The Game

“Sorry, but it’s all mine,” Tommy said, tossing his cards face up on the table. His hand showed three queens. The other players around the table groaned as they watched Tommy rake in the chips that were lying in the middle of the table. The room they were in was lit by a single light bulb hanging over the card table. The air was thick with cigar smoke, giving the room a hazy gray aura.

“Shit, that’s like the fourth hand in a row,” Barry exclaimed, rubbing his face in exasperation.

“I’m just on a hot streak, what can I say?” Tommy replied.

“Hot streak my ass,” said Carl, his words coming out as a deep rumble.

Lou, who sat across the table from Tommy, quietly picked up the cards and started shuffling. He was having a hard time concentrating on the game, and it was costing him.

“What you tryin’ to say?” Tommy asked, puffing on his cigar.

“I’m just sayin’ that I better start winnin’ some hands,” Carl declared. Tommy smiled and leaned back in his chair as the cards were dealt.

Tommy won another hand, and Lou just glared at Tommy.

“What you starin’ at me for?” Tommy asked. “I think this nigga’s mad ‘cause I’m taking his paycheck!” Tommy said, a huge grin on his face.

Lou continued to scowl at Tommy and thought to himself how much he hated the man sitting across from him. Lou’s right hand was under the table, constantly clenching and unclenching. He looked at Tommy wide grin with those bright white teeth and wanted to lay him out. Even the sight of Tommy’s conked-back hair brought Lou painful reminders of the day his life changed.

Lou had known for a while that something just wasn’t quite right, so when Layla told him that Saturday that she was just going shopping for a while, he knew he had to find out what was going on. He knew that until recently, Layla never put on good dresses and sprayed on perfume just to “go shopping.” He waited until she was down the block before he left the house and followed her. He trailed his wife as she traveled a few blocks, at one point turning a corner in the opposite direction of the market. Lou felt his heart beating faster as he watched her walk up to the door of a house he was familiar with, with a car in the driveway he easily recognized. Lou’s breathing became uneven and ragged as he watched Tommy open the door and give Layla, his wife, the woman he loved, a kiss before leading her inside. It took everything he had not to race up to the door and break it in. Instead, Lou turned around and went home, tears streaming down his face.

Lou’s eyes were on Tommy, but his mind was elsewhere. He didn’t even hear the conversation that was going on as the cards were dealt again. Lou picked up his cards, not really seeing them. He was just going through the motions of playing this game. His anger started rising as the hand went on.

Tommy paused in his conversation long enough to take a look at his final hand. He saw three aces and two eights. Not bad, he thought before throwing a handful of chips into the center of the table. He then continued on with his story.

Lou didn’t pay attention to a word Tommy was saying until he heard Tommy mention seeing a woman wearing a dress that sounded a lot like one he had recently bought Layla.

“And man, you should see the chest on this chicky. I mean, she could feed a starving village with those thangs,” Tommy said, the laughter of the other men filling the air.

Lou thought about Layla and her chest. He thought about his last image of his wife, her laying on their kitchen floor in her underwear with a knife plunged into the chest that Tommy was joking about, her blood spreading out in a pool around her. Lou had confronted her about her affair earlier that evening. She tried to deny it, and an argument began. Lou remembered his anger rising higher and higher as he told his wife about how he followed her to Tommy’s house and watched the two of them kiss. Lou vaguely remembered reaching for the kitchen knife, Layla pleading for him to calm down. Even though a few hours had passed, he could still feel the warmth of her blood dripping down onto his hand as he pulled the knife out and stabbed again. He could feel the weight of Layla’s body as it collapsed to the floor in his arms. He remembered sitting there on the floor, crying over her. Eventually, a thought came into his mind, and he went to clean the blood off him, knowing the last thing that needed to be done.

Lou stared icily at Tommy, with his head thrown back, mouth wide with laughter. Lou let out a growl and quickly stood up, knocking his chair back. Lou reached behind his back and pulled out a revolver, aiming it at Tommy’s chest.

“Whoa, what the hell are you doin’?” asked Barry.

“Whatever this is, just calm down,” Carl added.

“He knows what this is,” Lou said, gesturing at Tommy with the gun. Both men looked at Tommy waiting for an answer. Tommy sat in his chair, staring at the gun in Lou’s hand, not saying a word.

“Just put the gun down,” Barry said as calmly as he could.

“He ain’t gonna do shit,” Tommy said, exhaling a blue cloud of cigar smoke.

“That was MY WIFE!” Lou yelled, and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Tommy in the chest, the impact sending him toppling backwards out of his chair, his feet flying up and kicking over the poker table. Cards and chips went flying in the air.

In the stunned silence, Lou bent over to look at Tommy. He lay on the floor next to the toppled chair, his hair matted from the blood drained from his body. Carl and Barry watched, breathless and shocked, as Lou placed the gun back in his waistband and walked up the stairs out of the basement. Lou walked out of Tommy’s house and didn’t even look back as he went off into the night.