The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

We got a token Republican in the Wednesday night Mabana Poker Club. Billy Bluff, we call him, mostly because he’s a piss poor bluffer. When he’s got a good hand he makes idle small talk. When he’s got a winning hand, he talks politics. Billy might as well send up an LED signboard announcing he drew a straight flush. But in case we missed the Signs, he bets low, hoping to keep the pot filling up until he can bet the maximum at the end, suckering the rest of us into staying with him.

He’s actually one of the new breed of GOP, meaning he hates the government and wants to stop funding about everything but the military and corporate subsidies. Taxes are too high, unions are ruining profits and killing jobs, drugs are legal, men are marrying men, Obama isn’t a real citizen, all the usual rants with a few more raves completely from Right Field. We don’t mind so long as Billy uses politics to telegraph his hand. Politics are expensive for Billy, but the thinks he’s just unlucky. That, or maybe he suspects we cheat, the cards are marked or the games are rigged. I guess in a way they are.

The night Billy drew 4 kings in 5 card stud on the first deal, I had 2 pair before the next deal. Billy got going on Secession. Bad sign before we drew a card. “Secession,” he declared, betting the usual fifty cents, see who’d stick, probably all of us. I tossed my half buck in and instead of raising, asked, “The South End, you mean?” Everyone ante’d up.

“You think everything’s about the South End, Skeeter. I’m talkin about Washington state dropping out.” He didn’t ask for a single card from Flat-top Fred who was dealing. Fred shook his head sadly. Real bad sign. Still, you never know, he might be bluffing. I took three cards, Pete took three, Ralph and Walter both took two. Fred dealt himself one. Billy tossed a buck into the pot non-chalantly. “State’s rights, I’m talkin here,” he said, a little too loud, meaning he had a helluva hand. “The government becomes oppressive, we got the right to leave, that’s what I’m sayin.”

Pete dumped in his cards right then and there. “You could always go to Canada, Bill,” Walter said, tossing a dollar. I looked at my new cards, 3 queens over my 2 jacks, full house. Maybe as good or better than Billy’s. Ralph stuck and Flat-top, sitting on a fat flush, raised. Ralph cursed and folded without even waiting for the bid to get back to him. My full house looked good, maybe too good, maybe not enough. “We already fought the Civil War, Bill,” I said. “You want slavery back or just lower the minimum wage?” I tossed my money in without raising, not real confident now.

Billy chuckled and raised us 5, the maximum bid we’d agreed to years ago. “I want my goddamn country back, Skeeter, even if we have to start over.” Flat-top groaned. “You could go to Quebec, Bill. They want to secede. You’d be in good company if you learn a little French.” He tossed a five in and raised a five. Ten to me. Those queens over jacks were looking weaker and weaker. But it was a full house. And now I was worried about Fred’s hand. “I don’t think they’d let him in, Fred. I got turned back the last try.” I was talking about my little incident with the border guards a couple weeks earlier. I pushed ten bucks into the growing pile, knowing Billy was going to raise us again. Maybe Fred too.
“Course they didn’t want to let YOU in, Skeeter. But I’m not going up to some country that’s more of a welfare state than we are. Get a grip. And get another five bucks out if you want to see this hand.” Fred took another look at his cards. A hard look. His confidence was waning fast as mine. “I hear Quebec is nice in the winter,” he mumbled and called with another five to the pot. I hated to, but I had to see his hand, so my five went in too. “Let’s see what you got, boys, cause I got a full house, queens over jacks.” Fred flipped a flush disgustedly into the chips and swore before taking a long slow miserable swig off his beer.

Billy laid one king, then another and then the third. He smirked, showed an ace, waited a long while, then dropped the fourth king. “All I know, children,” he said, “is the rich get richer. Clean livin’s what does it.” He pulled the pot into himself with great satisfaction. The world can sure be cruel when everyone’s lucky. If I’d had a lick of sense, I would’ve seceded a long time earlier.

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