It’s nice to wake up on a couch without a hangover for once. Usually, couches mean a crazy night, an epic game or both.
An epic game is the kind that goes on for days and days. No one sleeps. Your heart pounds the whole time. It’s like being in a war. Afterward you have to sleep for a couple of days just to recover. And if you lose, you feel ten times worse.
When I open my eyes, the sun is up. I can hear someone moving around. I panic for a moment. Am I being robbed? Then I remember—there’s a kid in my house.
I sit up. David is in the kitchen, looking for breakfast.
“You don’t even have any cereal,” he says. He looks shocked, like he feels sorry for me.
“Cereal is bad for you,” I say.
“You have three cans of beer, a tomato and a jar of mayonnaise,” he says, looking in the fridge.
“Come on,” I say. “We’re going out for brekkie.”
I take him to Taki’s, a twenty-four-hour joint I usually visit at three in the morning. It’s weird to be there when the sun is up. It’s the kind of place that’s better seen in half darkness. But David doesn’t seem to mind that it’s run down. He orders pancakes and bacon. I have coffee. I don’t do breakfast. The smell of food before ten o’clock makes me sick.
“So, I guess your mom didn’t want a funeral,” I say.
He shakes his head. “She hated that kind of stuff,” he says.
“Can I…ask you something, David?”
“What?”
I want to ask him what he wants to do with Josie’s ashes. Mr. Molton told me Josie’s remains were already cremated, and the urn would be waiting at the undertaker’s. I wonder if he knows that. But I can’t bring myself to talk about that right now.
Instead I say, “What are we gonna do with you today?”
He frowns at me.
“I’m not a baby,” he says. “I can do stuff on my own.”
“Oh, really? All by yourself, in a strange town?”
“Yeah.”
“Like what?”
“Surf the Internet. Look at manga.”
“What’s manga?”
“Are you serious?”
“Do I look serious?”
He peers at me. “You look like you’re still asleep,” he says. “Manga are Japanese comic books. You can read them online.”
“And whose computer are you gonna use to do that?”
“Yours.”
“Uh-uh. Sorry. That’s what I use.”
“I need a computer, then. I’m teaching myself how to speak Japanese. Konnichiwa.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, ‘Good day. How are you?’ ”
“I’m tired. That’s how I am.”
“You can have your bed back. I can sleep on the couch.”
“Aren’t you the little gentleman?”
“I’m not little. I’m just small for my age. I’m gonna be as big as my dad.”
His breakfast comes. He places his bacon at right angles on top of his pancakes, so the pieces form a square. He pours a puddle of syrup in the middle. He takes his knife and fork and trims away the round parts of the pancakes until they are perfect squares too. He pushes the scraps to the side. Then he slices the squared-off pancakes into smaller squares with bacon on top.
“I have never in my life seen anyone eat pancakes like that,” I say.
“They should make pancakes square in the first place. Then I wouldn’t have to do this.” He says this without smiling, which is when I realize he’s completely serious. “What would you do today if I wasn’t here?” he asks, taking a big bite.
I shrug. “I’d play poker,” I say. “That is how I make my living, after all.”
“Can I watch?”
“Poker isn’t a game for kids.”
“All the kids at my old school played.”
“Really? Kids playing poker? Is that even legal?”
“Well, not for real money. I know how to play though. I like to go all in every hand.”
“Great,” I say, rolling my eyes. “You’re one of those. Listen, let me tell you something right now. That’s an excellent way to go broke. There’s a time to go all in, and there’s a time to just sit back and watch other people make idiots of themselves. You need to learn to tell the difference.”
“Really?” His eyes are wide, like he’s writing this all down in his head.
“Yeah. You know what psychology is?”
“Of course I know what psychology is.”
“Okay, then, Mr. Smarty-Pants. Why don’t you explain it to me?”
“Psychology is when you sit in a room with a doctor and they ask you how you’re feeling.”
He’s taken me by surprise again. “Have you ever done that?” I ask.
“All the time,” David says. “I have to go to a psychologist once a week. My mom thought it would make me less weird, or get more friends, or something. Are you gonna make me keep going?”
“No,” I say. “Listen, psychology in poker means something different. It means reading people’s faces and behavior so you can figure out what cards they have.”
“But how can you read someone’s face when you’re playing on a computer?”
“Well, you can’t. But you can still tell what they’re thinking by how long it takes them to act. It’s hard to explain,” I say. “You develop a knack for it.”
“I don’t believe you,” David says. “Can I have a cup of coffee?”
“No, you can’t have a cup of coffee,” I say.
“Chocolate cake?”
“Why don’t I just buy you a pack of cigarettes?” I say sarcastically. “I promised your mom I’d take care of you. No coffee. No cake. At least, not in the morning. You’re already getting off easy by not having to go to school.”
David nods.
“I know,” he says. “I was just testing you. To see if you really cared.”
I reach out and rough up his hair.
“You’re a really likeable kid, you know that?” I say. “Weird, but likeable.”
“Thanks,” he says.
“Tell you what. If you promise not to bother me every ten seconds to ask me for a cigar or something, I’ll let you sit with me while I play today.”
“You will?” He brightens. “Cool!”
“Yeah, but I gotta warn you. It’s gonna get really boring. And I won’t be able to stop to take you outside to play or anything.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s this big tournament coming up. And I’m trying to qualify.”
“Really? What tournament?”
“Let’s just say there’s a million dollars in it for the winner. And I intend to win it.”
“A million dollars,” he says. “What would you do with a million dollars?”
I shrug. “I have no idea,” I say. “But I really look forward to finding out.”