American Boy by Larry Watson Page B

was beat on the board. He called the bet.
    “She’d suck cock. Hell, she loved to suck cock.” Glen Van Dine raised a quarter.
    Johnny tossed in a blue chip to call.
    “She’d probably take it up the ass.”
    The last card was dealt down, and Van Dine, with a pair of tens showing, bet a quarter. “Hell, she’d probably take it up the ass while she’s sucking cock.”
    Gary Krynicki folded, and Johnny called. Glen Van Dine turned over a third ten, and Johnny just shoved his cards away. The blotches on Johnny’s cheeks had turned from their usual pink to white, as if he were the one who’d come in from the cold.
    “Hey,” I said to Glen Van Dine, “how come you know so much?”
    He looked up at me for a long moment, then he turned back to the cards being dealt. And to the table Van Dine said, “Anybody sitting on a stool next to Lester at PeeWee’s Bar was sure to get an earful about his piece of meat.” He had a queen showing, and he opened the betting for a dime. Everyone called.
    The fourth card came around, and this time Van Dine bet fifteen cents. Once again addressing no one in particular, he said, “I wish I would have been there the night Lester made her give a guy a hand job right there in the bar.”
    Another card was dealt, and this time Van Dine bet a quarter. “Yeah, three of them were sitting in a booth, and Lester had her sit next to this guy and jack him off while they just sat there drinking their beers.”
    The fifth card was dealt, and once again Van Dine threw a blue chip into the pot. While Otis Unwin and then Johnny were debating whether to fold, call, or raise, Van Dine said to Johnny, “Here’s what I’m wondering. Do you and your old man take turns with her? Him one night and you the next? Or do you get her the same night? First he nails her and then you take your shot? Or maybe it’s like I said before. She sucks you off while he rams it up her ass.”
    Otis Unwin folded. Johnny’s fingers trembled slightly as he took a blue chip from his stack and tossed it into the pot.
    I walked around the table until I stood behind Glen Van Dine. Before the next card was dealt, I kicked the back of Van Dine’s chair hard enough to jolt him forward against the table. The ashtray at his side jumped and spilled out a load of ashes and cigarette butts. Gary Krynicki grabbed his wobbling beer bottle before it toppled to the floor.
    Van Dine spun around. “What the fuck ... ?”
    “I liked you better when you were quiet,” I said.
    Van Dine surveyed the room as if he were trying to understand not only who I was, but also if I were part of an alliance that had been formed without his awareness.
    I nodded in Johnny’s direction. “I’m his friend, if that’s what you’re wondering. But he’s too nice a guy to tell you what a fucking prick you are. So that’s my job.”
    “Like a fucking bodyguard?” he asked with a laugh.
    “That’s pretty close. And now I’m the one who’s telling you you don’t know shit. Not about him. Not about his father. And not about her. So either shut the fuck up or cash in your chips and get out.”
    Glen Van Dine rose from his chair, but as he did so he backed up, careful to put some distance between us. He was a college man, all right, with his penny loafers, corduroys, and blue oxford shirt rolled above his elbows. His blond hair was already thinning, and his front teeth were a little too prominent. But girls, I knew, found both him and his brother desirable properties.
    “Let’s just play some cards,” pleaded Otis.
    “Hey Matt,” said Johnny, “it’s okay.”
    “Yeah, Matt,” said Van Dine, “it’s okay.”
    “I changed my mind,” I said. “You either walk out of here now, or I’ll throw you out in the fucking snow.”
    One moment the young men in that small kitchen were arranged to play and watch a card game, and the next they were all standing, pushed back toward the wall in order to give the two combatants room. Only Gary Krynicki