Pocket Cowboys

The Moment: “Pocket Cowboys”
by Jace Daniel

It was a balmy Saturday in Honolulu, the evening after I was born. Poker Night at my Uncle Danny’s house, and my old man was passing out cigars to the guys.

“Becoming a father has been the best moment of my life,” he said. “Deal ‘um!”

My old man had promised her he wouldn’t gamble again, but special occasions call for exceptions. After all, he was a new father, and it was a night to celebrate. Besides, since we weren’t scheduled to come home from the hospital until the next day, she’d never have to know. Her ultimatum — the one that threatened to take their baby and move to the mainland if he ever lost their money gambling again — could wait one more day.

Sitting in the big blind with five other players calling before the flop, my old man looked at his hole cards: the King of Clubs and the King of Spades. Pocket cowboys, as they were known on the mainland. Or, in that case, paniolos. Hawaiian for cowboys. Two of them. Must have been a sign.

“Raise ‘um,” my old man said with a forced reluctance, pushing another ten dollars worth of plastic chips into the pot. Ten dollars was a decent piece of pocket change back in 1969. Two weeks worth of gasoline. All the players loosely called, as the night was young.

The flop came: Ace of Clubs, King of Diamonds, King of Hearts.

The old man had flopped a miracle four of a kind! His goal at that point was to keep everybody in the hand, and let the pot grow as large as possible. It was his chance to finally make up for those two blown paychecks the previous month.

“Check ‘um,” my old man said.

The player to his left, Marvin, bet ten dollars, possibly seeking information. Two other players called, sending the action back to my old man with the four Kings.

“Columbus took a chance,” my old man mumbled, faking a nervous smile. He smoothly called Marvin’s bet, pushing another ten dollars into the growing pot. With two more cards to come, now was not the time to scare everybody away with a raise.

The turn card came: 6 of Hearts. An excellent card for my old man, making it possible for somebody to have an outside shot at a Heart flush. Blood, as my grandfather would call it. All the same suit. Family.

“Check ‘um,” my old man said.

Marvin bet twenty dollars. Strong. To my old man’s dismay, the remaining two players folded, leaving him heads-up against Marvin, who obviously wasn’t going anywhere. My old man figured Marvin must either be on a flush draw, or maybe two pair. Marvin gambled with Ace rag all the time.

“Raise ‘um,” my old man said, peeking once again at his pocket Kings before pushing another forty dollars worth of chips in the pot.

“Call!” Marvin shouted. “Try show me da kine!”

The pot had grown larger than an entire paycheck. My old man riffled the stack of chips in front of him, the remainder of an entire week’s pay. If he could just find a way to push all his chips into the pot and get Marvin to call his unbeatable four Kings, he’d walk out of there with nearly a month’s worth of salary in cash. Not a bad way to end a week. Not a bad way to begin fatherhood. Hopefully a Heart would come on the river, giving Marvin a possible flush.

The river came: Ace of Spades.

If Marvin was chasing the Heart flush, he missed it. If he did in fact have an Ace, he’d be sitting on a full house, Aces full of Kings, and he’d surely bet.

“Check ‘um,” my old man said, giving Marvin a chance to bet at the pot. Or perhaps even bluff. In either case, if Marvin bet anything, my old man was planning to come over the top with the ol’ check raise.

“All in, brah!” Marvin pushed all of his chips into the pot. Over another hundred dollars worth, enough to scare away anybody who didn’t have an unbeatable hand.

“Call,” my old man said, throwing his two Kings face up on the table. He stood from his seat with a victorious grin that wouldn’t quit.

Until Marvin turned up pocket Aces.

We moved from from Hawaii shortly after I was born, and I’ve missed the homeland ever since.

Is there an instant when your life changed? Go tell the world about it at SMITH Magazine’s cool new project, “The Moment“. Writers everywhere are submitting stories of how a single moment changed their lives in a profound way. Your Moment might be a split-second decision, something you witnessed, a message sent or received, a literal or mental discovery. Moments can be serious or silly, as short as a tweet, as long as 700 words, told via a single image or illustration, series of photos, or a scanned letter or post-it note.

For a chance to be in the new book coming in 2011 by the creators of the New York Times bestselling Six-Word Memoirs franchise, submit your Moment here.

The actual entry for this moment entitled “Pocket Cowboys” can be seen here.

Creative Copy Challenge

Creative Copy Challenge is website that offers the creative community a simple, quick way to crush writers block and unleash our creative muses. Periodically the site will create a new exercise in the form of a blog post that contains ten random words or phrases. The challenge for us is to submit a cohesive, creative short story that includes all of the ten words. Stories are submitted in the post’s comments section, with each of the ten words bolded.

I participated in a grip of the site’s first few challenge earlier this year, and found it a great way to shake off the morning dust. While the stories can be any length, I tended to focus on brevity, aiming for a tight story with the lowest word count possible. Sentences must always be grammatically correct, and the jams must always tell a story, no matter how nonsensical.

I was recently hit up on Twitter by the site’s creator Shane Arthur, inviting me to stop by CCC for another jam. They’re currently on Challenge #78.

For the archives, below are the stories I’ve submitted.

Creative Copy Challenge #6

(January 15, 2010)

1. Doughnut
2. Philosophy
3. No-Brainer
4. Apartment
5. Heaven
6. Premiums
7. Trucker
8. Freedom
9. Every other Friday
10. Scaffolding

I enjoy regular, street-smart, existential conversations. So every other Friday morning after paying my insurance premiums, it’s a no-brainer to take the freedom to drop into a little place called Doughnut Heaven, a hole-in-the-wall just below the scaffolding of my apartment that’s frequented by a trucker with a degree in Philosophy.

Creative Copy Challenge #7

(January 18, 2010)

1. Bookshelf
2. Music
3. Glory
4. Coed
5. Tailwind
6. Dietician
7. Propeller
8. Bumblebee
9. Seasons
10. Rattlesnake

At the change of seasons, the coed dietician — a glory seeker often seen sporting rattlesnake boots and a bumblebee-colored hat equipped with a tailwind propeller — will set some time aside to re-organize the Music section of her bookshelf.

Creative Copy Challenge #8

(January 21, 2010)

1. One thing leads to another
2. Ruffian
3. Extrovert
4. Tranquility
5. Unlimited Access
6. Lantern
7. Dishwasher
8. Coffin
9. Barrier
10. Between the lines

With unlimited access to barrier-less tranquility between the lines, the ruffian extrovert set down his lantern and converted the empty dishwasher into a makeshift coffin. Because, you know, what the hell. One thing leads to another.

(This was used as an example in How to Fight Writer’s Block.)

Creative Copy Challenge #9

(January 26, 2010)

1. Daydreamer
2. Silkworms
3. Painkillers
4. You got lucky
5. Catcall
6. Phobia
7. Iron-ore
8. Wavelength
9. Closed fist
10. Desire

On painkillers to dampen his phobia of iron-ore-dwelling silkworms, the daydreamer’s desire to remain on his usual cynical wavelength provoked the following catcall (with closed fist): “You got lucky!“.

Creative Copy Challenge #10

(January 28, 2010)

1. Bubble wrap
2. Sick Fucker
3. Gumdrop
4. Culmination
5. Horseback
6. Ammonia
7. Little by little
8. Irregular
9. Scapegoat
10. Birdcage

The culmination of fumes from the sick fucker’s ammonia-laced gumdrop weakened the birdcage-making scapegoat little by little as he fled on horseback atop his irregular saddle made of bubble wrap.

Creative Copy Challenge #11

(February 1, 2010)

1. Stupidity
2. Deathtrap
3. In the name of love
4. Switchblade
5. Gunpowder
6. Clobber
7. Kindergarten
8. Sorrow
9. Goatee
10. Asylum

In the name of love and stupidity, the sorrow-filled goatee-sporting kindergarten teacher clobbered the pint-sized asylum-bound troublemaker and confiscated a barrel of gunpowder, a homemade switchblade, and a curiously out-of-place bootlegged VHS tape of the 1982 thriller Deathtrap starring Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, and Dyan Cannon.

Creative Copy Challenge #12

(February 4, 2010)

1. Dagger
2. Hyperactive
3. Freeway
4. Would I lie to you?
5. Thorn
6. Beauty
7. The voice
8. Vanilla
9. I dare you
10. Skeleton

Not to be a thorn in your side or a skeleton in your closet, but I dare you to imitate the voice of a hyperactive midget as he accidentally drops his dagger-shaped vanilla ice cream cone into his lap while driving on the freeway. Go ahead. It’s pure sonic beauty. Would I lie to you?

Creative Copy Challenge #13

(February 8, 2010)

1. Coke
2. Glacier
3. Cesspool
4. Womanizer
5. Rancid
6. Paycheck
7. Imposter
8. Tablet
9. Just an illusion
10. Shield

Maybe I’m just a distracted womanizer living paycheck to paycheck, or maybe it’s just an illusion caused by the tablets and the Coke, but I could’ve sworn that rancid cesspool out there on the lawn was a fresh water glacier shaped like a Roman shield. The imposter!

Creative Copy Challenge #14

(February 11, 2010)

1. shadow
2. trespass
3. warmth
4. fragrant
5. doppelganger
6. cupid
7. butterfly effect
8. luminescent
9. velvet
10. simpatico

While eternally forbidden to trespass beyond the warmth of Cupid’s luminescent shadow, the doppelganger — thanks in no small part to the butterfly effect — is still considered by many to be as simpatico as fragrant velvet.
PS: Happy Valentine’s Day.

RELATED: Shane’s entry mentioning this guy.

Creative Copy Challenge #15

(February 16, 2010)

1. Eyes of a stranger
2. Gumbo
3. Contraband
4. Meadow
5. Shimmer
6. Nude
7. Fall on me
8. Dolphin
9. Sidestep
10. Death

Eating my gumbo in the meadow and waiting for the truth to fall on me, I concluded that — in the eyes of a stranger, anyway — there were not two more different things in this world than A) death by contraband, and B) the shimmer of a nude dolphin. But that was probably just me sidestepping the real issue again.

Creative Copy Challenge #17

(February 22, 2010)

1. Red wine
2. Hurricane
3. Scary Monsters
4. Photograph
5. Drama
6. Prophylactic
7. Morgue
8. Hysterical
9. Wheelchair
10. Stain

In a hurricane of hysterical drama at the morgue, the reprimanded intruder attributed the prophylactic’s stain to red wine that he had supposedly spilled after seeing a photograph of scary monsters taped to a wheelchair.

Creative Copy Challenge #18

(February 25, 2010)

1. Do you hear me?
2. Gut
3. Evil
4. Felony
5. Revolution
6. Riptide
7. It’s hard
8. Vagrant
9. Lush
10. Lightning

Dear gut,

It’s hard to write this letter without looking like an evil vagrant defending his latest felony in a riptide of revolution-minded lightning, so I won’t.

Do you hear me?

Sincerely,

Your lush

Creative Copy Challenge #19

(March 1, 2010)

1. If I could turn back time
2. Slaughter
3. Residue
4. Lunacy
5. Tyrant
6. Luxury
7. Foreigner
8. Cocaine
9. Broken
10. Sniper

If I could turn back time,
If I could find a way,
I’d take back those words that slaughtered you,
And you’d stay.

I don’t know why I did the things I did,
I’m a tyrant in the luxury of lunacy,
Pride’s like a sniper, it’s all broken inside,
Bags of cocaine are like foreigners,
They wound sometimes.

If I could turn back time,
If I could find find a way,
I’d take back those words that hurt you,
And you’d stay.
If I could reach the stars,
I’d give them all to you,
Then you’d love me, love me,
And all my residue.

If I could turn back time.

Creative Copy Challenge #20

(March 4, 2010)

1. All over the place
2. Fanatic
3. Promise
4. Butternut
5. Childbearing
6. Cupcake
7. Invincible
8. Human
9. Honeybee
10. Hammer

Butternut, butternut, promise me,
I’ll be as free as a honeybee;
Invincible with a human face,
Hammering cupcakes all over the place.

Butternut, butternut, promise me,
I’ll be as free as a honeybee;
Away from fanatics,
And childbearing addicts.
Butternut, butternut, promise me.

Creative Copy Challenge #38

(May 10, 2010)

1. Sprint
2. So good
3. Focus
4. Style
5. Why should I?
6. I need
7. Go
8. I know
9. Shock
10. Final

FINAL SPRINT: Why should I go focus? I know; I need style. (So good. Shock!)

Creative Copy Challenge #76

(September 16, 2010)

1. Tertiary
2. Ephemeral
3. Intensive
4. Conceited
5. Duty
6. Snarky
7. Get on it
8. Nebulous
9. Tremendous
10. Instantaneous

“And tertiary,” she continued, as though her first two conceited points were not intensively snarky enough for the tremendous sense of duty she had to be nebulous and ephemeral, “Get on it. Instantaneous.”

Creative Copy Challenge #84

(October 14, 2010)

1. Nervous
2. Panoply – A splendid or striking array; ceremonial attire
3. Gaffe – A clumsy social error
4. Prognosticate – To predict according to present indications or signs; foretell
5. Extractor – Something that draws or pulls out, often with great force or effort
6. Putrid – Decomposed and foul-smelling; rotten
7. Infallible – Incapable of erring
8. Juice
9. Inflate
10. Akimbo – In or into a position in which the hands are on the hips and the elbows are bowed outward

“To prognosticate the infallible,” concluded the putrid juice extractor with inflated arms in nervous akimbo, “Would result in nothing less than a panoply of gaffes.”

Creative Copy Challenge #102

(December 22, 2010)

1. Rush
2. Pilates
3. Pump
4. Lozenge
5. Indigo
6. Equestrian
7. Survivor
8. Blur
9. Friends
10. Winding

She may do Pilates while I dabble in equestrian, and she may listen to Blur while I prefer to spin some Rush, but we’re still best friends. We will always have our differences on this long and winding road of life, but there is one thing we will never disagree on: ’tis better to have an indigo lozenge pumped from your stomach than to be forced to listen to those Survivor songs on the Rocky IV soundtrack.

Shane asked if I’d like to submit the 10 words for the next challenge. Why, of course:

Creative Copy Challenge #113

(January 27, 2011)

1. Under
2. Angels
3. Code
4. Tunnels
5. Incognito
6. Quota
7. Dog
8. War
9. Wife
10. Puzzle

The community did a great job with these. Check out the jams.

To be continued…

The Cold Side

The Cold Side
by Jace Daniel

Back to the stake, hands and ankles bound behind me by unburnable chains, I had to admire the hooded one’s skill. An artist of great restraint, an effective minimalist, he started the fire masterfully small, taking extra care that carbon monoxide poisoning or suffocation would not interfere with inevitable heatstroke, shock, loss of blood, or simple thermal disposition of my body parts.

The progression began at my calves at the fall of the torch. Skin lifted from flesh as the flames strolled up the back of my trousers, an unfamiliar smell quickly buried by the pain that greeted my thighs and hands. I planned my escape to the sky as the mutating inferno’s orange tongues licked my forearms, embracing my torso, squeezing the screams from my upper chest through my lips before swallowing my eyes.

Then I woke up and flipped the pillow over.