The Worm Has Turned

I hold ten cards in my hand: four sixes; a two, three, and four of spades; two queens and a ten of hearts. The old man sits across from me, looking over his spectacles, endearingly smug as he ponders the queen of diamonds laying face up to the left of the draw stack. The T.V. emits a gregarious furry glow into the brown-baked caramel colored living room where we have planted ourselves for this perennial evening battle of gin; it continues its play of light on the half-inch thick bifocals perched on the old man's nose.

"Mmm. What do we have here?" he says.

"A queen of diamonds," I say, tucking my legs underneath me.

He fans the cards in his hands, and folds them back into a neat stack as if closing a crafty business deal. Turning to the T.V. he ignores me for a handful of seconds. Though he can't see the padded men in uniform launching themselves at each on the screen, he begins to comment widely on what is happening on the screen. His beloved Packers are winning, the announcer on the T.V. says while tittering and chattering like a cricket with his colleagues. And now I see the old man is smirking. I know what is coming.

He picks up the cards and fans them again. The free hand reaches down and gently lifts the queen. My stomach tightens. The T.V. loses its glare for a second and cuts to a black imageless screen. The old man's eyes survey the fan and he takes a card from it and places it face down on the discard pile. The queen of diamonds is his. The cards come down like hammer strokes on an anvil: a nine, ten, jack, and queen of diamonds; three sevens; and three kings. The game is over, the official edict proclaimed.

"My boy," he says, "the worm has turned."