Poker : Real or Otherwise

My sister and I sat in the bedroom watching TV, wondering what to do and bored out of our minds. Our older brother walked in and looked at us. Going to my grandmother’s house was always interesting, but sometimes there just wasn’t anything to do. The upstairs bedroom was where me and my siblings would always go. It was always filled with hours of games and television until we had to go home.    

“Do you guys wanna play Texas Hold Em” My brother Chris asked.

My twin sister and I looked at each other confused.

“Sure” We both said not knowing what we were getting ourselves into.

My brother was exactly four years older than me and my sister and to tell the truth, we idolized him. The relationship was complicated. My brother was a sixteen year old boy who didn’t want to be bothered with his little sisters. We or should I say I always wanted to tag along with him, but I was never allowed. The only time we were together was when we were forced into family situations, just like this one. Little did I know, this would be the last time we played together like this. Our Texas Hold ‘Em game would transcend into reality and my relationship with my brother would go from somewhat strained to completely nonexistent. We all sat on the queen sized bed in a circle as my brother began to explain the rules. He pulled a deck of playing cards from the pocket of his jeans and began to deal cards to each of us. He explained how we were to look at our cards, but not show them to anyone. We were then supposed to go around and bet, but considering we all had no money and no means to get any, we just omitted the betting. He would then deal three cards face up, the flop, he called it. Revealing the first of the cards, this was when you decided whether you would stay in the hand and play or fold and give up on the cards you had. Each of us looked suspiciously at our own cards and the three cards lying on the bed. What was a good hand...what were we supposed to do next? All these questions pulsed through my mind. He then dealt “the river” face up on the bed. The river was the second to last card and when this card came you knew the end was near. Your cards were beginning to show themselves as either a truly good hand or just a seemingly good one. The last card to be turned over was “the turn”. The turn is the last resort. Once you reach the turn, there are not any more cards that can save your hand. You have to settle with the hand you are given, win or lose.

My brother looked at us and said “Turn your cards over”.

So we did so. I looked at all of the cards spread out on the bed. I then asked

“How do we know who wins? …what kind of cards are you supposed to have? …I still don’t get this game”.

I could see him rolling his eyes at me. He took a breath and said “You have a good hand if you match the suit of the cards or if you match the number or face on the card”

This clarified things for me, sort of.  

“So do I have a good hand” I looked at him, admiring what I thought was his infinite wisdom.

He looked at the cards in front of me with the same look that he looked at the cards staring back at him on the computer screen five years later, disbelief. Internet poker had become an important past time in his life. He never used any actual money for it, but it did pass the time in between when he chain smoked cigarettes and marijuana. He got up from the computer and approached my mom while she was sitting on the couch. I sat at the kitchen table, watching as this scenario had played out many time before.

“Can I have some money?” He looked at my mom.

“Chris, I don’t have any money right now” She said back to him.  

Just like clockwork, I knew what was coming next. His voice began to get louder and more irritated as he asked her again for money. She again said no. He got more upset, now screaming and cursing as my mother looked at him. The flop of emotions was inevitable. He screamed profanity and vulgar words at my mom as I tried to make sure everything was going to be okay. Going and sitting next to my mother to make sure she he didn’t cross the line of anger that he always seemed to be straddling. The upsides of having a brother with bipolar…zero…downsides, everything. I used to look up to him and now all I could do was sit and watch as he cursed my mother and me out for not being able to give him five dollars. The river began overflowing, sorrow and fear filled it. He kept at it, throwing things and finding every hurtful thing anyone could ever imagine and not just saying it, but screaming it, no remorse or even second thought needed. The turn was the worst of it. When all his anger reached its boiling point, he cried. He cried long and hard, tears flowing like that of a new born baby. He sat and apologized. He always seemed so sincere.

“I will never act like this again” He would always say, not only trying to convince my mom, but trying to convince him. We played a few more rounds of poker that night at my grandmothers and at the end of each game I would ask my brother the same question. “How do we know who won” and finally he blew up. Yelling and screaming at me as his frustration reached its peak. Tears began falling down my face. I never thought he would be this mean to me. I never thought he could act this way to me. I mean he was my hero. I walked downstairs trying to collect myself before I told my mom what had happened. She looked at me, trying to console my tears as they ran down my face. 

Dragtastic

This was my first drag show. I waited outside the Potomac lounge as the line began to form. We all waited anxiously for them to begin letting people in. The purple wrist bands piled as they placed them on everyone in lines arm. I walked slowly up as a young woman placed mine on my arm.We entered the doors with the lights bright as I saw the stage set up. We then walked around looking for seats, it was still early so many were vacant. We settled on two seats to the right of the stage. It felt like forever before the show had begun. Two fabulous drag queens walked on to the stage. One with a very beautiful dress  on the other wearing a crab costume. Their personalities meshed well together as they began to introduce the acts. The first was a young drag queen who did the splits better then even many women I have seen. The next was a tag team of drag kings, one was eleven the other was quite a bit older.They were a father and son drag king group and they literally grabbed a piece of my heart. The dancing was mediocre but the heart they put on the stage could not be matched. All the performances began to blend together after the first few. Lip singing, Acting and drama filled the rest of the drag stars performances. They were all wonderful in my eyes. They magnified and glorified everything wonderful about gender play. How easy it was to play with and how easy it was to mess up. Societal norms are one thing, but this changed how I saw everything.

Under the stars

We had talked all night the day before. I felt like my heart was going to beat outside of my chest. Meeting people like this always made me kind of wary. I had just started talking to her on facebook. We did not really know each other. I looked at my phone anticipating the moment she would call. She told me she was dropping her friend off at the dorm across from mine. I was too meet her outside. My phone rang. She said she was outside. I waited for the elevator, hoping she was who she said. Hoping everything would work out, but most of all butterflies soaring in my stomach. She told me she was in the car by the pole at the corner. I looked around and she rolled down her window.
"What do u want me to come out there? "
"I guess" I looked at Savannah still inhaling the moment.
She stepped out of the car wearing pajamas and slippers, not quite what I was expecting, but still as beautiful as her picture. I looked at her as I felt a cold chill rush through my body. She was quiet, nervous, I thought. So I tried to make jokes, lighten the mood. Make things a little less awkward if I could. She talked back to me as we gravitated closer to each other trying to find warmth in each others bodies. I held her close to me and looked into her eyes. I put my hand on her cheek and pulled her close to me. First kisses for me were always weird, but this one was amazing. I looked down at her standing only a couple inches shorter than me, I  held her looking into those eyes. I was falling in the night sky. She told me it was time for her to go. Brief I thought this meeting was, but the bite size time was enough to replay in my head for a lifetime. I pulled her close and kissed her once more before I had to let go. I walked back up to my dorm and laid on my bed. Looking up at the ceiling that night. All I could think about was when I was going to talk, see, and breathe the same air as her next. The look in her eyes repeated over and over in my mind because in them I saw the sparking of the stars under the night sky.

Black and Gold Tie Dye

“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

- Christopher Columbus

           

The cars lined up all in a row. All of them with a different story, but all shared the same reality. College was uncharted territory for most, a new life for others and just one big party that hopefully ends with a degree for the rest. I stood their observing them all. They were me.

I approached a car with a blue rolling basket in tow, asking a student if she needed help. She looked at me and said “Yeah, sure”. I helped her pack her life in a bin and walked her to the check in at her Tower. The line was long. All of the students beamed with excitement and I could see the yearning to cut parental ties in every single one of their eyes. I was a part of the MIC or the Move-In Crew. We were a large group of upperclassmen whose sole job was to make sure that new students had an easy transition into dorm life. We pushed carts, helped unload cars and managed elevators.

I walked up to the cart desk and sat down behind it. My job was pretty simple here, take an id and issue a cart. One cart per family was the rule, but by the end of the day that had disappeared. I saw myself walking up to the desk last year. Dreaming about how my year was going to go and how accomplished I would be by the end of it. I was supposed to be so many things, but I wasn’t any of them. I promised myself going into college I was going to change everything. I was going to be a new person, but I guess my goals superseded my actuality because all I could do was wish to do it all over again. I felt like a failure. I looked around at all the fresh faces and even a few scared looks on some young people.  My old roommate walked up, a few feet away from the desk. I gave her a look almost telling her it was okay to say hello, but she didn’t. She just glanced and looked away. Feeling stupid I looked down at the names and ids in front of me. I imagined the acceptance stories that coincided with each Towson id that I saw. The happiness they must of felt combined with the embarrassment that had just filled the bottom of my stomach must have tapped into some introspective emotion in me. I pulled my head up from the cards and looked around at all the black and gold tie dye shirts. I guess college wasn’t as pass and fail as I thought it was.         

Eat Rocks

Eat Rocks

            I cannot be sure this is really how it happened because my memory is foggy, but one afternoon my mother told me a story. I was about sixteen the first time she told me.

“You know when you were younger your brother put rocks in your food” She said with a slightly silly smile on her face.

“Are you serious?” A chuckle came out of my mouth as I thought about it.

“Yeah” She said as she told me the whole story and I imagined it for myself.

           

            My brother was the ripe old age of five and my twin sister and I were one. Everything had changed for him ever since we came home from the hospital. All anyone ever cared about were his little twin sisters. They had come into his life and taken over. So now he had devised a plan, a plan to get rid of us. He conjured up all the courage he had in his young body and picked up a few rocks he could find while he could faintly begin to hear my mother calling his name from outside the front of our house.

            “Chris, it’s time for lunch” My mother said trying to get the attention of a five year old while he was playing wasn’t an easy feat.

            “I’m coming” He said as he still placed a few more rocks in his pockets.

            He then wiped the dirt onto his jeans and ran into the house. My mom told him to go into the bathroom and wash his hands and he did so just like any other obedient child would. My mom sat me and my twin sister Tiana in our matching high chairs and my brother sat across from us at the table. My mother was in the kitchen directly next to the dining area where we were sitting filling our plates with food. Chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese were favorites in my house. My brother sat there staring at his two sisters as my mother put a small plastic plate on the tray of each of our high chairs. As my mother went back to the kitchen to make his plate he saw this as his window of opportunity. He stuck rocks with the chicken nuggets onto the plates of both me and my sister. My mom entered the dining room and put my brother’s plate in front of him. She noticed strange round objects on her daughter’s plate’s right before my sister put it in her mouth. She picked up the object and felt it in her hand and realized she could mistake it for nothing other than a rock.

            “Did you put rocks in your sister’s food” My mother authoritatively asked my brother.

            “I don’t know what you’re talking about” My brother said and to this day he still says the same thing. He does not know what happened. He walked into me and my mother’s conversation and said “Mom, you know that never happened”. My mother looked at me and shook her head yes. I just looked at the both of them and laughed.   

Seasons

“Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes  ... Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Moments so dear… Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes

How Do You Measure - Measure A Year?”

Summer “In Daylights – In Sunsets”

            My freshman year of college was only a few weeks away. I was so scared to be leaving home and going to an unfamiliar place. I should have chosen a school where my friends were going. I should have just stayed home. What made me think I could survive alone? All these thoughts streamed through my mind as I asked my mother

“Can I get this?” pointing at the DVD for RENT.

 “Don’t we already have that?” She asked

“No” I insisted back at her.

She nodded her head yes. I placed it in the basket and then continued to walk through the aisles of Wal-Mart wondering what I would be doing months from now. I looked at all the dorm room attire on the shelves and dreamed about the personalities of my roommates.

Fall “In Midnights – In Cups of Coffee”

            The first day I moved into my room I put faces to my two new roommates. We had talked previously on Facebook, but that first night we all sat on our beds asking each other questions.

“How are you guys about letting people stay over…my boyfriend might be coming over sometime?” My roommate Megan asked.

The look on my roommate Lindsay’s face said it all. “I mean its fine…He can sleep on the floor or something”. I rolled my eyes at that response and said.

“I don’t really care either way I mean it’s all our room so we should be able to have whoever we want stay right?” I gave Megan a reassuring glance. I learned later this was protocol for getting to know your roommate. Questions flew by; some were easy to answer like do you do drug’s. Others were a bit vaguer. It felt like sleep away camp.

Winter- “In Inches - In Miles”

            Going back to see my family during winter break was strange. I walked into my house and jokingly asked my dad “Oh so I go away to college and you change everything”. I was being sarcastic, but still honest. I looked around at the house trying to notice all the subtle changed my parents made. Even sleeping in my bed wasn’t the same. It didn’t feel right. I missed my dorm room. I missed being able to stay up all night and talk to the few friends I had made.

Spring- “In laughter – In Strife”

            Breakups and relationships were two words that did not even leave my mouth before this year. I did not see it coming. All I could think about was her, when I was with her and when I wasn’t, all I could think about was the next time I would see her. Love is magical and I never knew that until now. Love is also all powerful, so it can make cry without fail. My phone vibrated in my pocket. I answered.

“Hello”. She replied

“Yeah we need to talk. I’m on my way”. We sat in her car, me wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into.

“We need to chill out with all of this?” she said to me.

“What does that mean?” I said back to her.

“Just me and you need to chill out a bit” She looked into my eyes and saw as tears welled.

“Umm…okay” I looked back wondering how she was so calm in this moment. “Do you have anything else to say?” I looked at her. She did not speak quickly enough so I stormed out of her car slamming the door, trying to get up to my dorm before anyone could tell I was crying. I sat on my bed that night and cried.

“Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred…bridges burned, journeys to plan, truth that she learned, tears that he cried…All you have to do is remember the love…measure your life in love…seasons of love”  

Max

     I looked outside the sliding glass window, he looked back at me. My best friend I would call him and the keeper of all my secrets. He laid on the porch with his long flowing black hair. I pulled open the door and sat on the steps leading to my backyard. 

“Hey baby”. 

I looked into his eyes and petted him slowly on the top of his head and down his back. 

“It’s been a little while since we last talked”. 

It had been a whole semester I was away at college. 

“School has been fun…” 

He turned around in a circle and cuddled closer to me pushing his body into my side. 

“I like it…I mean I met a girl…” 

My heart spun into itself as I told my dog Max about my new girlfriend. These are the conversations we always had. I would pour my emotions out to him and he would just lay there ears poked upwards. A few days passed and during those few days I really noticed him. I noticed the slowing down of his gracious trot as he ran around my backyard, the slow way that he walked up the stairs from my basement to the main level of my house and how every time I would feed him his bowl would be staring at me the same way I left it full. It had been thirteen years. Thirteen years of confessions, playtime and friendship.

            I sat on the couch watching T.V. until my father came home. He would know what to do about Max. He would know how to make him better. He walked in the door and took a seat on the couch placing his gun on the side table and his belt next to it.

“Hey” I looked at him with kind of a serious demeanor.

“What’s up?” He looked at me somewhat concerned, but more just genuinely interested in what I had to say.

“You know Max hasn’t been eating his food…right? I think he is sick”

“Yeah…I know. He has been real sluggish lately. He is getting old…you know.”

My eyes went directly to the ground. All I could think about was the first time I ever saw him. I was five years old and it was Christmas. We were all so excited running downstairs when our parents said breakfast was ready. I couldn’t tell you who saw him first or even exactly how my parents revealed him to us, but I saw him. I saw a little black puff ball of fur and puppy power. I kissed him that day just like I would for years to come.

My dad looked at me. “I’ll go to the store tonight and get some dog treats maybe he will eat those.”

I looked back at him. “Maybe”

He had gone and was back with a huge bag of bacon strips. I fed him some. He ate a few and I laid next to him. It was late so everyone else in my house had gone to bed. I just stared at him, looking into his eyes and replaying every memory we have ever had together.    

“Maxamillion…you know I love you. We may not have that much longer with each other, but that is one thing I want you to remember.” I leaned down to his face and kissed the top of his head. I went to bed with a heavy heart that night. A few tears flew out of my eyes before I closed them. I didn’t know that would be the last night like that me and him would be able to spend together.

I don’t quite remember what I was doing that morning, but clearly etched into my mind was that car ride. My father had told me that morning he was taking Max to the vet to see what was wrong. As soon as I got in the car I could feel the thick tension in the air. I just sat there waiting for someone to say something to me…anything, but the tension kept overflowing. We pulled into our driveway when I asked my mom.

“How’s Max doing?” My voice cracked a little when it finally came out.

“Well…I wanted to wait until your dad could tell you, but he was real sick…”  She didn’t even have to finish. I knew. Tears came down my face and I just sat there and sniffled as I tried to wipe them away. I walked into the house and looked outside the clear glass sliding door and my heart fell below my feet. I walked outside and sat on those same steps I did a few days before, looking around.