Mark Maynard - Where I Was Last Night

Poker night. Everything works in a circular fashion. Once everyone is seated at the large felt table top – round with drink holders and slots for the chips – it begins. We play in a friend’s garage, even in the dead of winter. There are no cars inside, there is plenty of room on the property to park plow trucks, pickups and all of our vehicles too. Instead, we are flanked by shelves with skis, snowboards, winter gear, rafts, kayaks and a stained, torn couch. Each chair is its own challenge, most are retired patio furniture or worn canvas camp chairs, all are well beyond their last legs and ready to flip or collapse if pushed too hard.

Then the clockwise world begins its revolutions. Everything is dictated by the rhythm of play. Beer runs to the fridge in the back of the garage, the lighting and passing of the joint, pee breaks in the frigid night air with the mountains and stars as a backdrop.

Play always starts slowly. Even those we have played with for years will change up their style on any given night, just to try and squeeze luck from some untapped corner. Besides, it is too soon to bluff your way into a big pot.

I’m drawing dead nearly every hand but I still have a nice stack of chips and play more for camaraderie and to get the feel for tonight’s game more than anything else. In the second hour, on my second beer, I finally catch a good hand and play it well, avoiding the temptation to be overeager and scare the others out of what looks to be a good pot for me.

Later, Reggie the dog comes back inside after patrolling the sagebrush and scrub outside. He comes straight up to me and presses himself against my legs. I pet him and feel a sticky wetness on the scruff of his neck. I figure one of us must have spilled a beer on him until I bring my hand near my face and catch a whiff of something horrible that he has rolled in.

“Reggie – go lie down!” I tell him sternly and he aims his yellow eyes at me and gives me a look that says, “dogs are just really little people – you love me.”

The smell is intense. Unnatural. Even so, I must honor the rhythms of the game. I wait to fold and then rise to wash my hands in the small bathroom just off the garage. The rest of the night the dog will distract me from my play – a split brain schizophrenia trying to play my cards inside my head while trying to avoid letting Reggie rub his foul fluid on my legs as he patrols counterclockwise under the table looking for scraps of popcorn and roasted almonds.