Texas Shoot'em: Short Story Sunday

            Watching older guys play poker was truly exciting. Probably the most exciting thing in the entire world. This is of course sarcasm. I hate being young and only being able to watch them play Texas Hold’em. It’s like when you get to go into a casino, but you have to get a bracelet, and be escorted to the restaurant at the back. Basically, if you are young, you don’t get to anything fun. “Oh, sorry Sarah, but you can’t have any of this. It’s for adults.”

            My grandpa played poker with his buddies every Saturday night, and sometimes since my mom had to work, I had to go with him .They usually played at their buddy TJ’s house. His house was really big, and it overlooked a lake. I had created a bunch of silly thoughts about how I would get to play, but none of my plans worked. Probably because I was too young to think of a great idea.

            I was sitting in the living room, watching them play in the dining room. For the most part the building had an open floor plan, so I could easily see what they were doing. Behind the table where they were playing poker was a door to the garage. Then directly in front of me was the glass door that lead to the balcony that overlooked the lake.

            This particular day, one of the four core guys had invented and older olive skinned man to the weekly poker game. His wallet was made of thin leather, but I could still see the huge bulge in his back pocket. The five of them seemed to be betting lot of money. I could see that they had at least five grand on the table.

            “Goddamn! You better not be cheating me,” The olive skinned man said. I could tell that he was worried about something, because he seemed more concerned about the door to garage than he did about the cards in his hand. It was whatever. Different people played poker in different ways.

            I went to the bathroom which was opposite the dining room on the house. I had to go through TJ’s bedroom, so that I could get to the bathroom. His dog was locked up in a kennel in the corner of the room. I though his name was Opal or Ruby. As I pulled my pants down, I heard a large boom. It sounded like a large piece of wood being dropped on a rocky surface.

            There was a piece of decorative soap on the back of the toilet. I grabbed it and tossed it at the door. The small piece of soap smashed into the light switch and flipped the lights off. I jumped up, pulling my pants back on, and slipped into the linen closet. I could vaguely hear someone shouting, but I remained exactly where I was. All of that day dreaming seemed to be paying off. The door to the bathroom opened suddenly, and the light flicked back on.

            “No one’s in here boss,” A man said in a slurred voice. The light was turned back off and the door closed. Slowly, I moved out of the linen closet. I slithered towards the door, opened it, and moved ever so slightly into TJ’s room.

            “Well well well. Looks like little old Rick has found himself some poker buddies. Rick, you keen on screwing us over. You owe us about 50 grand,” I moved around the corner of the room, just so I was able to see about three black garbed men standing in the dining room. One of those guys was digging through the refrigerator. Another one of the guys was holding a gun to the back of Rick’s head. There was another guy standing at the steps to the basement.

            “What do you want? I’m just trying to play a game of poker with my new friends,” Rick spat at the black garbed man sitting across from him.

            “Is this your new crew? You think you can just ditch us?” The man said as he twiddled with his gun. There was a part of me that hardly thought this was possible. It was the feeling I sometimes got just before I sunk a half-court shot. That feeling where you don’t honestly think what’s happening is possible.

            “I don’t need a new crew. You are my crew,” Rick said. My grandpa and his three buddies were silent.

            “We were your crew.”

            I moved into the living room, concealing myself sneaking with the couch. There was a deck of playing cards sitting on the side table that I grabbed. I had been told that I could ‘play’ with them. I took the cards out of the box and stayed hidden behind the couch.

            “I told you that I’d give you your money,” Rick said.

            “We decide we are going to take your lungs instead. Tiny over there thinks it’ll be better than $50,000. What do you think? You only really need one lung.” The man at the fried who was the largest, smiled at Rick. He was obviously Tiny.

            “You can’t be serious. I’m your most valuable asset.”

            “Again, you were.”

            I pulled a single card from the deck, and held the corner between my index and middle fingers. “This can’t be happening,” I said to myself. I threw the card through the air, and it slammed into the back of one of the goon’s heads. The card stuck into the fat of his neck. The man let his gun fall from the back of Rick’s head, and it slammed into the floor.

            “The hell are you doing?” The head goon asked.

            Blood started to run down fat goon’s neck. “I just got hit by something,” he said.

            I rolled under the kitchen table, grabbing the gun in the process. Fat goon was too distracted to see me. I jumped up on the other side of the table, pointing the gun at the head honcho. I had only seen action movie characters hold guns, but I felt intimidating.

            “Looks like we’ve got a hero,” the head man said. It drew the attention of his goons. “If you shoot that glock, it will surely dislocate your arm or worse. So, consider your shot wisely.” Tiny lined up a shot, and he could have easily taken me out, but the head goon gestured for him to lower his gun. I grabbed a handful of hundred dollar bills off of the table and moved towards the sliding glass door. I twisted my arm around my back to open it, but it was locked. “Nowhere to run.”

            “I can still kill you,” I said to the head honcho.

            “Go ahead, but my goons will kill you and everyone here, right after that.”

            “They can try,” I said with a hitch in my voice.

            I lined my shot up, getting parallel with the glass door, and I shot the center piece on the table. The fax fruit exploded into tiny shrapnel, and the gun’s recoil, caused the gun to slam into the glass of the door and smashed the glass. As the shrapnel fell to the table, the head honcho gestured for his goon’s to shoot at me. He was surprised to see me standing on the balcony.

            “Kill her,” he said. I leapt off of the balcony as I heard the bang of several guns. I was heading headfirst to the water.