of chips.
Maybe he’s learned his lesson? I conjectured.
Sanchez stopped counting his money and shuffled the cards.
“All-in,” Sanchez dropped the bomb, as handed the cards to Johnson to cut.
Maybe not?
Johnson laughed and shook his head, “ok man, whatever you say.”
I looked at my cards.
The Gods have shat on me all night! I lamented, as I laid down another hand.
Alan called this time. “I’m pretty sure, I probably have you pre-flop,” he predicted. Alan had a pair and Sanchez had trash again.
The flop came with no help for Sanchez, followed by the turn and the river, and just like that… it was over.
Ok, this is it, I thought. NOW, he’s going to go on a homicidal rampage…
I saw Sanchez staring down and eyeballing the gun that was still sitting on the stack of chips in the pot.
“Well, I think I’m going to call it a night,” Sanchez smiled cheerfully, as he finished his beer.
“I’m going to cash out too.” Alan tallied up his horde.
Surprisingly, Sanchez just quietly got up and left politely, having seemingly gotten through another brutalizing game without a lethal meltdown.
“Are we going to keep playing?” I petitioned Crackle, and Johnson.
Johnson sat and impatiently looked down at his phone, “we have to start getting ready to leave soon.”
“Just, a few more hands.” I lobbied.
“Why,” he asked annoyed, “cause you’re down for the night and you want to win back some money from Crackle and I?”
“Yeah, so?” I tried to stay upbeat, “that is the point of the game, isn’t it?”
“No thanks,” Johnson shut me down.
“Are you angry at me for some reason, Johnson?” It was time to just get this beef, whatever it was, out on the table; the poker table.
Johnson didn’t respond.
“Fucking Bill Sanchez,” Crackle clucked as tried to overcome the awkwardness that had settled over the room, “what, a fucking character.”
“Hey Gabe,” Crackle cackled, as he stood and walked over to the kitchen to freshen up his cup in the kitchen, “Speaking of deranged lunatics, have you heard from Big-Mike, recently?”
“The last I heard,” I nodded, “Big-Mike might have beat someone to death with a boot at a music festival.”
I saw Johnson glaring at me, out of the corner of my eye, and I looked over at him, as Johnson stared me down, with the best poker-face of the night.
“What?” Crackle howled with delight, “what, a fucking animal! What a savage beast!”
When I had met Big-Mike, he had been a peaceful, pot smoking hippie, who was new to traveling. After we parted ways, he subsequently had become a train-hopping gutter punk, an alcoholic, a drug addict, and eventually, and allegedly, now, a footwear wielding murderer to boot.
Over the few years that I had been at college in Santa Fe, Big-Mike would periodically show up for surprise visits to terrorize me and all of my friends, and to generally wreak havoc on campus, before he was arrested and/or forced to flee town again.
“Wait, wait…” Crackle continued to crack up, “didn’t you tell Johnson, that since the last time he was here, Big-Mike killed someone with a samurai sword?”
Johnson looked away from me and then back down at his phone, as I turned towards Crackle.
“Not a hundred percent on that,” I admitted, “All I know, is that the last time I talked to him, he was on a cell phone, and he told me that he was chasing someone with a sword. I don’t know if he actually slaughtered them, or not.”
“Christ,” Crackle crowed, “what a psycho!”
“I was going to wait until we got back from California,” Johnson commanded our attention, making eye contact with me as I looked over and waited intently for him to finish telling me some kind of terrible news, “but I need to get this off of my chest now.”
“What a surprise,” I laid my figurative cards down on the table, “you have some kind of problem?”
“Gabe,” Johnson took a deep breath, “you’re out.”
“Wait… What are you talking about?” I demanded answers.
“You’re out.” Johnson repeated as he began to stretch his neck.
“I feel a lot better now,” Johnson looked at over Crackle, relaxing his shoulders and leaning back in his chair.
“What does that even mean? Are you fucking with me?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was like a bad dream.
“Crackle and I voted, it’s two against one.” He told me the score, “we’re doing all of the driving and selling most of the pot.”
My heart sank into my core.
“We don’t really need you.” Johnson twisted the knife.
“You can’t do that,” I protested, “we bankrolled this business with my student loan money. What makes yo-”
“I don’t care,” Johnson cut me off, “you’ve gotten plenty out of it already.”
“So, you’re just going to rob me?” I was incredulous as I turned to Crackle, “and you, you’re ok with this?”
Crackle looked down at the table, and didn’t respond, giving me his answer.
“We’ll throw you a little money to move and make it through the end of the semester,” Johnson talked down to me like a child. “Crackle and I will decide how much when we get back from California.”
“That’s not fair,” I stood my ground, “you can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Johnson asked. He grabbed the wad of cash from the pot, and his new gun from off of the table.
“Who’s going to stop me?” Johnson turned his back on me and headed into his bedroom.
Early in the AM after they had left, I was still drinking at the poker table; shattered and enraged by Johnson’s betrayal.
What the fuck am I going to do? I searched for answers.
I felt helpless, powerless, and without any sense of recourse or justice. There was really no way I could fight back. I wasn’t going to physically try and force them to give me the money that I was owed. Nor would I be able to shame them into making things right by leveraging our mutual circle of friends. If anything, they were the ones who would control the narrative and the messaging, so that I ended up looking like the bad guy, and they would somehow come out as the victims.
I couldn’t take them to small claims court over illegal drug money. I could turn them into the cops, but then I’d still lose everything, and besides, I wasn’t a narc.
That being said, I stewed, they do deserve to get busted.
You’ll get what’s coming to you, I cursed Johnson, as I made myself another drink, and wallowed in misery at the poker table, you ape-fucking, ass-goblin!
I woke up hung over the next morning in a lounge chair. My mouth was as dry as a chalk, and I had a splitting headache. I was still holding onto an empty glass in my hand, and there were red chunks of throw up, and orange sticky goop from a drink that I must have spilled, all over my jacket and lap.
I painstakingly came to my senses and unstuck myself from the chair.
My cell phone was dead and I plugged into a charger by the sink in the kitchen. I was terribly parched, and my tongue was as dry as sandpaper, but being so close to the power plant, and testing grounds in Los Alamos, the tap water quality here was literally radioactive, and a last resort at best.
I opened up the fridge to see if there was anything to drink. I saw a pitcher of pink lemonade that I didn’t recognize sitting on the bottom shelf.
It looked tantalizing. Someone must have brought it over the night before for the game, I reasoned. Maybe it was supposed to be a mixer for the absinthe?
I grabbed the pitcher, and not willing to wait to find a glass to wash off from the piles of dirty dishes on the sink or the counter, I tilted the pitcher back, and pitched the pink lemonade straight down my gullet.
I had already swallowed a few gulps down my throat when I was hit by the saltiness, and the thick gelatinous texture.
This isn’t pink lemonade, I suddenly realized, as I started to projectile vomit all over the kitchen, this is cold, chicken soup!
I felt miserable and it took me a few minutes to recover on the floor, before I was able to rise to my feet and start cleaning up my wretched mess.
I finally finished up and then took a slow, hot shower. After I got out and got dressed, I held down a button on my phone in the kitchen, turning the power back on.
I was surprised to see that I had twelve missed calls, and half as many voicemails from a phone number that I didn’t recognize.
I tabbed over to the voicemail screen on my phone and played the first message.
“This Jim McNickelson from Genie’s Bail Bonds…”
A pit began to well up in my stomach, and I started to get nauseous again.
“…trying to reach Gabriel Greenstein on behalf of my client, Jefferey Crackle…”
A horrible fate that I had wished upon my friends, now seemed to have come to fruition.
“…Mr. Crackle and a codefendant were arrested this morning…”
My heart raced.
“…charges of drug trafficking, possession of…”
I started to get lightheaded; this is too fucked up!
“…if you can please give us a call at…”