Origins

Games of Chance

by James R. Watson

Jimmy set down his martini and took a long, slow pull from his cigarette. It was late, and the cards were fickle. Jimmy stayed as cool as an Arctic cucumber. The game was stud poker, and that was Jimmy's middle name. The dealer's hand showed a pair of nines. Jimmy's hand showed less promise, but he had an ace in the hole.

It might sound uncomfortable to you, but having an ace in that particular hole made Jimmy smile. See, in stud poker, the card that's face down is the hole card. This hole is a cache, not an opening. To his advantage, only Jimmy knew that his hole card was the ace of hearts.

It was a long way from that little town in Saskatchewan to the bright lights and fast women of the big city. Along the way Jimmy had acquired a thin mustache and lost the innocence of his youth. Back home, he knew that a girl named Mary would be baking oatmeal cookies and thinking of him. But cookies were not Jimmy's game. Jimmy's nights were spent moving from one clip joint to the next, drinking Purple Martinis and playing five-card.

No, these clip joints weren't for shortening your hair. Back in the days when money was minted from gold and silver, an unscrupulous establishment could make a bundle by removing and collecting small shavings of precious metal from the coins. Now, any place that cheats you takes the name "clip joint."

The waitress returned as Jimmy felt the last drops of violet death jump like lemmings from the glass to his tongue. "Gimme another, doll. Purple Martini. Three ounces Alberta vodka, a scoop of grape Kool-Aid, and three Sultana raisins." These days, only a man in a shiny blue suit with a thin black tie can get away with calling a waitress "doll," so this was Jimmy's lucky night.

Lucky indeed. It seemed that Jimmy would hit the jackpot, even though the current game did not require a pair of jacks or better to collect the pot. Still, the word "jackpot" came into being from these archaic rules.

He thought back to his father, the town pharmacist, who had always cautioned Jimmy to put his money into "blue chip" stocks. Jimmy's father never knew that "blue chip" means "valuable" because the blue chips are worth more than the red or the white ones when you're betting on cards. His father's "blue chip investments" were literally "expensive gambles." "Yeah, I got plenty of blue chips, Pop," Jimmy thought as he dropped one on the waitress's trays. "Plenty of blues."

"Thanks, Jimmy," a familiar voice said.

The waitress! It was Mary! How'd she end up in a dump like this?

"Hey, let's see what ya got, buddy," said the dealer, whose tone of voice was not that of a buddy.

Without taking his eyes from Mary's, Jimmy turned up his ace. "Mary, it's been a long time. What time do you get off work?"

Mary smiled, but shook her head slowly. "If you want to know that, Jim, you'll have to sober up and find a better suit."

The end. Type to you soon. Until then, remember that you are what you say. 

Illustration by Liam Thurston.