joegoda | A bit o' story

So, if I can bend your ear, here's my story.

Rain came down all over the place. Cold, stinging rain. The sort of rain that has no vengeance, no mercy. The sort of rain that stories are made of. Bullets of rain.

It was raining, if you get my drift. And of course, I was in it. Where else would I be? I had no where to go, so I stood, or walked, or sat in the rain. I wasn't homeless. I had homes... plural. I could sleep just about anywhere. I have lived in cardboard townhouses from discarded refrigerator shells, night lights empty beer bottles laying on their side. I could just about squeeze in anywhere.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I used to wonder about it too. I'm telling you, Mack, there just aint no justice. And you wanna know why? Because there ain't nothing that's just, that's why. You want life to be fair, then you are wanting the impossible. Life ain't fair. There's probability, and there's improbability. No fairness about it.

Now, there was this one cat, though. He had a handle on it. He could play that probability, improbability gig to beat the band. He knew the score. It was nothing for him to go to Vegas with only a solid quarter and come back with enough green to stuff a mattress. I mean... this guy had the universe in his pocket, can you dig?

Anyway, it was raining, stinging, burning cold rain, the sort that makes your fingers wish they would turn blue, so's they'd quit hurting. I think it might just have had a bit of hail in it too, though I couldn't swear by it.

So I ducks into this little place I know, down on fifty seventh and Rosewood. You know.. Jimmy's place? No? You should check it out, jack. They gots some nice blues there on Thursday and come Friday, it's all the shrimp you can eat for a buck or if you got the right hard luck story.

Waitresses are right tight too, if you catch my drift. Not loose, not like them skimpy skirty, tight tittied chippies you see now days. I mean tight, like friendly, like sisters, like you wish your mamma woulda been if she'd stuck around long enough to raise you right. Tight like not looking down on you just cuz your best jeans were last years toss aways. Tight like saying in their best friendly voice "Would you like that coffee refilled, hon? On the house, you know." and they'd wink, letting you know that they knew that you knew that they knew it was always on the house, but just for you, it was something special on the house, if you catch my drift. Those waitresses made you feel righteous, fine and good, like your life mattered a damn, if even for just the one pure solid minute they stood at your table working with you.

Okay, so's I go on a bit bout the waitresses. I'm not sweet on them ner nothin'. Just they's saved my life a time er two, and ... In my book, they're all angels there, all of 'em. They make you feel... I dunno... Human again.

Where was I? Oh yeah... shrimp night. It's raining shotgun shells of rain, so I pops into Jimmy's where I know that for a bit I can get a cuppa joe and a hot square. Granted, shrimp ain't a four courser, but I'll takes what I can gets.

So I slides into one of the booths in the far back, where I won't be in any of the normal folks way, and I waits. I figures that Josie would be coming back in a few seconds, as I caught her eye when I came in. I wait there, just biding my time, looking at all the stiffs that have also come in from the rain.

There were some bozos there from uptown. You know the type... starched necks, silky ties, gold clips holding their cuffs.. that sort. Thinking they'd come down here and go slumming. Their little chippies on their arm, dressed to kill, spilling their wares all over. Not a safe thing to be doing after dark, down here, you know. I mean, advertising is one thing, but advertising stupid is another all together thing.

So I'm sitting there in my booth in the back, watching the cons play the marks, seeing the johns pick up the janes that had already picked the john they were gonna pick. It was a fine time, and I was living the riley life till I sees this gent across from me.

I probably wouldn't have noticed him at all, cept he's all alone, and looking like that's the way he wants it. He's sitting in one of the older booths, out of sight of the main crew, kinda hiding like. He's not a weird looking mug, just a regular joe, but there's something about him that grabs my eyes and wouldn't let me go. If you was to ask me what it was, I'd have to say he was concentrated.

No, not concentrating. I mean what I say. Concentrated. Like focused, but even more so. Like you can focus the suns rays through a glass, but if you bring it to that hot point, it's concentrated, you dig? You catch the diff? This cat was concentrated.

He's playing ol' sol, one handed, flipping the cards and tossing them up in the air and watching them as they land, face up, every time, in the right place. Red, black, red, black, red, black. Ace through Deuce.

I mean, when he tosses them into the air, they fly up in to the air... flippity flip. Up. In. the. air. When the cards come back down, flippity, flip, they flop onto the table, face up, pretty as you please, nicely stacked and not a stagger amongst them.

I thought to myself, "self... that's one neat trick deck. Let's see him do it again." But see, I have this problem where, when I talk to myself, I talks out loud, and this guy hears me, turns and looks dead on me. I mean, dead on. And he's got these eyes, you see, not like you or me, but crystal clear eyes with maybe a bit o' blue in 'em. Maybe a bit o' gold. I've known the guy for three years now, and I swear, I can't tell you what his eyes really look like, cuz I can't look at 'em long. It's like looking at the sun.

He waves me over, a lazy thing, his hand tossing slowly in the air, drawing the air towards him and me with him. I figures, 'what the hell', and look up to catch Josie's eye. I hand talks to her that I'm changing places, and she nods, smiling at me with her sunshine smile.

And that was how I met the guy with the best luck in the world. No.. scratch that stuff.. he didn't have the best luck. I think he was luck itself, folded up and stuffed into a skinny body with weird eyes and shaggy hair. His name was Bet. I kid you not, kid. Bet. That's what he told me.