Lewis Vern was a self-proclaimed ludologist—that is, he claimed to know all things games. To his credit, he had mastered four different types of shuffles. The riffle shuffle was Lewis’s first, which he learned as his long-fingered grandfather prepared a deck for gin rummy. He knew the Mongean shuffle, a fairly simple maneuver involving the shuffler placing alternating cards atop and below the deck. Lewis appreciated the mathematical beauty of the Mongean; twelve rounds of shuffles returned the deck exactly to its starting order. His favorite shuffle was the Mexican spiral shuffle. Overly long, elaborate, and theatrical, the Mexican shuffle was invented for the purpose of discouraging cheaters. But the shuffle Lewis used the most—solely because it was the only shuffle his card-playing partners could mimic—was the Corgi shuffle, more commonly known as “throwing the whole deck on the table and mixing them up like there’s no tomorrow.”
Lewis held two jacks. It was a good hand on its own, but with the river of cards laid out on the table, Lewis struggled to decide his call. Before the men spread the eight of hearts, the four of clubs, and all the kings except the spade. The players eyed one another over their hands, each trying to recognize the tells of his neighbor without revealing his own. They each pulsed with an unwarranted cockiness, but in truth, Lewis held the best
cards.
“I’ve got the king,” Avery said. He tapped a cigarette on top of one of his cards, shaking flakes of ash off its end. “Bet if ya want, but I’ve got it.” He hawked and spit onto the floor beside him. Spitting was one of the masculine habits he had acquired to compensate for being a man named Avery. He was constantly trying to prove the masculinity of his behavior outweighed the emasculating name his parents had chosen for him. But, in doing so, he had unintentionally made this misalignment the core of his identity, around which all his manly habits orbited. Thus, each overt act of masculinity put this insecurity on display rather than conceal it as he intended. Other than spitting and smoking, these quirks included a preference for drinks with only one ingredient (coffee black, whiskey straight), dark, lonesome country music (most often Johnny Cash), and joining the army with the sole purpose of—in his words—“blowing shit up.”
It was at base camp, a three days’ march into the desert, that Avery met Lewis. Lewis had been performing the Mexican shuffle atop an upturned oil drum. Seeing all Lewis’s ostentatious flourishes, Avery paused and said to himself, “Right there is a man I can win money from.”
Playing poker to Avery’s right was Bartholomew. Now that was the kind of name Avery wished he had. Bartholomew. So regal. So lionlike. It rolled off the tongue like something right— something fitting into place—like the shape of a cigar sliding between one’s lips. Bartholomew often said Avery could adopt his name if he wanted. For Bartholomew the name had only ever caused him trouble. He belonged to the distinctly small group of people whose name could more accurately be described as a house; some formal holdover from feudal what-have-you. The regality of Bartholomew’s house name had restricted him since he was a child. When he was accosted for putting chewing gum in the maid’s hair, it was not for being disrespectful, but rather for crossing that unspoken barrier that royalty does not touch the servant. In truth, Bartholomew was far from any semblance of true royal power. He had some distant cousin who was umpteenth in line for the throne and that man, racked Bartholomew with an adolescence of prohibitions. He couldn’t go dancing unless it was in a ballroom. He couldn’t drink unless the liquor cost more than what they paid their untouchable servants. And he couldn’t have friends unless they too were repressed by a faceless royal relative.
When Barty was old enough, he joined the army to shed his royal restrictions and finally butterflying into the common man he so desperately strived to be. Yet, the shadow of his name kept him separated, far from combat, in a cubicle pushing papers. At night, however, he lowered his eyes and snuck out into the camp tents. On these escapes, he discovered the pleasures of gambling, hooching, and—what was the final straw—sliding another man’s cigar between his lips. He was promptly disowned by his parents, his name scratched from the long lineage—the royal contingency plan if everyone important keeled over and died—but he found that he was now free to pursue his desires of commonality.
The final man sitting at the table met the trio after the war. Jean-Luc owned the bistroquet where the men played poker. The son of a French butcher, Jean-Luc was so afraid of blood that, at its sight, he would heave until he vomited. The mere smell of beef or pork offal lingering on his father’s skin would nauseate him into spinning headaches. Jean-Luc very quickly deduced that he would be a less-than-ideal soldier and when the drafters arrived on his doorstep, he did whatever was necessary to be proclaimed unfit. Jean-Luc invented a cocktail of medical maladies: he stuttered incessantly; he cried out about his gouty flat feet; he plastered himself with false bubonic boils made from chewed up wax. When one drafter came knocking, he bent his arm behind his back and stuffed his chicken-winged elbow out the end of a jacket sleeve. For all his efforts, he was able to spend the war at home, working at the small bistroquet he opened. To circumvent his ailment, he had his butchers send him cuts already half cooked. That way he wouldn’t have to deal with the blood and viscera of his menu.
On the second floor of Jean-Luc’s bistroquet, there was a small terrace used to store cases of imported French wine. The wine was stacked against the walls in teetering, dusty towers, but there was a small space of open floor on which three wine crates made a makeshift table. Here, beside the iron railing that overlooked the sea, the men met each night to play poker.
“Avery,” Jean-Luc complained. “You’re making a fool of yourself. And please, spit over the railing, not on my floor.” He mimed a path of spittle from his mouth out into the open night.
“A ‘fool?’ Me? Why don’t you put some of those francs down and see what happens.” Avery tugged at the knot of hair below his chin.
“If you bluff on every turn, it’s hardly convincing,” Barty chimed in.
“Ah, what do y’ouse know? You all owe me money.” Avery sat back in his chair, slouching like a sack of potatoes balanced on its end.
“Owe you?” Barty asked in disbelief. “I covered your flat last month. And that wasn’t an easy amount to stretch.”
“That was a gift,” Avery stated. “And I don’t have an allowance. I have to work for my keep.”
“An allowance? That money is nothing. I am living month to month just the same as you. And waiting tables while drunk on Jean-Luc’s stash can hardly be called working.”
“You’ve been stealing wine again? I’ll beat you!” Jean-Luc warned, shaking his fist, but without the fervor of one who is serious.
“You’ll pay me is what you’ll do.”
“You get paid last, my friend.”
“And why is that?”
Jean-Luc pointed a thumb at himself. “Because this is my restaurant and you are a fucking plouc.”
Jean-Luc’s French insults always bothered Avery: he failed to understand that his own imagination conjured insults more vile—more personal—than any language could possibly string together. And there was something about the French language that was so effeminate, so ripe for Avery to assume the worst.
“Are you alright, Lewis? It’s your call.” Barty said, drawing the group’s attention to the fourth friend. Barty tilted his head forward, trying to catch Lewis’s eye. “Lewis? Lewis are you alright? You don’t look so—good lord!”
Lewis’s cards slipped from his grip. They swirled and caught in the air like a pair of ripened leaves. Just as the jacks settled face up on the table, Lewis faltered, swayed in his seat, and fell forward, slamming his head on the boxes of wine. Glass bottles twinkled inside and the cards jumped with the surprise of the impact. Bartholomew screamed. Avery fell back and out of his chair.
“Louis?” Jean-Luc tested. He tended to use the French pronunciation, and in this moment, it sounded desperate and childish. Then, like a serpent flicking its tongue, a rivulet of blood began to slither from Lewis’s sidelong nostril. Jean-Luc gasped, turning quickly away, and spewed over the railing. It slapped and splattered in the water below, speckling the side of a metal skiff.
The others stood frozen, watching Lewis for a long moment. His face pressed against the wood, stretching and folding his cheek, the flesh disfigured as if raw clay. His skin grew red from the blood, deep and muddled like the wine in the box below. One arm hung loose over the edge of the crate, swaying slightly in the wind. Bartholomew was the first to move, reaching gently for that swaying wrist. He confirmed what they all already knew: Lewis had no pulse.
“What-what happened?” Avery stuttered. “He was just sitting there and then—” He clapped his hands together. “I look up and he’s lying face down.”
“I don’t know. I’d guess some sort of aneurysm,” Barty offered. “They’re like ticking time bombs; the vessel just pops and—” He gestured at Lewis. Barty reached forward and wiped away the blood from Lewis’s nose for the benefit of Jean-Luc, who had been watching Lewis out of the corner of his eye like someone trying to see an eclipse without looking directly at the sun.
“Whatever it was, it's a bad way to go.” Avery said. He scowled at Lewis disparagingly, as if the man had a choice in his death.
“It was quick,” Barty offered. “Is that not better that suffering?”
“It was too quick,” Avery countered. “There was no dignity in it. A man needs a moment to reflect; to understand and speak his piece.”
“For last rites,” Jean-Luc said.
“For last rites,” Avery agreed. “To simply be cut short like that…”
“He was a good man. He deserved more than this.” The conversation fell away, and the men were surrounded by the soft silence of a night along the sea.
Avery broke the silence first. “Yunno, he took a bullet for me back in the desert. This ugly little fucker was hiding up on a cliff face and tried to shoot me when I wasn’t looking. Lewis saw him and pushed me out of the way. Caught Lewis square in the shoulder.” Avery touched the crook where Lewis’s collarbone met his shoulder socket. “You can still feel the scar. The funniest thing was that Lewis shouldn’t have even been there. I had gone out from camp to piss and there was this garden—this whole bundle of palm trees that I missed when we walked in that day. And it was so strange, ‘cause I would’ve seen those trees. I mean there weren’t no trees for miles, so something like that would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb. Well, this—this calmness overcame me and I was suddenly walking towards it. It was like I was hypnotized. I needed to get to that oasis. I must’ve walked two miles out there in the dark, and I only had the stars to guide where I was stepping, and there was that soft glow coming off the oasis. Yes, the trees were glowing. It was like they were wrapped in lights. They shimmered. But, as far as I walked, it didn’t seem like I was getting any closer. There were these ridges in the sand—like little waves in the dunes—and they just seemed to be endless: growing and growing out before me. But I didn’t wanna stop. I felt, if I could only take one more step I’d get there. It was sometime around then that I heard shuffling, I was tackled, and there was the crack of the gunshot. Lewis was on top of me. I heard him cry out. I looked up and saw the fucker scurry away up the cliff face. We were three and a half miles from camp. Lewis followed me—I still don’t know why—and I didn’t even see him until he saved my life. It was like he just appeared outta nowhere.”
Inspired by Avery’s story, Jean-Luc found the courage to share his own. “Do you remember Trousseau?” Jean-Luc asked. “He was a real plouc. He came into the restaurant one night—late—after I closed. This was before we started playing poker, before I had met either of you, actually. I knew Lewis; he liked the Chablis. Well anyway, I was drying glasses when Trousseau burst through the door. Nearly knocked the wood off its hinges. He swayed up to me, all drunk-like and stood on the other side of the bar. He slapped his hand on the wood and swept his forearm across the glasses, knocking them on my floor. ‘You!’ He said, raising his sausage finger at me, ‘owe me my money.’ He was right, of course. I had sold him a case of wine that had skunked. But I had sold him bad wine in the past, and he had never noticed, and I needed that money. He must’ve made his way through three of the bottles before someone else had tasted the wine and told him he had been fooled. In his drunkenness, he trounced up to me, brandishing a small pocket knife. It must have only been the size of my thumb, but watching it there, swaying in Trousseau’s hand, I could see my own death. I imagined him leaping over the bar and putting the knife to my throat—what the broken glass would feel like on my back. And then, like some spectral in the night, Lewis walked through the open door. At once, the knife disappeared somewhere beneath Trousseau’s overcoat. Lewis paid him the exact amount I owed—and I mean to the dime. He had it all in a little money pouch. I still don’t know how or why Lewis knew to come into the restaurant. I was so relieved, I poured him a glass of his favorite Chablis and we talked. There was so much adrenaline flowing through me, I realized only after he left that he said barely two sentences. After he finished his wine and slid the glass back to me, he told me to put it on his tab.”
With the two stories lingering in the air above Lewis, there was a shift in the mens’ psyches. Each man had experienced an encounter with Lewis—a surreal interaction in which he seemed to possess inhuman powers. There seemed something religious in Lewis’s behavior; a single miracle he performed when each needed it most. Yet something about each man’s miracle felt private: some secret to be held only between Lewis and themselves. But now, with Lewis dead, it no longer seemed pertinent to sequester their miracles away.
Confident now to share his own secret, Bartholomew cleared his throat and sat a little straighter. “Do either of you remember our leave time in that first January? How I said I would be visiting a uni friend in Jakarta? That was a lie. I went home—back to Beauworth—to confront my family. As you know—you remember that letter—they had found out someway or another about the boys I was with. I thought that if I just saw them in person, if I just explained myself, they would understand. Looking back now, it was so naive. What was said between my father and I is not important, but it resulted in my father chasing me through the house with a pistol. He was in a fury. Wearing only his robe and slippers, he flopped through the halls like a bull caught in a small space. Vases and paintings I was banned from looking at as a child crashed with no consequence. At the end of the hallway, he caught me in the indigo bedroom of the east wing. He was raging something furious, literally foaming at the mouth. The running and the shouting left bits of white spittle caught in the corners of his lips. He backed me into a corner. I felt a window to my right, and fearing for my life, I jumped. I fell one story and landed on my side. I sprained my shoulder, but my legs were fine. That was when he started shooting. I knew he wouldn’t jump, but he had no problem firing. Gravel sparked around me like corn kernels popping. I scrambled to my feet and jumped over the hedge into the garden. He kept firing. Flower bulbs exploded around me. I could see the forest ahead. I knew the man had bad aim, but I couldn’t help but feel as though one shot would hit me, striking me squarely between the shoulder blades. I heard a crack, much louder—much more pronounced—than the pops coming from my father’s gun, and then the shooting stopped. I suddenly found myself in the dirt. My surroundings came to me only in sounds. I heard a dry grunt from the window, a pause, and then the gravel disturbed with a crash—one single moment, like a shaken crack of ice—and then there was silence. I looked up and saw Lewis. He reached down to me and pulled me to my feet. There was a rifle in his other hand. Below the window, my father lay face down in the gravel. His robe was open and unfurled around him like a puddle—like wings. That was what stuck with me as Lewis led me into the forest. Two weeks later, I received a letter from my mother. She apologized for my father’s actions and began sending me the monthly check. She didn’t mention whether or not my father lived.”
Each man, in his secret reverence of Lewis, partook in this strange worship. Yet, with their deity dead before them, his holiness seemed to fizzle and fall flat. It was as if a spell had been broken. Laying dead, Lewis no longer seemed as powerful or supernatural and his hold—imagined or otherwise—on the tongues of his followers dissipated. Thus, the stories were spoken: they flew out of the men like birds finally let out of their cages. And this sharing of stories sent a ripple of elation through the men as if they had confessed the worst of sins and were forgiven.
“It seems he was good to us all,” Barty said. “He was more than just a man.”
“And yet, this was his death.” Jean-Luc waved his hand towards Lewis.
“What if we were meant to save him?” Avery questioned. “He came to us when we needed him. What if he needed us?”
“What were we supposed to do? How were we supposed to know?”
“I don’t know. How did he know we needed him?”
“At the least, we need to lay him to rest,” Jean-Luc said. “A man’s spirit is lost if he isn’t put to rest.”
“I think we can manage something special,” Barty said. “I’ll spare the rest of this month’s money. Stop drinking. Eat from the crumbs.”
“There is a box of old Cognac beneath the bar I have been holding onto for a special occasion. It is worth a good amount of money. Good enough for a substantial coffin.”
“I’ll dig up what I can. At least a hundred or so.” Avery began to gather the money from the poker pot into one large pile and pulled coins from his pockets.
“We’ll have enough for a service,” Barty said. “We’ll invite his family. It will be small, but elegant. Tasteful.”
Avery stood and walked to Lewis’s body, still hunched over the crate. He pulled Lewis onto his back as gently as he could but with the slack weight, it appeared awkward and rough. “What are you doing?” Barty asked, concerned. He rushed to Avery to stop any desecration, putting a hand around his wrist.
“I want to know what it was—if we could have stopped it.” Barty let go and Avery centered Lewis on the crate. The men stood above Lewis, trying to find hints of his death in his face, but all they could see was the mark where his head had struck the crate, and a ring of caked blood around his nostril. Barty knelt down and pulled at Lewis’ collar for any clues on his neck. The fabric indented the skin as he pulled, but then Barty froze. Shimmering in the low light of the moon, was a golden necklace. It curled, vibrant on Lewis’s skin, now pale and lifeless in death. The three men looked down at their friend in awe, each hiding their greed in the corner of his mouth.
The wind seemed to stop, or someone exhaled, and that was the cue to move. Without hesitation, Barty leaned down and unclasped the necklace. Jean-Luc pulled at Lewis’ belt, digging into his pockets, and surfaced with loose change, stubs of paper, and a wallet. The wallet contained more money than the men had wagered in their entire lives. They were ravenous. Avery pulled off Lewis’ socks and shoes. Barty popped the buttons off Lewis’s shirt revealing his chest and stomach. Jean-Luc flipped open a Swiss army knife and pried a gold tooth from Lewis’s molars. Lewis oozed blood from his gums, but Jean-Luc did not shy away, standing firm until the tooth landed squarely in his palm. They ripped and tore at Lewis’ clothes until he lay naked on the porch before them.
Barty opened one of the wine crates and removed the bottles and the straw. Avery and Jean-Luc lifted Lewis and placed him in the box, folding him at the waist like a beach chair with dangling limbs. They punched and struck at his flesh to fit him into the small box. His skin mottled blue and grey and one of his eyes sprouted black. They nailed the crate closed once more, then all three men lifted Lewis, balanced him on the railing of the porch, and pushed him over. The box slammed hard on the surface, bubbled as the water rushed through the cracked wood, and Lewis sunk down, disappearing beneath the boat stained with vomit.
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